2. Miranda
2
MIRANDA
T empy is with Mrs. Gessler. Roy’s outstanding bill was paid with the debit card he failed to tell me about when we merged assets, and I’m so burned up with adrenaline that no matter how large I make the gap in my coat, I feel seconds from death by dehydration.
It’s winter! Did Vegas not get the memo?
When the elevator arrives on the floor of the honeymoon suite, I dip my chin in farewell to the man who entered with me in the lobby before I slowly exit.
Air whistles from his nose when he takes a final gawk of my six-inch-high stilettoes. The shoes I haven’t worn since Valentine’s Day three years ago have him convinced I am a paid escort.
No, I’m not hypothesizing.
He asked me my hourly rate before stumbling out that he’d double the fee the guest I was about to visit paid and purchase him a replacement escort so there’d be no hard feelings.
“Though I doubt I’ll ever find him someone as tempting as you,” he said while trying to woo me with both money and a confidence boost. “Perhaps I should send him a handful of the women who liaise with the guests here every evening?”
That’s when it dawned on me why this hotel is so exclusive.
Not every room is booked out at a nightly rate.
Some are reserved per hour.
The swirls the knowledge hit my stomach with should have been my cue to leave. I wouldn’t have hesitated if I hadn’t recalled the prenuptial agreement Roy had me sign an hour before we exchanged vows. He is ten years my senior, so at the time, he was also more successful than me.
Our prenup is extremely in favor of him.
There’s only one way I can tip the needle.
I need solid proof that he is having an affair. An infidelity clause was the only one I got approved.
Now I know why Roy fought so hard to have it expunged.
From the noises bellowing out of the honeymoon suite as I approach it, I’m mere seconds from securing enough proof to bury Roy and his unfair marriage contract.
With my body temp too high to function normally, I undo the final button of my trench coat and fan it open before I swipe the room keycard across the electronic lock.
It buzzes green for half a second before I push down on the latch.
I remain quiet, not wanting to startle Roy into an amicably neutral pose a divorce attorney could construe as friendly.
The honeymoon suite is massive. A living room with a grand piano hogs most of the space, only slightly overshadowed by a mini kitchen squashed against one wall.
I understand its minuscule design. Who wants to cook when on their honeymoon? I certainly wasn’t interested. Roy was just too cheap to mimic my logic.
The reminder of his stingy ways has me increasing the length of my strides. I dart through the living room, giving the opulence only a small snippet of attention before taking the spiral staircase that leads to the loft two stairs at a time.
The landing of the primary suite is gorgeous, with a working fireplace and Egyptian silks. I can’t enjoy it, though, since the moans of a man in the midst of ecstasy are weakening its luxuriousness.
I also don’t have a second to spare. Roy isn’t known for his stamina.
With my iPhone held in front of me, recording every step I take, I burst into the main room of the primary suite and then jackknife my upper body toward a monstrous four-poster bed.
“You cheating piece of shit…”
My words trail off when I find a bed in pristine, untouched condition. The rose petals the check-in clerk mentioned earlier are scattered across the unrumpled bedding, and a bottle of champagne is cooling in a bucket of ice, but not a single person can be seen.
A god, though. There’s one of them.
He isn’t on the bed. He’s sitting in a wingback chair on my left, snarling like I’m breaking into his apartment instead of the honeymoon suite my philandering husband booked for a weekend fuck-fest with his mistress.
The clerk tried to act nonchalantly while requesting ID to confirm that I was the Mrs. Martin she checked in a couple of hours ago.
The world’s best actor would have had difficulty schooling her features while matching my license with the video footage of a barely legal blonde with legs that go for miles cozied up to Roy’s side.
The clerk remade my card as requested before announcing she has security on standby if I require assistance, but the majority of the “busted on camera” stunt I hoped to pull off was left to me.
After numerous swallows, I ask, “Is this… I…”
I can’t talk. I needed a bit of wetness to subdue the dryness the stranger’s deliriously handsome face inspired, but spit is pooling in my mouth like an endless river.
My drooling can’t be helped. The stranger is stunning in a way that demands a stupor state. His hair is dark, his eyes are light, and tattoos skate the thick lines of his arms and peek out the top of his rolled-up-at-the-sleeves dress shirt.
Since his eyes are scanning my body as adeptly as mine are drinking him in, I take my time assessing all his favorable points.
His rigid jawline is covered with wiry black scruff, his buttoned-up shirt is undone to just below a pendant on a thick chain, and over two dozen tattoos are on his left arm alone.
His attire is pricy and his shoes are designer, but his neck tattoos give him a risky edge a Vegas businessman would struggle to pull off. He screams dangerous. Murderer, even, but I can’t stop staring.
I’ve never had the pleasure of standing across from such a sexy, alluring man, and I don’t want to give up a single second of ogling to consider an emotion as pitiful as fear.
This stranger deserves his own category of hot.
He is above and beyond the drool and flame emojis.
When the stranger coughs, forcing my eyes back to his panty-wetting face, I hook my thumb to the lower level of the suite. “Sorry. Ah.” Get with the program, Miranda. “Is this the honeymoon suite?”
The door buzzed green before I entered.
I’m certain it did.
Unless it was unlocked, and I was burned up with too much anger to pay attention to the color of a flickering light.
I stop hyperfixating on how easy it is to get trampled when you’re hell-bent on revenge when the stranger answers my question. “This is the honeymoon suite.”
Even his voice is sexy. It is a mix of Russian and American, and it rolls over my skin like liquid ecstasy before minimizing my thigh gap. Like it could get any smaller.
“One of four on this floor alone.”
My eyes pop as my throat works hard to swallow. “Oh. I’m so sorry. I have the wrong room.”
I choke on my spit when the stranger replies in a way I never anticipated. “No, you don’t.”
He stands, doubling the output of my heart. He’s tall, easily six foot four, and the span of his shoulders is even more imposing since they’re no longer forced into the curved design of the overpriced armchair.
I watch in suspense as he moves closer. Each timed step doubles the output of my heart. I won’t mention the surge of pulses to the lower half of my body, or you’ll force me to sign Roy’s divorce proposal without pause for thought.
I’m close to doing that without prompting. I’d give everything to pretend he didn’t exist for an hour, to forget I ever agreed to marry him.
I would even be willing to make out I was the only one who broke the infidelity clause of our prenup.
That’s how much this stranger’s presence spikes my blood pressure and has me thinking recklessly.
I’m not the only one feeding off the tension. I suck in a desperate breath when the stranger’s clipped demand breaks through the deep pounding of my pulse in my ears. “Knees. Now.”
“Huh?”
I cough and splatter before scanning the plush carpet indented by the shoes I hid from Roy so he couldn’t suggest I wear them again.
My blisters lasted longer than his combined efforts in the bedroom the entire time we’ve been together.
“Did you lose something?” I blubber when nervous, and it is showcased in the worst way. “I once lost a contact lens at a wedding ceremony. It was an intimate affair, but not even an hour of searching on my hands and knees could find it. I wouldn’t have bothered if I didn’t need it to drive home. I don’t wear contacts because I want different-colored eyes like some peeps. I need them to see.”
I take in the quickest breath. I’m not breathless because I speak in run-on sentences. It is from how close the stranger stands when he meets me at the entryway of the primary suite and how his eyes are even more fascinating up close. They’re like a frozen pond in the Alps in the middle of winter. Fascinatingly unique.
When he smirks like he knows the reason for the heat in my cheeks, he says, “I didn’t lose anything.”
“You didn’t?”
“Nope.” The p in his reply pops and sends a rush of excitement to my core.
I wait and wait and wait for him to continue.
He does, but it isn’t close to what I am anticipating.
“But you did.”
Air hisses through his teeth as rapidly as mine when he flicks back half of my coat to expose the outfit I had hoped would milk my husband of one measly orgasm.
That’s all I wanted—one climax with the hope it would help me survive another three hundred and sixty-five days of misery.
That’s done with now.
Shitty moods, spiraling depressive episodes, and underhanded fatphobia comments I can handle. But booking a hotel and checking in with your mistress at the same time a competitor’s firm serves your wife divorce papers is above my caliber of understanding.
It is our anniversary!
Who does that? Who cheats and serves papers on your wedding anniversary?
Don’t take my anger the wrong way. The odds were stacked against us from the start. We weren’t compatible.
Roy likes to go to bed early and wake up before the sparrows.
I like staying up late and sleeping in.
Roy prefers savory.
I’m obsessed with sweets.
Roy hates foreplay.
I’m beginning to forget what it means.
We’re the opposite, and this time, opposites don’t attract.
When the stranger’s delicious scent flares my nostrils, I close my eyes and wish to become a fake-it-until-I-make-it girl.
Roy’s lack of upper body strength means there’s no possibility of pretending I’m with someone who won’t grunt to his release in less than thirty seconds.
His stinky pits would give him away in an instant, not to mention how he only pumps three or four times before he stills.
This man would fuck for hours. I’m certain of it. Just the scent of his heated-up skin raises my blood pressure to a level it’s never reached when bedded by Roy.
“Open your eyes,” the stranger demands a short time later, his gruff tone sending a current down my spine.
When my eyes open and lock, I follow his murky eyes’ lazy trek of my body. He starts at my chest before lowering them to my squidgy stomach.
Not once does disgust cross his face when he takes in how generously my curves fill the sexy mesh-and-rope design of my teddy. He drinks in my chunky thighs like he knows their sturdiness is an asset, not a downside, and the heat of his gaze makes me feel beautiful for the first time in a long time.
With my thoughts reckless, I try to find an out. “I should go.”
“You should. But you won’t.” Lust hardens in his eyes as he repeats his earlier request. “Knees. Now.”
When his hand gets lost in my mess of curls and he makes a fist, reality dawns.
He believes the same as my elevator co-rider.
He thinks I’m a paid escort.
“I’m not?—”
He cuts me off by tugging on my locks firm enough to force me to my knees. “Don’t speak.”
His hold is aggressive, and it should sound sirens, but all it does is entice excitement. He likes what he sees, and it reminds me that, at one stage, I was seen as desirable.
Roy once said my sass was one of my most desired assets, so I use that against the stranger making me have wild, reckless thoughts. “I have pepper spray.”
His smile is a mix of dangerous and sexy. “Where?”
As he wets his lips, he forces my knees apart with a gentle kick. His tap exposes the reason I picked this teddy. It is crotchless, meaning it wouldn’t have taken Roy longer to undress me than it would have for him to fuck me.
“I can’t see a single weapon of destruction.” Desire runs rampant through my veins, making it hard for me to breathe when he murmurs, “I see a fuck ton of them.”
Again, his eyes trail down my breasts and across my flabby tummy before they land on the apex of my pussy. He smirks when he spots my wish to clamp my legs shut in the shake of my thighs. Then he doubles their fight.
“Did you wax today, or is it something you do on a regular basis?”
A reply leaves my mouth before I can stop it. “I used hair-removing cream.”
“What was that?”
He heard me. The throbbing of the gigantic rock behind his zipper announces this, much less the relief blistering through his unique eyes. But for some reason, he wants me to repeat myself like whiny women with low self-esteem aren’t his jam.
“I used hair-removing cream,” I repeat more firmly. “ Because he would have used a recent waxing appointment as an excuse to turn me down .”
I thought I said my last sentence in my head.
The stranger proves otherwise. “He?”
A snippet of doubt creeps under my skin.
Although I’ve yet to meet a man who isn’t an adulterer, they seem to hate it when it is the woman being promiscuous.
After a quick exhale to free nerves from my voice, I raise my eyes to the stranger and then confess, “My husband.”
“Your husband turns you down?”
He arches a brow when I nod but remains quiet. The silence should lessen the intensity of the tension brewing between us. It doesn’t. It turns scalding, and within minutes, I am burning up everywhere.
My clit is thumping, and I’m wet enough for the scent of lust to overtake the anger leaking from my pores.
It’s been years since I’ve felt this desired, but is that enough of an excuse to pardon the sanctity of my vows? My head screams no, but my body won’t hear its claims.
My body wants to betray Roy as much as my heart does, and the stranger offers the perfect method of betrayal.
“Take my dick out.”
I stammer, shocked. “Wh-what?”
He tightens his grip on my hair, exciting me further. “If you want to get back at the conniving two-faced dog you once called your husband, take my dick out.”
My hands shoot for his belt before my brain can fire a single objection. Energy crackles in the air over my submissiveness. I don’t know who is more turned on by it: the stranger or me.
My trek across Vegas was founded on revenge, so my readiness makes sense.
Hot breaths bound off the massive rod scarcely contained by the zipper of his pricy trousers, and they grow in intensity when I unbutton the top fastener and lower the zipper.
The more I fumble, the harder the stranger gets.
This is so left field for me that I feel like I’m drunk.
I honestly forgot how intoxicating lust can be.
The idea of sucking him off sends a tremor rolling down my spine, but still, nerves are present.
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Yeah, you do,” the stranger counters.
My heart catapults into my stomach when he uses his free hand to tug his pants and boxer shorts down his tattooed thighs, and his cock springs free. It is thick and veiny, leaking with pre-cum. It proves I’m not the only one turned on by my risqué tiptoe into enemy territory.
Wet heat floods my pussy when he fists the end of his shaft with his large hand. He’s big and long, and even with my head shouting for me to tell him I’m not a prostitute, I wet my lips in preparation to be stretched.
His head tilts as a smile ghosts his mouth. As he stares straight at me, he slides his hand to the crown of his fat cock before he drags it back to the base. I shudder, on the verge of climax. I’ve never seen such a raw, primal act of masculinity in my life.
I draw in ragged breaths as I watch the stranger pump his cock for several long strokes.
Watching isn’t cheating. Roy has claimed that several times over the past fourteen years.
Even if it were, the visual is too enticing not to gawk at.
My theory that I’m not cheating goes out the window when the stranger rolls his thumb over the slit at the tip of his cock so he can transfer a droplet of pre-cum to my lips.
When his thumb breaches between my lips, my insides squeeze. He tastes delicious, and it sets a fire ablaze in my core—a fire I can’t control.
Shit, I’m going to come if I don’t calm the wildfire spreading across my midsection.
The effort to hold back the sensation I’ve not experienced in an extremely long time doubles when the stranger mutters, “Not yet. You’re not allowed to come yet.” Disappointment stops blistering my skin when he adds, “You’re not allowed to come until you’re riding my face or strangling my cock. So what is it going to be, printsessa ? Do you want to take me for a ride, or are you reserving the pleasure for me?”
I look at him, lost.
Why is it my choice? My wants didn’t factor in with Roy. We did missionary once a month until eighteen months ago. Foreplay was rarely an option. When it was, it was never about me.
“Christ,” grunts out the stranger. “The innocence in your eyes doesn’t match the sexiness of your body. I’ve never been more desperate.”
Sexy? Does he think I’m sexy?
My imaginary Victoria’s Secret angel feathers fan out to their full wingspan when he says, “So make your choice, printsessa , because I sure as fuck ain’t coming until you’ve screamed my name at least twice.”
“I’d have to know your name to scream it.”
Shock barely registers from the bluntness of my reply. How could it when nothing but sheer awe flares through his eyes from my sassiness?
“Nero, baby. My name is Nero.” He slides his hand up and down his densely veined shaft a handful of times before he murmurs, “But you can call me whatever the fuck you want while riding my face. Daddy. God. A seat with no arms. The choice is yours.” His groan when his eyes lower to the crotchless region of my teddy is my undoing. I want him now more than my lungs crave air. “So how about you get your fine ass on the bed and spread your legs for me. Let me see exactly what I’m about to feast on.”
“I—”
“I ain’t asking, printsessa .” His tone is threatening but also not. It is as if he is used to getting his way, but he enjoys being challenged. “My hard-earned money paid for this room, so I want the full shebang of my spend.”
Since my last snippet of sass was well-received, I give it another try. “Isn’t it the pro’s job to make sure her john is taken care of?” He smirks again and then nods. “Then how about you shut up and let me work my magic?”