The Deal

I slide a finger into the box of condoms and pull a foil square out. Miss Anonymous takes it from my fingers, lifting it to her lips and tearing the top off. I watch with a racing heart as she pushes my boxers down, just low enough to release my cock, then her hand is cupping my length, her fingertips brushing my tip, delighting in the drop of cum she finds there.

‘I’m so glad your reputation isn’t exaggerated,’ she teases, sliding the condom over me and easing it down my length. My breath hisses out of me as she snaps it at the base, then squeezes me in her palm, my cock jerking against her hand, my whole body standing to attention.

‘I’ve had enough. Reading about you on that idiot gossip blog, seeing you with a different woman every goddamned night. If you’d married Saffron you’d have three kids by now.’

Everyone seems to have forgotten Saffy left me—for a firefighter from Bristol, as it turns out.

‘If you’re not married by the time you’re thirty then you can forget about becoming Lord Rothsmore. You can forget about the whole damned thing.’

It has been distinctly tempting to tell him to go to hell with his bloody title and inheritance. As if I give a damn.

Except I do. I care about my mother, and I care about my father, I even care about the legacy into which I’ve been born. But more than that, I’m becoming a little bored of this lifestyle. What started off as rebellion has become an unbreakable habit and it’s all just a bit too easy.

Miss Anonymous is right. My reputation precedes me. Women fall at my feet, doors open because of my name and the title I’m due to hold.

I’m ready for a challenge. I’m ready for something different and unexpected.

I’ve decided I’ll go home soon—before I turn thirty—and show my parents that, heirs or not, I am someone they can be proud of. I am someone who can think with more than his dick.

But for now, for tonight, I’m going to enjoy being the man my reputation has made me.

‘Exactly how long has it been?’ I prompt as I find her lips, tangling my tongue with hers, pushing her head back, so she falls flat against the mattress once more.

Her eyes, expressive and somehow familiar, swirl with uncertainty and then they zip closed a little, hiding herself from me. ‘A while.’

‘A month?’

She laughs, a skittish sound. ‘Longer.’

‘Six weeks?’

She shakes her head.

‘Jesus. Two months?’

Pink spreads across her décolletage. ‘A bit more.’

I frown, hating the thought of that, and hating it for her—because she’s so sensual, so responsive, so completely driven by desire. I can’t imagine how she could go even a night without sex, let alone months.

I nudge her thighs apart with my knees, and push my tip to her entrance, running my fingers over the bright pink of her wig. ‘Let’s see what we can do about that, huh?’

She nods, no smile on her lips, but I feel her anticipation and I recognise it because it one hundred per cent matches my own. Her breath is held; the room is quiet except for the incessant ticking of the clock against the wall. Outside, Sydney sparkles, beautiful, old, subtropical.

My hands press against the bed on either side of her and I watch as I slide inside her, slowly at first, but her muscles are so freaking tight that I lose my control for a second. Instinct takes over and I thrust deep inside her, grunting as I drop my head and kiss her hard, mimicking the thrust of my body, the tease of our flesh, the taste of her.

She lifts her hips, rolling them, and I have to fight to stop myself from going faster and harder and losing this.

This is sublime.

‘Fuck me,’ she whispers, her hands in my hair, driving through it urgently, and I grind my teeth together and do what we both want, thrusting into her hard, quickly, until she’s moaning over and over and then she’s pushing at my chest, trying to roll me over.

She’s not strong enough but I flip anyway, turning onto my back and dragging her with me, so I get to look up and see her full, round breasts moving with every thrust, as she lifts up and down my length, taking me deep inside her.

She moves fast, running her hands over her own body, and I am totally transfixed by the sight of this, of her. She is stunning, fascinating, wanton, sexy. She is everything in that moment.

I dig my fingers into her hips, holding her down low on my shaft, and then I buck, taking control once more, driving into her until her cries are louder and hoarser and she’s falling apart again, and I’m so close to coming, but I don’t. I can’t. I won’t.

I hold on, I keep myself on edge, steadying myself with monumental discipline and effort, and then I push up to sitting so I can run my tongue over her delightful breasts once more, chasing circles around her nipples, teasing her flesh, sucking her deep into my mouth and teasing her until her hips are jerking frantically and I can feel how close she is.

But so am I and I don’t want it to end. Yet.

I hold her still, pressing a light kiss to her lips before rolling us once more, so I’m on top, staring down at her eyes, running my gaze over the mask and trying to imagine what she looks like beneath it.

I make do with tracing the outline of her mouth with my tongue and she whimpers beneath me. I run my tongue lower, over the divot in her chin then lower to her décolletage, and the valley between her breasts, and then I push my cock deeper inside her, thrilling in the power of this possession, in how well we fit together, in how maddeningly mind-blowing this is.

It has to be the anonymity and the sheer directness of this. While I never take a woman to bed who wants more than one night, there’s still a bit of dancing around to do. Dinner, flirtation, conversation. This, boiling down an encounter to the truth of sex, is rare.

And I like it. I could become addicted to the idea of walking into a private room and finding a gorgeous woman dressed in lingerie waiting for me to drive her wild.

Yeah, this is fucking near perfect.

She cries my name and it drags me back to the present, back to what we’re doing. The clock is ticking across the room and it matches my internal chronometer, the one that’s telling me it’s time to go home and face the music, to pick up the mantle my father wishes to pass on.

It’s time to stop enjoying nights like this, time to stop fucking around and settle down.

But for now, for this night, I have a beautiful woman in my arms, I’m buried deep inside her and I am going to enjoy the rush of power as I drown in pleasure. There is only this, right now.

I watch him from across the crowded party. The wig and mask have been disposed of. I’m myself again: Imogen Carmichael, founder of The Billionaires’ Club, founder of the Chance charity—strait-laced, professional, no-nonsense. I’m the woman everyone wants to talk to and I only have eyes for him.

He looks the same as always. Disastrously handsome, confident, cocky, hot, and, now that I’ve felt his body up close to mine, I can’t look at him without feeling a rush of desire, a slick of heat between my legs.

He’s talking to Minette Gray, the daughter of a Mexican mining magnate who’s launched a successful Hollywood career for herself. She’s stunning, with a mane of long, silky black hair and skin like crushed onyx, eyes that glisten and bright red lipstick. I look at them and for a second I’m transfixed by what a striking pair they make. In the background, beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the lights of Sydney sparkle like something out of a movie. I shift my gaze to them, refusing to acknowledge the sharp stab of jealousy that hits me out of nowhere.

Nicholas Rothsmore is a Player with a capital ‘P’. Isn’t that why I chose him to be my very casual, very temporary lover?

I needed someone who’d be good in bed, discreet and wouldn’t particularly care about my ‘no questions asked’ demand for hot, anonymous sex.

Check, check, check.

Her laugh reaches me across the room and I jerk my eyes back to them on autopilot. He’s leaning closer, whispering in her ear.

Shit.

I spin away, pushing down the unwelcome sense of possessiveness that steals through me, focussing on business. That’s what I’m good at. It’s who I am.

My eyes skate across the room. There are Hollywood A-listers, Grammy-Award-winning singers and musicians, Tony-Award-winning stage actors, royalty, sultans, billionaires, media tycoons. Anyone who’s anyone is here, and a tingle of pride shimmies through me because this is all because of me—and all for Abbey.

I think of my best friend, as I often do, of the way she died, the pain she felt, and I square my shoulders. I might have sacrificed a personal life but it’s been worth it.