I varied my licks—at the tip, riding the vein along the side, at the base where his cock met his groin. A tease, all of it, trying to see how far I could push him, how much he would take. It seemed limitless, his agony, as he staved off his climax. This wasn’t the pleasurable pastime in the shower but a fight, a struggle—an exercise in torture and devotion.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he chanted under his breath.
I loved that he swore during sex. He would occasionally swear around me but was for the most part very respectful. Fuck respectful. I wanted his coarseness, his crudity, every dirty thought he ever had.
“Do it,” I whispered.
“I don’t—” He gave up midsentence—gave up pretending not to know, not to want, not to dream of owning me the way I dreamed of being owned. With his hand behind my head, he guided me to the tip, not to lick or suck him, but to take all of him, to swallow him down. I moaned with my mouth full of his flesh and felt his balls tighten under my caress.
Even in this, I wouldn’t give in too easily. I went slowly, laving my tongue along the underside but without the proper rhythm to bring him to orgasm. It was far too early to submit completely. He understood what no other man ever had—for me, pleasure was freely given, easily bought. It was the withholding that measured my trust, and the permission for him to bring me in line.
He nudged my head down, and when I acquiesced, he did it again, over and over, until he let out a choked sound and released warm, salty cum onto my tongue. I caressed him softly with my tongue as he shuddered through his climax, his hands tangled in my hair, grasping and reaching as if he couldn’t get close enough.
I felt languorous from making him come, more gratified by his pleasure than my own. I climbed up his body and rested my chin on the ridges of his abs.
“Well, did you survive it after all?” My voice came out husky.
After a moment, he said, “No. Not ever, Jesus.”
Which wasn’t really a complete or coherent sentence but felt just about perfect. We dozed in bed. By which I meant, he fell asleep almost immediately, a stuttered snore emanating from him. Typical man. But I didn’t have to wake him so he could tip me or anything, so I felt pretty good about it.
Instead I could lie there and overthink everything. Was that part of the typical, noncommercial sex experience?
What did we just do? I asked myself, even though the faint saltiness on my tongue was answer enough. Would everything change, or nothing? What did he feel for me, and was it exactly the same as what I felt for him? How stressful. On the whole, I might have preferred a couple crisp C-notes.
Well, almost. Except for the amazingly wonderful part that made me feel bursty inside.
It was an urban legend that prostitutes don’t kiss on the mouth. I preferred to think of it as the greatest PR campaign ever run. Since everyone thought we never did it, we didn’t have to, all without insulting the client or lowering our price.
But kissing is far from the most heinous of sexual acts, and money will buy every single one of them. Every client I kissed thought they were the one exception… Now, that was the way to receive a great tip. Undercommit and overdeliver, the recipe for success in every industry.
I had kissed countless men, endless clients, but never had I lost myself in it. Kissing had always been a messy clash of mouth and teeth and tongue, and never had I gloried in it.
“I want it to be real between us,” Luke had said, but this wasn’t real, just the opposite. Real was flesh and blood, and this was so much more. When Luke kissed me, I ceased being the sum of my past, and he was no longer the next man in line. I was no longer a body to be used, and he wasn’t a grunting weight to use me. In that moment, I was a woman, and he was a man. We were lovers with no time to bind us, no secrets to thwart us, no enemies to hurt us—but none of that was real at all.
Chapter Seventeen
The next morning, I woke up with only the ruffles for company. I heard intermittent clicking from outside the bedroom and a low voice I recognized as Luke’s. I padded out and found him seated at the kitchen table with a laptop and a spread of maps and papers.
“No.” He spoke into his cell. “That will take too long. I’m talking hours, not days. He’s weak now. The longer we wait, the more time he has to build back up.” There was a pause. “Okay, let me know what you find. This is it. If we’re ever going to bring him down, it’s right now.”
After setting down the phone, he stood and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. He wore loose-slung jeans and a soft gray T-shirt that gave his green eyes a smoky look. His jaw was silky smooth and smelled of aftershave. It was so domestic, so casual, that I felt my throat tightening.