I felt Waters move under the table. Rough cheeks scraped over my tender inner thighs.
Oh god. No, don't, don't you dare.
“Ma'am?” the waitress said. “You don't look very well.”
“Just a hangover,” I blurted. “Need some hair of the dog.” I reached for the wine glass I had rejected, desperate to hide my cresting need.
Anton Waters sucked my clit into his mouth, scraped his tongue over it, and I came.
My hand flailed against my wine, knocking it over, but I barely even noticed. All my determination not to scream flew out the window, but I had the barest shred of self-control left to bury my head in my arms and shriek into the table. My whole body shuddered and stars burst against my eyelids as he suckled on my clit, curling his finger inside me. My legs curled over his shoulders, pulling him to me as I shook with a pleasure so acute it was almost pain. The soft, vague roughness of his tongue pulled my clit further and further into his mouth, and pulled me along with it. I felt as though I might melt where I sat, might fall into his mouth and be devoured, and I wouldn't care.
And he didn't stop, even as I came down from the shuddering heights, dragging moans from my mouth. I felt the eyes of the entire restaurant on me as I came, and the coarse humiliation slid against the pleasure, sharpening it like a whetstone, until it cut like a blade.
Waters retreated, and I felt his absence like a bruise. At last I was able to raise my head. I forced myself to meet my waitress's eyes.
We stared at each other for a long moment. I knew she knew. And she knew that I knew that she knew.
I did the only thing I could think of. I pressed a hand to my mouth and clutched my stomach with the other. “I think... Mr. Waters went to the restroom,” I gasped. “Could you... get him for me?”
Her eyes wide in terror, the waitress nodded frantically and fled the scene of the crime. I didn't dare look around to see who else had noticed me just have the most powerful orgasm of my life.
After a moment, Anton Waters popped up on the other side of the booth, looking cool and unflappable, as though he had just gone to retrieve an errant fork. The only thing that gave him away was the slickness of his lips, wet with my juices, and his green eyes, watching me like a tiger. I met his gaze, still panting, then pulled my skirt down. My thighs rubbed against my pussy, sending aftershocks through my body.
For a long moment, we stared at each other. He glanced down at the contract by his elbow and rescued it just in time from the spreading red wine.
Wordlessly, he pushed it toward me, then held the pen out to me.
“This is your call,” he said. He studied me with eyes hooded by desire.
I hesitated one final time. Then I grabbed the pen and signed my life away.
Chapter Three:
Bartered Bride
“I'm an idiot,” I moaned. “A complete and utter idiot.”
My best friend Sadie cocked an eyebrow and sucked on her cigarette. “I don't think that's ever been in doubt,” she told me. “You're not exactly the sharpest marble in the bag, Lis.”
“You're so mean,” I told her. Then her words sank in. “Wait, marbles aren't sharp.”
She smirked at me and blew a smoke ring.
“That's even meaner,” I complained. “My life is ending and you don't even care.”
Sadie rolled her eyes. “Your life isn't ending. You're just marrying some guy for his money.”
I threw a pillow at her, which she dodged. “I am not.” I was marrying him to save my mom. And also because he seemed to have found my Orgasm Button. I'd told Sadie the first part, but not the second. It was too humiliating.
Tapping ash into the tray on my table, Sadie shrugged. “There's nothing wrong with marrying a guy for his money,” she said. “I'd do it.”
“You'd do a lot of things.”
“Shit yeah, I would. Besides, your little noble I'm so poor! act isn't getting you anywhere in your career, is it?” She gestured at the corner of my apartment where my latest creation languished, half-finished until I could procure the funds necessary to buy more clay. I'd had several shows, all at small galleries, and done well, but the bigger stuff required more money than I had, and more hustle than I was ever going to have after working ten hour days at the bar. I hated to think it, but Sadie might be right: marrying Waters would be good for my career.
And my sex life.
If only it didn't seem so tawdry.