“Mmmm, that’s a good girl,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me from the dance floor. I’d imagined he would head back to the studio, but he went in a different direction. Marla’s Halloween Howler was quite the show. It included a walk through the woods on Ben’s parents’ property that was similar to a haunted house. Marla had designed and set up a series of spooky scenes for guests to encounter as they strolled. Most of these little vignettes were barely lit—either by candlelight or fairy lights, and while exploring them had been a highlight early on in the evening, they were mostly deserted by this point.
Ben pulled me past the first few without stopping, but when we got to the one that featured an animatronic witch stirring her cauldron beside a huge old gnarly oak tree, he zipped us past the witch, ducked to the shadowed side of the tree, and pressed my back against the bark. We were hidden from view, but I could hear the party off in the distance and the milling movements and chatter of the stragglers who had waited for the crowds to clear before embarking on the haunted walk.
“There are people nearby,” he said as he dropped to his knees. “Can you hear them, Jess?” I nodded, my breaths already shaking as they escaped my body. He ran his hands up the inside of my thighs and pushed my legs apart, as he crooned, “They are going to walk right past us, never knowing the dirty things my tongue is doing, and when you hear them get close, you are going to come, so hard but so quiet, all over my face.”
Before he even touched me, my clit was throbbing so when he made that first pass with the flat of his tongue, licking me from bottom to top, warm and thick, my knees started to shake. He wasn’t gentle with me. He devoured my clit, sucked it deep into his mouth and swirled, sending rivulets of pleasure up my spine. I was going to come in a matter of minutes and I had no idea how I was going to do it quietly. But knowing we were out in the open had all my senses on full alert. I bit hard into my lower lip, trying to conceal my panting and moaning, and I listened to the night.
I had to pull back, let go of the sounds in my immediate sphere, the heavy pull and rush of my own breath, the slick, wet sounds of Ben’s mouth as he worked me over, the slip and slide of my shoes in the dirt. In the distance I could hear the music of the band but that was too far away. Closer, I could hear the rustle of the trees in the wind, the caw of a bird in the darkness, and the shuffle of a couple of people. They were close, spotting the witch ahead of them.
“Oh, look at this one. Marla has really outdone herself this year.” It was an older woman. I couldn’t see her but I pictured a school marm. The kind of woman who would be appalled if she knew what was happening to me. I rocked my hips, bucking them against Ben’s face. His hands squeezed deep into my ass cheeks, hard enough to be just a little bit painful.
“God, even the cauldron is bubbling, it’s so authentic,” said a new voice, another bitty.
Pleasure pooled between my legs. I was swollen and pulsing, on the brink of thunder, and then Ben bit my clit, nibbled it with his teeth, and I imploded. My hands, which were threaded in his hair, pulling at his scalp, flew up to clamp over my mouth as I came, holding my breath, concealing my delight, spilling it in instead of out, so that it required the hard clench of every muscle from head to toe.
The women moved on, one voice speaking as they trailed off. “I heard there is an actual fortune teller toward the end…”
Ben stood. I thought he was going to flatten my skirts for me, but instead he flipped me around so that my breasts pressed hard against the bark. Sliding his fingers inside my trembling pussy from behind, he played—in and out, in and out.
“Should I fuck you now, Jess? Out here in the darkness where anyone could see?” I pushed back against his fingers, hungry to feel full. I wanted him as much as he wanted me. “Or should I drag you back to our lair and make love to you until we pass out from exhaustion?”
I chose the latter and over the course of a few hours, he rendered me satiated so many times that I had no memory of falling into a deep, delicious sleep.
While the evening was like a sweet and sordid fairy tale, the morning felt like a horrifying nightmare. I woke up hot. Trapped in his arms, naked and aching. My body felt used in a way that was both scrumptious and terrifying. While I was sometimes brash and often outspoken, bar the last twenty-four hours, my sex life was mostly tame, and in the daylight the way I’d behaved with Ben felt lurid, particularly because he and I never qualified that the sex between us had nothing to do with hiring me. Did he know that I actually liked him or did he think our sex was part of the deal? It felt like he was having the same feelings I was, but maybe that was a mirage, a trick my mind was playing on me because that was how I wanted it to be.
And furthermore, now that we had slept together, I couldn’t take his money, could I? How was I going to pay my rent that was due in twenty-four hours? I slithered my way out of his grip, crossing the room to pull a T-shirt of his over my head. I thought I was being quiet, but he woke up anyway.
Pushing up on one elbow, he said, “Where are you going? Come back to bed.”
“I can’t,” I said, shaking my head anxiously. “I have to figure some things out. I…” Not certain what point I was making, I crossed the room and grabbed my jeans.
“Are you leaving?” he asked.
“No.” I shook my head again, and then confused, I changed my mind. “Maybe… yes. I don’t know, Ben. Should I be leaving?” I asked, grabbing a sweater out of my bag. “I think I need a minute.”
Ben sat up cross-legged on the bed, his breathtaking torso and abs on display, while the sheet concealed his equally delectable southern half. “What is going on in that pretty head of yours right now?”
Because we’d kissed for hours, my lips felt rough and dry, so I grabbed my purse and started frantically shifting through my stuff looking for my ChapStick as I spoke.
“You hired me,” I said, my voice thin and shaking. “You hired me to be your girlfriend for a weekend, and, man, did I do a bang-up job. I wooed your parents, I wooed you. Hell, I even wooed myself, and now I’m in this weird situation where you’re supposed to pay me two thousand dollars and I need that two thousand dollars or else I’m going to default on my rent. But I fucked you and not like kinda sorta. I fucked you every which way I can think of.”
He smirked at me. “I can think of other ways,” he teased.
I stared at him. I had to go. It was either that or be an actual prostitute. Fuck. Wrapping the strap of my purse over my shoulder, I said, “I definitely need a minute,” and then I hauled ass for the door.
Behind me, I heard, “Fuck” and then the groan of the bed as he leaped off, scrambling after me. I figured had time to get away because the man was naked, but he was also quick and before I was even up the hill, he was hollering behind me, “Wait, Jess. Wait. I’ll give you the money. That’s not a problem.”
I spun on my heels to find him bare-chested and buttoning his jeans. “Don’t you see, that’s totally the problem. If you pay me for this weekend, then I’ve finally sunk to a level I managed to avoid my whole life.”
“What?” He seemed genuinely confused.
So I spelled it out for him. “I am not a whore, Ben.”
His chin drew back in shock, and he snapped, “Of course you're not.”
“Well, that means that now that we’ve slept together, you can’t pay me for this date and I can’t pay my rent because it would be wrong.”
“Fine, I'll lend you the money,” he snapped.