He kneels and starts to loosen the ties.
“H-home?” My lips are numb. To Mom?
“That place you live? Yeah. Home.”
“Good.” I push the word out, past the inexplicable hurt. “Because you suck.”
“Yeah, I know. I sucked your cli?—”
“I mean you suck. Conceptually.” I struggle for my breath, my cheeks burning like they’re on fire. “My boyfriend?—”
“We both know he’s not your boyfriend. I’m not sure who he is to you, but he’s not your fucking boyfriend.” He reaches around and unties my hands. When I try to push him away, he puts his hands on my waist, holding me. I hate that I like that touch, how it grounds me as much as it undoes me.
“If he was, then I doubt you’d have gotten so wet waiting for me. I doubt you’d have touched my dick in that truckyard. You were soaked when I got back here. You begged. You’re a filthy, delicious little liar, Molly girl.”
Christ, he’s right. And I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to go with him, either, but there’s a freedom in the air, something new I can taste, and it threads through me, pushing at the surface of my skin.
Because maybe…maybe this won’t be bad. With his connections, maybe he can help find Dad. And while we’re “together,” I could use him, learn about sex, and then after everything, I could run. There must be a way to escape a life of dance. I’m not good enough to be the principal, not really. I can do it; I can if I push myself, but I’m aware with Mom’s money and backing, I could be locked in there until my thirties. Some of the best dance into their late forties.
I’m not one of the best, but there’s the ballet or a husband I don’t want, and this could be a way out…
“A fake marriage?”
He looks at me, a faint frown. “What are you up to, Marlowe?”
I shrug. “I want a life away from people controlling it, and if that gateway is you, then I’ll take it.”
“So it’s that easy?”
“I’d want a contract.”
He doesn’t smile. “We can do a contract.”
And one of his hands drops, slides between my thighs, stroking me slowly, and I let him. God, do I let him. He pushes a finger into me, thrusting with bone-melting, gentle moves that stoke my inner fires with the steady beat of the movement.
Because I want more.
I want him.
“We can play it fast and loose,” he murmurs, leaning in, trailing soft kisses up my throat to my ear.
It takes a million glorious years.
It takes no time at all.
“Or we could clamp it all down tight.” He stops his thrusts and moves his finger inside me, rubbing something so glorious that I shudder, everything in me focusing in on that because in seconds he’s got me teetering on the edge of an explosion of orgasmic bliss. “Rule by rule of what can and can’t be done.”
He stops, right at that edge.
“You decide, Molly darlin’.” And then the monster pulls free.
I’m spinning. He stands and I try to follow, but I stumble, everything out of order.
He doesn’t offer to help, even though he watches me intently and I’m hit with the stupidest, most naïve feeling that if I so much as looked like I’d face-plant, he’d catch me.
Because he’d more than likely laugh.
“You’ll find my dad?” I ask in a small voice.
