Page 15 of Burden of Proof

;)

I think this is a bad idea.

Hey now. It’s just fun, right?

You’re professional. You get it.

So he’d checked my app profile, which had a link to my profile on the website I used to sell my own content. He’d actually…my phone gave a little buzz, and I realized I had a new subscriber with a very familiar looking username.

In reality, it was the best way to go. We were both sex workers, so there weren’t going to be any feelings involved. I could find out what it meant to submit. He would get an easy payday, and that would be the end of it.

Loc?

He sent me his address and asked for thirty minutes to get ready, and also—discreetly—told me the rate for our littleadventure. His apartment was twenty minutes from me, so the time wasn’t an issue. Not wanting to talk myself out of it, I ran upstairs and fought my way out of my leather pants, showered the sweat of the night off of me—though some people liked it, it didn’t feel appropriate for whatever trouble I was about to get into—got dressed again, and headed back down to my car.

Instead of a Post-it, I typed out a message to Silas and set it to send at six in the morning. That would give me plenty of time to cancel it if I survived and enough time for my body to still be warm if I didn’t.

I swung through the bank on my way to CEH13’s apartment, wishing I knew his name so I didn’t have to think of him by his username, which was clearly initials of some type. Maybe his name was Chris or Cory or Calvin. I’d ask when I got there, not that it really mattered what his name was. He’d probably give me a fake one anyway, which was totally fine.

I spent the drive thinking about Ethan of all people, and the casual ways he’d been dominant without even trying. Sometimes it had been a firm look or a steady hand, but every time it had been enough to shift the scalesjustenough to throw me off-balance. Avoiding him the last time I saw him at Rapture had been hard, but I wasn’t ready to admit to Silas that things just didn’t feel right for me. I honestly wasn’t sure if it was all about the submission or part that and part the fact I’d lost my best friend and my roommate in one blow. What I did know was I didn’t want him to feel bad about falling in love, so I wasn’t going to say anything to him one way or another until I figured it out.

A few minutes late, I parked in a guest spot at a very affluent-looking high-rise in Santa Monica, thankful that I’d made the decision to go inside and change out of my leathers. In addition to the address, the guy from the app had also given me the code to get into the front door, so I let myself in and rode up to the fourteenth floor. The hallways of the building were bright andsterile, which made the walk to the end of the floor feel a lot like a trip to the doctor’s office to get my dick swabbed or something.

But when I reached the apartment, the front door was cracked open, the light streaming out of the unit a much softer glow than the bright fluorescents in the hallway. I knocked on the door anyway, it swung open, and I was met with not just the torso from the app, but the gorgeous face that went with it.

“Hey,” I croaked, clearing my throat. “Are you…”

I still didn’t know his name.

“Ethan,” he said, and I groaned, clearly not hiding the way my face contorted because he laughed and said, “Is that bad?”

“I know an Ethan is all.”

He stepped out of the way and ushered me into his apartment.

“Well, if it’s any consolation, it’s my middle name.”

I chuckled, shoving my hair back from my face. “A small one. I’m Jay, also a middle name. Or, rather, middle initial.”

Ethan’s mouth quirked up into a smile. “Fair enough. Did you want a drink or anything?

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Straight to it then?” he asked, and I nodded.

“I don’t want to talk myself out of this.”

“I’m not a fan of being with people who don’t really want to be with me,” he said, aimlessly dragging his hand up and down the exposed length of his stomach. The man had to live in a gym to have abs and biceps like that.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. Trust and believe I very much want to get a taste of whatever you’re selling. It’s the rest of it that has me on edge,” I told him.

“Do you not enjoy submission?” he asked.

“Never tried it.”

Ethan arched a brow. “Not ever?”

“Kind of once on accident,” I explained, “which is why I think I might want to try it again.”