Whipped) (4 page)

I hang my head in shame. "No."

He laughs and hands me a few more.

The cards are thick, quality and my curiosity is definitely piqued. "Are you like a musician or something?"

"If you're wondering if I'm good with my hands…"

"No. I'm not wondering." Not even a little. But his hands are big.

God.

He winks at me, grabs his keys and kisses my cheek. "Thanks for the hangover cure. I owe you. Have a great night. I won't be back ‘til morning."

He leaves me standing there, his kiss still burning my cheek and sending warmth through my body as I consider what I will do the rest of the evening.

I wander to the kitchen table and piece together a few bits of the puzzle. There are times I can get lost in this, in the intricate shapes and the way only certain pieces fit together. You can't force a piece to fit. Some come close, and might look good initially, but if it isn't a perfect match the bigger picture will be ruined.

Tonight, however, the puzzle isn't holding my attention.

I consider cleaning the apartment. It's already a mess again. I pick up a few dishes and put them in the sink, but that's as far as I get. Cleaning isn't really my favorite thing in the world.

I could read, but I'm in between books and don't have the energy to dive into something new.

Damn Lachlan. He's distracting me, and I don't like being distracted.

In a moment of inspiration, I remember my impromptu purchase of that new dildo that's still in my purse, and I reach for it, pull it out of the packaging and stare at it. It vibrates, has a clit stimulator and is purple. It should do the job just fine.

I kick off my boots, unzip my leather skirt and slip out of it, pull off my blouse and sink into the shabby chic living room chair, spreading my legs as I imagine…

Lachlan.

Fuck.

Whatever. This is my private fantasy, privy to no one else. I let myself have it. The fantasy of those long fingers, those soft lips, and all the other parts I imagine are quite effective. I'm wet and swollen, ready to be filled as I slip the dildo inside of me. The vibration rubs against my clit, and I squeeze a nipple as I surrender to the fantasy that Lachlan is inside of me. His hands on my tits. His lips on my neck. I climax, moaning and—

The door to the condo swings open. Lachlan stands there, his eyes wide, a bulge appearing quite suddenly in his pants. "Holy fuck!" he says, still staring.

Oh my fucking God
. "Get out! What the fuck! Get out! Close your eyes!" I'm scrambling to find something to cover me, but there's nothing but a throw pillow.

It takes him a moment but he closes his eyes finally.

"Now get out."

"I can't fucking see," he says, still standing there.

"Too bad. What are you even
doing
here? I thought you wouldn't be back until morning!"

"I forgot some of my bag," he says. He stumbles around the room and manages to grab his backpack by the door. Before I can get my clothes back on he turns around, his eyes open now. "You know, if you ever want the real thing—"

Mother
fucker
. I throw my dildo at him and he catches it in one hand and glances at it. "Huh. You might want to go bigger next time." Smirking, he drops the purple cock on the counter and walks out.

I'm in a meeting with an elderly woman who might invest in my youth center. We're sitting at her high-end kitchen table in her old money mansion. And I'm as hard as a fucking rock.

I blame Vi.

Miss Wallace and I were discussing renovating the Spacey Mall, when she suggested red for the furniture. Then I thought of Vi's hair.

Then I thought of her legs spread on the arm chair and… Anyway, I need to think of something else. I have an iron rod for a cock now, and it needs to go. When we conclude the meeting, Miss Wallace will want to shake my hand. Maybe even hug. You see the problem.

And if you don't, if you're thinking it can't possibly be that big, then I feel sorry for you. Men like me are out there. Trust me.

"Is everything okay, Mr. Pierce?"

I shuffle in my chair, trying to keep my knees from hitting the table and knocking my delicate tea cup over, saucer and all. "Yes. I was just thinking red is the perfect color."

A young Hispanic woman comes in from the kitchen and pours us more coffee. When her eyes catch my lap, she blushes and walks quickly out of the room.

Great.

Miss Wallace doesn't notice. She gives me a big smile. "So in conclusion…"

Fuck. I'm running out of time. I call to mind everything I know about losing an erection, tricks I learned in middle school.

Math.

2 + 2 = Vi.

Fuck.

Distraction. Nature. Trees.

A stick.

Vi and a dildo.

Fuck.

Imagining my best friend's grandmother.

Fuck no.

I discreetly pull out my phone, keeping it in my lap, and Google "how to get rid of boner."

Miss Wallace leans forward over her paperwork. "An important text message?"

I grin. "An emergency." The Google search provides an answer. Squeeze your thighs, and the blood will leave your erection. I give it a go. Huh. It actually works.

I stuff the phone back in my pocket. "It's handled."

"Great." She closes her folder. "Well, I think we're about done."

"So you're interested?"

"Very." She smiles. I smile back. With her support, I won't have to go on tour.

We stand. She goes in for a hug. There is no steel pole between us. The crisis is averted.

Fucking Vi. As I leave the immaculate house through the high double doors, I imagine Vi spread out on the couch again, naked except for a pair of high heels, her finger on her clit. Oh, she wasn't wearing high heels, you say?

Well, fuck you, it's my fantasy.

I can't stand it. Despite being caught masturbating by Lachlan, I still have this overwhelming urge to show up at his work and find out what he does for a living.

I'm not one to easily embarrass. Even what happened today didn't really embarrass me as much as it… oh God, turned me on.

There, I said it. Happy?

So my hesitation in showing up at his work tonight isn't from shame. After all, I was doing nothing wrong. I just don't want to give him, or myself, the wrong idea. Because I am not getting involved with the sexy Australian, no matter how big his cock might or might not be.

But in the end, I relent, and call up my friends. Zoe says yes immediately. Kacie takes very little convincing, despite her earlier protest that she won't be hitting the town anytime soon. "Sebastian is already nodding his encouragement. He's got the babies and enough pumped milk to get through the night. I'll call Tate and have him play chauffeur to pick everyone up. Just say when."

When is now. And we are parking at the Wynn, still unsure about what we're about to see.

"He gave you no hints as to his show?" Tate asks. As the only guy in our little group when Sebastian's not with us, Tate likes to walk as if we are his arm candy. Something none of us actually put up with. But he certainly doesn't mind being surrounded by three beautiful women, even if one of those women is his twin.

Zoe nudges Tate and smiles. "We're taking bets about what he does. Want in?"

"What are my choices?" Tate asks, looking down at our petite friend.

If I'd had any worries Zoe would fit in with my friends when we first decided to go into business together—which I really didn't—they were quickly assuaged when I saw her with everyone. She fits right in, even if she has to look up to make eye contact with anyone.

"We've got magician, acrobat, singer, musician," she says, listing them one by one.

"Which did Vi pick?" he asks, winking at me with his dark eyes.

"She didn't. She said she refuses to wager on him."

I laugh at her impersonation of me. "Oh stop it, you guys. We're here."

I hand the gold cards to the concierge. "Lachlan Pierce said to give his name."

The middle-aged man behind the table nods. "Of course, please follow me. You ladies are in for a real treat tonight."

He glances at Tate and his mouth twitches. "And you too, sir."

We're taken into an auditorium and given seats front row center of the stage. As the rest of the seats fill, Tate looks around, a panicked expression on his handsome face. "Ladies… I think we might have been very wrong about Mr. Pierce's career."

"What's wrong?" I ask, and I realize what's bothering him. He might be the only man in the audience. It's full of women.

The lights go down and the crowd, instead of quieting, as is typical for a show, erupts into wild cheers.

Music fills the room and colored lights flicker over the black stage as a man does a double flip onto the stage.

I grab Kacie's hand. "Holy shit!"

"What?"

"That's Lachlan!"

He's joined by several other men who begin to do astonishing acrobatics across the stage before they start to dance.

"I can't fucking believe this!" Tate says. And the three of us are nearly in tears from laughing as Tate glares at us. "You took me to a fucking male strip show!"

I want to rib him more but Lachlan is taking center stage for an impressive solo that shows he's a lot more than just a pretty face and a hard body. He's seriously fucking talented. Like, massively so. I can't help but be impressed as he does things with his body I can't imagine being able to do.

Tate is still moaning something next to me about how this can never be forgiven and how I'll owe him eternally for this, but my eyes are locked on the beautiful man on stage.

Kacie leans into me. "This is the man you won't sleep with?"

I nod wordlessly, and she just shakes her head.

I'm beginning to agree with her assessment of my sanity as I watch what he does with his hips.

All those feelings change when the tone of the music shifts and Lachlan steps off the stage and comes right toward me. Someone announces that they need an audience member volunteer for the next dance.

Every woman in the audience—which I'm beginning to think is every woman in Las Vegas by the sound—is clamoring to be chosen.

Except me.

But Lachlan ignores my reluctance and pulls me on stage with him at my friends' encouragement. He sits me down on a chair as a spotlight blinds me to everyone but him.

Smoke fills the stage and the music turns slower, more erotic.

He begins to dance over me, pulling my hands around his hard body until they are on his ass. God, this man's ass is a study in perfection.

As he moves my hands over his body, he gyrates over me, grinding himself between my legs as his mouth hovers over my neck. With a flash of movement, he pulls his pants off and I stare, dumbstruck, at his mostly naked body, a bit of silver cloth all that remains between his cock and the rest of the world, and it's looking pretty stretched out as he grows.

He leans in again, and I feel his hard-on press against me.

"See anything you like?" he asks.

"There was a delicious looking steak on the menu at the restaurant we went to."

He shakes his head, still smiling. "I worry about your priorities."

"Oh, sex is high up there. Just not with you."

He falls back as if wounded, then keeps dancing close to me. "I understand. You're like a virgin." I nearly choke at that, but he keeps talking. "You just don't know what you're missing. Yet."

That 'yet' hovers in the air as I'm escorted back to my seat to watch the rest of the show.

After the show we are all still stuck to our seats as the rest of the women in the audience swarm the stage.

"Oh, Vi, this is horrible," Tate says. "Whenever I think of you now, I see things. Terrible things."

Kacie laughs. "I think you owe him therapy."

"They're not even fully naked," I argue.

Tate just shakes his head. "My mind fills in the blanks."

So does mine. God, so does mine. Especially since I can still feel the way his cock pressed between my legs. Hard. Throbbing. Ready.

I'm ready to get out of there, to get some air and some clarity and, most importantly, some distance. Instead, one of the dancers blocks our escape and escorts us back stage. "Lachlan said you're friends of his and deserve the VIP treatment. Follow me."

I try to resist but Kacie and Zoe are having none of it, and even Tate seems intent on torturing me. "It's payback, my dear," he whispers into my ear. "You must face this man."

I'm breathless by the time Lachlan finds us. My friends have all been wooed away by tables of food, glasses of champagne and scantily clad sexy men.

I get pulled into Lachlan's dressing room, which he locks behind him.

He's still wearing just the…I don't know, loincloth? His body glistens with oil and sweat and makes his muscles ripple under the light. His blond hair is a wild halo of lust around his perfect face, framing every desire I have for him.

Every desire I want to resist.

"We have to talk," I say.

He grabs me and pulls me to him, our bodies pressed against each other. "Not with words," he says against my ear lobe. "Body language is better."

And I can't deny him. Part of me wants to. And though I'd like to blame it on the champagne that is already fuzzing my brain, I know this craving for him predated the alcohol.

So when he pulls up my skirt and runs his hands over my body with barely contained urgency, I don't resist.

And when he pushes me against the wall and spreads my legs with his hard thighs, I don't pull away. No, instead I lean into him and eagerly take in everything he gives me, moaning as his finger pulls aside my underwear and teases my clit.

"I need you, Vi," he says as he pushes his finger into me while rubbing the swollen nub.

It is more than I imagined. More than my dildo could ever hope to replicate. More than my mind could conceive. The scent of his body so close, the feel of his hard muscles holding me. His finger inside of me, filling me with one, then two, finding every spot of pleasure.

I don't think. Don't analyze the pros and cons. I don't let myself consider that I'm not in control. That this shouldn't be happening. I give into the sensation of leaving behind everything but the here and now of this man pressed against me.

His mouth is on mine, our tongues teasing each other. He tastes like mint. Like madness and magic and I imagine that tongue on other places on my body. 

It doesn't take long for my orgasm to build, and just before it breaks inside of me, he pulls out his finger. I moan, disappointed, empty, and he smiles, slides a condom onto his cock and lifts me off the ground, his hands under my ass, holding me against his body. He presses me against the wall and I wrap my legs around him as he shoves his cock deep into me.

He's huge. Thick and long and I worry he'll tear me, but with a few more pumps he's stretched me into taking him all the way and as his fingers dig into my ass and my nails dig into his bag, he fucks me harder than I've ever been fucked before.

I bite his neck and hear him groan and fuck harder.

He dominates me and as I come on his cock and he explodes inside me, I realize how much I love it and want it and need it.

Someone knocks on the dressing room door, breaking the magic between us and reminding me where I am and who I'm with. I pull out of Lach's arms as he releases my legs, but standing proves a bit precarious as I'm still wobbly from two orgasms in the space of ten minutes.

Lachlan hands me my panties. "Next time you'll get the all-night treatment."

Next time?

Oh,
hell
no.

But I don't have time to respond because someone is shouting through the door. "Yo, Lach, time to party. Get your ass out here."

I squeeze past him, pulling myself together, and fling open the door to face one of the dancers in his group.

Lachlan comes up behind me and places his hand on my lower back. "Vi, this is Duke. Duke, Vi."

Duke raises an eyebrow. "I see why you didn't want to hang with us. I wouldn't either."

I push past him, leaving the warmth of Lach's hand. "Nice to meet you."

I don't stay to chat, instead I make my way through the hall until I find my friends. "It's time to go," I tell them. Tate is about to argue but Kacie takes a good look at me, gives him the twin stare and they nod in unison. Zoe's flirting with one of the dancers but pulls herself away when Tate taps her shoulder.

Not a lot of talking happens in the car. Instead, I sit in the front and blast the radio, drowning out any words that might pull the story of what happened from me. I'm just not ready to talk about it. Honestly, I'm still lost in that moment and unsure how I feel.

We drop Kacie off first. Her breasts are about to burst with milk, she informs us, making Tate gag dramatically. Brothers. Then Zoe, who once again looks depressed to be going home.
Seriously, girl, dump that asshole,
I mentally plead with her.

And then I'm alone with Tate, who turns off the music and forbids me from turning it back on.

"Spill, Vi. What happened?"

"I fucked Lachlan," I say without preamble. Tate laughs, and I punch him in the shoulder. "This is so not funny."

"It kinda is. This isn't a crisis. This is a good thing. If I were gay I'd have done him after that dance," he says.

"Yeah, well, you're not living with him, are you? I have to face him every day now, and I don't know what to say to him." I turn to look at my other best friend. He's gorgeous and knows it. Opposite in looks to Kacie, ironically, with dark hair but those same piercing blue eyes as his sister. "You're a womanizer who sleeps with anyone with tits, maybe you can help me with this."

"Well, when you put it so nicely…"

"You know what I mean. Lach is a player. I need to know what he'd be expecting right now."

Tate shrugs. "Vi, I'm always honest with the women I'm with, and from what you've said, it sounds like he is too. So just be honest. Tell him what you want. If this was a one-time thing for you, then tell him you don't want anything more with him."

He glances over at me as I fidget with a seat-belt that was just fine left alone, and raises an eyebrow.

"Unless you
do
want more?"