Babe?Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
I take the few steps necessary to approach Noelle until my body is close enough to hers that I can feel the heat rolling off of her. If she likes to be chased so much, we can play the long game, that’s fine with me.
I like the hunt.
Pulling a hand from my pocket, I gesture toward the cash and cards sitting on the table. “Those are for you and your friends. You ladies take whatever you’d like from ‘em.” I use that same hand to grab her jaw, firmly, bending just far enough to bring my mouth millimeters from her ear. “I’ll be back for you real soon, Sugar.”
I draw the tip of my tongue over her earlobe, making sure to hold eye contact with the Ethan kid while I do, and she buckles at the contact.
You might have her for a minute, but she’s all mine, and she damn well knows it.
SIXTEEN
Sophia
“Are you going to tell me who that guy was tonight?” Ethan asks from his spot in my bed, propped up on his forearms. “That didn’t sit right with me at-fucking-all.”
And yet, you didn’t make a move to do anything about it.
I slip my pajama shorts up my legs, shimmying to let the fabric flow against my skin. “A friend I met on my birthday trip. I don’t really know him all that well, honestly.”
And yet, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him since I walked away from his hotel. When I saw him tonight, when I heard his voice, it was like being homesick for something that really doesn’t belong to me and never did; but I wanted to go home to him, all the same.
When he called meSugarand his tongue touched my ear…
Brushing away the glimmering shiver that wants to course down my spine, I climb onto the bed and over top of Ethan’s legs, straddling him with my own. My hands trail over the bare skin of his chest and I dip my head to press kisses to his neck, letting out little moans as I do.
For a minute, Ethan’s hands slide over my waist, letting my lips touch and distract him. Only for a minute.
“Did you have sex with him?” Not a request for the answer – a demand for it.
With a sigh, I sit back, settling onto his lap. “Yeah, before I met you.”
“For business?”
“No,” I bite. “Because I wanted to.”
“And he just happened to visit you tonight.”
I climb off of him, moving instead to sit at his side, because I really don’t appreciate the judgmental tone I’m picking up on laced into his voice, or the way that his eyes burn into me with harsh accusation.
“I didn’t even know where the guy lived, Ethan. We were total strangers. So whatever you’re suggesting—”
“I’m not suggesting anything,” he says, “I just don’t think it’s appropriate for him to be around you. Especially if he’s going to touch you like that.”
A cackle escapes me – I can’t help it. “You literally came to my work, with your friends who could have ordered a half an hour with me – and I would have had to deliver – and that didn’t bother you, but Eric sayinghidoes? You know he was probably just trying to get under your skin, right?”
“It’s different when you’re working,” he tries (and fails) to argue.
“Ohhhh, okay, so it’s alright for men to do whatever they want to me when I’m getting paid a little bit for it, but if I initiate hot sex with a stranger because I’m single and it sounds fun, that’s where we draw the line,” I say, nodding my head. “So should I send you a bill for our first time together, then?”
“Babe,” he says, rubbing a hand over my thigh, “that is not how I meant for that to come out.”
His other hand joins the first, the two of them roving over my legs as if he’s trying to placate me. Like giving a fussy toddler a sweet snack to calm the impending tantrum brewing inside of their tiny little body.
In this moment, I find myself suddenly repulsed by him. To constantly put on this show of caring about me, being the supportive boyfriend who isn’t bothered by his girlfriend being in sex work – to even stop by the club that she works at with his friends so that she can get more tips; just to turn around and act like I disgust him because I spent time with another man before I even fucking met him?
Besoincredibly for real.
