I picture how I must look, bent over and legs apart, my mouth covered by his hand, ready and open for anything. I yearn to see him, to look at his face, to pull on his hair, but right now, I want him moving inside me.

I moan deep in my throat, and he growls behind me, his lips brushing my shoulder as he picks up his pace again, sliding out and back in, excruciatingly slow.

His finger is back and goes in more, slipping inside me deeper and rubbing, tightening everything until I feel every ridge and vein in his cock. Sharp tingles ripple over me, and my mouth opens, gasping as he plays there, going deeper each time as he thrusts.

He lets out a curse and the hand around my mouth loosens and traces the curve of my cheek before trailing down my back and landing on my hip. I don’t know why. Maybe he’s losing control just like I am.

He takes my hips and owns me. Time seems to stand still as he grinds against me, twisting his hips and I…I…I can’t think. Is it always like this with him? I want to give him everything. I want to…

He whispers my name over and over…and I know…I know he’s right there with me. This can’t be how it always is. Can’t be.

“Mine,” he grunts and slides into me, and it’s such a stereotypical male thing to say, but with him, shit, it’s real and the alpha in him is electric, something I didn’t even know I wanted.

Z…he’s not like anyone I know, and in that closet, I see it. I see that he’s so out of my league, intense and raw and a hot flame, and I know—I just know I’m going to get burned. Like a moth to a flame, I’m going to be incinerated, I’m going to cry someday, but right now, I don’t care. I’ll take it.

The slapping of our bodies, the sound of our sex, the dark confined space, and the fact that Julia might be able to hear us—it sends me over the edge.

I burst apart inside that closet. I see stars and rainbows.

He speeds up, his thrusts alternating between hard and soft, rough and teasing, and I stand up higher and higher on my toes, and I don’t mind because he is all that matters and I want him to let go and get that high just like I did.

He lets out a deep groan and goes over the cliff with me, grunting and sweating against me. It’s dirty, so dirty and out of this world, and I tremble from knowing I could turn right back around and do the whole thing all over again.

A few seconds later, my hands are numb from pressing against the wall and I’m a mess as he turns my shoulders around, takes my chin, and stares down at me. His chest is going crazy, gasping for air, and he doesn’t say a word but leans down and kisses me softly, so softly, his tongue flicking against mine as if I’m fragile and might fall apart. I sag against him and for some reason, tears prick at my eyes. I blink them away furiously.

I see the medallion on his chest and I focus on it, wondering why I’ve never noticed him wearing it before.

“Nothing gold can stay,” he whispers as he hugs me, and for some reason, the depth of emotion in his gaze before we embrace…it scares me even more than the sex we just had.

I send up a silent prayer.

Please, don’t let whatever this thing is between us…don’t let it hurt me…or him.

24

Sugar

I wake up the next day and my first thought is I need ten cups of coffee and a whole lot of Jesus. What have I gotten myself into with Z?

I’m barely functioning in my classes after spending the early hours with him. He left my closet, got dressed, both of us silent, our thoughts to ourselves. Perhaps it was because Julia was asleep, but when I walked him to the stairwell, the tension was thick. I don’t know why except that we were tired and a lot has happened between us in a short time.

After changing into ankle boots, skinny jeans, and a cute leopard print sweater, I put my hair up in a sleek ponytail and head to BB’s to check in on Mara and see if she needs any help manning the bar tonight. I don’t do it on a full-time basis, but if it’s going to be a busy night, I’ll jump in.

It’s around four when I walk into the bar. Dimly lit with a three-sided runway for the dancers, it’s your typical strip club, but you can be sure it’s spick and span. Mara is also a stickler about only employing girls who are drug-free.

Def Leppard is blaring as I waltz past the runway. My eyes take in the girls already up there, doing their thing for the early crowd. Most of the patrons are businessmen, and there’s maybe a professor or two since BB’s is only a few blocks from HU. My gaze gets hung up on the familiar curve of the profile of the girl currently sliding down a pole.

I stop in my tracks.

What the hell?

I march over to the front runway so I can get a good look at the petite, bosomy girl who’s currently got her eyes closed as she cups her breasts, gyrating to the music. She’s wearing a silver lamé corset, fishnet hose, and platform metallic shoes—one of the stock outfits Mara keeps for the new girls who don’t have the money to get their own things yet. A guy in an expensive grey suit is watching her with a hooded expression on his face as he sips on a drink.

I move in closer to make sure I’m not crazy.

Holy cow.

“Julia?” My mouth opens. “What the hell?”

Mr. Five-Thousand-Dollar Suit sends me a questioning look, glances back at Julia, and smiles. “Julia.” He says it like he’s tasting it, and I want to smack him upside the head for the lascivious way his gaze is eating her up.

But…I know her, and she’s barely twenty-one. Most of the other girls have a few more years on them.

Her eyes flare open and red steals up her throat and to her face—which honestly surprises me. She tends to not get embarrassed.

“What are you doing here?”

I know, I have no right to worry about a girl I barely know—especially after my lecture to Z—but last night there was a vulnerable bent to her shoulders.

“Dancing.” She shakes her ass, and the suit stands up and stuffs a twenty in her bikini underwear. I glare at him.

“So this is your new job?”

“You gave me the idea.” Her lips tighten as she returns my scrutiny, her sharp eyes daring me to say anything else, an aura of vicious determination in her features.

“Well, I didn’t mean to!”

She does a shimmy thing with her shoulders, which looks hella awkward.

“You’re not doing that great,” I say, frowning. “This isn’t the place for you to earn extra money.”

She blows a kiss at someone.

I exhale. “I’m not judging, you know. I’m just worried. Some girls come here for extra money and never leave. I don’t want that for you.”

Besides, isn’t she a rich girl like everyone else at HU?

She swings around and her corset drops down, revealing a tiny silver bra, showcasing boobs bigger than I gave her credit for.

“I’m fine.”

When a woman says she’s fine, she is not fine.

“She’s beautiful,” the suit says from his seat at the bar where he’s watching her.

“Just go away, Sugar,” she murmurs before turning her butt toward my face and shaking it. “You’re interrupting my routine.”

With a final look at her, I sigh and head to Mara’s office. This isn’t the place to have a real conversation with Julia.

“Did you get back with Bennett?” is the first thing that comes out of her mouth when she sees me. Smoking a Marlboro Light, she’s sitting behind her oak desk, blonde hair rolled up in big curls that frame her face. Wearing one of her velour tracksuits, her legs are jiggling. The computer is open to her accounts, and I figure she’s been working on payroll.

Luis, her boyfriend, sits in a recliner to the side, his eyeballs plastered to the TV as he watches an episode of Shark Tank. A little pudgy with a receding hairline, he’s no Clint Eastwood in his heyday, but he’s a nice guy and not once have I ever seen him give one of the dancers a second look.

I plop down in one of the other recliners. Mara and Luis practically live here so it’s all about comfort. “Now why would you ask me that?”

She waves her hands around her face expressively. “You’ve got this glow. An aura.”

“Do I?” I blush.

She takes off her glasses, pushing them up to her hair like a headband. “Was it the fellow you made the cherry pie for?”

I smirk. “He doesn’t even like cherry pie.”

She pops an eyebrow. “Smart guy. I like him already. But did he eat it?”

“For me, he took a bite, even tried to lie and tell me he liked it.” I grin.

She points a long pink nail at me. “You had sexual relations, didn’t you?”

Color blooms on my face. “Do you have to call it that? Whatever happened to s-e-x?”

Luis gives us a look, gets up, stretches, and leaves the room. “I’m going to check on the kitchen staff, see if they’re ready for tonight.”

Mara laughs, her gaze following him as he walks out of the room. “He can’t handle it when we talk.”

“Well, you do tend to say just about anything.”

She waves that aside. “No really…tell me.”

“What?”

“Who he is.”

I laugh. “It’s no one.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “One-nighter, huh?”

“No.” I falter. “Well, not exactly.”

Z and I said we were pretend.

But the sex in my closet wasn’t. That was real. That was something.