It stung, but I let it slide. I’d heard much worse—from her, and from others. It barely even hurt anymore. There was no point in responding, even if her ongoing insistence that my bisexuality wasn’t real irked me to my core. That was what she wanted—to get my backup, to get me to react so she felt justified in taking a chunk out of me. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.
She waltzed towards the door, flicking her hair over her shoulder as she turned back to me. “I could’ve overlooked your need for attention … if we were married. But it’s too late now. Don’t come crawling back when the money’s gone and you’re hiding from the feds. I offered you forever, and you chose to whore yourself out for validation. Just remember, you need me more than I need you. And the offer’s off the table.”
She waited, lips pursed, eyes expectant. The pause stretched, more and more awkward with every moment as she waited for me to say something. I didn’t bite. Blotches of red bloomed on her cheeks.
With a muttered, “Stupid bitch,” she wrenched open the door and flounced out of my bedroom. I waited to hear the front door slam, but instead it clicked with a quiet finality that had me releasing a long-held breath.
I shouldn’t have felt relieved she’d left with just a few insults. I was still on borrowed time, my visa ticking down, with no real plan on what to do to stay in the only place that had ever felt like home.
But Iwasrelieved. On paper, her offer made sense—a marriage of convenience to keep me legally in Australia while I figured out everything else. But I knew, deep down, it wouldn’t stay just ‘on paper’ for her. To Rumi, it was a symbol of ownership. And I knew I’d be miserable living as something she owned. With any luck, I’d gone far enough this time that she wouldn’t be back, and I wouldn’t have to turn her down even more forcefully next time.
Damn it, I needed a distraction! From Rumi’s tantrum and from my imminently visa-less state. I tucked Thumper away after flicking him on to check he wasn’t permanently out of action thanks to Rumi and her hissy fit. Reaching deeper into the drawer, my fingers latched around Nikolai.
“Hello, my giant, thrusting fucker!” I crooned, tugging my sleep shirt up and spreading my legs. At least one good thing had come from Rumi’s half-baked oral—I was still wet enough to accommodate his girth. I needed something big and … masculine … inside me, to wipe the memories of the last half hour from my mind. Nikolai was more reliable for an orgasm than a man. Certainly more reliable than Rumi tonight, trying to manipulate me into marriage using orgasm denial.
Seating Nikolai deep in me, I switched him to thrust mode, with a side of pulsing vibrations, and let my legs fall wide to feel everything he was giving me. I snatched up my phone and opened the Tickle app I’d downloaded a couple of weeks ago.
I opened my saved posts, scrolling until I found the video of a man and his wife having some of the hottest vanilla sex I’d ever witnessed. As Nikolai thrust, and pulsed, and filled me so perfectly, I watched that husband gently kiss his wife and then lean back, his palms sliding down her body to grip her hips as he thrust in and out of her with measured strokes. She arched off the bed, mouth falling open on a moan as she fondled her breasts and stared up at her husband with delighted adoration.
I arched up too, gasping as Nikolai hit my G-spot, just the way that husband no doubt was hitting his wife’s. And when I came, it was with a sigh, and a tremble, and a silly, sentimental wish that I could have something like that. A lover who worshipped me in bed, without the unfair expectations, the cruel words … the hot and cold until I never knew where I stood.
Was that really too much to ask?
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Kat, my bestie of four years, asked as she bustled into our kitchen in her black work uniform, empty coffee cup in hand. “I feel like we need a debrief onyourlove life dramas, and I’m such a bad friend that I took up the entire morning with my man dramas?—”
I clapped a hand over her mouth, plucking the mug from her fingers with the other. “Your man dramas are so much more interesting than my night! Hot, dirty stranger fingers you in public, then disappears? That’s juicy? My night? Not even worth mentioning. But if you really need details, Rumi and I fought, like we have so many times before. She left, like she has so many times before, and I consoled myself with a very pleasant orgasm from Nikolai—like I have so many times before. That’s really all there is to tell.”
Kat wrinkled her nose. “I wish you’d never told me you named your vibrator that. It’s too close to my cousin’s name for comfort, and every time you talk about using it, all I can see ishimin bed with you!”
I smirked and waggled my eyebrows. “Oooh, I think I like imagining you imagining me with your cutie-pie cousin. Maybe a big blond boy is what I need to get me back in the dating pool …”
Kat shook her head, chuckling. “Look, Nik is great, but you arefartoo much woman for him.”
“Up the top for womanpower!” I crowed, holding my hand up high for Kat to slap. She laughed, rolling her eyes. “Don’t leave me handing!” I begged.
“It’s just up top … and it’s hanging—don’t leave mehanging!” But she gave me the high-five anyway.
“English is such a bizarre language,” I complained. “I’m literally holding my hand up; my version makes so much more sense! But to answer your first question, I will be okay. I’m going to train this morning—swim off the hangover.”
“You’re not hungover,” Kat argued. “I’ve seen you mainline a bottle of vodka without any side effects—a couple of cocktails is child’s play for you!”
“What can I say? I was weaned from breastmilk straight to hard spirits. It’s the Romanian way.” I grinned to show her I was joking … sort of … but the mention of my childhood made my nerves jangle vigorously in my stomach.
Kat giggled wetly. “I’m going to miss you so much when you go home, Ri,” she said, leaning in for a hug. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tight. I hoped I didn’t have to miss her, but I was cutting it fine …
Less than a month until visa-day. And still no plan of how I avoided leaving.
BREAKING NEWS: TICKLE’S BILLION-DOLLAR THREESOME
In a record-breaking transaction, a private investor has signed a deal to purchase a minority share in the wildly successful Aussie adults-only subscription app Tickle. The deal, rumoured to be in the multiple billions of dollars, has made the app owners, Henry Baxter and Paul Prideaux III, the two richest men under thirty in Australia.
Baxter, a software engineer and Sydney University alumnus, reportedly built the beta in a single weekend. It became the most downloaded app across all platforms on its launch weekend, and since then has consistently broken records for downloads, subscribers and revenue. His business partner, Prideaux III, was instrumental in brokering the deal with an anonymous tech investor based in the US.
CHAPTER TWO
Welcome Aboard
HENRY
