“Text me when you’re in safe for the night!” Leona called to my back.

I waved a hand at her that I would, and left with The Bastard.

CHAPTER

FIVE

“Temptation is a woman's weapon and man's excuse.”

H. L. Mencken

I couldn’t help but mock Dante as he flagged down a cab.  “Aw.  Look at you, taking a taxi like a normal person.  The poor little rich boy’s still in denial?  Still think you’re just like the rest of us?”

He ignored me, though going by his stiffened posture, it was clearly still a sore spot for him.

He was born filthy rich, but he’d always struggled with it.

I was born stinking poor, so his struggle always pissed me the hell off because it was an affront to my own.

We sat as far apart as two people could get in the back of the cab.

I’d decided to fuck him tonight.  That didn’t mean I had any desire to be near him.

It was a quick ride to the fairly modest establishment where he was staying.  I say fairly modest only in comparison to what he could afford.  He always did things like this, lived below his means whenever he could.

He was an asshole like that.

I made him walk ahead of me from the car into the building and then down the hallway to his suite.  I knew if he was behind me he’d try to take my arm or lead me with his hand on the small of my back, both things I couldn’t stomach, because they were too familiar.

Everything about him was too familiar.

I felt a few flutters of misgiving right about the time he opened the door of his room and waved me in.

I ignored them, striding inside.

I can handle this, I told myself.  He was the one that should have been worried.

“I don’t know how to tell you this,” he began but trailed off when he saw that I’d walked straight to the bed.

I perched on the edge, parted my legs, and started to inch my skirt up.  It was short, so there wasn’t far to go.

“What?  Are you going to say now that you didn’t bring me here to fuck?”

His throat worked as he swallowed hard, his eyes darting around, avoiding me suddenly.  Just the mention of it had him looking like a junkie desperate for a fix.

He took a deep breath then expelled it.  He knew what I was up to.  In a great many ways, he knew me better than anyone else.  “I actually didn’t.  I swear it.“

I laughed, a seductively bitter laugh.  Candy dipped in poison.

Eat it up, you bastard.

The sound of it made him wince, which made me happy.  “Are you saying that you’re actually going to turn me down?”

His eyes latched onto me as he tugged his tie loose impatiently, then tore at the collar of his shirt.  My eyes darted away when he exposed the chain he always wore around his neck.

God, why did he still wear that thing?  Bile rose in my throat just at the sight of it.

“I’m saying that we really do need to talk,” he said.

With a sigh, I stood.  This was an unusual amount of resistance from him.

He was easily led in matters of the flesh.

He’d never told me no before.  I wondered if this would be a first.

Not fucking likely, I decided, reaching up into my skirt and tugging my panties off with a few impatient movements.  I tossed them to the floor at his feet and turned my back on him.

I could hear his breathing change as I contorted my arms behind me and unzipped my dress.  I tugged it down my hips as I strutted across the room toward a tall antique dresser.  I gripped the edge of it and shot him a look over my shoulder.

I was nude by then, wearing nothing but stilettos and a bad attitude.  “Go ahead,” I told him.  “Talk.”

I wouldn’t admit this aloud under heavy torture, but as I watched him approach me, I began to tremble.  In fear.  Trepidation.  Horror.

Anticipation.  Pleasure.  Delight.

When he got close, I turned my face away.

His hands, those big, beautiful, terrible hands of his, brushed my hair over my shoulder an instant before his lips touched my nape.

Head to toe, I shivered.

“I don’t have all night,” I told him, making my voice hard to compensate for the fact that my insides had gone utterly soft.  “You don’t have to do your hours long foreplay with me.”

He chuckled into my skin.  “It’s your fault, you know.  You’re the reason I’m obsessed with foreplay.  Remember when we were teenagers?  When we made out for hours?  God, you made me wait forever.”

His voice was so full of sweet nostalgia that I had to make light of it.

Had.  To.

“If you cry while we fuck I’m putting it online,” I quipped.

He laughed and tried to turn my face toward his.

Going in for a kiss, I knew.

I hated his kisses.

Hated.  Them.

Hated.  Hated.  Hated.

I wrenched my chin out of his hand and pressed my body back until my ass was flush to his crotch.  He was hard as a rock, bulging through his slacks.

I rubbed against him, teasing him into action.

With a groan, he started kissing my neck again, both hands going to grip my breasts.

I circled my hips, working against him shamelessly.  I knew what it did to him, knew he was a hair trigger the first time we made any contact after a long parting.  I didn’t care.  If I got him to embarrass himself before he’d even taken off his pants, all the better.

Humiliating him was a bonus, as far as I was concerned.

No such luck.  He knew all my tricks.