Page 120 of Tips and Trysts

“If it were easy to take my father down, he wouldn’t be who he is today. He’scareful. I don’t even have an irritated text from the man.”

Cora lets out a long exhale before she places both hands on my shoulders. “Everett,” she begins, staring deeply into my eyes, “this is my second sex scandal, and do you know what three things I’ve always regretted about the first one?”

“That it wasn’t with me?”

Her expression is surprisingly cheerful as she says, “The first thing I learned from Valeria, who never takes anything at face value: I regretted not making more evidence. And do I ever make the same mistake twice?”

“Beyond dating multiple Ivy League assholes, no. You don’t,” I confirm.

“I certainly don’t.” Cora heads to the bookshelf. She grabs something and tosses it at me: her phone, which I realize she left behind after my father walked in on us.

“The second thing I regret is that I hadn’t met Essie yet,” she continues. She faces Essie. “Babe, do you have time in your busy schedule to destroy a man?”

“I’ll always make time for that,” Essie replies, and her face actually lights up at the prospect.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” Dalton mutters—drawing every eye in the room. He’s so busy gazing at Essie, whose cheeks are steadily reddening, that he doesn’t notice until Lander clears his throat. Delayed, Dalton’s brown eyes flicker over to Lander. “I said that shit out loud, didn’t I?”

“So clearly,” I confirm.

Sighing, Dalton slumps in his seat. “Well,” he says before raising his glass. “Cheers.”

“The last thing I regret,” Cora finishes as she comes back to me, “is not lying.” Her hands go to my cheeks. “I’ve heard you’re good at lying.”

“Exceptional,” I reply before I turn my face to plant a kiss on the palm of her hand.

“You are,” Cora agrees, smiling. “You’re so,sogood at it.”

Forty-Three

EVERETT

Cora Flores has thisparticular way of taking off her clothes. I’d call it hypnotic, for lack of a better word, but hypnotic doesn’t quite fit. Watching Cora strip is more like a shot of adrenaline, and for a long time, I couldn’t understand how that was possible.

At first, I thought it was simply the way she looked. After all, a phenomenal body is a phenomenal body, and Cora’s body?Fucking remarkable. There’s more to Cora though. Her raw appeal doesn’t come down to divine angles, or gentle swoops, or the elegant indents of her muscles beneath her skin.

Really, it’s the way she understands her body’s capabilities. Its potential. Its inherentvalue. For weeks, I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on Cora. Cash. Gifts. The Amex. In part, those tips were a resounding ‘fuck you’ to my father and every Logan who came before him. And yes, part of it was for me and my kinks—the thrill of paying her for it. Buying it. Being her customer. But some part—a part I now understand was futile—was to show Cora how much she was worth.

Watching her now, taking in every beat of her movements as she kneels in front of me on my king size bed and strips to nothing, I realize it was a fool’s errand to put a dollar amount on Cora. She’s priceless.

When she slides her skirt over her hips, she’s so clearly aware of every inch of her skin, every fine hair, every freckle, every scar. She skims them. She guides my eyes to them.

Like well-practiced choreography, she slips her bra off her slender arms and drops it off the edge of the bed. Her nipples, brown and pearled, are decorated in gold and diamonds today—diamonds I gave her. The diamonds aren’t only in the nipple bars I had crafted from one of my great grandmother’s dinner rings, but also in her earrings, a choker, and the piercing in her bellybutton. I’ve tipped her with all this gold and all these diamonds every time I’ve made love to her in the last month. Needless to say, Cora hasso manydiamonds now.

I like her dripping in diamonds, I’ve decided. Carats of them, in all cuts, sparkling over her body like a galaxy. I may not be able to buy Cora, but I’m going to keep tipping her like I can.

I’m shameless, and we love it. The money. The taboo. Calling her a whore and paying for it. We love this shit. If we didn’t, where would she have gotten the obscene stockpile of cash tips I discovered in her drawer last week?

At first, finding the money made me want to sit her down and explain just how much I actually have, untilsheexplained why she kept it.

“You’re going to fuck your whore on top of all this Logan cash,” she’d informed me, and tonight, she gleefully scattered the bills over my bedspread.

Dramatic? Probably. But I’ve never been able to turn her down.

Naked, Cora climbs over me, resting her pussy atop my bare cock. Her mouth touches mine, and the kiss is tender for all of three seconds before she parts her lips.

She licks into my mouth, and I reciprocate without hesitation. We can be tender, sure, but at the end of the day, we’re happier when it’s turbulent. Nasty. Kind of fucked-up. And really, this form of sex is our unique version of love. Pushing each other. Taking what we need. Shit talking and keeping each other guessing. We know most people wouldn’t get it, but pretending we want something different would be a lie.

Cora and I don’t lie.

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