RHYS

I wake up with a raging hard-on and Lydia's ass pressed against my cock. Because I'm on my side with my arm wrapped around her middle. Because we're spooning. We're goddamned spooning. Fuck. I roll onto my back, disgusted with myself.

For so many reasons.

God, the look on her face when she saw the duvet last night, like I'd give a fuck about the bedding? Fucking virgins.

I've never fucked a virgin before. I've never been anyone's first and I'm wondering if this was a mistake. A giant goddamned mistake. I rub my hands over my face and stare at the ceiling. She's the only perfect thing in this apartment and she's worried about ruining my bedding? Fuck the bedding. The only thing getting ruined in this apartment is her because I'm a depraved asshole who bought a virgin.

Remembering her blood on my dick is making me uncomfortably hard. The sweet blush on her cheeks, Jesus. Is that supposed to turn me on? Because it does. Taking her innocence. Knowing this is all new to her. Her hesitant fingers, asking for direction. Asking me to teach her. God help me. Teach her. I can think of a hundred things I'd like to teach her because I'm the goddamned whore, not her.

So why did she sell herself?

I guess people will do anything for money. Maybe I can't relate because I've always had it. I was born with it, earned more of it. I've never had to make tough choices to get it. I've never been desperate. Is she desperate? I turn my head and watch her sleep. Her hair smells like my shampoo.

How many women have wanted me for the money? Enough of them that paying for sex felt like the most honest way to conduct a relationship. Which is how I got here, isn't it?

What the fuck am I supposed to do with her for thirty days?

I thought this setup was for one night and then Vince told me to have her back in thirty days like she's a rental car. Have her back where? She has a job, a real job, working for me at the Windsor. Is she planning on doing this side job again after me? Taking another… client? Is her cut of five hundred grand not enough for whatever it is she needs? Fucking money. I need to have Canon look into her and find out what kind of debt she has. It can't possibly be insurmountable. If the five hundred didn't already take care of it I'll pay off the rest. Except—that's crazy. She's not mine to take care of. She's temporary. This is temporary. Yet I'm curious.

I wonder what her cut is.

I wonder how much more she needs.

I wonder if it's too soon to fuck her again.

Probably too soon. She's likely sore. I think? Fucking virgins, hell. Why did I ask her to tell me what it felt like? I'll torture myself replaying her words in my head for the rest of my life. Like you're breaking me, but also like I might like it. I'm glad I'm doing this with you. Sorry, I'm not any good at dirty talk.

Jesus. Christ.

I need to get away from her. I toss the covers off, intent on hitting the hotel gym until I've blown off enough steam to keep myself from rutting into Lydia like an animal. I'm dressed, out the door, and on a treadmill in the gym in fewer than seven minutes, one of the benefits of living in a hotel. The gym is empty when I arrive. It'll likely stay empty since the hotel hasn't opened yet and there are fewer than twenty employees living on site—and I'm not expecting to see any of them in the hotel gym this early on a Sunday.

I pick a treadmill and run until I'm covered in sweat, increasing the incline and the speed in an attempt to clear my mind by exhausting my body. Thirty days. When's the last time I fucked the same woman for a month? It's a rhetorical thought because I know exactly when the last time was—and I know it's not been recent. I know my sex life has become a conveyer belt of variety. I know I've been able to fuck nearly any woman I've wanted—and I've wanted.

Lydia assumed she should leave last night. I've not had a single woman stay overnight since I moved to Vegas, so her assumption that I'd want her to get the hell out was correct. It also irritated the shit out of me because I didn't want her to leave—which only served to irritate me further.

I run half a mile, doing nothing but watch each tenth of a mile update on the treadmill's smart screen while running through the upcoming week in my head. Mentally checking my to-do list and searching for something I might have missed. Zoning, permits, staffing, entertainment, food, liquor. Electricity. I had to sit through a meeting about the fucking electric last week because I had to be updated on the contingency plans in the event of an outage. In the event that two separate backup systems failed, did we have a plan, and did I have a rudimentary understanding of the fucking plan should it ever need to be implemented?

I do now.

I watch another half mile go by in tenth-of-a-mile increments.

I'm the one in charge here, I remind myself. It's not as if I have to keep her for the entire thirty days. I could be done today if I wanted—I cut that thought off as soon as it begins. As if I'm not going to fuck her again? Please. I'll fuck her again today, several times likely. But I can see her as much or as little as I want over the next month, is the point. I'm the customer. I'm the one who paid. I'm the one in control here. I'll send her home today. Later today. When I want her again I'll ask her to meet me in my suite after work—and I shouldn't feel a fucking thought over that because I paid her for the use of her time and her body on my schedule.

I run another two miles until I've bought myself enough exhaustion to not think about fucking Lydia again—at least before lunch—then towel my face off as I walk back to my suite. When I walk in she's dressed and sitting on the sofa twiddling her thumbs. Legit twiddling, sitting and twisting her fingers around in her lap. No cell phone. No television. Just sitting there. Her bag is next to her on the sofa, zipped close and waiting as if she's ready to go. It's all fucking weird.

"What are you doing?" I've got a kitchen in this unit. A mostly unused kitchen, but fully equipped, the fridge loaded with mostly beverages. It's open to the living area so I walk in and grab a cold water from the fridge then lean against the countertop and watch her while I down half the bottle in one gulp.

She unclasps her hands and smooths them over her knees before speaking. "I wasn't sure if it was okay for me to leave or not."

Of course she wasn't. Because I paid her to be here. And also because I'm such a dick I didn't leave a note before going to the gym.

"Have you been waiting long?"

"Um, a little bit." She bounces her knee before speaking again. Is she nervous? Do I make her nervous or is it just the situation? "My phone died and I don't have the charger. And I couldn't figure out how to work your TV. It was stuck on some basketball game and I couldn't figure out how to change it so I was just waiting," she finishes with another bounce of her knees and another smoothing of her palms against the denim.

"What do you normally do on Sundays?" I ask, suddenly curious. Curious about what she'd be doing right now if I wasn't a dick and she wasn't sitting in my apartment bored out of her mind waiting on me.

"Oh." She blinks, seeming surprised by the question. "Normal stuff. Laundry or lying by the pool. I'd get an iced coffee from Del Taco or go to the Goodwill."

"What's the Goodwill?"

"A store."

"Okay. I'll take a shower and then we'll go," I say nonchalantly while tossing the empty bottle into the kitchen recycling bin. Maybe if I can learn more about her, learn what she spends money on, I can figure her out. Maybe she has a Goodwill store card with a huge balance. Maybe I can figure out why I care so much, why I'm so fucking curious when it comes to her. "We need to go pick up your stuff anyway," I add, because I've just had an even better idea.

"What stuff?" Her knees stop bouncing and her fingertips freeze over her kneecaps.

"Your stuff. Clothes and shit? Whatever you're going to need."

"Need for what? Today?" Her eyebrows have drawn together in concern or confusion or both.

"For the month. You're staying here."

"What?" She looks a bit aghast at the idea of living with me for an entire month and I can't help but feel a bit offended. I could name at least twenty strippers who'd happily stay here for a month. I'm weighing that thought when she speaks again. "Like staying staying? Like living here? No one said anything about—"

"You should probably read the fine print before making a deal with the devil, Lydia," I interrupt her and I'm a bit more snappish than I'd intended. I shake my head, annoyed with myself and with her even though it's unreasonable, then close the distance between us and snap up the remote. I turn on the TV and flip it to regular cable and then hand it to Lydia, telling her I'll be back in twenty minutes. I can be ready in seven but I need the extra time to jerk off in the shower because after watching her bounce her knees and nervously pick at her jeans, I'm hard again.

When I return Lydia's curled up on the couch, her legs tucked beneath her as she watches a home decorating show. She glances at me as I approach, running her eyes up and down me in a way that's obvious yet I suspect she's completely oblivious to the fact that she's so openly ogling.

"Do you have a DVR?" she asks, turning back to the show. "I'm dying to see how this renovation turns out. Maybe you could record it for me?" She turns her eyes back to me, big green eyes wide with optimism and faith that I might happily take care of this one small thing for her. She drops her chin a fraction and blinks, a hint of doubt covering her face as if she's asked too much. A rogue strand of hair falls across one cheekbone and it makes her seem entirely too real to be anywhere near me.

I pick up the remote and set up a series recording for her as she stands and slips her bag over her shoulder. She's wearing a t-shirt that says ‘I love Jesus and tacos.’ Jesus help me with this girl, is the first thought that comes to my mind and a smile tugs at the corner of my mouth.

"That's what you brought to wear home from a night of debauchery?" I ask, nodding at her shirt with a laugh as I power off the TV and toss the remote onto the couch.

She looks at her shirt and back to me, and I've made her uncomfortable, I see that immediately. "I didn't know." She fidgets with the straps of her bag as she speaks. "I didn't know if I was staying or—I don't know. I didn't know," she says quietly.

I've made her insecure about a t-shirt. Way to go, asshole.

"It's funny," I toss out as I open the door for her and we head out to my car. We're on the Strip heading towards Tropicana Avenue before I bring it up again.

"So tacos?" I ask her.

"What?"

"You must really like tacos."

"I guess so. But who doesn't like tacos?"

Fair point.

"And Jesus. You like Jesus too," I add and immediately wonder how in the hell I ever got laid without paying for it. I sound like a fucking idiot.

"I guess so," she mumbles but her head is buried in her phone, working again now that it's attached to the charger in my car.

"How are you feeling today?" I ask so I can change the subject.

"Feeling?" she questions, turning in her seat to face me. We're at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana, waiting to make a left. "Like emotionally or physically? What do you want to know?" The turn signal clicks like a tiny time bomb in the ensuing silence while I try to gauge her mood. I side-eye her and decide it wasn't a trick question, that she's genuinely waiting for me to clarify.

"Physically," I answer. "Are you good?" Was I too aggressive with her last night? "Are you sore?"

Because if you're not you will be before the day is over.

"I'm okay," she says. But she answers with a tiny shrug of her shoulder which tells me I'm missing something.

"You're okay but what?"

"But nothing." She turns back to her phone and replies to a text.

I make the turn onto Tropicana and drum my fingers on the steering wheel, annoyed. Annoyed with her for holding back and annoyed with myself for caring. What does it matter?

"I don't think you can help," she adds. "It's embarrassing. Forget I said anything." She fidgets in the passenger seat. "I didn't actually say anything though. It's just girl stuff. Forget it."

I give a slight nod of my head and remain silent. Okay then.

"I'm kinda wet," she blurts out when I'm stopped at another stoplight on Tropicana.

Fuck me.

"Not wet like I want to have sex right now, wet like I think you're still dripping out of me from yesterday. Which is so weird and nothing anyone taught me about in high-school sex education and I was worried about—I don't know what I was worried about. But I looked it up and it turns out that it's fairly normal and can last anywhere from a minute till a day after sex and there's no real rhyme or reason to it. It was just, you know, I didn't know and so it freaked me out for a minute but I'm fine now."

Fuck me, that's hot.

"The light is green, Rhys."

I clear my throat and accelerate the car.

"You might as well get used to it because I'm going to fuck you every day."

"Really?" The question is laced with genuine surprise. "You won't be too busy?"

"I'll squeeze you in."

"Oh. Okay, cool."

I take a right in a Del Taco parking lot and merge into the drive-thru lane.

"We're getting Del Taco for real?" Lydia's eyes light up as if I've taken her to a champagne brunch.

"It's your Sunday," I tell her and I wonder how in the fuck this became her Sunday. I was a no. I was a firm no on the twenty-two-year-old from the bar. The twenty-two-year-old working for my company. The twenty-two-year-old who I knew would be trouble for me.

Firm. Fucking. No.

"What do you want?" I ask her as I inch the car forward, thinking about what a loaded question that is. How did I go from firm no to paying half a million for the pleasure of her company? How? Fuck my life. I'm so distracted with the grand opening looming I can't see straight.

"Ohhh," she says while drumming her hands against her knees as if this is a very exciting decision. "A small iced coffee and an egg and cheese breakfast burrito." She sits back in the passenger seat a moment and crosses her arms, her knees bouncing on the floorboard of my car. "Wait, no," she says, shaking her head. "I want two egg and cheese breakfast burritos. I'm starving. I think I burned a lot of calories last night."

I place her order times two, handing the food to her as it's passed to me through the drive-up window. Then I slide the car into an empty spot in the parking lot, leaving it running. Lydia hands me a burrito before unwrapping straws for both of us and inserting them into the plastic cups, settled in my cup holders.

"Can I ask you something?" she asks as she pulls a burrito from the bag for herself.

"Sure." I take a bite of the one she handed to me. It's not terrible.

"Since you asked me," she adds and I wonder what I asked her. She peels the wrapper back on her burrito before continuing, "What did it feel like? Having sex with me?" She takes a bite of her own burrito and emits a little hum of happiness as the food hits her tongue.

"It felt pretty fucking great." I watch her chew, oddly fascinated with this girl.

"Really?"

"Really."

She takes another bite, being careful not to spill, and watches me, silent. I take a sip of the iced coffee and wince, dropping it back into the cup holder in my car.

"That's not great," I tell her and watch her eyes widen in surprise then narrow in judgment, her right eyebrow raised in challenge. "Too sweet," I protest.

"You're crazy." She rolls her eyes and takes another careful bite of her burrito. I finish off my second and put the car into reverse. I'm taking a right back onto Tropicana when she speaks again.

"I gave you a lot more than that. When you asked," she points out, not incorrectly. She'd been turned towards me while we ate, but she finishes her first burrito and settles back into her seat again, facing forward while digging into the bag for her second.

I slide my sunglasses on to block the intrusions. The sun, her questions, my thoughts. It helps for one out of three.

"Was that a weird question?" she asks as we get stopped by the light on Spencer less than half a minute after pulling back onto Tropicana. "Do people not ask each other that? You asked me so I thought…" She stops speaking, a tiny sigh coming from her lips. "Never mind. I'm so bad at this."

"Humbling," I finally say when the light turns green. "It felt humbling to be inside of you. And wet. Slick and warm and tight. Soft, perfect. You felt fucking perfect, every inch of you. Your tight pussy, the pressure of your fingertips on my arms when it was too tight for you, the scrape of your nails down my sides when it felt just right. When you orgasmed it felt even tighter, and wetter, like your pussy was milking my cock, which made me feel even bigger and harder and like I might lose the circulation to my dick but it'd have been worth it."

Different. It'd felt different in a way that confused me, but made me want more at the same time. Real and raw. Primal.

"So, pretty normal?"

"Yeah, pretty normal."