Stephanie Tyler - Vipers Run

“You wanted a job? You got it.”

I stared at Tenn, openmouthed, for a long while. It was only the slam of a door behind me that got me talking. “You’re not serious about this.”

“Dead serious.” The awful gallows humor wasn’t lost on me, but Tenn wasn’t smiling. “You stay in there with him.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Why not? You said you needed money. You’ll get a cut of the profits.”

How much could that be, really? And when I asked, he threw out a number, telling me, “That’s only the first week.”

I headed to the room, ignoring his laughter behind me.

I had no idea what to do once I got in there. Maybe I wanted to let Cage off the hook, especially because he was muttering and pacing.

He stopped dead when he saw me with the camera. “That fucker.” He slammed the door open and yelled, “Remember that fucking hellhole in Jakarta, asshole? That’s worth a million of these.”

I heard Tenn call back, “You let me think you were dead.”

Cage slammed the side of a fist against the doorjamb, put his forehead there, and for a long moment I had no idea what was going on. Not until Tenn called, “You’re live in five.”

“I can’t fucking believe this.”

“You told me to come here,” I pointed out unhelpfully, trying not to laugh.

“No, Bernie told you,” he corrected, then mumbled, “Because I told him. Fuck.” He turned to stare at me. I ignored the butterflies in my stomach and held up the camera like a challenge.

I don’t know what I expected—maybe for him to walk out? And I wouldn’t have blamed him.

But I was also an idiot to challenge a man like Cage. The look on his face turned from frustration to kid-in-a-candy-store in a second’s span, and I swallowed hard when he shut the door, closing us into the small space.

I turned away from him, put the camera on the tripod and tried to line up a shot for the only chair in the room. Tenn had given me a sixty-second lesson and I tried to concentrate on that, rather than what would be happening. Because I knew what happened in this room . . . I’d just never believed I’d be watching Cage do it. Or filming it for a live audience.

He was standing in front of the chair, staring at me through the lens. I pulled back and stuttered out, “We’re going live in a minute. If you’re, ah, embarrassed . . .”

Wrong thing to say, apparently, because he shrugged off the leather cut (I assumed because it was too visible) and took down his jeans in an effortless move before he sat, his cock out for the world—and me—to see.

His pierced cock.

Shit.

I couldn’t even swallow. How did this man do things to me in a way no man ever had? Maybe it was just this room. And Tenn’s living room. And the phone line . . .

“Might want to press the on button,” he said with a smirk as he palmed himself and stroked a couple of times, purely for my benefit. “First time behind the camera on this?”

“No,” I lied, and his expression tightened.

“Gonna be your best,” he said.

Oh God, this was really going to happen. I peered through the camera to make sure the shot was set up correctly. Someone rapped on the door, which meant it was, and that the feed was going live . . .

Now.

I forced myself not to look anywhere but through the lens as Cage palmed his cock again. His legs spread, jeans shoved down, the piercing shining. He twisted it with one hand and I heard him hiss. He ran a hand along his belly and then slid it back down, watching me the entire time.

God, he looked fit and tanned . . . and the way he sat, with his scarred shoulder and neck away from the camera, you couldn’t see anything but shadows. All you could see was his cock, big and full, and he was straining for his own touch.

I clenched my fist because I wanted to touch it. I wanted to play with the piercing on top. I wondered if there were more. He bit his bottom lip as he stroked it lightly several times, and what he was doing wasn’t an act. That was what made this so damned appealing.

His abs looked like they were cut into his golden skin. His eyes were so green that they jumped out at me through the darkened room.

Had he done this before? Did he want me to get down on my knees for him? Because that’s what I wanted, and my face flushed.

He glanced down between my legs and nodded slightly.

He wants you to touch yourself. Here. In front of him.

Instead, I put my hand under my shirt and pinched a nipple. I bit my lip and watched him bark out a soft laugh while he stroked more leisurely now. I’d learn later that the point was to give the people what they paid for.

The fact that others would watch him get off only served to make me hotter. The fact that he could expose himself to a camera—knowing it would be mainly men watching him stroke himself—was so incredibly tantalizing that I made a mental note to ask Tenn for a copy.

As I continued to watch the scene unfold in front of me—less than ten feet away—I noted how the camera really loved him, how it demanded more of the perfection it currently translated. It didn’t matter that he was scarred. He had an indefinable quality that would make men follow his lead and women simply follow. He was brooding, promised to be moody as fuck, and if I didn’t already somehow believe I’d fallen in love with his voice on the phone, I knew it had happened here. Completely. Inextricably. Unrelentingly.

But knowing and admitting it were two very different things, and I pushed it all to the back of my mind.

He was half naked to my fully clothed, touching himself, being filmed . . . baring everything. And every stroke of his cock throbbed straight to my clit. He’d made himself unbearably vulnerable to me and still he was somehow completely in control.

His hand palmed his rigid length, his flushed face a mirror to mine and his eyes glossy with pleasure. His lip curled hungrily. I fought every rational urge to strip and sit on his lap, lower myself onto his cock until I was full with him.

This man came back from the dead for me. He wasn’t playing games, wasn’t going to come for me and leave. He was never leaving. This time, having a man tell me this was comforting.

“You like this?”

“More,” I whispered, and I saw the hint of a smile on his face.

“You like watching.”

I swallowed hard, knowing I couldn’t answer, because even though his question wasn’t for me but rather the masses watching him, I was dying to. A smile broke his face wide open for a brief, glorious second. He smiled because he knew, and then he said, “Don’t stop—focus on me, okay, babe? I’m going to come thinking about you. I need you to know that.”

Oh God. I squeezed my thighs together as I became a giant ball of need, the throb between my legs more intense than anything I’d ever felt. Everything that had bottled up inside of me over the past weeks was threatening to overwhelm me, consume me.

“God, I want you to suck my cock,” he ground out. “That’s what’s going to happen next, just so you know. You’re going to get down on your knees and take it in your mouth and I’m going to come for you.”

I didn’t care that he might be ruining this by talking. I didn’t think that was part of it, but maybe he was performing for the camera only.

No way, Calla.

I couldn’t stop staring—his gaze had me locked, loaded, mesmerized. I was aware of his hand moving faster along his cock, but that’s not where I watched. Not completely. I could see the whole picture, but it was the look on his face, the way his lips parted slightly . . . his lower lip swollen and wet and I wanted to put my finger in his mouth and watch him suck it. I wanted to get on my knees, put my cheek against his thigh and lick his balls.