SECRET Revealed

PROLOGUE

H
ad it been only a week? A week since I put on that black-and-white lace camisole with the matching panties? My ear pressed to the door, I listened to him take the steps in twos, forcing myself to count to five after he knocked lightly, trying so hard to appear a little less excited to see him than I actually felt. I only made it to three seconds and then whipped open the door.

There was my Will, with a fistful of scurvy flowers clearly stolen from a vase at the Café.

“For you,” he said, holding the flowers under my nose before tossing them over my head onto the floor behind me. “And for me,” he said, scooping me up and carrying me backwards to my bed.

He threw me down on the bedspread. I squealed, delighted, as he pushed my camisole up over my breasts to kiss my stomach. Then I went lax, watching as the mere taste of my skin inflamed him, making him hungrier, rougher, which I found agonizing and thrilling. The sound
from his throat as he worked off my camisole and threw it aside … I can still hear it.

“Are you real?” he asked as he gathered my breasts in his hands.

“Well, I thought about implants, but I’m just not that kind of girl, you know?” I said, lazily running my fingers through his thick, dark hair.

But he wasn’t going to be distracted by my joke. We weren’t “just friends” anymore. We were lovers. And he was lost in me, in my body, my hair, my skin. I was an ocean, allowing desire to wash over me, my blood pumping, sending small shudders through my legs, making me ache in places he would soon be touching. He pulled off my panties and whipped them over my head. They hit the window and fell to the floor. He regarded my body as if it were a banquet, unsure where to kiss first. His hands knew where to be, his fingers especially, as they traced along the curve of my pelvis, gracing where I was wet and waiting.

“I want you so badly,” he said, his hot palm on my skin, urging a finger inside.

There were more words, but I don’t remember them. My eyes were shut, the blood now pounding in my ears, my anticipation so great I threw my arms over my head, presenting my body to him like a gift, just to see what he would make of it. And that’s when he flipped me over onto my stomach, lifting me, sinking his teeth into a cheek, not too hard but hard enough to mark me as his. I heard him yank his clothes off. Then his hands squeezed my hips and
he arched me farther, opening me up to him, my arms stretched to the sides, my cheek against a pillow. I felt his prodding erection and I writhed to let him in, heated now, hungry for him to fuck me. I was like an animal, my fingers now claws pulling on the duvet. His own hands pushed their way down my back, caressing the skin before him.

“Oh god, Will.”

I couldn’t explain hunger like this any more than I could the fullness I felt as he began to inch inside me, his palm on my hip for leverage, since it was clear there’d soon be madness. But at first what I remember was this perfect, slow slide in, then this gorgeous ache as he pulled out. Over and over he thrust, and I began to match his fucking to my moans, or my moans matched his rhythm—it was hard to know. My thighs widened, my back bowed farther. I felt his thumbs press into my hips and then I looked over my shoulder at his face, so determined, so astonished. I think I wanted to snap him out of his trance, because why else would I say it? Why would I ask him to spank me? He paused.

“Do it,” I hissed, my hair in my face.

This had never occurred to me before. But we were in a different place, an animal place, and then I felt it. Will gave me a swift, sweet slap—just like that—followed by a mellow rub, and I loved how it felt, the way his skin on mine sent vibrations straight to my core, now wrapped so tightly around his thrusting cock.

“
Yes
. Do it again,” I commanded, my face now pressed into the duvet, eyes closed.
What is happening to me?

But by then he was lost in the fucking. He was driving so hard into me, I couldn’t have changed the direction of things if I tried. I sent a dizzy finger to my tight clitoris, greedy to come, but he roughly pushed it away, his own finger finding me—and feeling far better against that knot. All I could do was grab the duvet, hold on, and buck backwards as white stars crowded my vision.

“You’re so hard,” I said, and then it happened, the hot wave of my orgasm sneaking up on me, sending me up, up and then over the side, as I sighed,
Oh, yeah, yes, oh god, oh Will
, just as he was saying,
Jesus, Cassie, I’m coming
, and pulling out just in time to release across my spine, both of us knowing condoms were essential, but
man
, at a certain point there was just no looking back, no way to stop it, and no need to either. He was mine and I was his. I picked him, he picked me. We were each other’s. If there were consequences, we’d accept them. After a few seconds of shuddering joy, he collapsed across me, pressing into me, pulling me to him, gasping and laughing at so much good fortune.

“Holy … holy
 … fuck
,” he whispered, his mouth at my ear.

“I know,” I said, shutting my eyes for a second and thanking the gods of sex for this man.

“So … where did
that
come from?”

“Where did what come from?”

I had already forgot that, ass in the air, I had asked my sweet Will to
spank
me.

“The ‘spank me’ stuff,” he said, still a little out of breath but now carefully peeling himself off my back to collapse next to me.

I flipped over to my side to face him, my hand going to the part of his stomach I loved the most, the part still sticky with us. I thought of how the embers of friendship had so long been stoked that I had once worried we’d never be able to generate enough heat between us.

I no longer worried about that.

“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “I guess … I was overcome with desire.” I laughed into the pillow. I sounded ridiculous!

“Why are you asking me?” I asked, coming up for air. “Did it bother you?”

“
Hell
no. I just never took you for a spanking enthusiast.”

“I don’t know if that’s what I’d call myself, but yeah, in that moment, it felt, I don’t know … like it was just the right kind of spice to add.”

“I’ll keep that flavor on hand in the future,” he said, holding up a wide palm to high-five me, the punctuation to a lame, sweet joke.

Just as I was thinking,
How lucky am I that my friend Will is next to me in bed
, he pulled my whole head to his face for a long, deep kiss.

His mouth on my mouth—that’s what I’ll remember the most about that day.

“Who knew you were some kind of
sex
goddess,” he whispered, cupping my chin.

I threw my head back and laughed, because he had no idea about S.E.C.R.E.T.

But less than a week later, Will would discover from whence his so-called sex goddess learned to be so goddess-y—and I would be left standing in a dark hallway at Latrobe’s. He’d think of me as some dirty slut, covered in another man’s scent, another man’s pleasure, eight different men not counting Will: all from S.E.C.R.E.T—nine if you count Mark Drury, my recruit.

Soon I would no longer be a sex goddess to Will but rather a dangerous woman.