J. Ward - Covet

“You're still hungry, Vin.” Her beautiful hand drifted down the sheer bustier to her thong and stayed there as she stretched out on her back. “Aren't you.”

In the light, her eyes were not deep brown, but dense black, and they were full of knowledge. She was right. He did want her. He had since the moment he'd seen her at a gallery opening and taken both a Chagall and her home.

Vin shifted off his chair and knelt between her legs, spreading them wider. She was ready for him, and he took her right on the carpet next to his desk. The sex was fast and hard, but she was crazy into it and that turned him on.

As he orgasmed into her, she said his name as if he had given her exactly what she after.

Dropping his head to the fine silk carpet, he breathed hard and didn't like the way he felt. With the passion gone, he was more than spent; he was barren.

Sometimes it was as if the more he filled her, the emptier he got.

“I want more, Vin,” she said in a deep, guttural voice.

In the locker room shower at the Iron Mask, Marie-Terese stepped under the hot spray and opened her mouth, letting the water wash into her as well as over her. On a stainless-steel dish, there was a golden bar of soap, and she reached for it without having to look over. The Dial imprint was nearly washed smooth, which meant the thing was going to last only another two or three nights.

As she washed every inch of her body, her tears joined the sudsy water, following its path into the drain at her feet. In some ways, this was the hardest part of the night, this time alone with the warm steam and the rotgut soap—worse even than the post-confession blues.

God, it was getting so that even the smell of Dial was enough to make her eyes water, proof positive Pavlov didn't just know about dogs.

When she was done, she stepped out and grabbed a rough white towel. Her skin tightened up in the cold, shrinking, becoming like armor, and her will to keep going performed a similar retraction, pulling in her emotions and holding them secure once more.

In the cubicle outside, she changed back into her jeans and her turtleneck and her fleece, stuffing her work clothes into the duffel. Her hair took about ten minutes of blow-drying before she was ready to go out into the chilly night with it, and the extra time at the club made her pray for summer.

“You almost ready to go?”

Trez's voice came through the locker room's closed door and she had to smile. Same words every night, and always at the very moment she put the hair dryer down. “Two minutes,” she called out.

“No worries.” Trez meant that, too. He always made a point to escort her to her car, no matter how long it took her to get ready to leave.

Marie-Terese put the dryer down, drew her hair back, and wrapped a scrunchie around the thick waves—

She leaned in closer to the mirror. Sometime during the shift, she'd lost an earring and God only knew where the thing was. “Damn it.”

Shouldering her duffel, she left the locker room and found Trez out in the hall texting on his BlackBerry.

He put the phone in his pocket and looked her over. “You all right?” No. “Yup. Was an okay night.”

Trez nodded once and walked with her to the back door. As they went outside, she prayed he didn't hit her with one of his lectures. Trez's opinion about prostitution was that women could choose to do it, and men could choose to pay, but it had to be handled professionally—hell, he'd fired girls for skipping condoms. He also believed that if there was even a hint that a female was uncomfortable with her choice, she should be given every opportunity to rethink what she was doing and get out.

It was the same philosophy the Reverend had had at ZeroSum, and the irony was that because of it, most of the girls didn't want to leave the life.

As they came up to her Camry, he stopped her by putting his hand on her arm. “You know what I'm going to say, don't you.”

She smiled a little. “Your speech.”

“It's not rhetoric. I mean every word.”

“Oh, I know you do,” she said, taking her keys out. “And you're very kind, but I'm where I need to be.”

For a split second, she could have sworn his dark eyes flashed with a peridot light—but it was probably just a trick of the security lights that flooded the back of the building.

And when he just stared at her, like he was choosing his words, she shook her head. “Trez…please don't.”

Frowning hard, he cursed under his breath, then held out his arms. “Come here, girl.”

As she leaned forward and stood in the lee of his strength, she wondered what it would be like to have a man like this, a good one who might not be perfect, but who was honorable and did right and cared about people.

“Your heart isn't in this anymore,” Trez said softly in her ear. “It's time for you to go.”

“I'm fine—”

“You lie.” As he pulled back, his voice was so sure and certain, she felt like he could see right through into her heart. “Let me give you the money you need. You can pay it back interest-free. You aren't meant for this. Some are. You are not. Your soul's not doing well here.”

He was right. He was so very, very right. But she was done relying on anyone else, even somebody as decent as Trez.

“I'll get out soon,” she said, patting his huge chest. “Just a little longer and I'll be caught up. Then I'll stop.”

Trez's expression tightened and his jaw went rigid—evidence that he was going to respect her decision even if he didn't agree with it. “Remember my offer about the money, okay?”

“I will.” She arched up on her tiptoes and kissed his dark cheek. “Promise.”

Trez settled her in the car, and after she backed out of her spot and started off, she glanced in the rearview mirror. In the glow of her taillights, he was watching her, his arms crossed over that heavy chest…and then he was gone as if he'd just disappeared.

Marie-Terese hit the brakes and rubbed her eyes, wondering if she had lost it…but then a car came up from behind her, its headlights flashing in the rearview and blinding her. Shaking herself, she hit the gas and shot out of the parking lot. Whoever was on her bumper turned off at the next street, and the trip home was about fifteen minutes long.

The house she rented was tiny, just a little Cape Cod that was in okay shape, but there were two reasons why she'd picked it over the other ones she'd looked at when she'd come to Caldwell: It was in a school zone, so that meant there were a lot of eyes around the neighborhood, and the owner had allowed her to put bars on all the windows.

Marie-Terese parked in the garage, waited for the door to trundle shut, and then got out to enter the darkened back hall. Going through the kitchen, which smelled like the fresh apples she always kept in a bowl, she tiptoed toward the glow in the living room. On the way, she tucked her duffel bag into the coat closet.

She'd empty it and repack it when there was no one around to see her. As she stepped into the light, she whispered, “It's just me.”

He slept with her.

The following morning, Jim's first thought was a real shitkicker, and to try to get away from it, he rolled over on his bed. Which just made his wakey-wakey worse. Dawn's early light was kicking the ass of the curtain next to him, and as the brightness barged into his skull, he wished the frickin' window were made out of Sheetrock.

Man, he couldn't believe he'd slept with that gorgeous, vulnerable woman in his truck—like she was some kind of whore. The fact that he'd then come back here and drunk himself into a Corona-tose state was a little more believable. But what it all added up to was that he still felt bad about what he'd done and he was going to have to hammer nails all day with a hangover.