TROY

Aishe doesn’t mention the others on the way down in the elevator. Doesn’t wonder if Troll is okay or if the Moon Tower was great. She doesn’t even giggle over the waiter upstairs and how he bowed so deeply when she stood to leave, that his head brushed the hem of her skirt. No, she doesn’t open her mouth at all.

The elevator encloses us in gold-plated mirrors. With a faded antique sheen, they show me Aishe from three sides, her hip, the curve of a breast, the delicate move of her fingers as she rests them against the banister.

To me, Aishe glows, the walls a dull reflection of her dress and the shy anticipation in her gaze. Our agreement is wordless when she steps out of the elevator and lets me buoy the small of her back with my hand.

There’s a sigh in me that escapes. It’s hope. It’s relief, and as we stop so I can swipe the door open, she looks up at me over her shoulder, and for a moment, she trusts my chest to steady her.

Her smile is rare in its openness. This is not a grin with loud for-the-world-to-see joy. This smile disarms me with its brittleness. I could fracture it so easily.

The hallway is empty. No one is here to see what we do. Maybe that’s why I take her chin in my hand and bow her closer to me, until she faces the ceiling and my lips lock with hers.

She lets out a breath that quivers, and with a pang, I know what it means. Up there, above our heads at the rooftop, she made a decision. I’m not sure I can shoulder her sudden faith in me.

My door opens without a sound.

I hardly even give it a nudge.

All these nights with her next to me, body and soul a hairbreadth away. Hour after hour, I’ve wondered what she was dreaming. If I were in there, could I have changed her dreams? Inches away, I’ve burned for her. So close but never close enough.

The way we enter my room, silent like cats, is the way this night will be. Slow, quiet, careful, and I want her pleasure to flow like champagne.

Her body is a wave in my hands as I take her to the bed. Dress short and no match for me, I sway it above her hips and watch her knees bend. It’s in slow motion when her butt meets the mattress. It’s like an alternate reality, and she’s my beat as she wrinkles the comforter on the way down.

The thump of her head is silenced by the pillow. She’s slightly askew on it, not all the way there. We laugh without sound. How is she soundless when she’s music to my palms, when my blood finds her rhythm and rushes with her breaths?

My name on her lips, lips glossed with passion.

Say it again.

Say me again.

Her legs swing open, welcoming me over her. I sink against her, my hands rough against the smoothest skin on the inside of her thighs.

The fear of coercion isn’t here tonight. The silence of her music grows with the blackness of her eyes.

A small moan on her lips, and I caress the center of her panties, right where a silky cleft promises Heaven on Earth. I run my finger over the outline of its puffy center, finding her gaze in the dimness of the room.

“Is it okay that I touch you like this?”

“Please, yes...”

I press my finger against her clit, this little nub I crave for my mouth. I want to suck on her, feel her thighs tense around my head. She arches toward me, needing what I have to give. The scent of woman fills my nostrils. I inhale her honey through the lingerie. She floods my senses, and when she lets out a moan, my control frays like burlap in a tempest.

“Is it more than okay, Aishe?” I whisper. “Tell me what I need to hear.”

“It is...”

“Do you love this?” My hand becomes more insistent along her cleft.

“I. Do,” she stutters. We’re in a storm together, on a ship with burlap sails, and we’re on a collision course with the weather gods. She needs to be with me, clear and steady so I can get on course—on a course going exactly where she wants us to go.

“Aishe.” I suck kisses down her throat, pressing my cock along her thigh. She undulates with me, driving me crazy with the massage she offers, a tightlipped friction designed for me to lose my. Fucking. Mind.

“Yes?” She can’t open her eyes anymore, and it’s the hottest thing you ever saw. She’s made of motion, every muscle and joint, each inch of skin for me to enjoy.

“Can I remove your panties?” I hardly recognize my voice. Deep and husky, I sound like I haven’t spoken in days.

Through heavy-lidded lust, she smiles at the sound of me. “Help yourself.”

“Dear God, don’t tempt me.”

Her smirk turns into a chuckle, but it’s weak and sexy, and I can’t hold my groan back any longer. She lifts her ass from the sheets. It takes every ounce of my self-control to be careful when I roll them down.

I stare.

I’m ravenous.

She squirms. Ah, she’s waiting for me. Arms open, she pulls me in, and I can’t get my pants off fast enough! My breath is ragged, like I’ve sprinted, like I never get laid. Or exactly, exactly like for the first time in our lives, we’re about to meet, join, soak in what it means to be consenting adults needing to please each other.

An alarm sets off in my head. It’s a minuscule beep at first. But it grows while I taste her. Grows. Because—

Is she sure?

Because what if this becomes like the video, something she thinks she wants, but then she doesn’t?

The female brain is a labyrinth of abrupt corners and dead ends, light through screened windows, traps with one-man dungeons beneath them. Is she falling in one right now and she doesn’t even know it?

My guilt.

Her trust.

AISHE

My arms are full of him, this hot, breathing man. My mouth is latched onto his shoulder. Love-biting, I suckle on tarragon flesh. I feel him between my legs, long and hard and poised for unspeakable pleasure.

Troy’s body shudders around me. Then, he stills and lifts his head over me, blotting out the room behind us. We’re in his tent of Artemisia dreadlocks. With my nostrils flaring with need for him, I sense his hesitation before he even speaks.

“Aishe. Baby mine.”

“Oh no. What?” I whisper and run my arms down his biceps, memorizing how he feels in case he’ll be lost to me.

“Is this what you want?”

“Yes! Yes, it’s what I want. Wasn’t I making that clear?”

He lets out a breath. I give a tug to his arms, feeling butterflies of uncertainty stir in my chest when he doesn’t budge.

“You tend to do that, baby mine. I never doubt what you want. But then afterward, what we’ve done wasn’t the right thing for you after all.”

I want to get angry over this. How dare he talk that way about something as complicated as the sex tape, about something as abhorrent as That Hotel Room? But then there’s the helplessness of his thick, long arms and the way he uses them to brace himself away from my skin.

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” I whisper, my breath shallow with desire.

It’s clear to me now; my body is bruxiante, and he’s the only one who can soothe my fire. I swallow and swallow, dousing my rising panic.

I can’t think like this. It’s a bad cycle.

But if this is the love fire, what can I do besides being brave?

“I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” I repeat, my voice above a whisper this time. “But I know what I want tonight. I feel safe here, in this room, with no one else around us. I know the door is locked. There are no video cameras. No friends and ex-lovers watching from a chair at the vanity.”

With a puff, I let out the mental pictures associated with my words. Troy needs this, for me to talk for once, to express it all until he understands that tonight will remain good for the both of us.

“I don’t blame you for being afraid I’ll wake up tomorrow and find the bad in something we both found good tonight.”

“Aishe.” He pushes himself up and sits back on his heels. “I’d like to sleep next to you every night. And if it kept me from seeing regret in your eyes another time, I’d never make love to you again.”

The tears sit loose at the brim of my eyes. “I don’t want you to think like that. Troy, I’m not going to try to guess what the future will bring. But believe me when I say that I know myself, and I’m sure we’ll both feel amazing if we go all the way tonight.”

His breathing isn’t ragged anymore. Not like it was when he sat up on the bed and leaned his palms against his thighs a moment ago. His chest expands, broad and solid, small dark nipples drawing my gaze to them.

Troy Armstrong exhales, and the sound is heavy with resolve. I’m not sure I can take it if he turns his back to me now.

“You want to go all the way with me?” The drumming of two fingers against his thigh is almost imperceptible. I could have laughed. Could have mentioned how it’s the lead-up drumroll to the magic trick of the vanishing woman. Only I’m not vanishing. Not for all the money in the world.

“Yes,” I whisper.

“For me, you want it? No ulterior motive?” he whispers back.

He’s shifting toward me. He’s sinking on his elbows again, and suddenly I feel him between my legs, the soft hardness of him caressing the inside of my thighs as he kisses me softly.

“I never had any ulterior motives,” I murmur.

He uh-huhs, but he doesn’t stop kissing me.

“I don’t.”

In lieu of an answer, he flips us. It happens so fast, I let out a yelp and land on his hips, my body weighing down over his crotch. He’s bulky, not meant to be sat on—but then he is meant to be sat on, feels amazing to sit on, and his stare catches fire as he starts to grind me on top of him.

I moan, my hips rotating with his hands. Below me, he thrusts his pelvis up, making it easy, so easy to please myself.

“God,” I choke out. “Finally.”

“Ah, baby.” The comfort in his voice belies the simmer in his eyes. He’s up to no good, or everything good there is. “If you want this, we’re doing it my way.”

I glide on him, applying heat and moisture that make his eyes slide shut. “What’s your way?” I whisper.

“You take control, and you keep us going until the end.”

I feel like laughing, but my laughter doesn’t exist. My stomach still shivers with it as he drags his hands over my breasts, languidly squeezing a nipple on his path down to grasp my waist.

“What do you want now, my moixcha? It’s your call.”

“Maybe I want this?” I lift my body a little, leaving space between my core and his hips. His stare doesn’t shift away from me. Marvel wars with desire in them. They’re mesmerizing when I form my hand around his member, when they wrinkle shut because I make him feel so good.

I’m impatient. I’m burning, needing my fire under control, and so I line the tip of him against my opening and apply pressure.

Troy groans, arching into the pillow. The muscles of his torso are taut with the sensation I give him.

“How do I feel?” My voice is unsteady. My eyes close as I sink down on him. With his grip safe around my butt, I lower myself slowly until he’s impaled high in my belly.

“God! You feel incredible.”

Cautiously, I spread my thighs. I want no space between us. My skin against his, with every part of us touching, I straddle him as fully as I can.

I raise myself slowly. Sink down again even slower. We moan together, his eyes trailing between my eyes and us. “This is how you’ll be doing this?” he whispers. “I didn’t know you were evil.”

“Just poisonous,” I say through a weak smile. I belly-dance on him. “Don’t ingest me, and you’ll be okay.”

Impatient, he thrusts into me, fists clenching harder at my waist. A cascade of pleasure shoots through me.

“Don’t,” I moan but pull his hands back around my waist when he’s about to obey.

“Also, I want everything. Give me everything.” I lie down on top of him. Stretching out, he’s embedded in me to the most exquisite degree. We rock together, and his arms slide around me, crossing over my spine so he can pull me tighter.

“Take everything.” His demand is hot at my ear, leaving it chilled in the night air when his lips find my throat instead.

“Do you know how amazing you are?” he stutters. “Wait. Sit still.” He jerks inside of me. Once. Twice.

Oh I’ll keep still… once I’ve wiggled into a more comfortable position. His lips look deliciously bee-stung. I want him for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I could live off this man alone.

“Fu-u-uck. Do you ever listen?” He chuckles under his breath. “I could explode right the hell now, Aishe, and I really don’t want to do that. If it’s up to me, this won’t be over in hours.”

“So many words. So much uncertainty,” I tease. I wiggle another time, and he arches into his groan for me.

“Damn, you’re hot,” I say.

“I’m hot?” His eyes squint open to look at me.

I smile. “Yeah, you are. You should see yourself.”

“Should I, now?”

I tilt my head, arching a brow.

I see it when he realizes what I’m saying. “No. You don’t want me to… Aishe, you don’t want that, do you?”

The shrug I give him isn’t as brave as I want it to be. But it’s basic human behavior to recoil from what you fear. To take the bull by the horns is the best way to keep things from traumatizing you forever.

“I do want that. I mean it.” My breath goes in shallow shifts in and out of my lungs. I’m made of heat. If I’m to be brave enough to exorcise the demons of the past, I can’t think of a better moment then when I’m fully submerged in desire.

I rock on him again, the awareness of him inside of me bigger than anything else. My lust begins to mingle with the slightest tendrils of fear. They snake inward, getting stronger. This isn’t good. Am I trying to do too much in one go?

Hot stabs of pleasure ride up my channel and into my abdomen. I don’t want this sensation to fade. Would it be smarter to just enjoy sex tonight? It is the first time since the sex tape, after all, and only my second time since The Hotel Room.

I want it. I want to exorcise The Hotel Room tonight. I could clean Emil’s triumphant smile off my retina forever.

“There’s no one in the desk chair,” I murmur. “It’s just you and me. Your room. I’m so hot I’m about to lose my mind anyway, so why not?”

Troy blows his cheeks up while he examines my face.

“You told me how you wanted this to be,” I whisper. “You wanted me in control, and I am. I decide until the very end. Take me there. Take me the way you did the night that everything went wrong.”