I said, “You’re really living the rock star dream, huh?”
“What do you mean?” Seth held on to my hand. A frisson of fear passed through me—I was alone again with this unpredictable man—and I watched him guardedly. From the next room, Lana Del Rey’s new song started to play. Boy blue, she sang in her sultry voice.
“I mean nice hotels, drugs, girls.”
Seth flashed a smile, feral in the dark.
“Whatever,” he said. “Everyone gives in eventually.”
He stepped closer and I instinctively stepped back, bumping into the wall.
“Have you been okay, Hannah?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.” Another lie. “Just figuring myself out. I left Matt.” I said it offhandedly, but the words hung between us. I left Matt, and here I am.
“You all right for money?” Seth said.
I blinked, then glared at his half-lit face. The city lights played along his features, his jaw rough with stubble, his liquid dark eyes.
“I am fine for money,” I said. “I am not some victim here, Seth. You should know that. Or is that how you still see me—as a pawn in Matt’s game?”
My heart punched against my ribs.
Seth raised a brow and stepped closer still, his hips touching mine. I could lift my leg, drive my knee into his groin, and he’d be walking crooked for days. But I didn’t.
“What do you think you are, Hannah, a player in his game? The queen to his king?” He lowered his head so that his mouth hovered beside my ear. He smelled like winter, smoky and masculine. “No, I’ll tell you what you are.” His breath whispered along my neck. He pressed against my thigh and I felt the hard length of his dick. “You’re a class A drug.”
I shuddered and shook off Seth’s hand, but instead of fleeing, I grasped his hips.
“Hannah,” he growled lowly.
Lana sang move baby. The music vibrated through the wall, strumming my blood.
Everyone gives in eventually.
I bent my clean-shaven leg, silky soft, until my knee slid under Seth’s shirt and rubbed over his flank. I pressed my calf against the small of his back and tugged him closer.
“God,” he said, grinding his erection against my thigh. “You’re strong…”
Strong? I felt ephemeral, suspended outside of the scene.
P.S. I slept with Seth.
I wrote it to force Matt to get over me.
Now I was doing it to force myself to get over him.
Seth didn’t kiss me, but he took what he wanted. He squeezed my breasts through my shirt, hiked up my skirt, and kneaded my ass. Everything was different … from being with Matt. Seth was rangier. Sharper angles. Cocaine fueled.
I simply held on to him and breathed.
When he undid his jeans and freed his cock, the thick weight of it resting against my stomach, I looked down.
My lips twitched, but I managed to keep my expression neutral.
A Prince Albert piercing crowned Seth’s tip, the silver barbell shining in the dark.
My eyes lifted—and I met Seth’s sly smile.
“What?” he said.
I shook my head. “Nothing…”
Seth pulled my hand to his dick. My fingertips brushed the overheated skin and he sighed. Tentatively, I touched the piercing—cool and weighted—and watched the ripple effect of pleasure on Seth’s face. Eyelids drifting down. Lips parting.
This is power, I thought, touching a man like this.
And then I knew what I wanted to do.
I wrapped my fingers around his shaft. He hardened fully in my hold. I began to stroke him, my gaze moving between his arousal and his face, and he watched some unspecified point on the wall. God only knows what cocktail of substances Seth took that night. He looked delirious. As I jerked him up and down, faster, reaching into his jeans to rub his balls, he braced his forearms against the wall and began to thrust into my grip.
We stood so close. The serpentine movement of his body hypnotized me. If I stopped … we would fuck. I would undress him and see those curling tattoos on his sides. We would kiss and say things we didn’t mean. Counterfeit intimacy.