Chapter 3
DAMIEN
I ushered the boy—the kid, the prostitute—toward the sofa, willing myself to keep my eyes off the bouncy perfection of his tiny little ass. I had to, because Jesus, sex work may have been legal here in Nevada, but I wasn’t sure he was. He looked utterly delicious—
Fuck.
I hadn’t meant delicious. I’d meant young.
I scrubbed a hand over my face and made myself look away, because he looked too young. Too innocent for the slutty clothing he had on, and far too tempting, far too male, for my peace of mind.
Tempting in a way that only Marcus could have possibly suspected would appeal to me.
Fucking hell. Fucking Marcus. I’d never been with a man before, and I’d made damn sure I’d never been caught looking at one. Clearly, my brother knew me better than I’d even realized. But springing this on me? Calling another human being a party favor?
I was going to kill him.
It would have to wait until after I took care of things with the boy, though.
The beautiful boy who’d just promised to do anything I wanted.
The sweet temptation of a boy my brother had gifted me with, whose pale eyes had gone glassy and wide, positively gutting me, when they’d almost spilled over with tears in the doorway just now.
A whole lifetime of doing the right thing had gone up in smoke the minute his plush lower lip had started quivering, and when I’d seen his hands clasped together like they were the only thing keeping him from falling apart as I’d tried to explain that I wasn’t…
that I wouldn’t… that I’d never… fuck. There were too many nevers to count.
I really was going to kill Marcus.
Even though I knew damn well that I never should have invited the boy into my suite in the first place, spending a little more time with him didn’t mean I was giving in to temptation.
I was still going to do the right thing…
which, it had been drilled into me from birth, had always meant sleeping only with women.
But even if I could ever see my way around that, and damn my brother for throwing the possibility in my face like this when I’d spent forty fucking years repressing it, there was no way doing right included having sex with someone who looked borderline underage.
It definitely didn’t include having my way with anyone who’d been reduced to referring to themselves as a “party favor.” And, fucking hell, it probably shouldn’t include noticing how willing and eager the boy looked—how nervous and hopeful—when he paused in front of the sofa to glance back at me, either.
“Do you… do you want me? Um, here on the couch, I mean?”
My cock flexed, heat rushing down where it had no business being right now.
Yes, I fucking wanted him on the couch. Bent over it. Sprawled across it. Writhing against it. I wanted—
I clenched my jaw, doing my best to ignore my body’s reaction while I reined in thoughts that I’d kept suppressed for my whole damn life up until now. Thoughts which I would have gone right on keeping suppressed, with no fucking problems whatsoever, if Marcus hadn’t goddamn blindsided me like this.
Between my post-divorce exhaustion and the emotional whiplash from finally being free of my ex, my defenses were down and he’d known it. He’d taken advantage of it. He’d—
The boy’s face started to crumple again, anxiety radiating off him in a tangible aura as he hovered uncertainly in front of the sofa, and I realized I hadn’t answered him yet.
I shoved all thoughts of Marcus out of the way to be dealt with later.
Right or wrong, this beautiful, needy boy was the only thing I wanted to focus on right now.
Hell, he was the only thing I could focus on, and if I was honest, had been from the moment he’d stood trembling and shaking in the doorway of my suite and first turned those big, liquid-silver eyes up to me.
He’d been scared… and then, for an instant, he’d been something else.
He’d had a look on his face that I’d wanted to read all sorts of things into.
That he was the kind of boy who would need reassurance and direction.
The kind who’d thrive on guidance and praise.
The kind who was eager to please and vulnerable in a way that threatened to affect me on a much deeper level than just my cock’s instinctive reaction to him.
In other words, my own personal Kryptonite… and instead of doing the smart thing and sending him away, he was hovering in front of my sofa now.
“Yes,” I told him, closing the distance between us. I wrapped a hand around his slim bicep as I eased him down. “Sit right here for me. That’s right. Just like that.”
His whole body relaxed the minute I took charge, proving my suspicions right: he was definitely my Kryptonite. A boy who didn’t just respond to my direction, but who needed it. Who needed someone to care for him.
Something cracked open inside me as he sank down onto the sofa cushion without taking his eyes off me and then just…
sat there. Waiting. Leaving whatever came next up to me.
Looking for all the world like he’d be perfectly content simply making me happy, doing whatever I told him to, being mine for the night, just like he’d offered at the door.
It was as if he’d walked straight out of every fantasy I’d never admit to having, and, right or wrong, now that he was here, damn if I didn’t want to keep him.
I ran a hand over the smooth silk of his white-blond hair. “Good boy,” I murmured, enchanted despite myself. “That’s perfect.”
He was perfect.
An angelic smile broke across his face at the praise, and he ever-so-subtly leaned into my touch, practically glowing as he gazed up at me.
And that look in his eyes? It made something deep and protective, something primal, surge to life inside me; something that threatened to fundamentally rearrange my definition of what right and wrong even meant.
No one had ever looked at me the way he was right now, and all the rules I’d always lived by—the rules I’d been constrained by—suddenly felt like an ill-fitting suit, one so tight it was choking me.
I hadn’t been able to close the door with him on the other side of it, even though the moment he’d said the words “party favor” my logical brain had tried to insist that sending him away was the right thing, the only thing, to do.
But it had been impossible to turn away and leave him once I’d seen his distress.
I didn’t even know him yet, but the way he was staring up at me, as if his entire existence hinged on whatever might come out of my mouth next, felt like a key slotting into a lock.
One that opened up brand new possibilities, that made the only kind of “doing right” that felt like it made sense the kind that meant doing right by him.
I stroked the pale satin of his cheek. Cupped his smooth jaw. Felt my cock swell with an urgency I hadn’t felt in years.
No, that I hadn’t felt in... ever.
“You’re so beautiful, sweetheart,” I said, suddenly drunk on the potency of that adoring gaze and the possibilities that it opened up for my future.
His breath hitched at the accidental endearment that had slipped out, a look of wonder flitting across his face. “Sweetheart?” he repeated. Then he blushed, shaking his head and trying to look down. “I’m not beautiful.”
“You are,” I corrected him, tipping his chin up and holding it steady to keep him from denying it. To keep those beautiful eyes trained on me. To keep—
Fuck.
To keep, what? Keep making a fool of myself?
I came to my senses, and it was like being doused with ice water. I didn’t tell other men they were beautiful, and I for damn sure never called anyone “sweetheart.”
What the hell was I doing?
I swallowed hard, unintentionally making the boy flinch as I snatched my hand away, but goddammit. How had I gone from “hell no” to completely succumbing to his charms so quickly?
It was because he was too perfect. He was like a drug, a designer one, custom-made and no doubt coached by my brother to tick every last one of my boxes.
.. and it had worked. If the last few minutes were any indication, it would be all too easy for me to not just take what he was offering, but to become completely addicted to it as well.
Which, I had no doubt, was the whole point. Repeat customers were always good for business, after all.
“Did I… Did I do something wrong?” the boy asked, looking stricken as I backed away.
“No,” I bit out, scrubbing a hand over my face. That had been me. He was just doing his job. I was the one who’d forgotten myself. Who’d suddenly become intoxicated by a fantasy that didn’t actually exist.
We weren’t a lock and a key. This beautiful boy wasn’t what I’d been missing all my life.
There was no perfect fit for me, no one out there to fill the aching emptiness inside that I’d gotten so good at ignoring.
Being irresistibly appealing was simply how the boy earned a living, for fuck’s sake.
None of it was a genuine response to me…
no matter how real it had felt for a moment there.
And it had. The way he’d looked at me? Hell, it still did, even though the fact that I already felt like he was made to be mine after a mere handful of minutes in his company should be all the proof I needed that it couldn’t be.
That was the stuff of fantasy and fiction.
Real life didn’t work that way. And since I was neither a hopeless romantic nor given to flights of fancy, I could only blame my instant, deep, visceral reaction to him—my overreaction, to call a spade a spade—on exhaustion.