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She laughed. “Stay away from porn as much as you can. You don’t want to get trapped into a conversation about ethics that you may never get out of.”
“But that’s the reason why I’m going. To talk about the porn business. I have to talk a little bit about it.”
“I’m pretty sure it will get you into trouble. Do you think I go around introducing myself as a former escort? Of course not. I’m not ashamed, and I’ll disclose it when necessary, but it isn’t information everyone in the world needs to know.” She finished another bag while preaching her rules and advice. I was still on the same bag since she’d started talking. “People are assholes. They don’t like anything they can’t understand or that challenges their way of thinking. They don’t sympathize with people’s choices.”
I wondered what it would feel like to be so confident in your words that you never second-guessed what came out.
But she’s had practice. It’s what she does for a living. You could be just like that if you applied yourself.
She also had a point. And it made me damn curious about her motivations for becoming an escort. But I knew we’d never get to a place where that kind of information would ever be exchanged.
I’d encountered my fair share of idiots who looked down their nose at me because of the industry I worked in. Not to mention, I’d witnessed many occasions as a child and teenager when Ellie had been shamed, overlooked, or passed over simply because she had sex on camera. I understood everything Grace was saying, but my gut was telling me she was wrong. My gut was telling me that I didn’t need to be anyone other than myself.
And what’s that gotten you so far? You’ve coasted on your best friend’s coattails for five years. Maybe being yourself isn’t who you should be anymore.
“Instead of talking about the how, talk about the what,” she continued. “I mean, you can’t go in there all ‘Hey dudes, I point the camera at naked people.’?”
She made it seem so trivial. I knew I wasn’t curing cancer. I wasn’t rescuing animals. I wasn’t trying to achieve world peace. But my work served a purpose, and I knew that it was done in an ethical and legitimate way.
I was the VP of a porn production company, whether she liked it or not. Whether I liked it or not. And it pained me to know that she saw through me, saw the real me that I tried to hide behind the veneer of calm carelessness. But that veneer wasn’t doing me any good in my job promotion. In fact, it had had the opposite effect. It had highlighted everything that was wrong with me and my life. Everything that I had thought was important was suddenly trivial, useless. My goals. My sex life. My job. It was all a farce. Art imitating real life and all that jazz. Because when the lights were out and I was alone, trivial and useless was exactly how I felt about myself.
And that feeling hurt worst of all.
But for a woman who until recently had worked in the sex industry herself, she had zero space for judgment.
I rounded the table, making my way to the opposite side. Before she had the chance to turn and face me, I placed my hands on either side of her body, bracketing her against the table. “Do you have a problem with what I do for a living?”
“Who said I have a problem with what you do?” The grip she’d had on the bottle of conditioner tightened as her body tensed under mine, and I stifled a groan when her ass brushed against my pelvis.
“You didn’t seem to have a problem with my work the other night when you wanted me to fuck you in my office.”
“Well…” She cleared her throat and wiggled inside my embrace, her hair whipping around behind her as she rested her bottom on the table.
Like someone had poured red dye under her skin, I saw the blush creep across her chest, up her neck, and settle in her cheeks. I gave her some space, stepping back, and immediately my eyes traveled down to admire her breasts.
“You want me.” My eyebrow lifted, daring her to respond. Daring her to tell the truth.
“Why are you doing this?” The swipe of her tongue across her bottom lip was almost enough to do me in. It definitely didn’t stop the pull in my groin, the ache to thrust inside her, and the craving to fix my hands over those perfect breasts. “You won’t have sex with me. You’re just torturing both of us.”
She was right. It was a sick form of torture. I wanted her so damn much and denying myself the pleasure of taking her was killing me. But I’d lived my entire adult life letting my dick call the shots, and it was about time he was retired from my decision-making rotation.
“Let’s be clear, it isn’t a matter of won’t, it’s a matter of can’t.” I returned to her with one long stride and stepped between her legs. She tried to get some distance, leaning back, but it only pushed out her breasts and I wanted to lower my face and get lost in them. Her breath had become noticeably heavy, and I felt it hot and steady on my neck when I leaned down, letting my lips graze her ear. “But you keep offering yourself to me, and you’re pretty much the closest thing to irresistible I’ve ever encountered.”
Her eyes darkened, that brilliant jade color devoured by the darkness of her pupil. I grabbed her hips and pulled her forward, pressing the center of her body against my noticeable erection.
“You should stop me.” My cock throbbed against the fly of my pants. It actually ached. Demanding release. Demanding to be thrust inside the perfect Y of her body.
“Please, Ben.” Her whispered plea was more than I could take, because I couldn’t help myself when it came to Grace Nolan. She looked up, dark lashes fluttering at me as our eyes locked. “I don’t want you to stop.”
At that moment my heart stilled, and so did the world around me. There were no ex-clients. There were no porn films. It was just the two of us.
I wasn’t looking for a future with Grace. I wasn’t looking for a future with anyone. But she was able to give me something that no other woman could—acceptance. With Grace I didn’t have a past, or at least it didn’t matter. She wiped my slate clean an
d I could be anyone I wanted, anyone she wanted me to be—for a few weeks, a few days, or even a few moments.
But despite the ache in my pants and the blood rushing away from brain at breakneck speed, I still had some wits about me. I still remembered that I had made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t have sex.
There was a reason why I had compartmentalized this woman into the severely fucked compartment, because every time we were together she proved that I couldn’t withstand her pull. I’d already compromised my principles by letting her go down on me in the change room, and it looked like tonight was going to include a new revision to my promise.
