Tess was lounging in bubbles, in a tub so divine that it covered her boobs and her knees at the same time.

 

Lounging was the only possible way to describe it. For once in a rare while, Toro had left her alone while he went off to conduct “important business”, which he called, “Too sensitive for her virgin ears.” He’d laughed in that typical weasel way, clearly enjoying calling her a virgin when she was anything but. The good news was that the skinny old bastard could barely get stiff anymore, but that didn’t stop him from pawing her whenever he got the chance or sending one of his goons to her to be rewarded.

 

Tess had been a sex worker since she was a teenager. When Toro had picked her up out of one of his clubs and offered her a life in the lap of luxury, she’d leaped at the chance. The clubs were okay; she’d worked in one of the nicer ones, and Toro didn’t usually string his girls out on drugs or put up with customers who forced themselves on the dancers. And most of the goons were fine. They didn’t last long, they didn’t get too rough, and they didn’t expect much of her. It was fine.

 

But it was still nice to relax, to stretch out and know that no one was going to bother her for a few hours. She had her hair piled up on her head so that her dark curls wouldn’t get wet. She closed her eyes and just let herself drift. Toro took good care of her. She had all the clothes and jewelry she could want, she ordered any food she cared to, she had a nice computer, a nice phone, plenty of books, movies on demand. It was a better life than she’d imagined for herself when she left home at fourteen. A better life than she’d ever had on the streets.

 

It was jarring when she heard the footsteps outside her bedroom door. Her chest tensed up; Toro had promised her the afternoon, but that promise wouldn’t have amounted to much of anything if he felt like giving her to someone. She listened for the footsteps. Maybe someone just needed something in the room? But no, the footsteps came closer to the bathroom door, and the door handle turned slowly before opening.

 

The man who stepped into the room was tall, attractive, and moved like he thought he was sneaking into a hive of bees. He didn’t even seem to notice her as he surveyed the room, which meant that she got to take a nice, long look at him. She didn’t recognize him from Toro’s organization, but that wasn’t surprising. His lieutenants and enforcers changed so often that she had stopped paying attention to their names more than a year ago.

 

The man had auburn hair and distinct sideburns that faded out into a beard that was mostly stubble but still looked clean and well-kept. She couldn’t see his eye color from here, but she could see that his jeans hugged his thighs in a lovely way and that the gray T-shirt he was wearing was stretched over his biceps, as if he’d deliberately bought a shirt that was too small. He wasn’t super built, but he was clearly strong, and he was light on his feet.

 

She thought about staying very quiet and hoping he just wouldn’t notice her, but if Toro found out that she’d avoided “company”, he’d beat her something terrible. She didn’t mind the beating, per se – when he used to bring out his belt and whip her ass, that had been gorgeous, she missed it sometimes – but he’d hit her in the face, and she was very mindful that his time as the kingpin of this particular city was coming to an end. She needed to still be a gorgeous Little Miss Looking-for-a-Sugar Daddy when he fell.

 

She took a moment to put on the face that always attracted plenty of attention and got her feet under herself. She liked to think of herself rising up out of the water like that woman with the hair on the shell, except she had bubbles covering her breasts and pussy.

 

“Hi there,” she said, making her voice low and dark, thinking of amber whiskey drunk in a smoky speakeasy. “Were you looking for me?”

 

The man turned toward her, and she would have assumed that he wasn’t surprised at all, except for a little tension around the eyes. Other than that, he looked completely placid as he took in her body. She put her hands on her hips and made no move to cover herself more as the bubbles dripped down. He put forward a valiant effort to keep his eyes on her face, but her breasts were gorgeous, and her hips were curvy; if he was interested in sex and interested in women, there was no way he wouldn’t notice her.

 

“I wasn’t,” he said after a minute. “But now, sweet thing, now I think I might be.”

 

“Well, come on over, then,” Tess said, making to slip back into the bath. “You can join me, and we can wash each other’s private places.”

 

It wasn’t the best line she’d ever come up with, but she hadn’t been surprised in the bathtub for a while.

 

“No,” the man said, and his voice was sharp, the kind of voice that seemed to have a direct line to her cunt. She listened without thinking, freezing exactly where she was. “No, sweet thing, I want you out here with me.”

 

“Absolutely.” She stepped out of the tub onto the pretty plush mat that Toro had let her buy.

 

The man watched her carefully, his face still chilled down, impassive. That was surprising. Most of Toro’s goons were easy to lead around by their dicks. Something twitched way down in her stomach, and not in a sexy way. She was maybe in for a lot more than she’d planned for with this guy. Maybe it would have been better if she’d stayed down in the water after all.

 

“Should I—” She reached for a towel.

 

He grabbed her hand, twisted her around in some complicated maneuver, and put her face up against the wall. She heard the sound of him unzipping behind her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, just giving herself one minute to hate this before she plastered a sexy smile on her face.

 

“Oh God, Daddy, yes, you know I like it rough.” She tried to make her voice a low purr, working hard to keep the thread of fear out of it. Fear had no place in what she was about to do. Fear would make her tense up, make her drier, make the whole thing worse. The best thing to do was to let him do what he wanted, enjoy it as best as she could, and then go back to her tub and soak it away. She’d be fine. She’d been through worse. At least he didn’t smell.

 

The man pushed her feet apart and pulled her hips back just enough to reach between her legs and finger her slit. She felt more than heard the soft groan as he pushed into her with one finger, then two. She was wet enough that the fingers didn’t hurt, and she twisted her hips, trying to find the right kind of pressure and pleasure to help her body flood, to help this be the right kind of rough.

 

He slapped her ass, hard, the water adding sting that she wasn’t used to. She gasped and rocked away from him; he gripped her hips hard and yanked her back again.

 

“You move when I say you move,” he growled out, and that did it – sent a gush of wetness between her thighs.

 

Suddenly his two fingers, which had been a little tight in her cunt were nothing like enough. He groaned as he spread his fingers inside of her, and then his cock was sliding between her lips, pressing up into her.

 

“You move, sweet thing, when I say you move,” he said again.

 

One hand gripped her tit, the other ground into her hipbone, pulling her back against him at every thrust. He was being rough enough that it was alright, that her body was responding as she had trained it to, but it wasn’t what she wanted. Somehow, for the first time in a very long time, it was nothing like what she wanted.

 

This was still better than being in the clubs and scrounging for tips, having sweaty men expecting to shove dollar bills into her G-string, like what she really wanted was a fucking pussy infection to help her career along. She had freedom here. She had the ability to learn, to do more, to change things here. Sure, it was a cage, but at least it was a golden one.

 

She let herself focus on the bodily sensations, the grip of him and the way he was enjoying himself with her body, and pushed hard to let that be enough.