Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 60905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
“I wish you all could try this,” I said, speaking louder over the music. Probably the best course of action to get the live stream back on track was to focus on my followers. “How many of you wish you could be where I am right now?”
The notifications were turned off, but I swear, I could hear the echo of the responses anyway. My feed had to be completely full, with envious followers remarking on this amazing technology.
But then the banging noise came again. Actually, it might have been there for a while, a faint background to the surround-sound music. But, God, everything felt so good that I almost didn’t care.
Almost.
The stupid noise was interrupting one of the most sensual experiences of my life. Annoyance warred with pleasure. I was a pro—I didn’t let background sounds intrude into my videos. I opened my mouth to tell them to fix the issue, but Colton spoke first. “You didn’t answer my question before.”
He was obviously trying to keep our livestream on track, and he was probably right. The show must go on, and all that. “About what?”
“About why you said no man could give you a massage this good.”
“Oh.” That was easy to answer. I shifted my hips, pressing myself against those magic robot hands as I warmed up to the theme. “They don’t have the patience for it, for one thing. Plus, they’d never be able to find the knots in my muscles like this thing can.”
“Some men aren’t good at finding the right spot,” Brad said huskily, and I grinned.
“Damn straight. Or they’d just go for the parts they want to touch and ignore the rest. Men, as a whole, seem mostly interested in their own pleasure, not the woman’s.”
“On behalf of my gender, I apologize if that’s how it seemed to you,” Brad said.
“That’s how it is.”
“That’s good,” Colton said, and I turned toward his voice, my eyebrows raised though he couldn’t see them.
“It’s good for us, I mean. If people, especially women, aren’t getting what they need, that means there’s a market for our product,” he clarified. “At the very least, we can sell to women who have clueless men in their lives.”
Waves of pleasure radiating from my lower back made my tongue loose. “Which is pretty much all of them.”
But then my eyes flew open as the banging from the hallway continued. Without thinking about it, I ripped off the blindfold. “What the hell is that?”
The lights were no longer dimmed, for some reason, so it was a moment before everything started to come back into focus. Colton was over by the door, and Brad was just a few feet away, frowning as he stared at the mask in my hands.
Blinking rapidly, I looked from one man to the other. Neither had an explanation for the noise. Then I focused on the screen of my phone. Squinting slightly, I could just make out some of the comments scrolling rapidly from the bottom of the screen to the top. It looked like the usual mix of questions and comments, but quite a few of the responses were in all caps. Those were the ones that were easiest to make out. To my surprise, the ones I could read were:
OMG!!!
WHAT THE FUCK?!?!
LOOK BEHIND YOU
That last one was from Penny. My heart raced, and my formerly relaxed nerve endings went on high alert. I twisted in the chair, my calm, blissful feeling gone in seconds. The first thing I saw was that the dark curtain was open. As I craned my neck, I could see that there wasn’t anything directly behind the chair. No gears. No levers. No mechanics.
What the hell?
I turned to check the other side and near fell out of the chair as instinct made me flinch even before my mind had truly registered what I was seeing.
A strange man was standing right next to me.
6
LILA
My jaw dropped open as I craned my neck to look up at the man. He was so tall that I had to lean away from him to take him all in, and the muscles in my lower back that had been so soothed a moment ago twinged in complaint.
My stunned mind cataloged his features. Dark brown hair that sat high on his head. A short beard and goatee. Hard blue eyes under thick brows. There was something almost aristocratic about his face. Maybe the shape of his nose or his jaw.
A wave of conflicting thoughts flowed through me as I stared up at him. Surprise, of course. I’d had no idea there was another person in the room. A strange feeling of longing—he was a handsome man. But right on its heels—resentment. That one I couldn’t explain. And briefly, recognition of some sort.
But what the hell was he doing here?
I twisted my neck further, and several things hit me at once. Several horrible things. The dark curtain behind me was open a few feet. Evidently, this man had been back there the whole time. And then there were his hands. He was wearing black leather gloves.