Sins & Mistrust (17 page)

We spend the morning together, and then I leave for Las Vegas. I tell her she’ll get her money back for this trip, but I plan on reimbursing her for every appointment she’s hired me for. With the promise of not staying out of touch for too long, I leave without seeing Lincoln and look forward to being back home. I call Liz on the way and tell her that I’ll still attend her daughter’s wedding, but that I may take a break with escorting for a few weeks.

I definitely need some time to myself.

Maybe even time to go visit my family.

“What do you mean he left? I thought he was staying until this weekend?” Lincoln roars.

“Yeah well, he left early. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“What happened?” he asks, his voice softening as he takes in my sad demeanor.

I explain what I told Marc, and how I probably scared him off with all the relationship talk. I don’t know why I said that. I hadn’t even discussed that with Lincoln. I feel like an idiot.

Lincoln seems surprised by what I said, too. “Do you really think a relationship could work between us?”

“I don’t know, Linc. It probably wouldn’t.”

“Do you like him?”

“He’s great, Linc. Like, really, really great.”

He gives me a knowing smile. “I like him, too.”

“He just needs time to think things through.”

Lincoln pulls me into him and we sit in the center of the couch. He strokes my hair and I look up at him. Our eyes connect and the chemistry that usually stays hidden beneath the surface boils over. We lean in at the same time and our mouths meet. His soft lips caress mine and he lifts me to his lap, my legs falling on either side of his thighs. I grind onto him as he pulls me closer, massaging my tongue with his.

I pull at his shirt, but his hands clasp around my wrists. Leaning back I give him an annoyed look.

“Lincoln, why can’t you fuck me? You’re obviously turned on,” I say, as I grind over his hardening dick. “You have no problem fucking men without a woman around.”

“Thalia,” he growls in warning.

“No, really. I mean, you’re okay with me being alone with Marc. I’m okay with you two being together without me, I’m assuming Marc is okay with us being together, but that won’t happen anyway, because you have some weird rule. If this doesn’t work with us three, it’s because of you! You and I can’t take our relationship to the next level alone, and that’s just strange. We have chemistry. We’ve had it for years.”

“Are you done?” he asks, amused by my rant.

“Yes,” I huff.

“This is serious, Thalia. I’ve never told anyone this story, and I hope it helps better your understanding.”

“Okay,” I say, sliding off his lap and folding my legs underneath me while I face him.

He scoots back and runs a hand over his face. With a deep exhale, he begins.

“Several years ago I was in two separate relationships. One with a man and one with a woman. They both knew about each other, but because they weren’t into threesomes, we never were together at the same time. Well, with the man, we had this physical, passionate relationship. We enjoyed being rough with each other, and it was okay, because we could both handle it. We didn’t necessarily have a loving, emotional connection, but we really enjoyed having sex with each other. We were spontaneous, kinky, and lascivious.

“With the woman, it was quite the opposite. She was gorgeous. Long blonde hair, hour glass figure, and the classiest lady I’ve met. No offense,” he says with a smirk. I roll my eyes and gesture for him to continue. “Anyway, sex with her was softer, sensual, and slow. She wanted me to make love to her, and worship her body. Which, hey, I’m all good with. She had a great body to worship. One night though, Ian and I had gotten into a fight while we were out drinking. He pissed me off and then took off, and so I went to Madison’s house.

“She didn’t mind that I had shown up late at night and piss drunk. In hindsight, she may not have known how drunk I was. Anyway, she brings me to the bedroom and strips me of my clothes, complaining that they stunk of Ian’s cigarettes. She starts kissing me and doing all the things that scream,
I want sex
.

“I was still pissed at Ian, fucking drunk, and horny as hell. She had her hands all over me, she took off all of her clothes, and we fell into bed together. I start fucking her the way I always did.”

My eyes get wide and I hold my breath. I’m suddenly really worried about what he’s about to reveal.

“During sex, I start getting rougher; the way I usually am with Ian. I was half out of my mind, I don’t know if I was picturing him, or taking my anger out or what, but I just started with pulling on her hair, and tossing her to her stomach when I wanted to enter from behind. I don’t remember what all she was trying to tell me, but I remember fucking her really hard and I probably called her some nasty names that I normally wouldn’t. Just dirty talk stuff, but she wasn’t into that. Anyway, I snapped out of it when she yelled out my name in hysteria. When I saw the terrified and disgusted look on her face, I grabbed my clothes and left.”

“What happened?” I ask, fully engrossed.

“I didn’t talk to her for several days. When I did, she said I didn’t hurt her or anything, but that I should have known she didn’t like to be treated like that. She said I needed to respect her as a woman and never hit or roughhouse with her. She wasn’t into that
kinky shit
.”

“Oh my gosh,” I breathe out.

“Yeah. I apologized profusely, because even though I didn’t truly hurt her or force her to do anything, I felt bad for exposing her to that side of me.”

“Did you stay together?”

“Oh no. She wanted to try, but I just couldn’t. I didn’t trust myself after that.”

“So, that’s why you need a man around? Because you can be rough with him?”

“Yes, and because there’s someone else there in case I were to get carried away with the woman. He could step in, you know?”

“Lincoln, you were drunk and angry. I don’t think that would happen every time.”

“I don’t want to risk it, Thalia. Especially with you. I don’t want to hurt you. I like to be rough, and being rough with another man is okay. Our bodies are bigger and stronger. Again, no offense.”

“Oh, shut up,” I say, swatting him. “What if the woman likes to be manhandled?” I ask.

“Are you saying…” he starts, but is interrupted when his phone starts ringing.

He pulls it from his pocket and glances at the screen.

“Hello?” Silence. “Marc?”

He pauses and looks at me. I wait as patiently as possible to see what Marc has to say.

“Hey. How did you get my number? Not that I’m complaining,” he says with a genuine smile.

I bite down on my nail as I watch him. I was the one who gave Marc his number before he left.

“Ah,” Lincoln says, looking down at me and giving me a wink. “Uh-huh. Well, yeah, I just got the rundown.”

Pause.

“Mmhhmm.”

Pause.

“Sure,” he says, sounding surprised.

Pause.

“I’ll give you a call when I get back.”

Pause.

“Yeah, okay. Bye.”

“Well?” I ask, needing to know what’s going on.

“Nothing, really. He just told me about how he left and that he wanted to talk to me when I got back into town.”

“Did he seem okay?” I ask.

Lincoln shrugs. “I guess.”

“Linc?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think you could be in a relationship?”

“With anybody or with you and him?”

“With anybody, I guess.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been in one in while.”

“Yeah, me either.”

“We need to give him time to figure out whatever it is he’s dealing with. He may have developed feelings for you, but you’re a client. Whatever him and I have is very new, and not quite in the
feelings
stage. More like the lust stage. I’ll talk to him when I get back, see what he has to say, and we’ll go from there.” He puts a finger under my chin and tilts my head up so I can gaze into his deep, blue eyes. “You still have me,” he says with a grin. “Me and you are good, right?”

I nod. “Of course.”

“So, about earlier,” he pauses, giving me a mischievous look. “You like the
kinky shit
, huh?”

“I began to learn that with Marc, I did,” I say with a blush.

“Marc’s kinky?” he asks, curiosity getting to him.

“Well, I have a feeling things would have escalated if we had continued, but let’s just say he enjoys being rough, too. You guys have that in common.”

“How rough?” he asks, his voice dropping an octave.

“Like I said, I don’t think I was able to get him to fully let go. He was holding back when he was with me. He has tied me up, and he likes to hit, squeeze, and…”

“Bite,” Lincoln and I both say at the same time.

“Yes,” I say with a smile.

“Hmm. He hit you?”

“Well, not like that, Linc. He didn’t punch me. Anything he did, I reveled in. He would spank my ass, or smack my thighs. Once, when I was on the verge of coming, he brought his hands down hard on my thighs, and the bite of pain sent me over the edge. I came harder than I ever had.”

Lincoln grunts, probably getting turned on.

“Anyway,” I say, changing the subject. “I guess there’s no reason for us to stay here, anymore. My work is done, so we can head back to Vegas whenever.”

“Yeah, I need to see what Marc has to say.”

“Will you let me know?” I ask.

“Of course.”

Lincoln leans in and gives me another breathtaking kiss.

“Mm,” I moan, my eyes still closed as he pulls away.

“Soon,” he says. “I promise to try with you. For you. Okay?”

I bite down on my lip and nod.

Lincoln leaves to go back, and I do the same. Guess it’s time to get back to Sin City, where I’m so clearly ready to be a sinner with two men.

I don’t know why I expected to see Marc as soon as I got back into town, because clearly he had other plans. When I got back, I sent him a text letting him know I was home, and he wrote back saying okay, he’d call when he had time to meet up. I didn’t expect that call to come a week later. He must have been really busy.

“Hello?” I answer.

“Hey,” Marc replies.

“You’re finally free?” I ask with a short laugh.