Page 140 of The Influencer

“Bi?” Asher inquires.

“Gay.”

“Ah. I wonder if I’ve seen him in anything.”

“He has a twelve-inch dick. Ring any bells?”

“Ohh… shit. Yes. I know exactly who he is. There was this one with him and the tiniest little twink—I swear to fucking God?—”

“Asher, shut the fuck up. I don’t need to hear about how much porn you watch.”

“I haven’t watched any lately,” he argues.

So comforting.

“Are you gonna talk to him?” he asks. “If you guys did something together, that could be huge.” He takes a second to laugh at his stupid pun. “Lucrative, I mean.”

I spin to face the man who’s been both living with me and fucking me for weeks now. “Are you serious?”

He faces me, too, a look of determination on his face. Apparently, we’re about to have this conversation in shouty voices at his brother’s engagement party. I’ve managed to skirt the issue and distract him so far from farming me out to other men, but ever since Asher came back from his talk with his brother, he’s been slowly busting out of his shell, one unguarded comment at a time.

“Not only are you not making as much content since I moved in, but you’re not posting as much either. When I was organizing your spreadsheets on Tuesday, I noticed a twelve percent decrease in your income since last month. If you want to keep buying Prada suspenders and living on Sunset Boulevard, you’re gonna have to make money. And Gideon doesn’t pay you enough.”

Twelve percent? “Am I broke?”

“No, you’re not broke, Jade, you’re fine, but I’m trying to paint a picture here. Twelve percent is a fluctuation one month, but after six months, it’s a problem. You understand, right?”

“Yes,” I snap. “I understand. Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid.”

“Hey,” he says, just as sharply. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

I breathe through the pang of insecurity and fight the urge to glance in Lucas Lopez’s direction. “Sorry,” I say too quietly for him to hear, but I’m sure he can read my lips.

“Look,” he says, leaning in a little closer, but still not showing any overt signs of possessiveness, “I know there’s feelings involved here. You’re not the only one who has them, okay? But because I care about you, I am once again reminding you that I’m totally fine with all of the ways you earn an income. If I weren’t, do you really think I would have hung out and waited for you while you were blowing Gage across the hall?”

I suck in a sharp breath. After talking with Aven this morning and thinking about it all day, this should feel great. It should reassure me that I can trust him to keep his word. So why do I feel like a steaming pile of shit? Like, why did he have to introduce the subject of him possibly having some “feelings” for me and then finish with the last blow job I gave someone besides him?

“What?” he asks, I’m guessing in response to the rage-fueled look on my face.

“Thank you for caring about me and all, but has it occurred to you that I might not want to fuck anyone else at the moment?” There. I said it.

“It has occurred to me, but I feel like there’s a workaround for that.”

I bark out a high-pitched laugh. “Such as?”

“I mean—whatever you want,” he says ticking off ideas on his fingers. “We could try a reward system. I could get you hard first and hole up in my room while you did your thing. Or I could get the hell out of your condo for a night and have nothing to do with it. Or I could even watch. My point is, it’s totally up to you, but now’s really not the time to lose your momentum or your fan base.”

Because I’m leaving in November anyway, is what he doesn’t say.

“I don’t like any of those ideas,” I pout.

“Well, you just heard all of them. Maybe when you wake up tomorrow, one of them will resonate.”

“So, the idea of someone else fucking me doesn’t bother you at all,” I say, because I want to get this on the record.

“I don’t know,” he says. “And I won’t know until you do it.”

That shuts me up. I certainly wasn’t expecting him to have mixed feelings about it. He’s been fairly persistent, and now I think I’m starting to realize it might be a test.

---