Chapter 14

CHASTITY

‘Duchess, can I ask you something?’

‘Why won’t you go to sleep!’

It’s late, or early, depending on your perspective. The only light in the room is from the street lamp peeking through the plantation shutters at my window, the relative darkness barely concealing the fact that my bedroom is in disarray. London is never really dark. Not really. But the mess can wait until tomorrow because I’m comfortable. Sated. I may well have stocked up enough orgasms to get me through until the summer, courtesy of the man lying next to me. I’m on my front, naked but for the bedding tangled around my legs. I ache in all the right places, and I refuse to move. In fact, I don’t think I can. I’m exhausted and ignoring the fact that my clothes are strewn around the room—condom wrappers, too—and that a tray of food lies abandoned on the floor on the other side of the bed, and I’m not even sure I’ll get the fig juice stains out of my sheets. There a couple of sodden towels draped over my Kurt Olsen chair from our earlier shower. That would be our shower prompted by a messy food fight that devolved into a messy fuck. Flynn’s stomach had complained loudly from missing dinner, so after I reassured him that Max wouldn’t be around, he bounded naked downstairs to raid my fridge. His feet sounded on the stairs not ten minutes later before he reappeared in my bedroom—ta-da!—holding a laden tray including several slices of reheated pizza, a piece of Chevre, a small vine of red grapes, and a few figs. Plus a bottle of champagne but no glasses.

Essentially, we’d had a naked picnic in bed, while swilling champagne from the neck of a bottle like a couple of fancy louts. In a revisit to the theme of his arrival, Flynn insisted I give him a tip. Apparently, telling him not to eat yellow snow wasn’t what he was looking for, and neither was the fig I’d squashed to his lips when he said so.

Game on, apparently, and when he eventually strapped me to the bed, both of my wrists pressed in one of his hands above my head, he’d kissed me so sweetly—not just from the fig juice—and announced he’d give me the tip instead.

And he did.

Just the tip.

Only the tip.

And nothing else.

Using his free hand, he’d held his cock, sliding it through my wetness, nudging my swollen clit. Nudging it. Petting it. Let’s call it what it is—torturing me with his frenulum and head. Making me watch him get himself off using my wetness and his fingertips.

The. Hottest. Thing.

And believe me, I know.

Leaving the spilt champagne and fruit pulp in my bed, we’d showered. And even that had led to sex. The man has more energy than my fully charged vibrator! I don’t think I’ll ever have a night like this again. He owned me body and soul . . . if only for a few hours. Owned me with his honeyed whispers, his threats, and his promises. All delivered tenfold. Pleasured me with his fingers and stubble, his cock and tongue.

Beside me, Flynn tsks, an almost convincing reproving click of teeth and tongue. I lift my head and twist to peer at him, aware of what a mess I must look. A shower and no tending to my hair makes for tight spirals rather than soft curls. Think orphan Annie without the ginger.

‘What’s with the scowl?’ he asks, lips quirked in some semblance of a smile.

‘You’ve stopped tickling my back.’

Yep. Partway during the night, he’d discovered the one thing to make me completely submissive, the one thing apart from his cock, I mean, is light twirling fingers dancing along my back.

‘Because I wanted your attention.’

I try to gather the sheet from my legs to shield my modesty but give up. Too much effort. So I turn to face him. ‘There. What?’

‘Earlier, you said this thing. Actually, you kinda whimpered it. Cried. Called out.’ His eyes widen comically. ‘Come on, Chastity. You watch people fucking for work—you know I’m asking you why you say what you say when you come.’

‘I’m certain I don’t know what you mean,’ I answer evenly. ‘People cry out all kinds of strange stuff when they climax. Most of it nonsense.’

‘Your actors don’t.’

‘What?’ I pull my head back to better examine him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I might’ve subscribed,’ he answers with a nonchalant shrug of one shoulder.

‘Oh. Well. That’s . . . odd. You’re not exactly our demographic.’

‘Nah, odd would be asking if you’ve got any jobs going. What’s with the funny face?’

‘Max, my brother, asked exactly that.’ But also, the thought of me watching Flynn—directing Flynn—having sex with someone else is enough to make me feel . . . weird. There’s a tightness in my stomach that doesn’t feel very nice. But unaware of my internal reactions, Flynn carries on.

‘No way! Watching your brother fuck would make you never want to bone again—make you want to boil your eyeballs and chop off your ears.’

‘Something like that,’ I agree, curling a hand between the pillow and my head.

‘Do you know,’ he says, reaching out to slip my hair behind my ears, ‘the tips of your ears go pink when I say something filthy?’

Pulling the hair back in place, I hide the evidence. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. And what’s wrong with the actors in my films?’

‘They’re not big on talking.’

‘We’re not making talkie films.’

‘What are you making?’ he asks in a low, teasing tone.

‘Films where people fuck.’

‘I love it when you talk dirty.’

‘How’s this for dirty?’ I ask, breaking into the company mission statement in my best media-darling voice. ‘Fast Girl Media produces women and couple-centric erotica with an emphasis on seduction, romance, and sensuality.’

‘And fucking. There’s definitely an emphasis on fucking, no matter the spin.’

‘We provide a highly curated experience,’ I continue, not allowing him to put me off my stride, ‘from beautiful cinematographic sequences to sensual photographic stills. We also have a wide range of erotic literature for a different kind of stimulation.’

‘I’m all about the stimulation,’ he growls, the sudden husky timbre of his voice sending a shiver of anticipation across my skin.

‘You can’t be serious.’ I didn’t mean that to sound so excited, so breathless.

‘Does this not look serious to you?’ he responds, bringing my hand to his hardening length. ‘Come on, duchess,’ he growls, rolling me over to straddle him. ‘Come and stimulate yourself on my cock.’

One slow, rocking fuck, a joint effort to tidy up, and two separate showers later, Flynn is sitting on my bed in nothing but his jeans, staring at me while slowly shaking his head.

‘Just stop.’ Through my dressing table mirror, I try not to smile back at him as I fasten the button at the front of my dress.

‘I didn’t say a word.’

‘You didn’t need to. Look, I’m going out and you have to go, too. Besides, my poor vagina is out of business for the foreseeable.’

‘Poor? Your vagina is rich and bounteous.’

‘Er, steady on,’ I warn, turning to face him to ensure he sees the full weight of my words. ‘My vagina is anything but generous.’ The latter comes out as a mutter as I turn back, a mutter I hope he can’t hear.

‘Maybe you’ve just been seeing the wrong kinds of blokes,’ Flynn replies with a self-satisfied air. ‘Anytime she, or you, need more than a helping hand, you know where to find me, yeah?’

‘You’re ridiculous!’ I cap my mascara, throwing it back into my makeup bag and turn to face him with a flounce.

‘Maybe there won’t be a next time if you can’t learn to keep your mouth shut.’ Oh, fuck, I think I just implied I want to do this again. And I do—I’d be mad not to. But I can’t afford to make this a thing. Not now. Not with him.

As I stand, I grab his T-shirt from the floor and throw it in his general direction, I hope, because I can’t look at him now. Not without him reading all the thoughts from my face. ‘Hurry up and dress. I need to leave soon.’

‘Does this mean I don’t have to bring pizza next time?’

‘I didn’t say there was going to be a next time,’ I reply, studiously avoiding looking at him as I gather wet towels and other sexual detritus.

‘Yeah, love, you kinda did.’ He stands, dropping his T-shirt to the bed. In two languid steps, he takes the towels from me, dropping them back on the chair, and my traitorous body loves it as he takes my hips in his hands.

‘I want to do this again,’ he says, sort of shimmying my body between his fingertips. ‘Look at me, Chastity.’ So I do. It’s hard not to when he uses that tone. Smooth, confident, and uniquely him. Flynn Phillips, why are you so irresistible? ‘I’m just puttin’ it out there,’ he says. ‘No pressure. I want to see you again, and I don’t want to have to wait six months this time.’

‘Flynn . . .’ His name sounds ridiculously long as I sigh. And not for effect.

‘We don’t have to give it a name or make it a thing unless that would help.’ He ducks his head to catch my reluctant gaze. ‘Would it help? You wanna call this a friends with benefits deal?’

‘How can we be friends,’ I mumble, ‘when we don’t even like each other?’

‘Duchess, how can you say that! I like you,’ he says, his hands falling to grip mine. ‘How can you not like me?’

‘Well, you’re very annoying. And you have terrible taste in porn.’ The latter is mumbled against the coarse hairs of his chest as he pulls me in, banding my back with his strong arms.

‘Next time, we’ll compare. How about that?’

‘I didn’t say there was even going to be a next time yet.’

‘No, but you will.’ He kisses the top of my head, pulling away. ‘Gonna see if I can rinse the fig juice out of my T-shirt.’

‘Did you get the bus here?’

At the door to my bathroom, Flynn turns with a quizzical expression. ‘Are you asking if I got the bus, holding a pizza? And a motorbike helmet?’ His mouth twitches, presumably to restrain his smile.

‘Who’s going to see the stain on your T-shirt if you’re riding a bike?’

‘The way I ride? No one. But I’m also going out.’

He doesn’t elaborate, and he looks totally suspect as he turns, walking into the bathroom. I can’t help but feel annoyed. Men can be such twats. I’m sure women can, too, but given the fact that I’ve never dated a woman, the point is moot. I stomp out of my bedroom, my mood having taken a slide, but at the top of the stairs, I note my jeans slung over the bannister, and I remember I’m not dating Flynn. He doesn’t need to tell me . . . things.