“You are going to crawl over here, on your hands and knees. And you are going to suck my dick, like your life depends on it. If I decide to come for you, you are going to swallow every last drop. You're not going to move. Understood?” he told her.

She didn't answer. Instead, she just started crawling.

Tatum O'Shea, always such a nice, normal girl.

~8~

Jameson spent most of the next week in Los Angeles. He needed space. He couldn't think straight, not when she was around.

Tate had followed his instructions that night, swallowed every last drop he had to give. Say what he wanted about her life, Tate had gotten some good things out of living on the fringe of society – she gave the absolute best blowjobs he had ever been privileged enough to receive.

She laid on the floor for a while afterwards, and eventually he crawled down next to her. And just chatted with her. She told him that part of the reason she had made him go out on the town, meet her friends, was because she was beginning to feel like his dirty secret, being hidden away in his house.

Stupid. It wasn't that Jameson was ashamed of her; he just didn't like to be around other people. Plain and simple. He hated to leave his house, regardless of whether or not she was there. She didn't even factor in to it. He reminded her that if she thought something was about her, it probably wasn't. She had laughed at him.

She told “scary” stories about her first year living alone in Boston. He told “scary” stories about the first hostile takeover he had overseen. She asked if he'd had any run-ins with her family, and he admitted that he'd dealt with her father several times, but they had never spoken about Tatum, or any of the O'Sheas. It hadn't occurred to him to ask about her, but judging by the way she talked, her father wouldn't have known anything about her, anyway.

Halfway through a very hair raising tale about her getting lost in the worst neighborhood in Boston, they heard the front door crash open. They stared at each other while they listened to a drunk Rusty stumble through the living room. There was some giggling, and then a man's voice. Footsteps down the hall, some light sexy banter. Jameson pressed a hand to Tate's mouth, to keep her from laughing out loud.

When the moaning started, he almost laughed himself. God, how did people have sex like that? “You're so beautiful,” “You're so amazing,” “Oh my god, you're so amazing!” “Oh my god, you're so beautiful!” Moan, moan. Pant, pant. Tate was almost convulsing under his hand, she was laughing so hard. It sounded ridiculous, and worse, it sounded fake. Jameson didn't understand bad sex – why not just stop doing it? But the bed springs kept squeaking, the headboard banging out a dull rhythm.

Jameson had laid himself on top of Tate and began mocking the noises from the next room. She snorted and choked to keep from laughing, tried to push him off of her, but when he pawed at her breast, it stopped being a game. He pushed her legs apart, dipped his fingers in to her, pushed inside of her. She kept her lips together and moaned in her throat.

He whispered that she was beautiful, that she was amazing. But it was different from their neighbors - Jameson actually meant it. He didn't know what to make of it. He had never treated her like that before, like she was delicate, or special. But he was beginning to realize that she was both of those things to him.

The next morning, he woke up before her. They had moved to the bed at some point and fallen asleep. Tate had been right next to him – the bed wasn't very big, maybe a full. He was used to a king. She had been laying on her stomach, with one arm and one leg hanging off the side. He had watched her sleep for a while, his eyes wandering down the angry scratch marks on her back, over the bruises on the side of her neck. She let him do so many things to her. Eventually, she would want something in return, and that thought scared him.

He snuck out without waking her up. Stopped in at her landlord's office, took care of her rent situation. If she couldn't act like an adult, he could be one for her, he figured. He called Sanders and then called her cell phone, left her a voicemail. He didn't want her accusing him of running away. That wasn't what he was doing.

At least, he didn't think so.

So he flew to L.A., tried to forget about her for a couple days. He was getting a little too attached to her. When he had seen her at the meeting with his lawyers, when he had known that he was going to sleep with her again, he had pretty much started thinking of her as a possession. Something he had created, thus something that belonged to him. Pretty to play with, fun to banter with, but nothing more than that. Now, though, it was beginning to seem like a whole lot more.

He didn't think that was okay. Jameson didn't want to be attached to her, or to any woman. He didn't want to need anyone, least of all Tatum O'Shea. So he set out to distract himself. Checked on some businesses he was involved with, went to some events, attended a gala. Met lots of women. It didn't work too well. He still thought about her a lot. Her body, her laugh, her little games.

He was a little surprised that she hadn't called him, and then he realized Tate had actually never once called him. Had he given the impression that she wasn't allowed to? Sometimes he wasn't entirely aware of how much of an asshole he was being, at any given point in time. After three days had passed, his curiosity got the better of him.

“Sanders,” Jameson barked across his hotel suite. A moment later, the other man's head peeked around the door.

“Yes?” he asked.