Hey, baby. I’ll give you a hundred bucks to suck my cock.
I’ve got a thousand bucks for you if you’ll come home with me.
The not-so-subtle whispers of one buddy to another. Hey, Mike, check out that chick’s ass. I could plow that shit for hours, bro. And that was totally normal, expected. I had no right to complain. I’d asked for it, since I put my body on display for them.
“You’re not there anymore.” Dawson’s voice brings me back to the present. “You’re not there anymore. You’re mine now. Only mine.”
“Only yours.” This truth is like a wave of light eradicating the shadows. I can’t quite smile yet, but I can look at him, meet his soft hazel gaze. “Promise?”
“You wearing my ring?” he asks, by way of answer. I flatten my palm on his chest and look at the ring. It absorbs the light and refracts it like a gleaming white sun. “There you go, then. But I still need to see you smile.”
I fake a smile, and Dawson rolls his eyes. I smack his chest with my palm. “It’s not like I can just…be happy. It’s hard. It’s upsetting. It’s memories I’ll always have that I wish I didn’t.”
He just blinks at me, then leans in and touches a small kiss to the corner of my mouth. “Then I’ll have to find a way to cheer you up. Make you forget.”
“You’re too far over. A little to the left,” I breathe. He smiles against my cheek and kisses my upper lip, sucking it into his mouth. “Closer. Lower.” He slides his mouth down to the hint of cle**age above my shirt, kisses and kisses. “That’s way off. But…it might work. Keep going.”
“Up? Or down?”
“Either…will work.” He takes my shirt off and kisses my stomach just beneath the underwire of my bra.
He’s tugging the cup of my bra down when the door to the gym opens and Luisa pokes her head in. “Oh, sorry, sorry. I—I’ll come back, then. Sorry.”
Dawson rests his head against my br**sts. “Stopped by the stylist.” He straightens and tugs my shirt down. “You should go get styled, then, huh?”
I shake my head. “No, I—I need you.” I crush my mouth to his, take his hand in mine, and guide his touch down, down.
He gathers the fabric of my loose cotton skirt in his hands and cups my privates. “What do you need, baby? Tell me, so I can give it to you.”
I won’t say it, and he knows it. He’s always trying to get me to talk dirty, but I won’t unless I’m caught up in the heat of the moment. I can show him, though. I twine our fingers and push our joined touch under the elastic of my underwear, and then his fingers are inside me and my forehead is resting on his chest and I’m breathing hard. He slides my skirt off, pushes my underwear down, and I step out of them. While he touches me, brings me closer and closer to climax, I’m ripping at his belt and his button fly, freeing his erection and sliding my hands around him until his knees are dipping and he’s hard and huge and leaking from the tip. I’ve learned to tell when he’s close, and I caress his length slowly and gently until he’s there. Normally, he’d have lifted me and impaled me and made me come already, but he’s going along with what I’m doing this time. When he’s at the edge, I press my lips to his ear and speak over my mortification.
“Now. Take me now.”
“Oh, thank f**k,” he growls.
He slips his hands from between my thighs and lifts me up by my backside. I wrap my legs around his waist and kiss his temple as he takes long strides to the wall. My back bumps against the wall, and he’s inside me. He’s kept me on the edge of orgasm this entire time, so I’m desperate. I cling to his shoulders and lift, sink, lift, sink, driving myself on his hardness, gasping as each pounding thrust brings us closer.
And then his middle finger searches the crease of my backside, finds the hot, tight center, and presses in. I bite his shoulder and moan, scraping myself up his length and then back down. His finger slips into me slowly, and I’m so tight that I feel the bulge of his first knuckle as it enters me, and I’m growling now, low noises in the bottom of my throat, embarrassingly feral noises.
“I want you here,” he whispers. “Someday soon, baby.”
I smile a secret smile into his shoulder. He has no idea how soon.
Thoughts aren’t possible then, as we both reach the point of no return, and fall screaming over the edge. He’s blasting into me, unleashing a thick wet wave inside me, and I’m clenching around him with every muscle, moving with him.
When we’ve both caught our breath, he leans away and stares at me. I’m grinning from ear to ear, a bright smile of sated happiness.
“There’s the smile I’m looking for. And what a way to get it.” He kisses each upturned corner of my mouth, and the smile he gives me is so bright and so beautiful I’m breathless, reminded how lucky I am to have this man, to have the love of this man.
He lets me down, and we both groan as he slides out of me. I gather my underwear in my hand and lean up for a long, slow kiss. “Thank you,” I say.
“For what?”
“Loving me. Cheering me up. Being mine. For being you.”
“I should be the one thanking you for that.”
“Beat you to it,” I say, then turn and leave the gym, giving my hips an extra sway for his benefit. I feel his gaze glued to my backside as I leave. All negative thoughts are banished by the force of Dawson’s love.
I take a quick shower and then text Luisa to meet me in the bathroom. Yes, I have a cell phone now. It was kind of a nonnegotiable for Dawson. Luisa won’t quite meet my eyes as she does my hair and makeup.
The party is long, and intense. Armando is there, charming as always, and Kaz. I corner Kaz around midnight.
“You knew?” It comes out blunt, almost angry.
He smiles at me and sips his scotch. “Of course, Grey. It’s my business to know about my interns and potential employees.”
“But Nina, you fired her—”
“I fired her for being a prostitute and lying about it. She wasn’t a stripper, Grey. She was an escort.” He sips his scotch again, and digs a long, thick cigar out of the inside pocket of his blazer, clips it, lights it in thick puffs of acrid smoke, and then glances at me through the fog. “You were doing what you had to do to stay afloat. You were quiet about it, discreet. Nina? She was basically flaunting what she did. I found out she was using my client database to contact johns. I found out, because one of them called my office to request her services again. When I confronted her about it, she denied it. I could overlook even that, if she was discreet about it, but I cannot and will not tolerate liars.”