a position to take jobs when I want from the people I want, so I avoid girl-drama like the plague. No offense, but pair a bunch of young females with a few gallons of booze…and nothing good happens.”
“I can’t argue with that.” She laughs. “It’s one reason my salt circle has gotten so small over the last few years. In college, I had to deal with all my sorority sisters. And most were great. But now that I live alone and I’m independently employed, I can pick and choose who I talk to every day. Being in the beauty community is no cakewalk. There’s a lot of pressure to be perfect, which isn’t realistic. And you’re dealing with the public, who feels it’s their right—their responsibility, even—to comment on every single thing you say and do behind their anonymous online accounts. If a rival influencer doesn’t like you for some reason, their fans may come after you. And they can be vicious. That part sucks. And don’t start me on drama channels… I try to ignore all their tea spilling as much as I can, be an adult, and do my job.”
“And what is that exactly?”
“I review makeup, do tutorials, test a variety of products, talk about skin care… It’s a little bit of everything beauty related.”
“You might as well have been speaking Greek.” I laugh, then take a swig of beer. “So you want to talk about your sex life with Thom?”
She nearly chokes on her merlot. “Not really.”
She doesn’t elaborate, and her face, for once, is almost impossible to read. What is she not saying?
“You sure? No judgment here.”
“I’d rather not revisit the past, cloud your opinion, or dwell on something hurtful.”
“I get it.” I really do…but I need information, so I try another tactic. “Maybe you should tell me what you want, then. It’s most important for me to know that anyway.”
“Sex. Isn’t that the point of us meeting?”
“Yeah, but that’s a broad topic. What are your turnoffs?”
“Thom.”
Masey shares Harlow’s bluntness, and I like that. She’s a bit more tactful…but not much.
I laugh. “Since I’ve never met the guy, I don’t know what that means. What did he do that turned you off so much?”
She sighs. “I always felt rushed. And if I ever tried to tell him I didn’t like something, he got defensive and told me the problem was mine.”
“So he had a small ego?” And I’m guessing he had a small dick to match.
“Yes. He had this…germ thing. He didn’t like kissing much. He always came to bed smelling like hand sanitizer. And he always showered immediately afterward. It was kind of insulting.”
What a dipshit. “So I’m guessing he wasn’t spontaneous?”
Masey shakes her head emphatically. “Not at all. I’m not terribly spur-of-the-moment myself, so it didn’t bother me much. But his schedule was very precise, so if I was even ten minutes late, then he—”
“Wait,” I insist. She couldn’t have meant that the way it sounded. “You had an appointment to have sex with your own boyfriend?”
She grimaces. “That sounds horrible, but yeah. We just kept really different schedules, so it became a necessity. Otherwise, he’d have meetings all day, but I often filmed and edited videos at night or sometimes I had parties and launch events to attend. He also traveled. Sadly, we’d look up, and a month had gone by. So unless we both committed to a time in advance, the sex just wasn’t happening.”
I don’t know this guy since we’ve never met, but odds are Thom wasn’t going without…just going without Masey. But I keep that thought to myself. “No early-morning quickies?”
Masey shakes her head. “He likes to be at the gym by five thirty a.m. No one who values their life should talk to me that early.”
“Same.” I laugh. “And no late-night nookie?”
“I sometimes worked until midnight or beyond, but he was usually in bed by ten.”
I don’t get this guy. If someone said I could have an extra couple of hours of sleep or a couple of hot hours with Masey, I would pass on sleep every time. “Okay, so you made appointments and if you were late he…what? Bailed?”
She nods. “He doesn’t like to be kept waiting. He’s always said sex shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes or so anyway, but—”
I choke on my beer. “Excuse me?”
“Thom looks at sex from a financial perspective since he’s an entertainment and intellectual property attorney. He’s very in demand and bills out at four fifty an hour. By his calculations, even