Authors: Victoria H. Smith
I said ‘her’ because I didn’t know her name. As far as I knew he just met the girl this week.
“Would you believe she started her period today?” Rising up, he sat back on the baseboard of his bed. He moved the laptop onto his lap. “I obviously compensated. Well, I would have if it weren’t for you. Fucking cockblocker.”
Chuckling, I drew a fresh t-shirt and jeans out of my bag. “Sorry to disturb you. I’m out of here soon anyway, then you can go back to your ‘date’ for the evening. I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”
When I originally made the plans with Roxie, I was unsure of what our late night meeting entailed. I just knew we’d be spending time together. It didn’t matter if that led to anything more. I was okay with whatever she wanted to do.
Smiling at the thought of her, I changed out of my suit into casual clothes, wanting to be comfortable during my time with Roxie.
“Where are you going?” D asked, eyeing me.
I tugged down my shirt. “Out.”
He crossed his arms. “Really? You hooking up with Tanya?”
I fought to keep the ‘hell no’ tickling my throat from surfacing. “I told you that ship has not only sailed, but crashed and burned into the fiery pits of hell. Tanya and I are through.”
He laughed so hard his laptop nearly fell from his lap. He waved me off. “Well, go have your fun then while I get back to mine.” After stretching out his fingers, he moved a hand to his laptop’s touchpad.
“You watching Candie?” I asked, more so for conversation. I didn’t really care as I grabbed my wallet out of my dress pants, transferring it to my jeans. I knew he had videos of her on his computer, though. She sent them to him.
“Nah, man. This girl is even better. Don’t get me wrong. I
love
looking at Candie, but this girl…” He whistled. “Ass, hips, thighs, and all in an abundance. Shit, she doesn’t even have to take off all her clothes and I already have my dick in my hand. Her forte is simulation. A seductress of the imagination. She always keeps something on. No matter how tiny it may be.”
Porn where the woman didn’t get naked? That was different. I shrugged. I never really was into the stuff after high school. I appreciated having the real thing far more.
“She posts videos, but she has live chats as well. Takes requests and everything,” he said, clicking around. “She does themes and plays it up, too. Looking hot as hell as she touches herself. Moaning and groaning. She doesn’t usually show her face, but when she does, she wears a mask. They call her the Masked Diva. Weird thing is she recently took down all her videos and she hasn’t chatted in a while either. I saved my favorite video, though. Check it out.”
I really didn’t want to ‘check it out’. Some woman touching herself and living out men’s fantasies over the web was not my thing. The woman I was about to meet had all of my focus. She didn’t have to sex herself up or degrade herself to get attention. Who she was at her core not only drew me to her but also made me fall for her.
I was leaving the room when I heard that girl, her voice, coming from the very room I was attempting to leave from. She wasn’t speaking. No words were audible. The sounds she made were ones I had heard before when I touched her in her apartment. That night I had the first feel of her body in my hands. Her moans were the sweetest sounds in the world then. Now, they were something else entirely. Something not so pure.
I turned and my stomach twisted, the onslaught of sickness fast approaching.
Roxie was on D’s computer. She was only covered by a lacey, black corset, tiny underwear, and a mask on her face just like D mentioned. She waved a black feather fan, gliding it over her body. The fan fluttered over breasts, her corset top, and then finally over her panties. Keeping the fan in the area, she spread her legs. She danced her fingers up the apex of her thigh, moving toward the fan covering herself.
I turned just before her fingers went behind the fan, but I still heard the sounds she made…
Those moans that used to sound so sweet.
Roxie
God, I was nervous. But… excited. I think I had been in the small bathroom of my suite to check my face and hair about four times before I finally made myself sit. My thoughts weren’t in any secure place. In fact, I wasn’t going by them at all. My heart took charge tonight and I was going to let it run and have its way. It told me to say yes to Griffin earlier tonight, to accept who he was in spite of everything. His passion for me was evident. It was as strong as mine had always been for him.
He cared for me, he really did, and I knew that now. I had to give this a shot. I had to try or I’d never know what we could have… what we could be.
The knock on my door had life charged behind it and I jumped. Swallowing hard, I made it to the door, promising myself I’d give this a chance. Fight for it with all I had.
He was looking down when I opened the door, his hands in his pockets, and for some reason, he didn’t lift his head.
I stepped out. “Griffin?”
His head lifted, but only slightly. He nodded toward my room. “Can I come in?”
He sounded funny, and I didn’t like it. I opened the door quickly, fearing something was wrong. “Of course. Come in.”
He didn’t hesitate passing me. He gazed around the room. “Did you bring your computer?”
Frowning, I closed the door. “Yeah. Why? Did you need to use the Internet?”
He didn’t answer me. He was looking at my desk in my room, starting at my laptop there.
He went for it, and I stayed on his heels. “Griffin?”
Snapping the laptop open, he didn’t respond. My screen illuminated, and the password-protected screen came into view.
“Can you unlock this please?” He didn’t even turn when he spoke to me.
My heart drummed inside my chest as I went up to his side. He was acting so weird and frantic. His voice was no longer gentle and inviting like he wanted to be around me.
I played with my hands, knowing I had to find an excuse for why he couldn’t use my computer. I had some things saved on my home screen. Things I couldn’t risk him seeing. “I’d let you use it, Griffin, but my wireless is acting finicky up here. I’m sure there is a twenty-four business center downstairs that has working computers.”
His jaw clenched and he finally turned. Those cool blue eyes pierced in their stare and heated the room in their blaze. “Is your wireless really not working? Or are you afraid of what I might see on your computer? Afraid that if I look hard enough, I might find something.”
Oh God…
the breath left my lips in soft wisps, my head spinning and the air suddenly thick. Thick with so much. Tension. Anxiety.
Fear.
Despite that, I tried to control it and get a hold of my breathing. “What…” I dampened my mouth. “What do you mean?”
Closing my computer, he placed it down on my desk. By the time he stood tall in front of me, I was shaking.
Shaking.
He didn’t blink, keeping his focus directly on me. “What do you have on there, Roxie? Pictures?” he paused. Taking a breath, his nostrils flared. “Pictures to go with… go with what you do?”
The words came out like he had a bad taste in his mouth, like it took increased effort to say them without making him ill, and I didn’t know how I remained standing, how I kept from falling. The guy I cared about so deeply, the one who had only stared at me warmly even when I was a nameless face in the laundry room, now looked at me like I was nauseating him. I swallowed the lump in my throat. It was the only way I could keep from crying.
“How did you find out?” My voice came out as a whisper.
He shook his head. Moving away, he turned his back to me. His large shoulders rose with the breath he took. When he turned around, he was breathy. Like he was doing all he could to keep himself calm. “I walked in to find D
jacking
off to you.”
If I didn’t feel sick before I did now. His friend knew about my videos and he was… and Griffin saw him. I put my head in my hands. “Did he know it was me?”
“He obviously knows he’s seen you from somewhere.”
He did mention at the Union he’d seen me before, but I let it go that day. I let it go. Oh, God I should have realized it was this. Oh, God…
“But he fortunately hasn’t put two and two together yet since you keep your face concealed. I realized it was you and told him to stop watching it. That I knew the girl in the video. I didn’t tell him who, but I don’t know if that will matter. It’s all out there. He could end up figuring it out on his own.”
My body twitched in deep shakes, my nerves rattled to my core. Placing my shaking hand to my mouth, I sat on the edge of the bed. I didn’t dare look up at Griffin. It hurt too much.
“What I don’t understand is—” He let out a large breath and I cringed. His voice was strained. So struggled. “What I don’t understand is how you can let random men look at you. How you can
touch
yourself for them.”
Tears pricked at my eyes, and I closed them tight, trying so hard not to cry. I had to at least wait until he left. I could breakdown then.
“You moan and groan, living out the fantasies for these… these guys all around the world. You do that so easily for them when all I wanted…”
His voice was so shaky. I lifted my head, finally looking at him. He still had his back to me, and my breath left when he turned around. His cheeks were red, his face flushed, and he had to swallow before he spoke. “All I wanted was to be near you. I never expected you to be anything else but who you were. I never pressured you, but you wouldn’t let me in, wouldn’t even let me have a piece of you, but for these guys… for these guys you did that and then some. You gave them your body, Roxie. Your body.”
“I was scared,” I said, blinking down the tears I could no longer contain. “I worried that once you found out—”
“That what?” He approached me, towering over me. “I’d see you differently? Be disgusted? Do you take money from these guys, Roxie? Do they pay you to do these things?”
I feared his response to what I had to say next. “I don’t do it for money. I never ask them for anything, but they can donate if they want.”
He pushed his hand into his hair, spinning on his heel away from me before charging right back. “You’re letting them pay you? They’re
paying
you like you’re some cheap…”
He didn’t finish what he was going to say, but I knew immediately what he was insinuating. That I was selling myself to these men. That they were purchasing me. The emotions I felt before twisted and turned into anger that hazed over any guilt I had when he came at me originally tonight. I couldn’t be more enraged or insulted and the hypocrisy in the room had me wanting to stand up to him. What I was doing was in the privacy of my own space. I wasn’t hurting anyone, and I definitely wasn’t sleeping with people who’d been paid to be with countless others. He wasn’t a stranger to the ‘perks’ of his life, and for every one he accepted he sold a little bit of his soul, so how dare he talk down to
me
about selling myself?
How dare he.
I stood, no longer shaking as the fear of rejection was replaced by fire in my veins. “How dare you, Griffin? How fucking dare you talk to me about selling myself.”
His eyes twitched wide and his own emotions transformed before me. Shock quickly replaced his anger, and the confusion in his eyes was evident. “Roxie…”
I stepped up to him, crossing my arms. “I know about it, Griffin. I know about everything. The trips to Cancun, excursions to Hawaii, and God only knows what other trips you’ve accepted as ‘gifts’ for doing something you’re good at. It was all the talk at the salon today. The basketball players and all the awesome free stuff they get for their talent.”
His eyes left me when he lowered his head. He didn’t say anything and I was so on fire I couldn’t help but continue.
“How about your car?” I said, placing my hands on my hips. “That ‘roomy’ Escalade your ex-girlfriend was going on about? Was that another gift? Another form of payment like your friend, Candie?”
His eyes flashed my way at her name.
“She let me know all about how she ‘serviced’ you when I ran into her at your party. How she was your
payment
for a job well done on the court.”
His face fell and he lifted his hands, approaching me. “Roxie—”
I backed up, moving away from him. “You know all of it’s true. So don’t you for one second talk to me about selling myself.” I paused, pointing at him. “Cheapening myself when that’s all you. At least
I
do what I do because it makes me feel good about myself. I don’t do it for those fools. Those assholes on the web. I do it for
me
and only me. We can’t all be Griffin Chandler, walking around while the rest of the world kisses our feet. We can’t all be gods among men and the goddesses who love them. The girls that hang all over them with their sparkling eyes and perfect asses. It may be stupid, and you may think I’m the most pathetic person on Earth, but my chats get me noticed. They make people see me. They come for me. They desire me. And…”
I couldn’t continue. I couldn’t because I felt ashamed, embarrassed, and stupid for admitting all this to him. I broke down in tears and the influx caused my throat to burn, my eyes to swell. I wanted to run away and hide in the depths so he couldn’t see me. I moved away, but Griffin grabbed my arms, and suddenly I was in his own.
“I noticed you,” he whispered, moving his arms tight around me. “I noticed you.”
He was being so gentle with me. Still so gentle after everything.
Chapter Thirteen
Griffin
She laid her head against my chest, her body quaking and trembling with vulnerability. Roxie had always been my super girl. So strong and undefeated by anything that challenged her. But I guess even she had her Kryptonite. Clare had been right. Roxie did have something deep going on, something she masked everyday behind her spirit and confidence. At her core sat the truth; a truth more severe than I anticipated. I didn’t know exactly how to deal with that, but I thought telling her the truth was a good start.
“You never had to be a fantasy for me, Roxie,” I told her, playing with her soft hair. She was always so soft. “You never had to be that way because I liked the real thing. That girl? Roxie
Elbowa
? The skater girl who throws merciless blows at other chicks. The one that also somehow finds the time to school threatening dudes on how to deal with the rashes on their dicks…”