Page 50 of Mine

How about I give you an orgasm for every year between us

Salt, for fuck’s sake. Your frontal lobe hasn’t fully developed.

Maybe, but my cock has. Want to see it?

My god. This is exactly what I’m talking about. Why would sending me a dick pic be something I want?

I laughed again. I knew better than to send one, but it was still entertaining to see her flustered response.

She was really hung up on our age gap. Twelve years wasn’tthatmuch. It’d be different if she were thirty and I was eighteen.

I knew what I wanted. I knew what I liked. And I’d been on my own for years, aside from when Nancy and Beth stepped in. Not only did I technically run my own business, I was building up my music career. Even if the meeting on Friday was a complete failure, I'd been building an audience. I wasn’t sure if they just liked seeing my mask and tattoos or if they actually liked my music, but still.

Besides, I’d be twenty-six soon. My birthday was in just a couple weeks. Less than, actually. I should probably have told her that, but I hated my birthday. It was always the worst day of the year.

I looked at her text message again, and decided to be a little reckless. I pressed the voice recording button.

“Pepper, I want to see your face tonight,” I said, keeping my voice low and seductive.“I want to hear about your work day. I want you to touch yourself at my command and help relieve any stress you have from working so hard. Is that such a bad thing?”

I ended the message and hit send.

And strangled a laugh when a voice memo appeared in response. I pressed play.

“You’re a little shit,” she snapped. “You can’t send me things like that while I’m at work. You can’t talk to me that way while I’m in the office. What if someone heard me?”

I pressed the record button. “You mean what if you got caught? What if? What if you got caught talking to the twenty-five year old who fucked you all night this past weekend and wants to do it again?”

I was no psychic, but I could feel her sexual frustration warring with her business brain all the way from here.

She didn’t respond this time. Maybe I’d pushed her too far.

I didn’t regret it, though.

My phone chirped. Another message.

I’m off at 5.

THIRTEEN

PEPPER

It was wellpast six when I actually walked through my front door, dropped my purse to the floor, and headed straight to my kitchen for a glass of wine.

Fuck Jeff. Really, he was the root of all of my problems some days. The meetings had flown by, but then Jeff, being the entitled fucking twat he was, had gotten into it with Kendra. Kendra had then come to me about Jeff’s behavior, and I had to talk to Jeff.

Everyone was growing tired of his antics. Especially me.

I opened my fridge and pulled out a bottle of red wine. I was a heathen and liked my cabernets cold. A perk of living alone, I didn’t have a dumbass husband to judge me for twisting the top off and drinking it straight from the bottle. It didn’t matter how much money I had, I still liked a cheap red in the middle of a work week.

My eyes closed as the tannins hit my tongue and I sighed, trying to release whatever tension I could. I still needed to schedule a massage, a facial appointment, and a dress fitting for the awards show.

I needed tonotbe thinking about that damn voice message Salt sent me earlier.

“Fuck,” I mumbled, remembering I’d told him we’d call.

Why had I done that? Why couldn’t I tell him no? A firm, direct no? I wasn’t a stranger to telling men no, or even bossing them around, and yet…

The pulse between my thighs and the rush of heat across my skin told me I couldn’t just tell him no, because I wanted him. It didn’t matter that I’d just ordered every sex toy I could find that looked interesting, or had spent hours devouring articles about kink over the weekend, I wanted him.

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