as more than a ratings spike or an inroad to a new scandal.
This is…something wholly different. A satisfaction I’ve never experienced before…bound to a matching rush of restlessness. The inexplicable wonder of watching my sorceress win a new convert to her fandom—while fighting my very definable urges for her.
Definable—to the point of pain.
Don’t talk to the cock. Don’t talk to the cock.
Right. Because ignoring the big guy on the playground is going to make him go away? Forgetting he’s counting the goddamn minutes until you have Ella against your bedroom door again, dressed in nothing but that bracelet and her desire? Who the hell says you’ll even make it back to Temptation? Why not order Scott to take the long way home—say, via Canada—and fuck her into three orgasms before you hit the border?
Yessss. Perfect…
Laughter stabs—and shatters—my fantasy. For the first time in my life, I’m actually grateful that Chantal Dunne giggles like a constipated parakeet. The outburst has saved my hard-on from being screenshotted across the world—at least for now.
The woman leans over and gazes as if Ella has just relayed a viable action plan for world peace. “So he really just slipped on the bathroom tile…and tumbled that hard into the shower door?”
Mishella dips her head, countering with a little laugh of her own. The actions seem authentic because they are. Not a word of what she’s said to Chantal in the last five minutes is a lie; she’s simply guided the reporter toward specific facts, letting her reach distinct conclusions—painting me mostly as a sex-obsessed Neanderthal.
Leading back to the whole I’m-enjoying-this-but-not-really thing.
Surprise fucking surprise. When it comes to Mishella Santelle, I am a sex-obsessed Neanderthal.
“Well…” She only enforces the point by tucking her lip under her teeth, funneling my attention back on her—more specifically, on that plush mouth of hers—in deliriously uncomfortable ways. “You know what they say about the power of forward momentum…”
“Oh, gawd!” The woman’s screech tears the air again. “Well, I certainly do!”
Ella bats her eyes and pretends to hide a blush. It’s a textbook just-between-us-girls move, and she pulls it off so gorgeously, half the guys in the studio clearly consider changing genders. “Well, just imagine that kind of…thrust…if thrown off-balance by certain…occurrences…”
“Oh, no!”
“Oh, yes.” Ella meshes her laughter with Chantal’s, though angles back toward me. She lays a protective hand over the bandages she helped me change this morning, adding a playful but gentle glance—sealing the deal on her subtle mastery of Chantal’s narrative. Those are all the details you get, missie. Now let my man and me have a little moment.
To make the point clear, she coaxes my face down for a tender kiss—making sure to use the arm with her new bracelet on it. Adorable minx. I let my stare linger, imagining there’s a matching cuff on the other arm and I’m about to hook them to an eyebolt—in the headboard of my bed.
Dear fuck.
I’m not a goddamned prude, by any stretch of the imagination—but balancing hard work with hard play has always been about exchanging pleasure with a woman, nothing more. Absolutely nothing more.
But this woman makes me want…
crave…
more.
Much more.
Her.
Belonging to me.
Controlled by me.
Needing me.
Begging me…
And, yeah. I’m actually thinking all this on national TV.
So maybe it’s good that constipated parakeets exist—and have struck up a secret licensing deal with Chantal Dunne.
Three seconds more, and this moment would have been one for a million screen capture keys across the internet. The reporter saves me again, tossing her head back on the laughter while re-centering herself in the hostess chair that’s been custom-designed for her coloring, arm span, and leg extension. But as she braces elbows to both armrests and prepares to pivot off the juicy angle Ella’s just gifted to her, my guard remains up. Way up. Chantal Dunne wants her Tweet-able, meme-able, screen capture-able moment. If it’s not going to be the bulge in my crotch, she’ll get it another way.
“Well, haven’t you two little love bugs given us quite the juicy visuals this morning?”
Love bugs?
Ella slides her hand down from my face in order to rest it beneath her own chin, managing innocent and impish in the same sweep of a pose. A matching gleam forms in her eyes, reminding me of fairies—but not the cute twinkly kind. “Why Miss Dunne, you already had the juice after paying off half of New York to chronicle our first ten dates—including shots of this beautiful man in black tie, yachting whites, and Pikachu yellow.” The evidence of her claim