Page 23 of Scorned Beauty

“I promise not to cause drama as long as you’re honest with me. Besides, that might be advantageous so people won’t be suspicious about us.” I rose from my chair because I was craving wine for this discussion. I never expected the “no gifts” rule to open so many avenues of discourse. I grabbed one of my $10.99 bottles and twisted the corkscrew into it. “You don’t always have to tell me when you have an event because you only call me when you want to hook up.” I wiggled the cork out and dropped it onto a tray where I’d been collecting them. “I might not always be available because I’m in the last year of nursing school, but I’m not down with you having sex with someone else while you’re fucking me.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Same.”

“You don’t want any drama. You won’t get any from me. But I’d appreciate a call or a text to tell me we’re done.”

Dom spooned over a mountain of fried rice on his plate and resumed eating. “You know this sounds like a guy’s dream relationship but?—”

“We’re not calling this a relationship.”

“If this is about money?—”

“Maybe it is.” It totally was. After Dad left us penniless, my mother always reminded me to have my own money. To never surrender financial power to a man or be dependent on him for survival. Dom and I were worlds apart, both financially and in social status. But if what he gave me was just sex and after receiving a prelude to what was to come—no pun intended—I wanted more. What I didn’t want was the complication that came when money was involved, because what he would give me would be more than I could ever afford. It wasn’t the same as a cleaning job where I charged exorbitant prices. In my twisted mind, because of our wealth imbalance and because we couldn’tbe seen in public, it was like he would be paying me for sex. Fuck that. In the bedroom, we were equally matched.

“I’m still replacing your bed. No arguments.”

His blood had ruined the mattress. I wasn’t attached to it since it was lumpy as hell.

“I said ‘no gifting.’” I paused and took a dramatic sip of my wine. “I didn’t say I wasn’t practical.”

Chapter

Seven

Dom

I staredinto narrowed green eyes. “What the fuck!” I yelled, coming fully awake as I flung the orange blob of fur across the bed. The shriek of an animal reached my ears while Sloane rushed into the room and gaped at us.

Crouching sideways, Ginger’s ears flattened. She was howling and hissing threateningly like a creature needing an exorcism. This was no scaredy-cat and she wasn’t one who backed down.

“That thing was on top of me.” I refused to move because I was completely naked under the blanket. What if she came after my balls?

Sloane, meanwhile, erupted in laughter and walked into the room and gently patted Ginger. “What’s got you caterwauling, Ginger? Was the big man mean to you?”

“Cater-what?” I asked. “And I wasn’t mean to her. I just woke up.”

“It’s a special language of cats when they’re in heat or fighting.”

“If that’s your way of discouraging us from having sex, it’s not going to work,” I warned, only half kidding. As much as the cat almost gave me a heart attack, my cock gave a hearty nod to Sloane’s attire of nurse scrubs. We spent two days fucking, eating, and drinking, but I was getting more drunk on her.

At Sloane’s husky laugh, my cock rose.

Her eyes fell on its outline and she shook her head. “I’m late.”

Her body was a work of art. I considered myself an ass man, but there was so much of Sloane to explore. Sucking on her tits got me hard, but the thought of burying my mouth in her sweet cunt got me harder than a tire iron. And thrusting into her? I wished I hadn’t felt her bare because I could weep every time I had to use a condom, but I couldn’t risk getting her pregnant.

Her heart-shaped face and her thick-lashed emerald-green eyes enthralled me. I always thought her lips were unusually pale, but it was one of her disguises. She deliberately covered her freckles and her defined cheekbones with makeup so she would appear flat. Even at Bianca’s wedding, she was in the most shapeless dress with barely any makeup probably because many of the guests were in the mob.

In her nurse’s uniform, Sloane’s face was once again a pale canvas. I knew what her face looked like when framed with her glorious red hair, but at the moment, it was twisted into a severe bun away from her features. To say I was intrigued with Sloane Scott was putting it mildly. She said we should keep our personal lives out of the arrangement, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to have a report on her by the end of the day.

“How about breakfast?” I waggled my brows.

“No. My pussy is still sore from the weekend.” She nudged the cat off the bed. “No snuggling today, kitty. You’ll get fur all over my scrubs.” She glanced at me again and bit her bottom lip.

Fuck. I was imagining them wrapped around my cock.

“I have to go. There’s coffee. I always leave the window open a crack so Ginger can come and go as she pleases. All you have to do is turn the flat lock on the knob when you leave.”

“That’s not very secure.”