Page 9 of Gilded Fake

Rumor Has It… A certain member of the rebel elite who’s been gone since last week was seen leaving his house in the middle of the night, carrying a suitcase, and climbing into an unmarked black van. Whether the rumors of his activity behind the scenes were real or fabricated, I think we can all agree on this truth: we’ve lost a treasure from our midst.

Gloria Walton

“You’ve gotten good at that,” Maverick says, pulling me in as soon as I step behind the curtain that covers the doorway at the back corner of the stage. “If you were any more convincing, I’d be jealous of Angel for getting to do that with you every night.”

“Thanks, I think?”

He nuzzles into my neck and flattens his hand on my lower back, pushing his hips into mine so I can feel how hard he is. “How could any guy not want to fuck you after that?”

“It’s just dancing,” I assure him, though I’m not sure why he cares. I’m pretty sure he’s still fucking girls at the tattoo parlor.

“For you, maybe,” he says.

“He has a girlfriend,” I say, pulling off the wig I wore for my last set and shaking out my hair.

“Fuck, you’re making it worse,” he says, watching my hair fall down my back in a messy tangle after being scrunched inside the wig cap. “Come on, I want to fuck you in the back room.”

“We’re not allowed to do that,” I say as he leads me down the hall and into my dressing room.

“I’m allowed to do anything I want,” Maverick says smugly, undoing his belt as I take a seat in front of the mirror.

I like how Ms. Scarlet makes sure the girls who work here have little conveniences like this, things that a man running a strip club—even an exclusive, upscale one—would probably never dream of installing. Each of the seven rooms has a shared dressing room with the stage beside it, and each side has its own makeup vanity with a mirror ringed by lights, like we’re getting ready for the big stage instead of a pole dance. We also share a tiny bathroom, so we don’t have to use the same one as guests or even all the girls.

“Get me wet, princess,” Maverick says, turning my chair to face him and dropping his jeans.

Instinctively, I draw back, the urge to turn away from the pierced appendage jutting into my face making me hesitate. I want to tell him I can’t because I’m taken, even if it’s only in my mind. My heart belongs to someone else, and I know it makes me delusional to think that matters, but I still do.

“What’s wrong?” Maverick asks, his hand circling the back of my head to pull me in.

I open my mouth in answer, and he pushes inside. I’m not going to share my delusions with Maverick North. He’d laugh at me.

Not that he’s a monster. He’s pretty decent, actually, if an emotionally unavailable, tattooed gangster with commitment issues and a Jacob’s Ladder piercing climbing the underside of his thick, veiny cock can be called such a thing. I’m pretty sure he’ll let me pull away when I’m done, that he’ll stop if I tell him to, that if I say no, he’ll pull up his jeans, say he’ll catch me later, and go fuck one of the other dancers. But pretty sure is not absolutely sure, and I can’t risk the chance I’m wrong.

If I never say no, I never have to find out.

“You’re so fucking good at that,” he says. “Every guy you’ve ever blown is going to cry the day some dude wifes you up.”

I think about Colt catching my wrist, his firm, painful grip as he pulled my hand away when I tried to do this to him. Another small fracture cracks one of the fragments left of my heart. If only Maverick’s words were true.

Anger replaces the sadness as I pump my mouth harder over his piercings. Colt is an asshole, just like every other guy I’ve been with. Maverick’s the best one, even if he never bothers to get me off. At least he’s honest about his intentions, never playing games with my mind or heart. He accepts me for exactly who I am right now even though everyone else has rejected me; he never asks questions about what brought me to Infernal Vices; and so far, he’s proven himself relatively safe, even if that trust is never absolute.

I’ll probably never fully trust anyone again, thanks to the Dolce boys.

Anyone can turn on you, no matter how many times you’ve been together, and decide this is the time he won’t take no for an answer. Anyone can take away your ability to consent, can hold a hand over your mouth or simply not tell you all the factors that might have altered your decision to say yes. Anyone can make you feel special and wanted, and then walk away and laugh at you for allowing it to mean something to you when it meant nothing to them.

Maverick bends me over the vanity table, draws down my lace thong, and tells me to stay like that while he rolls on a condom. I watch him in the mirror, his eyes hooded with lust, his gaze focused on the view from the back. He wets his lips and steps closer, positioning me and pushing inside. His eyes fall closed in bliss, and I shift my feet together to give him an extra squeeze. He sucks in a sharp breath and grips my hip before drawing back and slamming into me. I brace myself against the vanity as he bangs it into the wall with each thrust, going hard from start to finish.

Maverick fucks rough, just like I expected, just like I want. At first, I thought I’d cum from it, and then I thought the Dolces must have broken me because I never do. He always leaves me sore and so frustrated I could scream, but I’m used to it now. I like watching him lose control, as if it means something, as if it’s something I did that pushes this uncaring, tough gangster over the edge and leaves him a trembling, sweating mess. It makes me feel powerful, the way I do when I’m dancing.

I know it’s just my body, not me, but I relish power in whatever way I can get it.

I know I’m still capable of climax, just not with him, but I relish his almost as much as I would my own. Orgasm or not, I could do a lot worse than Maverick North. And right now, losing control feels like losing myself, losing whatever ground I’ve managed to claw back to feel like my body belongs to me again. Last week only reminded me of that.

Giving myself to someone so completely is terrifying, and I wouldn’t want that intimacy with Mav, no matter how much I enjoyed it with Colt. I had my release, and I know it’s not what I need right now. It’s weakness, and I’ve been weak too long. Now, it’s time for strength, time to be strong enough to control my body, no matter how badly I want to let go and join Maverick when he cums.

What happened with Colt last week was no more real than what happened on the rooftop during Bye Week, anyway. No more real than the memory of last year. I know he did it for me, but he should have told me. I would have played along to get back at Rylan if he’d told me that’s what we were doing, even if I wouldn’t have gone along with the script he chose.

I hate that Rylan saw me naked one more time. He didn’t deserve even a single glance my way, let alone seeing all of me, spread out and defenseless like that. I hate that he saw me crawling and begging for dick like the whore he thinks I am, that it must have confirmed everything he already thought about me, even vindicated him. I know how he thinks, even if Colt doesn’t. If Rylan could confirm with his own eyes that I’m a dick-hungry slut, then what he did with my sisters was justified.

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