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* * *
For such a smart girl, I’m an idiot. My fantasies scamper away, and I remind myself of my reality—one where I should count my blessings if I manage to survive the night. I keep my smile, and hope the disappointment doesn’t shine through my eyes. I slide closer along the seat, and he nods toward the floor. “On your knees.”
* * *
I almost say please, almost demand that he treat me with an ounce of respect. But I don’t, and my first limo ride ends in the way that most stripper rides do. My head between his thighs, automotive carpet rough against my knees, his hand on my hair, pushing my head onto his cock. The car drives, I suck, and any excitement I have for the evening ends in his finish.
* * *
After his orgasm, there is only silence, an uncomfortable ten minutes where I look out the window and consider pulling out my phone. Would it be rude to fit in a level or two of Candy Crush?
* * *
He doesn’t seem concerned about manners or small talk. As soon as he finished, he had zipped his pants, helped me back to my seat, and then gotten on his cell, his fingers busy across the screen, emails sent and replied in rapid succession. I curl my knees to my chest and lean against the cushion, watching the lights of Destin, then Santa Rosa Beach, then gulf-front homes, go by.
* * *
“Here.” He holds out his jacket, covering my goose-bumped legs. “You look cold.”
* * *
“Thank you.” I tuck my hands in between my thighs and wonder where we are going. Maybe Panama City Beach, though they have their own strip clubs there. Chances are, if he came to Sammy’s, we are probably almost there.
* * *
The limo slows in a bit of late-night traffic, and I watch the stark-white homes of Alys Beach, a neighborhood of the uber rich who all prefer cookie-cutter homes devoid of any color. I wonder what they do when they get drunk at their wine dinners and stumble home. Do they get lost in their mirrored maze of identical homes? During the spring, is their all-white landscape tinted yellow from the pollen?
* * *
Watercolor, then Seaside passes, the tiny communities filled with preppy teenagers on bikes, their Vineyard Vines polos bobbing through the crowded streets. I watch two girls perched on the hood of a Range Rover, cell phones in hand, the screen’s glow lighting up sun-burnt young skin. I want to roll down the window and scream at them to all go home, to study, to appreciate the fact that life blessed them with fucking perfection. They’ll never be in a polyester minidress and leopard-print hooker shoes, trading dignity for greasy bills.
* * *
I close my eyes and relax against the headrest.
NATHAN
These kids are assholes. Not that he can talk. Twenty years ago, he was stealing sips of bourbon in the fucking box at the Derby. Spending spring breaks in Kiawah, and fingering Stacy Hanover against the side of her dad's Ferrari on Christmas Eve.
* * *
His parents’ death almost saved him, in the twisted cruel way that God worked. Their car accident cut off the cash flow, and made him realize exactly how quickly a trust fund could be depleted. He’d been practically broke when his sister had bailed him out, loaning him ten million dollars and believing in his vision of redeveloping a struggling neighborhood in Nashville. That loan, and her faith, had been the building blocks of Dumont Development, and the man he had become. Her investment, and her expectations, were the only things that had saved him from the future that waits for every one of these rich teenage pricks.
* * *
He looks away from a cluster of giggling teenagers and over to the tiny curl of a body, pressed against the limo's opposite door. She couldn't be farther from him, her position one that lights every protective fuse in his body. He turns away, his hands instinctively tightening into fists. He's not here to protect her. He's here to use her. And the sooner she understands that, the better.
CHAPTER 6
We end up in Rosemary Beach, at a fancy hotel where a valet opens my door and helps me out while staring at my legs. I clutch my purse to my chest as we ride up the elevator, this time with only one bodyguard beside us.
* * *
I lean toward Nathan and lower my voice. “Is the bodyguard staying in the hotel also?”
* * *
He glances up from the phone in his hand. “Does it matter?”
* * *
I shift, watching the numbers climb on the elevator’s display. Does it matter? Probably not. He seems to be there to protect Nathan, not myself. If anything, should a bad situation arise, it’d be better to fight off one man than two.
