Page 11 of Degrees of Control

Jordan gently placed a hand on her hump. “What did James do? Did he tell them to fuck off? Did it get violent?”

“Um, no he kind of laughed. That’s what killed my sexy mood.”

Jordan hissed like an angry tabby cat. “That’s gross. I know you’re into mean guys, but there’s no reason for him to treat you like a blow-up doll.”

“I know, but I think assholishness might be an occupational hazard with dominant alpha types. If we’d made it out the door without running into Sweat Patches, things might have been different, but we did and I couldn’t kiss him or beg him or anything after he was such a prize tool.”

Sophia pressed a hand to her cheek. “I failed you, Charlie. I worked so hard to find you what you wanted and I forgot to factor in alpha assholishness.”

Charlie smiled. “Don’t stress, Operation Man-Draft was forty percent effective.”

Her friends looked at her eagerly.

“James and I may have done some sex stuff in your bathroom,” Charlie confessed.

“How was it?”

“How big is he?”

Choosing to answer the first question, Charlie recounted the events of the bathroom until her friends’ eyes were the size of hubcaps.

Sophia tapped the table. “Wait. So what happened to your thong? I didn’t find anything this morning.”

“Oh shit.” Charlie had been so blindsided by the orgasm-turned-hazing that she’d gone home underwear-less.

“Bet James kept it, like, as a memento,” Jordan said, her eyes dreamy.

Sophia let out a little huff. “I doubt it. By the end of the night the asshole was too wasted to pick up a hundred dollar bill. You know he passed out in my guestroom even though he lives, like, two seconds away?”

“Where’s he now?” Charlie asked, her feigned carelessness so transparent it was basically tissue paper.

Sophia frowned. “I don’t know. He returned to the dank hole from whence he came, I guess. We’re not close at all.”

“So, pray tell, how do you know what your cousin’s into sexually?” Jordan teased.

Sophia flushed. “When I was in high school, my friend Flicka got angry-drunk in my hot tub and told me James was into ‘fucked-up sex shit.’”

Jordan’s eyes lit up. “Like what?”

“I don’tknow. I was sixteen and he was my cousin so I didn’t exactly push for details. I think she meant dirty talk, getting tied up, that sort of thing. There have been other rumors, as well. Either way, I thought Charlie might be able to make the most of his sluttiness.”

Their tea arrived and all three of them fell silent.

Charlie turned Sophia’s words over in her head. What had Flicka meant by “fucked-up sex shit?” Handcuffs? Spanking? Putting on a ski mask and jumping out at people through plate glass windows? So many desires sounded crude unless you were into the same thing, and then they sounded like magic incantations, the keys to a world of pleasure…

Jordan dumped stevia into her tea and stirred slowly. “I honestly wouldn’t care if your cousin was into pegging, Soph, he’s that gorgeous. Oh, sorry, Charlie.”

Charlie scoffed. “I don’t think one bathroom encounter exactly makes us a couple. I doubt I’ll see him again.”Except in my waking fantasies.

“Does James work in the city, Soph?” Charlie asked in the same phony, disinterested tone. Luckily, Sophia didn’t seem to notice her obvious baiting. “Yeah, he’s up in the financial district with me. He’s a suit for his daddy’s company.”

Jordan snickered. “Oh, so he’s got family privilege like you?”

“Excuse me, I don’t work for my family. I was hired on my own merits.”

“Yeah, but face it, Old Money, those connections didn’t exactly hurt.”

Sophia gave Charlie an awkward sidelong look. From what Charlie had gleaned from her too-polite friend, the Hunter family had made bucket-loads of money farming tobacco in the 1900s and were still one of America’s largest distributors of cigarette fodder. Sophia, who couldn’t help being born a cigarette princess any more than Charlie could help having unhelpfully big tits, was perpetually stressed people would discover the unpopular source of her family’s wealth and storm out of any given location in protest. It was time for a subject change.

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