Tatiana’s room resembled a suite at the Four Seasons more than the room of a college girl.

Her bed was made up with half a dozen pillows and an expensive looking down comforter. A small settee was under the large bay window, with a small coffee table in front of it. Tatiana was on that settee, her foot on the table in front of her, unbuckling the three-inch fuck-me-heels she’d been wearing all night. Her red silk robe had parted and gave me a glimpse of her creamy bare legs, almost all the way up to her inner thigh.

Fuck me.

“Didn’t you want to stick around and say goodbye to your friends?” I asked Tatiana casually, trying to ignore the fact that I was in her fucking bedroom rather than in my car driving home.

“I didn’t really care about anyone down there. I just gave the event planner the senior class roster and she invited everyone. This party wasn’t really for me; it was for my father. He likes to mark special occasions by spending a shit ton of money. I’m sure you’ve noticed. Nobody’s going to miss me.”

“What did you study in college?” I asked as I pretended to look over her bookshelf. Anything to distract me from Tatiana and my growing hard-on.

“Eh, this and that, it’s boring. What did you study in college?”

“Finance,” I said, fiddling with the binding of a book. “Specifically financial planning for business owners with diversified holdings and investments. I like the challenge of anticipating risks from a varied portfolio. Working for your dad has really kept me on my toes.”

“Well, it’s good to find your passion,” she said. “Sit down, Rolland. You’re making me nervous hovering like that. I won’t bite.”

The room was cloaked in silence. She was right; I couldn’t keep standing there. Why had I come upstairs with her? It wasn’t just to be polite, it was because she intrigued me.

Despite my better judgment, I wanted her.

I sat down with some space between us, limiting the temptation to touch her and to kiss her, but Tatiana had other things in mind. She stretched out her legs, landing her bare feet in my lap. “Did you bring me a graduation gift, Rolland?”

Her question took me by surprise, and I was embarrassed, because I hadn’t even thought to bring her a present. I ran a hand through my hair sheepishly. “I’m really sorry. I guess I’m not in the habit of attending parties. It didn’t occur to me to bring you a gift. What would you have wanted?”

“I can’t think of a single thing I need except for you to rub my feet. They’re killing me. Would you, please?”

I’d been sitting with my hands fisted at my sides, trying not to touch her at all. But this girl was so blunt in her attempt to win me over. Instead of arguing, I took her foot into my hand and started kneading her arch. I was learning it was as hard to say no to Tatiana as it was to her father. The Montallas had a gift for getting what they wanted.

I rubbed gently up to the ball of her heel, relieving the tension between her toes. Tatiana sighed. Then I made a fatal mistake: I turned my head and looked at her.

She’d thrown her head back against the arm of the settee. Her robe was gaping open at the neck, and it gave me a glimpse of her round breast, a perfect handful. Her hair fell back, and for the first time that evening she looked relaxed, at peace. Her eyes were closed and her red lips were parted just a bit, a soft moan escaping her lips. She was like a delicious feast laid out just for me.

“That feels amazing, Rolland. Don’t stop,” she said. And then she shifted. At first I wasn’t sure if it was deliberate when her foot made contact with my dick. I snapped my attention away from her and toward the door again, hoping against hope that I could keep myself under control.

Her foot stayed pressed against me, until she stirred, just slightly. It wouldn’t have been perceivable to anyone else, but she was definitely making small strokes over my pants. I tried to ignore it, tried to convince myself it was unintentional and only in my horny imagination, but my cock disagreed and my peripheral vision went hazy. As I grew harder, she became bolder, running her foot to the top of my cock and drawing a circle around the head with her toe.

I let her go on for longer than I should have. I could feel my balls tightening, anticipating release, and I found it hard to hold still, desperately wanting to thrust up, to hold her still and rub myself against her until I came. It had to stop. We couldn’t take this further because I knew if she gave me the slightest opportunity, I would be all over, bending her over the arm of the settee, kissing and licking that beautiful neck, and burying my dick inside of her in an instant.

Her father is in the house.

In a desperate move I jumped up, trying to think of how to keep my dick in my pants. There—by her bed was the leather bound tarot book I'd seen her with earlier. “Tell me about this,” I said, snatching it up.

She put her feet together on the floor and smirked at me. “You want to talk about tarot now, Rolland?”

“Yes,” I countered, way too enthusiastically.

“Okay, bring it over. I’ll give you a crash course. I’ve got my deck of cards, too. I’ll do a reading for you. What do you say?”

I'd say that sounds better than someone walking in on you giving me a foot-job, I thought. “Sounds like a plan.”

We sat on the floor in front of the coffee table. Tatiana had me shuffle the cards a few times, and cut them into three piles. She had a look of concentration on her face as she explained that I was cleansing the cards, since she hadn’t picked them up in a while. I nodded in agreement, pretending that I was interested, but I was honestly just relieved to have some distance between us.

“I’m going to do a single card reading. You might think that’s pretty simple, like I couldn’t get much insight from a single card, but each card has layers of meaning and depends on your own experiences.”

I shrugged. “I don't know how one card varies from multiple ones.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “I can see you’re not impressed, Rolland. That’s okay. My dad thinks this is a total waste of time, too. Play along with me... unless you'd rather play with me...” she trailed off and leaned over, rubbing her hand up my leg.

I gently moved her hand off my leg. “Flip the card. Let me see what the future holds.”

She sighed dramatically, then revealed a card. It was a simple illustration; on the left side was a hand emerging from a cloud. It clutched a double-edged sword carrying a golden crown surrounded by wreathes. The bottom of the card was a lifeless, mountainous landscape.

“The Ace of Swords,” she explained. “What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you see this card?”

“I see the crown and I think about your dad. My boss. And that sword, I imagine him wielding it against some of my favorite body parts if he caught me upstairs in this room with you.”

“Wow. You’re a natural,” she deadpanned, titling her head toward me and feigning a serious expression. A strand of hair fell across her face, and my hands itched to tuck it behind her ear. “How about I tell you what I see?”

She really was kind of charming. I nodded.

“The suit of swords represents the mind and intellect. The sharp blade of the sword represents the power of your intellect. The mountains below, that’s the barren emotional life of an intellectual guy like you. But the ace is interesting.” She tapped it a few times. “Aces indicate a moment of breakthrough is in your future. The Ace of Swords encourages you to find truth, clarity. The sword has the ability to cut through deception. This card represents new possibilities, a breakthrough in the way you see a particular situation, or maybe a shift in perception.”

I stared at the card as she spoke. Despite my aversion to games of this nature, I was trying to make sense of her reading, trying to find something to say that wouldn’t make her feel foolish or dismissed.

“What card would best represent you?” I asked. Maybe this would be a way to learn something about her. She’d been so guarded.

“Easy,” she said without hesitation. “The Eight of Wands. It represents action, travel and change.” She looked through the deck for the card. When she found it, she held it out for me to take. It had eight wands flying through the air, with small buds on their ends. Snaking through the background was a river.

“That sounds like the perfect card for a recent college graduate,” I said.

“You’d think,” she said quietly, “but whenever I pull this card for myself it’s upside down. And the reversal of this card is stagnation, oppression, frustration.”

She was looking straight at me when she spoke, and the expression I’d noticed earlier when she was talking to Abigail was back. She was suddenly a lost and insecure girl. The vixen in the red silk robe vanished like a ghost. So when she reached out to take the card back, I took her hand. Maybe it was the champagne, or the tarot’s suggestion about shifting perceptions, or maybe it was just her beautiful eyes, but I wanted to touch her. I wanted to know her.

“Why would you feel like that? Look around, you have everything,” I whispered.

“I don’t have anything,” she said, raising her voice, tugging her hand from mine. “None of this is mine. This all belongs to my father. I belong to my father. You hear how he talks about me. How everyone does. ‘The jewel in his crown.’ I’ve lived here my entire life. Everything I’ve done has been with his permission. And I was good girl; I listened. I lived at home through college because it made him feel better. But I worked my ass off, I graduated, I found something I love and still...here I am. Stuck. All ambition, no power.”

“What do you love, Tatiana?” I probed.

“Sub-Saharan drought,” she replied.

I hadn’t been expecting that.

“I don’t mean I love droughts, but that’s what I’m passionate about and what I studied. I was an environmental science major with a focus on water management. That snake downstairs, Abigail, remember her?” Tatiana jumped up, pacing across her bedroom floor, her red silk robe gathered in one hand so she wouldn’t trip over it. “She's on a flight tomorrow to South Africa to work on a water project for a year with my mentor, Professor Hicks. You know who should have been on that plane, Rolland?” she asked. “Me!” she practically yelled, not giving me a second to respond. “I should be in Cape Town evaluating sites for borehole wells and surveying farms for better water management. I want to make a difference in this world, work hard to improve people’s lives. Instead, I’m here in this gilded cage, the only thing I have to look forward to is a mani-pedi appointment in the morning. There’s nothing I can do. Nothing!”

She was wild. She was raw. She was no less beautiful.

It made sense now, her aggressive sexual nature, the seductive and dangerous games that she played. She was bubbling over with desires, straining against her bonds, grabbing any single way she could to have control.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do as I stood and walked toward her. My mind was a jumble of thoughts looking at her, standing in front of a bedroom window, her skirt gathered in her hand, her hair out of control and her eyes wild. I was acting on a deep instinct without any conscious thought of what I would do when I reached her.

“There’s always something to do, some plan to work out, Tatiana,” I said, touching her shoulder.

She looked up at me, her face coming back to some composure and calm, and she reached up to cradle my cheek. Smiling sadly she said, “This is who I am. Tatiana Montalla. This here, everything around me, it’s really the only way. I have to learn to live with it. There’s nothing else for me.”

Her eyes were resigned. I'd lived my own life with total freedom. Every move I'd made, each decision was carefully calculated. I bristled, imagining living under someone else’s rules, losing the freedom to make my own choices and follow my path.

I raised my hand to hers on my cheek, turning her palm toward me. Being here in her bedroom was foolish. Touching her intimately was insane. It went against every logical thought in my mind.

And I did it anyway.