Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 53417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
“Do you need anything?” he asks, and I only shake my head.
He puts himself back together, faster than I could have imagined. His eyes burn over my body, and I wonder for an instant what he’s hiding behind them. “Don’t worry about the five hundred dollars. We’re even.”
Graham Maxwell sees himself out of my apartment but not before turning and telling me that if I need anything at all not to hesitate to ask.
Technically, it’s his apartment. He’s the man who owns this building and has the power to kick me out if I don’t pay rent, and he’s also the man I’ve just had sex with to cover the shortfall.
Oh my God. I’ve just had sex with the owner of the building to pay the rent.
Did I…like that?
Did I love it?
I still feel buzzed from the way he fucked me, his strokes deep and possessive. It’s been a long time since I was with a man who took me like that. He took me like he owned me and fucked the shit out of me. That’s exactly what Graham did. I don’t think it ever happened that way with Kevin, or any of my other exes for that matter.
My heart races. Graham isn’t even in the room anymore, and I’m still feeling the effects.
I sweep up the clothes from the living room floor and walk on shaky legs to the bathroom where I toss them into the hamper. I turn on the shower without thinking, wait for the water to get hot, and climb in.
“I just paid the rent with sex,” I say out loud, just to test it out.
My whole body feels like it’s blushing, but I don’t feel ashamed.
Should I feel ashamed?
No, right? I didn’t do anything wrong. Two consenting adults. A business arrangement sort of…for rent.
“Oh, God, I loved it,” I admit to the empty shower.
They’re really two separate things. I needed to come up with five hundred dollars for this month’s rent, and I needed to get over Kevin. I’ve spent months in a panic, trying to find a job and failing, waking up all night freaking out about the future.
I wondered if I could have done something else to make us work. But it wasn’t me in the end. It was him. He found someone else, cheated for months, and left once I found out. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too. I’m still not over the heartache entirely, mostly because it proves just how naive I am.
It’s hard to feel hung up on past mistakes after the way Graham touched me though.
Mr. Maxwell?
I don’t know what to call him, but that’s okay. This won’t happen again. I’ll find a job and fix my life, and I won’t have to have sex with anyone to pay the rent ever again. I was acting out a fantasy. One that paid well. But I will never do that again.
Even if I did like it.
Even if I did come hard while he was inside me. I came on his cock like he told me to. I’ve never been talked to like that. Not once. And I loved it.
That didn’t happen with Kevin. I never came that hard. I’m more ashamed of the fact that I used to wait until he fell asleep and get myself off under the covers so I didn’t hurt his feelings. How did I ever accept that as my normal life when something so much better was out there?
I take a deep breath of hot steam, pushing the wet hair from my face, and let it out.
He seemed stable and kind. That’s why I was with Kevin. He was so nice…so nice that I didn’t see through the lies and the cheating. I’ve been through bad breakups before, and I thought my relationship with him was the next step in my life. I thought I was leaving behind all those unpredictable men and finally growing up.
I’m not going to blame myself for that.
I’m not going to downplay the memories of Graham, either.
I shake my head under the hot water, unable to stop imagining what just happened. That felt good. It felt amazing. Maybe it shouldn’t have. Maybe I should have demanded that he buy me dinner and roses before we had sex. Kevin did all those things for me. He bought bouquets of roses and took me out to dinner and asked me to marry him…and he left.
But I didn’t want those things in the moment. I wanted a quickie with the guy from the elevator with fuck-me eyes.
I’m not going to get hung up on either Kevin or Graham. That’s not what I’m going to do.
I focus back on the shower. I’m not in any hurry to get the scent of his cologne off my skin. I mostly came here as a matter of habit, but I regret it a little as I’m soaping up my skin. I can still feel the places he touched me. He wasn’t rough. He was firm, though. Like he already knew me. Like I already belonged to him.