I sit up on the bed, not sure what I'm supposed to do now. Should I leave? That's what he paid me for, right? So I'd get out when he was done? Am I allowed to use the bathroom first? His normal girls probably just get the hell out, right? I spot my bag sitting on a chair across the room so I get up, wincing as I do. Yeah, I'm gonna feel that tomorrow. I'm slipping a t-shirt from my bag when Rhys returns.
"What are you doing?"
"I thought this was the part where you slapped me on the ass and told me it was time to go, sweetness."
"Sit down," he says, nodding to the bed. He doesn't look amused by my assessment of how tonight ends so I drop my shirt and return to the bed. Which is when I realize I just lost my virginity on a fluffy white duvet cover and there's no coming back from that for the fluffy white duvet cover and I am mortified. Five hundred thousand dollars and I ruined his bedding. I'm a terrible, terrible hooker.
I start to pull the duvet from the bed when he stops me.
"What are you doing?" he asks again, resting a hand on my arm. He looks confused and I wonder if I'm behaving rationally.
"I ruined your bed."
"Lydia, who cares?"
I do. This entire apartment is pristine and perfect and I'm like a messy rescue puppy.
"I'll call housekeeping and have a new one sent up," he says softly, running his hand down my arm. "Go take a shower."
"When you say you'll call housekeeping you mean you'll meet them at the door and then you'll get rid of this bedding, not hand it to someone I'll bump into in the employee cafeteria on Monday, right?"
"I'll take care of it."
"Okay." I nod to myself a couple of times and then Rhys is gently pushing me in the direction of the bathroom so I go. I take an obscenely long shower and I think about my feelings while I use his shampoo and body wash because that's all that he keeps in his shower.
By the time I return Rhys is sitting in bed, back to the headboard with a laptop propped on his lap. The entire apartment is dark save for a bedside lamp and the glow coming from his laptop. The Strip view has been blocked with some kind of blackout blind system. The bedding has been replaced and straightened and fluffed and I wonder again if he makes his own bed normally or if housekeeping comes every day.
I'm wrapped in a towel because I didn't think to bring anything into the bathroom with me. My hair is still damp and I'm holding onto the edges of the towel way harder than necessary since Rhys has already seen me naked.
He's wearing cotton pajama pants, his legs stretched before him and his chest bare. He doesn't look as if he plans on driving me home, but that's not really his job, is it?
"Should I call an Uber?" I ask, inching towards my bag.
"What?" He looks up from his laptop, a look of confusion on his face.
"An Uber,” I repeat. “Or a cab?"
"You can stay," he says, nodding at the bed beside him.
Okay.
"What should I wear?" I ask, opening my bag and taking out the white negligee I wore on stage earlier. "Do you want me to wear this?" I notice my clothing has been picked up from the floor, folded and draped over the chair with my bag.
"No," he replies. "Not that." I think I'm annoying him now. "What do you normally wear to bed?"
Sheet pajamas, I think to myself. Nothing he'd want to see. "I didn't bring anything I'd normally wear to bed," is what I tell him, the negligee still dangling from my hand. His eyes flicker over it and then drop back to his laptop.
"Take a shirt from the middle drawer," he says, already typing again.
The middle drawer, I find, is soft t-shirt nirvana. I select a blue one and slip back into the bathroom to change in some misguided need for privacy.
Then I slide under the sheets, my eyelids already heavy. I think I'll be nodding off in a matter of minutes, which is lame because I'm in Rhys' bed and I should be soaking up the experience. But I did do an awful lot today and Rhys is working so I don't think he wants to cuddle or anything.
I'm about to nod off to the oddly lulling sounds of Rhys typing on his laptop when I remember something. "Sorry that took like ten times longer than seven minutes," I tell him, and then I'm out.
Twenty
RHYS
I wake up with a raging hard-on and Lydia's ass pressed against my cock. Because I'm on my side with my arm wrapped around her middle. Because we're spooning. We're goddamned spooning. Fuck. I roll onto my back, disgusted with myself.
For so many reasons.
God, the look on her face when she saw the duvet last night, like I'd give a fuck about the bedding? Fucking virgins.
I've never fucked a virgin before. I've never been anyone's first and I'm wondering if this was a mistake. A giant goddamned mistake. I rub my hands over my face and stare at the ceiling. She's the only perfect thing in this apartment and she's worried about ruining my bedding? Fuck the bedding. The only thing getting ruined in this apartment is her because I'm a depraved asshole who bought a virgin.
Remembering her blood on my dick is making me uncomfortably hard. The sweet blush on her cheeks, Jesus. Is that supposed to turn me on? Because it does. Taking her innocence. Knowing this is all new to her. Her hesitant fingers, asking for direction. Asking me to teach her. God help me. Teach her. I can think of a hundred things I'd like to teach her because I'm the goddamned whore, not her.
So why did she sell herself?
I guess people will do anything for money. Maybe I can't relate because I've always had it. I was born with it, earned more of it. I've never had to make tough choices to get it. I've never been desperate. Is she desperate? I turn my head and watch her sleep. Her hair smells like my shampoo.
How many women have wanted me for the money? Enough of them that paying for sex felt like the most honest way to conduct a relationship. Which is how I got here, isn't it?
What the fuck am I supposed to do with her for thirty days?
I thought this setup was for one night and then Vince told me to have her back in thirty days like she's a rental car. Have her back where? She has a job, a real job, working for me at the Windsor. Is she planning on doing this side job again after me? Taking another… client? Is her cut of five hundred grand not enough for whatever it is she needs? Fucking money. I need to have Canon look into her and find out what kind of debt she has. It can't possibly be insurmountable. If the five hundred didn't already take care of it I'll pay off the rest. Except—that's crazy. She's not mine to take care of. She's temporary. This is temporary. Yet I'm curious.
I wonder what her cut is.
I wonder how much more she needs.
I wonder if it's too soon to fuck her again.
Probably too soon. She's likely sore. I think? Fucking virgins, hell. Why did I ask her to tell me what it felt like? I'll torture myself replaying her words in my head for the rest of my life. Like you're breaking me, but also like I might like it. I'm glad I'm doing this with you. Sorry, I'm not any good at dirty talk.
Jesus. Christ.
I need to get away from her. I toss the covers off, intent on hitting the hotel gym until I've blown off enough steam to keep myself from rutting into Lydia like an animal. I'm dressed, out the door, and on a treadmill in the gym in fewer than seven minutes, one of the benefits of living in a hotel. The gym is empty when I arrive. It'll likely stay empty since the hotel hasn't opened yet and there are fewer than twenty employees living on site—and I'm not expecting to see any of them in the hotel gym this early on a Sunday.