Page 4 of Filthy Sweet

Slade, from Skeleton Bomb, would probably love it, too, when I think of it. He talked a few times about how he thought he needed a good scandal for his career.

My thoughts tick, and slowly, I put it together. I’ve been played, used for a publicity stunt.

My blood turns to ice. I fucking hate being played, but I know better than to let that show.

I toss the paper to the desk. “If it helps, I didn’t know who she was at first. That picture was before her big break.” I lick the back of my teeth. “I did figure it out about halfway through the night, though.”

“You remember that this label is owned by a mean, unforgiving man, don’t you? A man who honestly believes that his misbehaving, spoiled daughter is an angel?”

I sip my beer. “What, you going to fire me or something?” I ask, feigning boredom.

Becker snorts. “And risk you taking Phoenix Sunset away from us, same as you stole them from the last label? No fucking way.”

I relax a little. I don’t mind using a catastrophe to my advantage and playing hardball, but I just got settled here.

“So what?” I ask. “Do I talk to the boss man?”

“Hell no. Don’t so much as look at him.” Becker turns back to his computer. “You keep your fucking head down, okay? No more sex scandals or exploding contract negotiations or any of it.” He grunts to himself, clearly pissed. “I mean it. You’re on thin ice. Got it?”

“Yeah,” I say coolly. “I got it.”

Chapter Two

Owen

“He’s literally havinga threesome in the newspaper.”

I’m lying on Reggie’s couch, my phone propped on my stomach as I Facetime with Robin, who is busy setting up her studio apartment. We met while getting our PhDs. and instantly bonded, and in a stroke of extreme luck, we both found careers in the same city after graduating, her at a university and me at the Seattle Museum of Natural History.

“I know,” she says, her auburn hair falling over her face. “It’s kind of hot.”

“I can’t believe I humiliated myself in front of him. Fox is a sex god, and now he thinks I’m some kind of freak with a dildo collection.”

“Hey,” Robin scolds. “Watch yourself. You don’t think I’m a freak, do you?”

I sigh. “No.”

“Trust me. Dildos and fuzzy handcuffs and lingerie are pretty tame these days. And considering Fox’s reputation, he probably didn’t even blink.”

“You’re saying I’m so boring he didn’t even notice my humiliation? I’m not sure that’s better.”

Robin dips out of view of the screen, then pops up with a stack of books in her arms. “I’m saying that you’re still reeling from Phillipe, that’s all. But you’ll get over it, Owen. You just need a few good hookups and positive experiences, and it will be like that night never happened.”

My friend might be right, but it’s not like Phillipe was just a run-of-the-mill bad date.

I’m an overthinker, and despite a painful adolescent crush on Fox and plenty of attraction to men over the years, my sexuality always felt kind of theoretical. Devotion to my academics meant I had basically no free time to explore, so I convinced myself that it didn’t really matter whether I was gay or bi or whatever. When the right time came, I’d figure that all out. Meanwhile, it was simply easier to stick to what I know, stuff that you can find in books and prove in laboratories.

Then Phillipe came along.

He was one year behind us in school, cute and charming and confident, with curly brown locks and slim, tanned muscles. For a whole semester, he flirted with me shamelessly, and I freaked out and acted like an awkward, bumbling weirdo, as is my style. It would have gone nowhere, except at the end of semester party, after a couple of glasses of wine and plenty of encouragement from Robin, I let him come home with me.

It wasn’t the night I lost my virginity, thank god. That honor goes to a notably unsatisfying, unmemorable evening with a girl when I was nineteen. But hooking up with Phillipe was my first time with a guy, the first time I tried anal and also the only time I ever really enjoyed sex.

And I meanreally, reallyenjoyed it. We started off slow, but the further we went, the more I lost myself in all the sensations. It was like my body was moving on its own. All my instincts and impulses kicked into overdrive.

I thought it was going great, right up until I hit my climax.

I’ve always had kind of a thing for cum. I just think it’s hot. And in the haze after coming my brains out, lacking all shame, I indulged myself. I rubbed my hot semen on my chest, then drew my goopy fingers up to my face. Moaning and groaning, I licked my release from my fingertips and smeared it on my lips, fucking reveling in it.

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