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CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
SEVEN VIRTUES, NORTH CAROLINA
I heard a rumor Beckett Miller is back in the studio. Hope isn’t lost for the music world.
—Viego Martinez, Celebrity Blogger
The last four months have built my heart up, yet they wear on my hope.
I’ve done everything to accept I’ve sold my soul to keep my mother alive, though God only knows for how much longer. I’ve deceived and lied to my boyfriend as we maintain our long-distance relationship. I told him that due to Mama’s additional medical bills, I’ve picked up more shifts. He assumes at Galileo’s; I’ve let him think no differently.
Instead, I’ve taken part in all kinds of kink calls from the basics to where a woman wanted me to describe what I would do if I was in front of her and ordered me to drop to my knees before sucking her clit until she came.
I’ve vocally described how I’d give a blow job—with or without prostate massage.
I’ve indulged caller’s fetishes, including being a hunter and capturing my prey, tying them to a table, and cutting off their clothes with my Bowie knife.
And I had a baby who soiled his diaper and who wanted to... my stomach churns when I think about what he used as a lubricant.
Then I went home, called Ethan, and let out my emotional turmoil—couching all of it beneath worrying about my mama and how a little humiliation is worth the one thing I need.
My mom.
Everything’s worth that.
“Devil’s Lair, this is Filia,” I purr into the phone.
There’s a tinkling of ice against a glass before a whiskey-honed voice that sends primitive chills down my spine rasps, “How you doin’ tonight, darlin’?”
I bite my lip as a full-body quiver this stranger’s voice evokes in me every time he calls—and he calls me quite a bit. “I’m good, honey.”
His dark chuckle causes me to clench my thighs together. “That bodes well for tonight.”
“How was your day?” I let a bit of my native Texas drawl flow into my voice because Whiskey, as I’ve taken to calling him because of the smooth, smoky vision it evokes, likes it.
I both love and hate when he calls because while it’s so natural to talk to him because something about him reminds me of Ethan, it just makes me miss him more. Since I have no face to go with Whiskey, I conjure up Ethan’s image as I reach for the lawnmower-loud vibrator I purchased off the web.
Focusing on my call, I reach over and open the top desk drawer to find my “toys” and suffer mightily for it. With Ethan’s face in my mind, my clit grazes my jeans and a moan escapes. My nipples pebble up.
I miss my man.
I hate that we haven’t been able to see each other in the last few weeks between the catastrophe of my life and the contract he’s buried under. Our phone calls are limited between my work and his, but our texts are heating up in a way I fantasized openly about to Austyn years ago.
I just never expected him to want me the way I do him—as something more.
Still, even as I twist the vibrator on and talk to Whiskey, I conjure up an image of the way Ethan looked when I stared down into his face as I sat astride him the night of my graduation. His dark chocolate brown hair only showed a few strands of silver at the temples. His green eyes bore into mine like they could penetrate my soul. God, just thinking about him has my breathing shifting into overdrive, my thighs pressing together.
Long ago, I admitted to myself the kind of man who did it for me—older, commanding, taking charge in the bedroom. I suspect Whiskey’s like that, which is why it’s easy to superimpose the beloved face of the man I’ve wanted for forever on top of his voice.
Especially when I can taste Ethan in my dreams. I sigh because I want it all—my mother healthy, the man I adore in my life, and the freedom to admit to the world how I really feel.
Then I’m yanked back into my reality amid a scene he chose, when he says something that steals the breath from my lungs. “If I drag down that scrap of lace, will I see a sprinkle of freckles on your pelvic bone as I make my way to your pussy, Filia?”
Ice floods my veins. I can’t speak, can’t reply. I’m now terrified in the kind of way I was trained to report immediately. Fear coats my skin as I wrap up the call with me giving monotonous responses and him coming in my ear—the first time he’s ever done this.
Ripping off my headset, I flag his file so Becca knows there’s a potential security issue. Giving myself a moment, I take a deep breath before I dive into the next call, which thankfully, is a bored rich kid looking for a quick hand job. Becca approaches just as I’m wrapping up. The second I disconnect, she orders, “Follow me.”
She waits for me to clear the doorway before asking, “What happened?”