Karin and I spent dinner together, while Josh retired to his bedroom early. Time flew fast and it was time for the dear woman to go. I’d never enjoyed one’s company so much in ages.

“So Cressida, how long are you going to stay here in Camelot?”

“I would love to stay longer but it really depends on Josh.”

“I would want you to visit me in my home on the west side. You’ll love my collection of Japanese antique fans and parasols dating back to the Kamakura Dynasty.”

“Oh, I would love to see them, Karin.”

The Landis matriarch touched my cheek gently.

“Please, be patient with Joshua.”

I smiled, unsure of what to say. Karin didn’t know the real reason why I was in Camelot. Joshua’s grandmother thought I was her grandson’s new girlfriend, which was kind of flattering.

“Joshua had it bad growing up. His parents were individual wrecks and it was hell for my poor Joshua. Then his mother committed suicide.”

“Oh my God…”

“Yes. The crazy girl slashed her wrists in the bathtub and bled to death drunk. Joshua found her. He was never the same after that. I can’t blame him if he turned out this way.”

Oh my God, my poor, poor, Joshua.

“But I can see my grandson is taken with you. Never seen him look at a woman like he does at you.”

“Karin…”

“If he becomes so unbearable, give him a kind of joy he can never turn away from even if he tried his damnedest.”

“Uhm…”

“Oh, you will make beautiful babies together.”

My face felt hot. Karin was taking it too far. Me and Josh having babies? It was too farfetched, given our situation.

“I have embarrassed you. I’m sorry, child. This old woman has been alone for so long and I’m afraid Joshua would never settle down, and I’ll never be a great-grandma before I die. It’s a dream, is all.”

Just then, the butler approached us. “Madam, your car is waiting at the front.”

“Thank you, Adolf. Well?” Karin opened her arms.

I went into her embrace.

“I had a wonderful evening, Cressida. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Karin.”

For a few moments, I felt it was real. That Josh and I were for real. If only in the eyes of this woman.

“Your grandma is so badass.”

She sat on her side of the bed and began applying lotion on her legs. I sat on my side, laptop on my lap, my back against the headboard.

I was reviewing some figures on Chimera, my next target. The embattled owner of the investment firm, Charles Brock, was holding on to his crumbling company with the desperation of a king about to lose his kingdom.

But this little minx beside me was delaying Chimera’s demise as I’d been less focused at the office lately. I’d been preferring to go home early to spend my nights with Cressida.

Her presence was everywhere in this house and it was overwhelming. Now she thought my grandmother was badass.

“Really, she’s…so…” she looked for the right words. “Incandescent. So free.”

“Careful with too much exposure to my grandmother.”

“Why?”

“She’ll make you exactly just like her, and you don’t know her well enough.”

“I happen to like her very much. I can listen to her talk all day and not a dull moment. I think she can be my soulmate.”

I winced at my laptop. “Soulmate, huh?”

“Yes. We can be best friends. I think she likes me, too. She invited me to her house next week.”

Not good.

“I thought soulmates are for lovers? Not that I know anything about souls. I’m not a religious person.”

“Don’t you go to church?”

“No.”

“Ever?”

“I stopped when I found out I can bring the reverend to my office for the right price.”

She tutted. “So cynical.”

“Religion is an emotional crutch. People are afraid of the unknown. When one is afraid of the unknown, he finds something or someone that can explain his fears and pacify him. The ones that can pacify these fears satisfactorily are good businessmen. That’s religion. Big business. Tax-free, too.”

“Hmmm.”

That was some hardcore shit I said that usually shut up the women who wanted to “talk.” I hated “talks” before and after sex, except when it was dirty.

But Cressida was something else.

“What unknowns are you afraid of?”

She maneuvered the conversation so fast I was caught unaware. Evasion was the only way out, because truth be told, I didn’t know the answer. “I told you, I’m not religious.”

“Come on, everyone has fears.”

“Trying to pick my brain, little girl?”

“Well, if I can’t pick something else before bedtime, might as well your brain. Plus, you were the one who started talking existential stuff.”

I could feel my cock swell harder from her double entendre. She’d learned fast. She could match me now. The problem was, she could elicit a response from my body with just a few choice of words I often found myself at a disadvantage in these little talks. I had never cohabited with a woman before, and this was the byproduct of it.

“So…” She scooted nearer and put her palm over my bare chest. “What do you fear, oh mighty Joshua Landis the Third?” she purred.

I tried to stay put, make her work for it, but her scent was driving me nuts and my cock had missed her pussy all day.

She circled my nipple with her finger. “Death?”

“No.”

“Growing old and grey?” She circled my other nipple. My tummy clenched as my arousal intensified.

“No.”

“Losing your fortune?”

“No.”

“Losing a loved one?”

“I only have Karin and she’s in her eighties. Everybody dies.” The conversation was making me mightily uncomfortable in a lot of ways. It was…very intimate. More intimate than sex. “I don’t fear any. I’ve bought my fears with my billions.”

Liar, liar pants on fire.

Yeah, literally.

“I can believe that. You’re so strong…” Her palm glided down…passing over the hard ridges of my abs, “So hard…”, tracing the V of muscles on my lower belly, “So decisive…” and finally resting over the bulge that now tented my pajama bottom like the Himalayas. “So…invincible.”

“Keep stroking my ego and it will land you somewhere, little girl.”

“Like where?”

“On all your fours.”

She licked her lips then curled her fingers around my erection.

In one smooth move, she was between my legs, pushing my fly down to free my cock.

I’d created a deadly siren and I had the feeling I was her prey now.

Pearly fluid already oozed from the tip of my cock and for the first time, I was almost embarrassed of my eagerness to fuck her again. I was always fucking her. This level of attraction for one pussy was insane! Still, I kept my hands to myself, holding off the violence of my need.

She gripped my turgid length. “I wonder if all billionaires have cocks like this.” She guided the tip to her lips and licked my juices off. “And if they taste like this. So…addicting.”

That did it.

The thought of her holding and licking another man’s cock sent me over to a completely unfamiliar territory. But I knew what it was right away, because I’d never felt it before.

Jealousy.

Blinding, bloody-red jealousy.

I gripped her by the hips and turned her away from me.

Pulling her ass up, I propped her on all her fours. I pushed her nightgown up, exposing her ass. The finest ass in Manhattan. All mine.

No panties at bedtime, that was the rule.

Her glistening slit told me she’d worked herself up from touching me and that made me even harder.

I grabbed her long hair with my left hand and gripped my cock with the other, rubbing it against her dripping cunt. The contact made my blood sizzle and my balls draw tighter. My erections with her were always so sharp they bordered between pleasure and pain.

“Oh, God, yes. I’ve been missing this all day.”

“You nasty, little girl, you want my cock?”

“Yes, Josh, please!”

“Do you want me to stretch you and stuff you hard with this?” I rubbed her slit harder, the squishing sounds of our combined fluids driving me crazy.

“Yes, please, I want it! I want you!”

I rammed into her.

She was so ready for me I went all the way in without resistance.

I grunted in extreme pleasure and gratitude of being inside her tight, warm pussy again. It was like a treat to myself every time. A gift.

A sanctuary.

A safe place.

But that was an oxymoron, because this wasn’t a safe place. I was in the most dangerous place I’d ever been.

And then I knew. I knew what I feared the most as I thrust in and out of her, harder and harder. Faster and faster.

You. I fear you. I fear that you’re changing me. You’re putting new shit in my head. You’re making me feel strange things that have me second-guessing myself on a course of action. I should kick your ass from my bed and call in a harem of the hottest beauties on the East Coast in your place. I don’t need one virginal pussy. I want variety. Pussies I can forget when I’m done blasting my load. Not one I remember hours after and crave like a junkie.

Her cries of pleasure filled my senses, spurned me to go deeper. And deeper still.

This pussy! So fucking tight, so fucking wet, so fucking hot, so fucking delicious, so fucking right for my cock!

She came hard, screaming my name, taking me with her.

I released it all inside her.

As we tumbled onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and sweat, I wondered if I needed religion to get rid of Cressida.

Or maybe she’s become your new religion. Look at you, dumping all your baby-making cum in her every single time. You have forgotten your Trojans.

I let out a short, gurgling laugh of denial.

“What’s funny?” she asked me sleepily.

I kissed her hair.

“Nothing, princess. Go to sleep.”