“Bane,” she breathed, so close to my mouth, and my dick twitched between us, slapping her stomach. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I pulled my face away, but just to show her she was not alone in this attraction, I pressed my thigh against her pussy, pushing my knee north, putting pressure on her clit. I felt her slit open through her jammies. Her eyes rolled inside their sockets and pre-cum glued my hard-on to my briefs.
“Kiss me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I told you why. You deserve better than a bastard like me.”
“But you’re my bastard.”
I tsked. “I’m everyone’s bastard, Jesse, and therein lies the problem.”
“I don’t mind sharing. It’s not about you. It’s about me.” She was grinding against me so hard, and I was pushing into her more and more, my back against the wall. Technically, I wasn’t breaking any rules. I wasn’t kissing her. I wasn’t fucking her, and I sure as hell wasn’t seducing her. But in every other sense, I was neck-deep in shit, and it was the first time I actually acknowledged it. Because whether it was in the contract or not, the way my knee kept rubbing and pushing against her puffy clit was anything but professional.
“If you don’t kiss me now, I’ll stop,” she whispered into my neck, so much smaller than me.
I breathed through my nose, my lips pinched.
Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it.
“Don’t stop.” The words fell from my mouth, strangled.
“Cut the beard.”
“Dafuq?”
“You heard me. Cut the beard, Bane. You’re not your father. Stop hiding.” Her thighs clamped against my leg, and I knew that she was close. I might as well have shot my load straight into her PJ’s, because that shit was more erotic than any fuck I’d had in the last three years.
“No,” I grunted.
“Then I’ll stop.”
“Do what you have to do.” I pretended to smirk. I wasn’t one to negotiate with terrorists, no matter how hot they were and how hard they made my dick. But when her thighs left mine, and I felt how damp and warm my leg was, how I missed her stomach pressing against my cock, I jerked her back into me.
“I’ll cut the beard.” What the fuck? Where were my balls? Probably in the same place I’d left my brain, because I was very clearly shitting all over six million dollars.
Her thighs were about to clasp my leg again when the door flew open, and I almost stumbled down. That’s what you get for letting a borderline-teenager dry hump you into oblivion and back. Jesse straightened her posture, her cheeks all flushed mid-orgasm-y, when Darren peeked sheepishly from the corridor.
“Jethy?”
I wanted to yank his tongue out for ruining one of the hottest moments of my life with his lisp and lemur eyes. Snowflake gathered her hair and blinked away the lust from her eyes, tilting her chin up.
“Yeah, Darren?”
“Dinner is almost ready. I wondered if…oh. Ah, Bane.”
Now he was inside the room, facing me, with Jesse in the middle, which meant that there was still some space between us, because apparently she didn’t allow her stepdad to come anywhere close to her, either.
“Do you guys know each other?” Jesse looked between us, her face falling. I didn’t know whether Darren figured out what we were doing or not. I was too busy mentally smashing his head against a rock for having the discretion of a fucking brick.
“Yeah. Darren and I met at city hall. I recently purchased a hotel, and he was there doing the usual rich asshole paperwork.” I recovered quickly, especially considering eighty-five percent of my blood was still in my dick.
That seemed to pacify her, and her posture eased. Ironically, that only made me feel like even more of a bastard. She turned around back to him.
“Thank you, Darren, but the answer is—as always—no. Now excuse me while I go to the ladies’ room.” Her cheeks pinked, and my fucked-up mind convinced me that she was going to go rub her clit to take the edge off. Also, this just in: I was going to jerk off tonight until my dick fell off. For the first time in years.
Darren leaned over the door, essentially shutting it and leaving us together in a closed room. For the first time since I’d met him, he looked less than contrite. Arms crossed, brows furrowed, he looked about ready for a war.
“What were you doing?” he demanded.
I shrugged, my unofficial mind-your-own-fucking-business statement.
“She looked cloth to you.”
“She is getting more comfortable with me. She started work at the shop today. And you’re standing here, shitting all over my work by acting like we know each other, when we’re not supposed to.” I pushed off of Snowflake’s wall, walking over to her Juliette balcony and cracking the window open while lighting a joint. I observed the view, realizing that her window overlooked Mrs. Belfort’s maze. The pieces of the puzzle came together with a satisfied click.
That’s why she knew her way around it by heart. Little devil.
“What’th that?”
“What’s what?” I took a hit.
“Why are you thmiling?”
Was I? Maybe I was. So what?
“I’m fulfilling my part of the deal,” I said, thinking about Jesse rubbing her little clit in circles in the bathroom, her mouth falling open in pleasure. Having a raging boner in the company of a sweaty, lanky oil tycoon was not my finest hour.
“You’re altho thpending a lot of money.” He took a step toward me, bracing an elbow on Jesse’s bookshelf and knocking down a row of Jane Austens. He seemed to have drunk from the confidence well, because I swear the fucker hadn’t been that nonchalant the last time I’d seen him. “Gutting and refurbishing the hotel? Breaking ground on the water park before the money ith even yourth? Do you know thomething that I don’t?”
The answer was yes. I did know. I knew that I was in deep shit.
The reason why I’d started spending the money was simple: I didn’t want to fail. My wanting to fail had nothing to do with the money. It had to do with Jesse. She needed to get away from this place, because her parents were as constructive to her future as fucking herpes.
I blew smoke out the window, fingering my beard. “Don’t pretend like I don’t own this money. She’s working for me and is already hanging outside more than she has the entire previous year combined. But if what makes you sleep well at night is me completing the entire six months, that’s not a problem, either.”
“Thtick to the plan if you want to get the retht of the money. It’th not yourth yet.”
“It is mine,” I gritted out.
“What’s yours?” a small voice chirped from the doorway. Both our gazes darted toward the door. Snowflake was there, looking thoroughly-orgasmed and oh-so-pissed.
Sonovofuckingbitch.
THIRTY SECONDS.
I forced myself to stare back in the mirror after making myself come.
The first time I’d come since before The Incident.
The first time I’d masturbated since that night.
At first, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to at all. It wasn’t that I was not attracted to men, because I was. But it was in the same way you admired paintings and sculptures: from afar, knowing they were heartless, soulless, not to have, and definitely not to hold. As I propped my butt against the sink and spread my legs, however, the surge of heat and excitement I’d felt before The Incident came crashing into my body like a wave. I pushed my lips apart, looking down at my clit.
Swollen, throbbing, begging.
It’s been a long time. Touch me.
I did, but it didn’t feel as good as Bane’s thigh. His body was rough and callused, lithe, and male. My fingers didn’t hold a candle to his strong leg. Frustrated, I pulled a towel from the steam cabinet and dumped it across the bathtub edge. I hoisted one leg and straddled it, riding the edge like it was a mechanical bull.
I closed my eyes, imagining Bane.
The hard planes of mu
scles under his thin over-washed Billabong shirt.
His rough fingers finding my clit. Big, dirty, and inky.
His cinnamon breath and ocean scent as my thighs straddled his bearded face while I rode his mouth, my juices dripping down his chin. I moaned, squeezing my thighs against the bathtub, biting my arm to stifle my little yelps of joy—sheer, newfound bliss—as the first flood of pleasure washed my inhibitions and anxiety away. I was coming. Feeling. Falling. Breaking the chains of misery that anchored me down.
It wasn’t about my physical needs. Not all of it, anyway. It was about taking my power back. It was about reconquering my sexuality, a piece of land that had always belonged to no one else but me.
It was about finding my way back to the world.
I nearly skipped my way back to my room after washing my face and hands. Darren was still there, and that surprised me, because he usually barely had the guts to knock, let alone step inside.
“It’s mine,” Bane said conversationally, but his posture, tense and commanding, suggested that he was a breath away from tackling Darren.
“What’s yours?” I leaned against the door, folding my arms over my chest.
“The boutique hotel on the promenade. The one that’s being gutted,” Bane bit out, his voice manufactured and detached. His eyes were still hard on Darren, and the threat was there, stark clear and shining in his pupils. “Your stepdad has some very elaborate ideas of what I should do about it, even though I never asked for advice.”
Bane grabbed my hoodie from my bed and walked over to me, tossing it into my hands and looking back to my stepdad, who stood there, in the middle of my room, looking like a wounded soldier who’d come back home to find out that everything he knew and loved had been consumed in flames.
“Come on, Snowflake. Food, then we’ll take Old Sport for a walk.”
“Shadow is sleeping,” I muttered, still confused by the entire exchange.
“Dogs are always sleeping. We’ll wake him up.” He mussed my hair, like I was an adorable kid.
The way he touched me, so casually, as if it was okay, as if I was normal, made my heart skip several beats.
I stole one last look at Darren, trying to find the pity I had usually felt for him. His eyes were blank, his jaw tight.
Usually, looking at him losing another battle made my heart pinch.
This time it didn’t.
We didn’t talk about what had happened in my room.
Something told me that the minute I addressed it, it wouldn’t happen again, and that was a scenario I didn’t want to entertain. We put Shadow—who was looking slightly better—on a leash, then grabbed some pizza downtown. I ate two slices and whimpered at the first bite, surprised by how much flavor it had.
Then we sat in his rusty red truck and called Dr. Wiese’s office. The receptionist yawned a generic don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you, adding that it’s been hectic at the clinic, so we might need to wait a few extra days. Then we dropped Old Sport back home and headed to the beach. Bane had promised Beck he’d surf with him, and I didn’t care what we did. The sky was dusky, and for the first time in a long time I felt liberated.
Liberated from the idea that Bane would think my “slut” scar was ugly.
Liberated from worrying about Shadow’s blood work.
There was a perfect moment on that beach, right after Bane introduced me to his friends, Beck—whom I’d already met at Café Diem—and Edie, a blonde surfer who was every insecure woman’s worst nightmare. Petite, pretty, and approachable. It was when they were paddling deep into the water while I settled against my backpack, drowning in the words of The Princess Bride. The feeling of solitude holding hands with intimacy. I was hanging out with Bane without really hanging out with him.
I looked up every now and again and smiled.
Sometimes he didn’t notice me.
Sometimes he smiled back.
When he took me back home, the thought that he might be going to one of his clients slammed into me, hard, and suddenly, prolonging our time together as much as I could, in some half-baked plan to make him cancel on whoever this woman might be, took the front wheel.
“Edie is nice.” I opened his glove compartment to find a mountain of cinnamon gum and a small plastic bag with weed. I took two pieces of gum and closed it.
Bane shrugged, but didn’t answer.
“And she’s a surfer, so she’s obviously your type.” I searched his face.
His mouth curved into a comma-like smirk, his eyes still hard on the road. “Obviously.”
“Come on, Bane. You wanna tell me you’ve never considered dating her?”
“I have. And I did. For a year. Ish,” he said, so casually, though I guessed for him, it was. My mouth went dry. Up until then, I’d suspected I was jealous of Bane’s clients. But I wasn’t. Because this was jealousy. The thought that Edie—whom I’d enjoyed hanging out with and actually shared a joke or two with—was the devil and public enemy number one. My head swam, and I curled my fists beside my body.
Bane took a left turn, tipping his chin down.
“Don’t get your panties in a twist. It was in high school.” I hate high school.
“Who ended it?” I tried to sound chipper, but it came off a little manic.
He pushed his lower lip out, giving it some thought. “I don’t know. It was never serious. We mainly fucked, and I took her to prom. Guess we stopped dating when we started fucking other people, too. Then she met her husband, Trent, and we just stopped completely.”
I love Trent.
Seriously. It was getting pathetic, how relieved I was to hear Edie was married.
Bane used the neighborhood’s remote nonchalantly—like it wasn’t illegal for him to have one—and eased his truck in front of my house, cutting the engine. I stayed put in my seat, half-wishing he’d forget that I was there and decide to take a spontaneous nap.
Yeah. That’s very likely.
“Umm…” He looked at me incredulously, silently questioning why the hell I was still there.
“Will you be at Café Diem tomorrow?” I asked. He turned fully toward me, resting his elbow on the steering wheel. His hair was messily thrown into a bun and he looked so youthful and so gorgeous I wanted to cry.
“Maybe.”
I swallowed, changing the subject. “You know, I have a tattoo, too.”
I was blabbing. But I didn’t want him to go. I didn’t want him to roll someone else between his sheets. Didn’t want his hard inked thigh pressing against someone else’s sex. I could have died just thinking of his full lips skimming the jawline of a paying customer.
He smirked. “Show me.”
I turned around, gathering my long hair up into a ponytail. I felt his eyes on my neck. My eyelashes fluttered, my eyes hard on the row of palm trees facing the Morgansen estate through the passenger window. I waited for Bane to react. I felt his fingers brushing my ink. Trailing down, to my spine, further south, to my waist. He clutched my hipbone, and not gently. His mouth pressed against my tattoo, and it was warm and perfect against the roughness of his beard on my skin, just like I’d imagined earlier in the bathroom. A breathy grunt escaped me the moment his lips touched my flesh.
“Saw it before,” he whispered.
“You did?”
He nodded into the curve between my shoulder and neck. “At the beach. A few years ago. Red bikini. Cherry-patterned.”
I remembered that day. What surprised me was that he remembered me. I licked my lips, waiting for him to continue.
“I was going through some shit that got me thinking. On the brink of stopping the whole escort bullshit for a hot second. I thought that quote was aimed at me. I’ve always been a Pushkin fan—well, actually, my mom and wannnabe-stepdad—they were never actually married—liked him. They’re, like, mega-Russian. Anyway, it seemed like a sign. Like the universe was screaming something at me, and I didn’t speak the language. I was gonna hit on you, but then you crawled into this pasty fuck’s
arms, and I realized it wasn’t a sign. It was a big fuck-you from God for thinking I could be something else. Or, you know, someone else’s.”
I twisted back to face him, inwardly inviting, praying, begging for him to break his rules and ruin this. Ruin us. Because once his lips were on mine, it was on. We were no longer friends. Or enemies. Or two lonely skies—one empty and starless like me, one full of lights. One hidden by walls, and the other by ink and a beard. We’d just be free to be.
We were looking at each other now. He was inching closer into surrender, and I wanted his defeat.
“You’re poisoned. Sheltered. Yet, you’re no Snow White. Wanna know why?”
“Why?”
“Snow White waited for the prince. You’ll be the one saving yourself in this story.”
I blinked at him, thinking about what my dad used to say, his accent thick, almost as strong as his words.
“You don’t need a prince, princess. You need a sword.”
Bane had my back. He believed in me, and that made me believe in myself. My body was saturated with hope. “You can be my sword,” I said quietly. God. That was pathetic. What if he couldn’t? What if he didn’t want to be?
He brushed my cheek with his thumb. His eyes crinkled. They were expressive. Real. Older with his experience. “I’m afraid I’m going to wound you if I’m not careful.”
“You’re not your father, Roman.”
“Maybe I’m not, but it still doesn’t make us right for each other. I’m your boss, and one of your only friends. I’d be taking advantage of you if I laid a finger on you. Tell me you understand that, Jesse.”
I knew he was holding my faith in his callused hands, and I understood where he was coming from. I needed to gain independence for us to be equal.
“I’m going to make this job my bitch,” I said.
“I don’t doubt you.”
“But I haven’t been kissed in…” Nine hundred and three days, four hours, twenty-four seconds. Since my eyes had met the red dot of the recorder while I lay underneath Emery. Since my fate had been sealed. I cleared my throat. “In a long time.”