Four Letter Word

She stepped forward with hunger flaring in her eyes. Her small hands slid up my arms and around my neck. Her tits pressed hard against my ribs as she pulled me into a hug, pinning me against her.

I registered her warm breath and the hint of her perfume.

I barely reciprocated the affection. Just a light hand to her hip.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Savage.” She leaned back, batting her lashes. Her long nails raked down my chest. Then she brushed her hand against my cock, which was slowly hardening. The drugs were kicking in. “You ready to get started?”

I nodded, making sure Mike saw as he spoke to the camera crew.

“What’s your name?” I asked her, bending to whisper so he couldn’t hear.

“Jayden.”

I shook my head.

“Your real name.”

She studied me curiously.

“Sara,” she murmured, as if she felt embarrassed revealing that secret about herself.

It was funny, her shyness. I was about to touch and taste every part of her. Give her pleasure until I couldn’t stand another second of it and sought release myself.

But sharing her real name? That was apparently a little too personal for her.

The lights around us dimmed. Mike gave cues to the staff about angles and shots he wanted.

I took her hand and stepped into the darkness.

Chapter Four

SYDNEY

Merlot red.

I stared at myself in the hallway bathroom mirror at Tori’s house, running my fingers through the ends of my freshly washed and dried hair.

The color wasn’t spot on to my natural shade, but it was pretty damn close to it. As close as I was probably going to get doing a boxed hair dye kit at home.

It was vibrant. Bold and edgy.

I was slightly nervous I could even pull off this hair color anymore. It had been a long time.

In an attempt to find the person I was supposed to be now, my post-Marcus self, or pre-Marcus self, considering I was looking for the woman I had left behind and lost along the way, I decided a radical change was in order. Something I could make happen immediately. And while twirling a lock of my hair around my finger as I scrolled through online job postings earlier today, it hit me.

Red.

That was definitely something radical.

It had been nine years since I’d let my natural hair color shine.

Being a typical fifteen-year-old girl and wanting to copy everything my best friend was doing, at the time, I had started highlighting my hair right along with Tori. Then I highlighted it again. And again, repeating this ritual every four weeks until there wasn’t much trace of natural shade left in my tresses, which turned out to be a good thing considering how vocal Marcus was on liking blondes when he transferred to my high school junior year and, more specifically, on liking my hair blond and no other color.

He expressed this opinion the day I showed him a picture of me as a kid, my red hair falling wild around me since I didn’t like having it brushed much back then, mainly because my mother was rough about it and didn’t bother spraying detangler on my hair before taking a comb to it.

I have thin hair, and a lot of it. Always have. It needs detangler.

Marcus took one look at that photo, shook his head, then handed it back to me, ordering, “Keep it blond, Syd. I’m not dating a ginger.”

And that was that.

Well, not anymore.

I paused my online job searching, dashed to the nearest CVS, and scanned the boxes of L’Oréal hair dye, grabbing the one closest to my natural shade and also picking up a couple cute hair accessories while I was in there, purchasing them because along with disliking red hair, Marcus also turned his nose up at hair accessories, which kept me from wearing cute little clips with dainty fabric flowers and gorgeous turquoise head wraps.

Until now.

Now I was wondering if I’d gone a little too far.

But I was wondering this while smiling at myself in the mirror, thinking my reaction was a normal one for someone who had kept their true ginger self hidden for nine years.

I’d get used to it. It would just take a day or two.

And the color was truly beautiful. I couldn’t deny that.

After cleaning up the mess in the bathroom and making sure I left it as immaculate as it was before I went all radical in there, I made myself some hot chocolate and returned to the bedroom I’d chosen out of the two available in Tori’s house.

This one had a window facing the ocean. I’d never pass up a view like that.

I grabbed my laptop off the desk and carried it to the bed, careful of the steaming beverage in my hand as I maneuvered into a cross-legged position with my back against the pillows, placing the laptop in front of me and waking the screen. I blew the steam across the top of the mug and resumed scrolling for job opportunities in the area.

There wasn’t a lot of scrolling. Pickings were slim.

I was sipping my hot chocolate and changing the header font on my résumé to something whimsical and completely unprofessional when I heard footsteps in the hallway, lifted my head, and saw Tori filling my doorway with her mouth agape.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered.

I gripped my mug tighter and sat up straight.

“What?”

Her cherry-painted lips curled up, then she jumped into the room and clapped her hands repeatedly in front of her, shrieking, “I love it! I love it! I love it!”

“You love what?”

“Your hair, dummy,” she clarified, stepping closer with her finger pointed at me. “I always loved you as a redhead. Rock on, sister! How long has it been? Freshman year?”