Another Lost Angel Read online

  “It’s delicious.” Another smile, because I mean it.

  “Enjoy,” he says, and walks away without so much as an introduction. My mouth falls open and I catch myself, taking another sip to cover for my shock.

  I had carefully worked out plans A though H to meet my mark, and then he approached me. He clearly liked what he saw as he appraised me, but then he left. What am I to take from that? Does he find me lacking somehow?

  I turn back to the pendulum and find that while I was looking elsewhere, one of the pegs had gotten knocked down.

  I walk away.

  Outside on the half-round terrace, the sun is setting. Los Angeles has a halo, and all three cities look redeemed by His grace.

  It’s an illusion caused by the smog. There are no angels here.

  A woman I recognize from a lecture series we once both took waves to me, and I am relieved to join her group of small talk. Too much time alone at an event like this makes me look like the wrong type of professional.

  Sex is a perk of my job, not the point of it.

  I imagine that’s why it’s so enjoyable.

  We make conversation about the pediatric hospital this event supports, about the wine, about a hundred other things that fail to distract me from running our conversation over in my head on a loop.

  The words were banal. Boring, even. There was an undertone I can’t identify. I don’t know what he wants, and that pisses me off.

  I should have handled things differently. How? No idea. I need to talk to him again. I’m about to walk back into the Hall of the Eye and see if I can find a drink to give him when my eye catches on his figure heading towards the promenade.

  Even from this distance I can see the muscles under his suit.

  I’m going to very much enjoy undressing him—assuming he gives me damn opportunity. If I can’t close this deal tonight, I don’t know when I’ll have another shot. And though Michael knows these things occasionally take time, he’ll start to send notes questioning my efficiency, and offering to re-assign the job.

  I don’t like to be pressured like that. And I really don’t like being questioned. I prefer to work with no management.

  Freedom. It’s all any of us really has, and I fucking cherish mine.

  I round the corner and lean against the side of the building, savoring both my wine and the sight of him as he drops a coin into one of the mounted telescopes and bends to focus it somewhere in the city. I wonder what he’s looking at, cause it obviously isn’t me.

  After a long moment, he stands again and then he is looking at me. I can feel the cold from here.

  He inclines his head at the telescope, and walks away from me for the second time. I’m starting to rethink my assessment of him as a dumb asshole with money. It’s very possible that he’s the regular kind of asshole with money.

  Out of sheer curiosity I walk over to see what it was he wanted me to look at. If it’s a strip club, I’ll make him pay me back my quarter.

  But it isn’t a strip club. It’s a building, the numbers on which I can’t quite make out. But I already know what it is. It’s his gallery. But the gallery isn’t the center of the picture he’s framed up in here nice and neat for me. It’s the floor above the gallery.

  I’ll be damned.

  I think Hank Jaydee just invited me to go home with him.

  Chapter 4

  The Arts District is on the eastern edge of downtown, which means that it takes almost a full year for my car to deliver me to the building I saw through the telescope’s eyepiece.

  I don’t use the gridlock time on the 5 to comb through Hank’s online footprint again. I’ve already memorized the scant details that exist.

  He’s a New York native.

  He’s not much for social media.

  He’s better looking in person.

  When I finally arrive, the gallery door is unlocked. The lights are off, so I lock it behind me and then use my phone to illuminate my path towards the back, where I find a spiral staircase.

  The shoes will have to come off, which is annoying. I like them. And I need the extra inches they add if I don’t want to injure my neck looking up at him. Tall men are hot, but inconvenient.

  At the top of the stairs, another open door. Beyond it, a wide-open loft, dimly lit by scattered candles. A heavy looking antique table next to the entrance holds a little dish of keys—complete with a keychain that says “Chevy Truck”—and a full glass of wine. I take the wine and replace it with my clutch.

  Towards the rear of the space, a massive canopy bed with carved details grabs my attention. Furniture’s not my specialty, but I know enough to get by. This thing’s at least a few hundred years old and probably worth as much a sports car. The fact that he owns this and not a sports car lends more credence to my new theory that he isn’t dumb.

  Actually, presenting one face to the world and another at home is more my style.

  I file this away and glance over at the sitting area. Hank is there, watching me over his own glass of wine.

  I sip mine, and note that it’s the exact same vintage as the one being served across town at the gala. I’m not sure what to make of that except that I liked it then and I like it now. I like the cold heat of his eyes on me, too, and I want more. My dress has a side zip, so I undo it and let it fall before stepping back into my heels.

  He appraises me like I’m an exhibit in his gallery.

  I wait.

  Finally, he stands and walks towards me as I shiver, naked except for a white lace thong.

  He circles me, as though memorizing every detail. Meanwhile, I’m trying to memorize every detail of his loft. I don’t see the painting anywhere. If it’s downstairs, this may be easier than I’d originally thought. Since I’d been able to walk right in, that means the alarm hasn’t been armed.

  I’ll enjoy a round or two in Hank’s deliciously decadent bed and then slip out with the painting inside the Kroger bag I’ve got waiting in my clutch.

  Then he spanks me, and all thoughts of anything else go out of my head.

  The sharp crack is as startling as it’s arousing. I can feel the heat rising where his hand was, probably in the shape of it as well. I’m expecting a second, but it doesn’t come. He’s still and quiet behind me, studying his work.

  I don’t know what to make of it. If he’s trying to throw me off-guard, its working. If he thinks I’m here to kink with him, he’s wrong.

  Of course I know that this is something that goes on in many powerful men’s bedrooms, but it goes on with women who are there for that sort of thing. I don’t go home with someone to be his therapy, or his girlfriend. And more often than not, when I’m done adoring them, they didn’t miss any of it.

  There are places to go to find one-night stands who are into being spanked, and it isn’t usually the fundraisers at the Disney Concert Hall where I do my pickups.

  After an interminable pause, Hank rounds me again. We look at each other, silent.

  He holds out his hand, and takes me to his bed. I lay back on the silk duvet cover and watch him carefully undress. Each button receives as much care and attention as I pay to my house plants. I appreciate that. Just because you can afford to replace something doesn’t mean you should treat it poorly. And to a T, everyone in my past who’s ripped clothes in their haste to get them off has been equally hasty with my pleasure.

  Once he’s naked, chiseled and hard in the flickering light, he takes my underwear off carefully over my heels. He studies me again for a moment before lowering his head and taking his time to make sure I’m ready for him.

  Whatever it is that he’s done with his life before this moment, he’s apparently made lots of time to lick pussy. It’s overwhelmingly magnificent. I’d expected a few perfunctory swipes of his tongue, but instead I’m being exalted. His fingers dig into my thighs, opening them further. Each time I think I’m getting close to coming (rare enough as that is) he changes up what he’s doing. It never makes the pleasure less intense, on
ly different, and staves me off.

  I know this trick, I use it. And if he’s treating me with all the adulation I normally treat my marks with, that means I’ve got him. So I read him right after all. This man of few words, this man of ice, somehow got drawn in by the trap I’ve laid.

  The spanking is all but a distant memory by the time he finally lines up and drives into me with a single, powerful thrust.

  When I cry out, I don’t recognize the sound of my own voice. Usually it’s carefully modulated, even during sex, but this is primal. He stays there, in me, waiting for me to adjust to his size, but I don’t want to adjust. I want the sensation of his crown sliding slowly out before slamming back in. I want it slow and fast and I want it now.

  I never get like this. It’s weird. But I’m not going to detract from the moment by overthinking things, I’m just going to squirm under him, seeking the base of his shaft against my kiss-swollen clit, until he gets the message.

  Finally, finally, he moves. Slowly. If he were anyone else, I’d call it love-making. With him, I’ll call it torture.

  “Faster,” I urge. My orgasm hovers just beyond reach. He slows further.

  Torture.

  “Patience, Crimson.” I don’t remember telling him my name. Very few people even know it. But as I open my mouth, he speeds up, finally driving me towards the release I’m craving. Then as I start to tighten around him, though, he slows again.

  I don’t know how long this back and forth continues. Time is meaningless in this in-between space where I’m perpetually on the verge, raggedly calling out.

  When he clamps his hand over my mouth, I first think it’s because I’m making too much noise. Then I realize my nose is covered too. He’s cutting off my breath. The panic is immediate but strangely doesn’t slow my arousal. Or maybe it’s that they have the same heart-pounding adrenaline-soaked effect. Regardless, I toss my head from side to side, trying and failing to shake him off long enough to get a gasp of oxygen.

  He’s too strong.

  I wonder if this is how it ends for me, the blackness at the corners of my vision creating a vignette that will close in until I don’t see anything at all.

  I wonder if anyone will notice that I’m gone.

  Then he smiles, and it’s kind, not cruel. He has dimples. I realize this is a game just as he reaches the end of his stroke and grinds against me. With that, I shatter as the quake inside me hits a 10 on the Richter scale. He releases his grip and as I’m sucking in breaths, I’m coming and coming and I can’t stop. All that exists is this feeling.

  But maybe he is cruel, because then he reaches between us and does something with his fingers that sends a second convulsion on the heels of the last. It lasts so long I reach a place where it almost hurts.

  When I eventually reach the end of the aftershocks, he slides out and lays beside me, fingers trailing slowly over my abdomen leaving shivery trails of cold behind them.

  Maybe this is what people mean by a religious experience, because I definitely think I saw God there for a moment. The release of all that tension has me drifting off before I can even grab a glass of water.

  I set my internal clock to wake me at 3 am, but it doesn’t matter. It’s only 2 when I’m woken by the metallic click of the handcuff around my left wrist.

  Chapter 5

  The first thing I learn about handcuffs is, they fucking hurt.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, my voice still raw from sleep and overuse a few hours ago. He sits me up, my muscles still too loose to fight him. I really don’t want to do more kinky stuff right now, I have a job to do. And I need him asleep for it. Maybe he’ll settle for a blowjob.

  Then I realize he’s cuffing my other hand as well, behind my back and the panic sets in. All my senses go from sleep-dulled to high alert in a half second.

  If he smells like a cabin in the woods, maybe its because he’s the kind of man who keeps one stuffed with skeletons.

  Now that my wings have been effectively clipped, he’s able to stand me up and steer me where he wants. I stumble, and kick off my heels. If I have a chance to run, they won’t be doing me any favors. My heart is pounding in my ears. I try to formulate a plan, but its like my brain can’t move any more than my arms can.

  And then we’re walking around a partition and there’s a bathtub. So this is where I die. Drowned in a claw-footed beauty I’d kill to own. Instead I’ll be killed myself; no consolation prizes in that.

  Surprisingly, my body’s reaction is far more drastic than my mind’s.

  I suppose I always knew this would happen someday. In my line of work, you’re playing with people’s passions. And passionate people sometimes turn out to be murderers. Even dimpled sex gods, it seems. Life is unfair. And now I know that in a fight-or-flight situation, I’m actually a freeze-r.

  Not that I’ll ever be able to use that information.

  These thoughts all flit through my head before we get close enough for me to see that the water is steaming and scented, that rose petals are floating on top, that the candles are relit.

  Goddamn it. We’re back to kink.

  At twenty-six, I’m already too old for this shit. Roller-coaster emotions are exhausting. On the other hand, I am pretty glad that I’m not going to die in a stranger’s loft.

  “You didn’t have to cuff me to get me in a tub,” I say. The pain these meal rings are causing would be interesting if it didn’t hurt so much. There’s the top layer of sting where they bite into my skin, and then there’s the deeper layer of ache where the bruises are forming underneath.

  “I didn’t.” He picks me up like I’m nothing and gently deposits me in the water, arms behind the tub so that I’m held up even without him. I hate myself for moaning in pleasure at the warmth.

  “Then why?”

  “So you wouldn’t get out.” He picks up a sea sponge, dampens it, and starts to wash me gently. Somehow the pain in my wrists is both amplified and soothed by the long strokes of the sponge. I can feel the response between my legs long before he begins to wash me there.

  “Don’t I get to pick a safe word or something?” I know vaguely how this works.

  “Are you scared?”

  “A little.” Maybe more than a little. My blood is as icy as his stare at the thought that he’ll continue. And at the thought that he’ll stop.

  “Fear is just desire wearing a different mask. If you’re scared, you’ve just identified what you want most of all.”

  “And what if I desire to stop?”

  “I think you forfeited your right to call the shots when you decided to steal from me, little thief.”

  He knows.

  And all the pieces fall into place. I didn’t intrigue him at the party I found him at; it wasn’t my trap. The man who never uses social media had marked himself as attending the event just to get me there. And I went to his house of my own free will, because it didn’t occur to me that he didn’t want to fuck me.

  Actually, I think he liked that part just fine, too.

  My stomach drops even as I’m still moving my hips forward in a vain attempt to get him to put more pressure on the sponge washing my sex.

  I take care of my body, I’m in tune with it. I can feel when I need protein, when I need a massage, when my period is coming on. But I’ve never been as aware of the spectrum of sensation it’s capable of until tonight.

  “So what are you going to do?” I’m shooting for a conversational tone, but even I can hear the quaver. He smiles again. This asshole just turned my world upside-down, set it on fire, and I have the nerve to be comforted by the sweetness in his lips. Maybe that’s why he’s cultivated that frozen stare, because the second he smiles, the sun comes out.

  Its hard to be taken seriously in business when you look like the kind of person who rescues puppies in their spare time.

  “I’m going to spend the night with you.”

  “And I suppose I don’t get a choice in the matter.” There’s no need for him to answ
er. The girl who’s naked and bound has no choice in anything.

  “Choices are fallible. You think you know what you want. You don’t. But your body knows. And I can read your body.” I try to stop rocking my hips, but he applies the pressure I needed and it sends a jolt of enjoyment right through me.

  “But you’re doing something that feels good.” I can’t quite overlook the discomfort of the steel bracelets I’m wearing, but it’s diminished by the sensual feel of the sponge parting and caressing me.

  “Then come for me.” He replaces the sponge with his fingers and thumb, sliding inside and out, touching every spot I know I have and a few I didn’t. I let my head fall back and he continues like a pro.

  And continues.

  And continues.

  It feels amazing. I’m not coming for him. It’s not hard. I just—don’t let go. I don’t want this. I don’t want him.

  Then he puts his hand over my face.

  Chapter 6

  I want this I want this I have wanted it since I was eleven and my best friend’s brother pinned me down to give me my first kiss I wanted that kiss but I did not want her angry with me because the year prior when the gym teacher she thought was cute stuck his hand down my shorts she called me a slut and blamed me but her brother absolved me of my guilt by giving me no choice.

  But wants are dangerous and wants are what other people have. I am a provider, not another open mouth.

  I will fight this.

  I will not want this.

  I grit my teeth and think of each thing I know about color theory. I can hold my breath for a little longer.

  Opposites contrast and enforce at once. Purple and yellow become more themselves when they are side by side on the blooming bruises down my thighs.

  Light is relative to its surroundings. The pain in my lungs feels bright white because I’m used to feeling so black. If I were a better person, it would darken. It wouldn’t feel so good. It wouldn’t feel transcendent. If I didn’t make a living navigating the shady corners of the underworld, pain would look like a pit.