I raised an eyebrow. I hadn’t expected that.

She didn’t stop. “It’s also bullshit that you’re only apologizing now that you think I’m doing it for a noble cause or something,” she said. “Life is unfair, you know. We aren’t all born with equal opportunities, and for some of us, this is the best work we can get.”

I looked at her in silence for a few moments, considering her words. “You’re right,” I said.

She opened her mouth, shut it again, and then said, “I am?”

I nodded. “I hadn’t thought about it like that. But you’re right.”

“Oh,” she said. I could practically see her deflate, her anger thwarted in the face of my concession. “Well. Yeah. So don’t call me a whore.”

“I won’t,” I said. Fuck, I hated apologizing. I wanted to hold her in my arms, to feel her soft and warm against me. “Sasha. Come here.”

She didn’t move for a moment, and I thought she would refuse, and that we would spend the meal in tense silence, her angry and me full of regret. But then she took a step toward me, and another, and I opened my arms and she fell into them, burying her face against my chest.

I stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her hair. She was bad-tempered, argumentative, and inappropriate, but I didn’t want her to be upset. If only because I hoped to keep sleeping with her.

She turned up her face to look at me, and I kissed her sweet mouth, a slow and careful kiss. She pressed closer to me, her pinup body an excruciating tease. I slid one hand down to settle on the sinful curve of her hip, and she made a hungry noise that set my blood on fire.

Funny how that worked. My good intentions meant nothing. One sultry look from her and I was ready to rut on the floor like a dog.

The kiss turned dirty fast. I grabbed a handful of Sasha’s thick hair and used it to tilt her head backward while I ravished her mouth, sucking on her tongue and making her moan. She untucked my shirt from my trousers and slid her hands up my bare back, fingernails raking my skin. My cock was hard and throbbing, and I didn’t want to wait. It had been more than a week since the last time I fucked her. My body was keenly aware of the passage of time. Every molecule screamed at me to bury myself in her slick heat as quickly as possible.

I tore my mouth away and sucked in a lungful of air. “Take off those shorts,” I said.

She took a step back, eyelids lowered, giving me that teasing smirk I knew so well. “Just the shorts?”

“I plan to be inside you within the next three minutes,” I said. “We don’t have any time to waste.”

She glanced at the open bedroom door, and I saw the thought flash behind her eyes: Yolanda and Will would be back any minute, and if we were going to fuck, we would have to be quick about it.

I thought she might refuse, and say it was too risky, but instead she unbuttoned her shorts and shoved them to the floor, and I saw that she wasn’t wearing any underpants. Christ.

Everything she did drove me insane. I had never understood, before, why men did idiotic things because of women—the cheating, the promises, the acrimonious divorces. But now it made sense. Sasha was sexual catnip, and I was powerless to resist her. I didn’t want to.

As I watched, she slid one hand between her thighs, her fingers dipping inside, and I realized she was checking to see if she was wet enough.

I had to close my eyes and take a deep breath, forcing myself not to lose control. Then I went for my wallet, and the condom I had tucked inside.

“Ooh, Mr. Turner,” she said, when I tossed the foil packet on the bed. “Have I been a bad girl?”

“Be quiet,” I said sharply. I wasn’t one of her idiot clients, and I hated it when she played the cooing bimbo. I took a step toward her and seized her wrist, drawing her hand from between her legs and replacing it with my own. She was swollen and slick already, and the little gasp she made when my fingers bumped over her clit made my cock throb in my trousers.

I wouldn’t wait any longer. I walked her backward, forcing her to stumble toward the bed, and when her knees hit the edge of the mattress, she went down, falling onto her back with another gasp. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and smirked at me, naked from the waist down, legs splayed to show me her pink slit, and I had never wanted a woman as much as I wanted her in that moment.

I unfastened my trousers and shoved them and my boxer-briefs down to mid-thigh. Sasha’s gaze veered downward as I took myself in hand and stroked firmly. My fingers felt good, but not as good as I knew she would feel around me.

The condom had fallen close to the edge of the bed. I seized it and tore open the foil, and rolled the latex sheath onto my dick. I hated condoms, but they were a necessary evil. Someday I would fuck Sasha bare and make a mess out of her wet little cunt.

For now, this would do.

I hooked my hands around her thighs and tugged her until her ass rested at the edge of the bed. She looked up at me, face flushed, hair sticking to her forehead, as I pressed one knee almost to her shoulder, opening her to my gaze. She was slutty and sexy and gloriously debauched, lying there blushing like a virgin, waiting for my cock.

“Hurry up,” she said, and squirmed, and I slid home in one smooth thrust.

She was so tight and hot that I had to close my eyes for a moment and take a few deep breaths to avoid embarrassing myself. Then I rolled my hips against her, a slow, aching glide.

She arched her back and groaned, long and low, and reached up to pinch her nipples through the thin fabric of her t-shirt.

Christ. What a siren. I was Odysseus, bound to the mast of my ship, yearning toward her with every fiber of my being.

It was too soon to say if I would find safe passage or be dashed to pieces against the rocky shore.

I bent forward and spoke again her ear. “Sassy, I want you to touch that sweet little pussy of yours and get yourself off. I want you to come on my dick while I fuck you. You’re going to do that for me, aren’t you, sweetheart?”

She whimpered, teeth set in her lower lip, face turned away from me, and I felt her arm move and slide between us, and the way she obeyed my orders without question was too much for me to fucking handle.

I straightened up and started working her over hard and fast, slamming my hips against hers, delighting in the way she clenched around me. Her fingers moved between her thighs in tight circles, stroking herself toward oblivion. Her eyes had fallen shut, and her mouth had fallen open. She breathed in quick, shallow pants. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.