He laughed and said, “Get back up here; bring the bottle if you need it.”

I got back up on the bed and moved to the top, setting the bottle on one of the nightstands. He smoothed a hand along my ribs and over the angular curve of one of my narrow hips and sighed.

“What gets you off?” he asked.

“I don’t know anymore,” I shot back truthfully. I didn’t. If it hadn’t been sex for money I hadn’t had it since before Silas fucked up my face. I couldn’t even clearly remember the last time I got off with a partner. I mean, I really had to think about it.

“You like when a man eats your pussy?” he asked. I looked him in the eyes and thought about it.

“I mean, I guess. I never really put much thought into it.”

“Close your eyes for me.”

I frowned but he gave me a look like I was being kind of silly, one that asked without words, have I ever hurt you or fucked with you before? Truth was, he hadn’t. If anything he treated me better than any man that had come before which considering you couldn’t really treat anyone worse than Silas had treated me, that wasn’t saying much.

God, you’re a pathetic case, Tiff.I told myself, but I did what he asked. I closed my eyes. I jerked back when his fingertips touched my hair, near my forehead and opened them. He was looking at me and frowned and I instantly felt like a child that’d been caught doing something wrong. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard, reminding myself that he was a paying customer and that he’d always been good to me. It could buy him a little trust here. Not much, but a little.

He traced a fingertip lightly along my hairline, sweeping the long glossy strands of my hair over my ear and away from my scar. I felt the bed shift under me as he leaned forward and kissed my lips lightly. I froze, uncertain, and they lifted, lightly scented from my own essence, and touched down on the corner of my mouth. They lifted again but I jerked back, teeth gritted before they could find their intended target.

His hand tightened into my hair and I froze again, but my gaze fixed on the pillows next to us. I couldn’t look at him, not when hot tears threatened. I wasn’t up for that. I wasn’t up for talking about it, his pity, or his sympathy, or whatever it was he was trying to do. Not when it came to that.

“You want me to fuck you?” he asked. “Bend you over and drive deep, get some of that anger out?”

I felt my pussy throb, giving a long, slow, wanting ache at what he offered.

“Yes.” I hissed and he did what I asked, he drew me up by the hold he had in the back of my hair, not hurting, but I either moved with him or it could hurt. He faced me toward the headboard and I grabbed on, offering myself up, bowing my back. He ordered me not to move and went for a condom in the side drawer and put it on.

“You want a good hatefuck? That make you feel better?” he demanded and his voice was low, seductive, and inviting and yes, that’s exactly what I wanted.

The liquid courage of the tequila swirled in my veins, numbing me just right and I ground out, “Shut up and fuck me already.”

He chuckled darkly and said, “You’re just like my wife,” but he was driving into me. I caught myself and thrust back to meet him and it hurt just right. I felt myself start to grow wet, to open up and I could hear his grin when he hummed out in appreciation. His thick fingers found my hips, his thumbs pressing to either side of my lower back in a smooth, massaging arch and he drew back and it was on.

He pounded into my pussy from behind and oh, god, yes, that was precisely what I wanted, precisely what I needed right then. It felt so good. I yowled my anger and pleasure and arched down, facing my ass up so that he could fuck me deeper and harder. Each commanding thrust forced a cry from my throat as he stroked over that spot inside of me.

He kept at it, a punishing rhythm that caused my skin to cool and gooseflesh to break out over my body even as he stoked the embers of my sexuality to life until it was burning bright and cheery and burned all of my uncertainty and misgivings away. I finally, finally, let go and it was perfect. Narrowed down from so much anxiety and fear into this perfect being of pleasure and light.

I felt like a woman again. All of a sudden desirable and beautiful for that one shining moment until he reached around to the front of my body, pressed fingertips to my clit and pushed me far too soon into the fall of orgasm.

I cried out and went limp, pressing my face into the pillow and screaming my release into it, but that wasn’t enough apparently. He let me calm, let me settle and turned me onto my side. I gasped and tried to catch my breath, but before I could say anything, he had lifted my top leg up, draping it back over his, the arm beneath my body locking me back against his chest. He shoved gently into my pussy with the head of his cock and worked himself in and out of me, his other arm curving over the top of my body, pressing fingers lightly at the top of my sex and teasing the embers of my first release back into flames.

I closed my eyes and let him cradle me against his chest as he fucked me. Too spent to care, my last fleeting thought before I came again, half-drunk on pleasure and fully-drunk on his tequila, was that I was damn sure getting his money’s worth this time.