Chapter 11
E verly
With an aggressive click of the mouse, I proofed the last of the minutes that the admin team had sent through at the end of the conference then emailed it out to all attendees and sat back, the bulk of today’s work done. Closing my laptop, I clocked off at a reasonable hour for the first time in forever.
If I’d stayed in Town Hall, I would’ve found endless more things to do, and I could almost have thanked Connor for pulling me out. I doubted he’d be glad for me, though.
The room had darkened around me. Outside the living room’s big arched window that matched the one in the bedroom, the already-set sun infused the clouds in a dying breath of deep oranges and reds, and I drifted over and stared out. The familiar city lights were on, from the rows of houses that lined the hill to the left to the office buildings in town ahead.
I took a breath, trying to shake the horrible feelings I’d carried all day since overhearing the men critique my body. This morning, I’d felt sexy for the first time in forever. Connor had made me feel that way, then the floaty feeling had been shredded with casual, cruel ease.
The door opened behind me, but I didn’t turn.
Instead, I tracked Connor as he moved across the room, stalking me, until the hackles on the back of my neck rose. Then he was right behind me, his breath stirring my hair where he towered over me. One of his tattooed hands braced the brick arch. The other took hold of one of my curls.
He twisted it around his finger. “Ye were upset by a comment someone made about ye.”
I spun around, blinking up at him. “How do you know that?”
The conference’s audio feed was only available to the people mic’d up. The only way Mick could have known was if one of the councillors had been overheard.
I clamped my hand to my mouth in realisation that I’d been the subject of idle chat in the room. I’d been wrong. People had been aware. Someone had spread that, all while I was ignorant of it.
Hot tears stung my eyes again. I pushed past Connor and made for his bedroom.
He caught my wrist. “Stop.”
“Leave me alone.”
“No. Tell me exactly what happened.”
I shook him off and gasped in a breath. “I’m sure Mick’s already given you all you need for a good laugh.”
Connor’s eyebrows dove together. “Mick doesn’t know shite. He saw something bother ye in your speech but couldn’t fill in the blanks. I guessed based on your venom for the headphones, and it looks like I was on the money.”
My shoulders sank. “Oh. Then Mick didn’t overhear people talking about me?”
He shook his head, and relief filtered through my upset.
Connor stepped closer and tilted my face up. “You’re going to tell me yourself.”
At my headshake, he pinched my chin to hold my attention on him.
“Don’t make me guess.”
“Don’t make me say it,” I countered. To my horror, my voice broke.
I didn’t want to be weak in front of him. I’d done enough of that, and right now, hiding felt like the better option.
Connor regarded me, then took my hand in his and towed me to the door then out of the apartment. In the lift, he pressed the button for floor three and folded his arms.
The brothel. He was taking me there, where all the beautiful women worked. I hung my head, replaying the councillors’ conversation.
The bell dinged, and Connor’s hand imprisoned mine once more. We exited into a plush hallway, low music coming from somewhere; ‘i like the way you kiss me’ by Artemas.
A woman walked our way. Completely naked. Not a stitch on her stunning form aside from a pair of six-inch heels.
She clocked us and trotted over. “Shade, sorry to interrupt you.”
He stopped. “A little busy right now.”
The woman pressed her fingers to her chest above her high, round breasts, turning to me. “I know you, honey. I never forget a pair of pretty titties, and yours are banging. I hope Shade’s taking good care of them?”
I choked. “Well…”
Connor sighed. “What can I help ye with, Dixie?”
Dixie, as I now knew her to be, beamed and rattled off something about an issue with a double-booked party room that was going to cause a problem later in the evening. I watched Connor. He listened, giving her a solution easily, but not once did he ogle her body.
Dixie thanked him then left us.
I stared at him. “You didn’t watch her go.”
“Why would I?”
Because her ass was the thing of poetry, all pert and shapely, just as her tits were bouncy and perfectly made. Dixie would’ve made the councillors drown in their own drool.
All of a sudden, I was angry. At them, at myself for caring, and, irrationally, at Connor for how he was treating me.
“Because you should,” I spluttered. “You’re using my body in the middle of the night while ignoring perfectly good ones walking around this place. Didn’t you see her? Go stare at her ass then come look at me and tell me something doesn’t add up.”
He angled his head then took a breath like he needed to control his words. “First, Dixie is a human, not a walking arse, and she works here. She’s a colleague, and I treat her with respect, as should ye.”
Oh God. He was right, I’d disrespected another woman after a dent to my pride. What the hell was wrong with me? A wave of upset crashed into me, and I swiftly turned away.
“I’m going back upstairs.”
“The fuck ye are.”
Connor rounded me like a flipping sheepdog and ducked, setting his shoulder to my belly and lifting me like he had at my father’s mansion.
I beat at him with my fists. “Let me go!”
He ignored me completely, transporting me down the hall to a door. Ducking me under the frame, he carried me into a dark room. I landed on a sofa, and he sat beside me, snatching up a tablet that waited on a stand next to the sofa.
I made to leave. His strong arm anchored me once more while he tapped out something on the screen.
Unable to escape, I paid attention to our surroundings. Aside from the black leather sofa, there was nothing in the room but one whole wall was glass. Low lights came on behind it, revealing another room a little larger than ours, the walls the dark pink of the club. A daybed waited on the floor.
A door opened at the far side, and a woman walked in.
Not a Dixie-type, but a gorgeous blonde with a figure more like mine. Huge boobs. Wide hips. A jiggly belly and a sizeable ass. But this woman was stunning. Confident.
In pink-and-black satin lingerie, she ignored us through the glass and knelt on the daybed, as if readying herself for something good.
Out of politeness, I raised a hand to say hi.
The woman ignored me.
“She can’t see or hear us,” Shade said softly.
My cheeks warmed. “Oh.”
“That’s Tabitha. She’s one of our most in-demand workers. We’re lucky to find her free as she’s booked up all evening.”
Behind the glass, Tabitha raised her arms above her head and drew one down the other, caressing her skin. I followed the path of her touch, which stretched out again then grazed around her ample breasts.
I shifted on the sofa cushion, somewhere between fascinated and uncomfortable with watching.
“She’s a dancer?”
“For private shows only. Mainly, she’s a sex worker. She has one of our most dedicated client lists. Her prices are high, and they should be. She’s at the top of her game.”
Connor tapped something else on the tablet.
Tabitha continued her graceful exploration of her body, but the door opened again and a man entered, followed by another. The first was completely naked, his dick rising as he took in the waiting woman. The second man wore a suit and tie.
He had a neck tattoo, like Connor. Further ink peeked from his sleeves.
A warning sound played out in my head. “What are they going to do?”
I’d been to the brothel on a few occasions but had never partaken in any of the services. It felt wrong.
The naked man sank to his knees in front of Tabitha. He kissed her ankle then higher, just above her knee. The other man crowded her from behind, sliding his arms around to take two big handfuls of her breasts. He yanked down her bra cups, her boobs spilling free.
Tabitha moaned through a hidden speaker.
My core pulsed.
I jumped up. “I’m not sure?—”
With minimum effort, Connor collected me to his lap. His arm banded around me, holding me to him. If I wanted to, I couldn’t get away. He was so much stronger than me. His dick was a hard, thick rod under my backside.
“Watch,” he ordered.
“Stop.”
“I will if ye tell me what upset ye today. Every word.”
I clamped my lips together.
“Then watch Tabitha get fucked like the goddess she is and learn how a woman should be treated.”
I squirmed, gripping his restraining arm with both my hands. “What if I don’t want this?”
Connor didn’t answer. Instead, he widened his legs, taking mine apart with them, my dress’s knee-high skirt stretching over my thighs. If I thought he was done, I was wrong. Abruptly, he yanked the hem up to reveal my underwear, and his hand dove inside.
He cupped me directly between the legs, his warm fingers spearing over my slick centre like he owned it. I squeaked out in shock but couldn’t move, so stunned at his act, and with something powerful keeping me from fighting him off—an urge for him to keep going. For him to play with me like the men were playing with Tabitha.
Connor rasped in my ear, “You’re fucking soaking, Everly. Is that from the sex show or from feeling me underneath ye and wishing my dick was inside ye?”
His fingers skimmed my clit, the touch light but sending pleasure spiralling through me. My pulse sped, and I dropped my head back to Connor’s shoulder, facing away from him though I craved something I knew I’d never get. A kiss. His lips on mine.
“Watch them,” he urged.
I blinked my eyes open, not realising they’d closed. My chest rose and fell, but I managed to focus again on Tabitha and her men. The naked man had reached the apex of her thighs, and he licked her with his tongue flat and his expression rapturous. The suited man gripped her throat, his trousers open and his dick in his hand. He spoke low and urgent in her ear, the words not audible, but Tabitha’s reaction making it clear. She reclined on the daybed, her legs spread wide and her body completely uncovered.
One of them must’ve stripped her when I’d been distracted.
The men fell on her like wolves. The first suckled her pussy, his mouth fused. The second fed her his dick, her head tipped back to take him into her mouth, deep into her throat. God, I’d never done that.
I couldn’t look away. It was too compelling. So sexy and far, far beyond anything I’d ever done.
As if he sensed my changing priorities, Connor released his tight hold on me and gripped my throat like the tattooed man had done.
“I’m going to strip this dress off ye. Fight me and I’ll fucking shred it so ye have to walk back upstairs naked.”
I trembled and bent forward to allow him to unzip me, then shuffled it under my ass and over my head, leaving me in just the underwear he’d chosen for me. He rumbled approval, caressing my breasts so my nipples hardened through the thin material of the bra.
Under me, Connor’s dick pulsed.
It was so hard to imagine he was into me still, but the proof was there. Not only in this moment but from what I’d woken up to this morning as well.
“Why did you come on me last night?” I gasped.
“I was horny. Ye were there. It was cheaper than porn.”
I recoiled, hating his words.
“Fuck’s sake. Bite back, Ev.”
The endearment flipped my emotions completely, and I spluttered a laugh, followed by, “Asshole.”
I didn’t believe his intention. Not entirely. Maybe I had just been a convenient body to help him over the ledge in a building where he didn’t mess with the women.
His fingers returned to my pussy, both hands now, gripping my thighs to lower me down his body a little further, then returning to feel me up. His Saltire tattoo showed through the gauzy material of my knickers as he got his fingers slick.
“Like ye weren’t checking me out yesterday when I stripped my shirt,” he taunted. “I saw your reaction. Then I walked in on ye in the shower, moaning my name while doing this.”
He thrust two fingers straight inside me.
I moaned, the intrusion sparking fires throughout my central nervous system. Connor worked my clit with his other hand, timing it with his finger thrusts. His actions made an indecent sound, and I would’ve died of embarrassment if it hadn’t felt so good.
With his face, he nudged me to pay attention again.
In the other room, Tabitha was now upright on her knees, the tattooed guy lining his dick up from behind and the other man kneeling in front of her. He was already inside her, I realised in a rush. His dick moved in and out of her pussy while he toyed with her breasts, tugging on her nipples in time.
“The second man, is he going to…?” I asked.
“Fuck her arse? No. Both are going in her pussy. She can take them. She owns these men.” He added a third finger, stretching me wide. “I wonder if your tight little pussy wants the same. If ye ever imagined two at once. A dick and a vibrator, maybe.”
I whimpered, and the hot spiralling heat of an approaching orgasm had me mindlessly rolling my hips and grinding on Connor.
“That’s it, lass. Brush that perfect arse up and down my dick while I finger-fuck ye.”
My ass wasn’t perfect. It was too big.
I cringed in on myself.
Connor made an angry sound and upped his tempo. “That’s what ye heard, then? Some fucking jackoff commented on your body and hurt ye. When I’m through, you’ll give me a name.”
My lips parted, a protest ready.
“Look at Tabitha,” he commanded again. “Would she let that man talk down to her like that, or would she know her worth?”
“Men,” I corrected him, hazily focusing on the scene ahead of us.
The second man eased inside her, too, and all three groaned, pausing for a beat that I felt through my whole body. I had no idea people did that. I was kind of in love with how Tabitha was being fucked so well by two men, both enraptured. Holding her. Working for her pleasure.
Connor gave a dark laugh. “They’re dead.”
I made some kind of ungodly groan in reply.
“So tell them what their words mean,” he ordered.
“I…don’t know.”
“Their words mean nothing.”
“Nothing,” I agreed.
“Except the guarantee of their pain at my hands.”
My orgasm smacked into me with the force of a bomb. I cried out and bucked then sagged onto Connor, my breathing stuttering, and his hand lodged inside me getting squeezed by each pulse of my internal walls.
Tabitha came with a loud moan, too, both men groaning with her.
Happiness and satisfaction rolled through me, and I rode the wave, blissed out completely.
A sound of pure desire came from Connor, and he rested his forehead against my hair, his body shuddering and his breathing just as hard as mine. “Their names.”
“Councillors Blake and Slaughter,” I breathed.
“Their crime.”
“They discussed my body while I gave my speech. I could hear them over the headphones. They were…unkind.”
He nodded once, as if committing it all to memory, then he stood, setting me down on the sofa and collecting my dress from the floor. I took it, tugging it on fast.
The three people cleared the other room. I peeked up at Connor.
“Can I…?” I gestured down his body.
My mouth watered. I wanted to tongue his piercing—a shocking thought, but I was primed and wanted him to feel the same. But in the low light from the pink room, a wet patch gleamed on his jeans, too high to have been from me. He’d come from getting me off? Oh God.
He raised a shoulder. “Too late. Besides, why change your practice of only taking from me? We wouldn’t want to fuck up that dynamic.”
It was a shutter rattling down on my happy feelings, though maybe that was a good thing. Him being sweet gave me ideas I knew could never turn real.