Chapter 4

4

Ripley

“Holy shit.” I dance in a circle in front of my best friend, Alana. “We’re doing this.”

“Are we? I mean…” My best friend since forever paces the room in her short, white silk robe, wringing her hands. “Who profits off their virginity? That’s crazy, right?”

“Is it? Ask any woman, she’ll tell you her first time having sex was horrible,” I say, matter-of-factly, though I’ve mostly garnered this knowledge via Netflix and viral memes. “This way, we’re guaranteed to get something out of it.”

Two days ago, after I found the number to this place in my Uncle Mase’s phone, I swung by Alana’s house in my purple Volkswagen Bug—which my parents like to call gauche—and told her what I’d discovered. The town bed and breakfast is operating a brothel in the basement right under everyone’s noses and I just Nancy Drew’d my way into the know.

Alana is an aspiring photographer and has been mega-stressed out about not being able to afford tuition for art school. We’re supposed to move up the coast next week and attend the university together. It’s our dream. She refuses to accept a loan from my parents, even though I’ve offered ninety-nine times and now the window is closing. A payday like the owner of this place offered us could be her last chance to make tuition by the beginning of the semester.

We’ve done everything together since we met.

And now, it appears we’re both going to trade our hymens for money.

If that doesn’t bond two girls, I’m not sure anything will.

The madam of this hidden establishment is a seventy-year-old widow named Estelle. When her husband died in the nineties and she couldn’t make ends meet, apparently she entered the sex-for-cash game. When we walked through the door, she all but pounced.

Apparently virgins are the brothel jackpot.

Estelle found us both clients in a matter of hours. Alana doesn’t know who she’s meeting in her respective room tonight…but I do. I needed to be one hundred percent positive that Estelle matched me with Mase, so I did some recon in the parking lot and just moments ago, he pulled up on his Harley, those long, thick legs straddling the seat, his long, midnight hair messy from the wind. After the usual wave of worship and yearning rode over me, I almost jumped out of my hiding space and kicked him in the shin. How dare he visit a brothel when he has a perfectly good niece waiting right down the street?

Listen to yourself, crazy pants.

A lump forms in my throat. Mase paying for intimacy from other women is definitely a major concern, but my current worry is the confession I have to make to Alana. Our scheduled times are almost here and that means the moment of truth has arrived.

Taking a deep breath, I slide a mask out of the pocket of my royal-blue robe and tie it behind my head, concealing the top half of my face.

“Why do you have a mask?” Alana complains. “I didn’t get a mask.”

I square my shoulders. My poor best friend. I can see it in her eyes that she knows the other shoe is about to drop. She had the misfortune of taking up with me, a full-fledged troublemaker. I can’t stay out of mischief and I’m starting to think it’s a serious medical condition. “I have to tell you something,” I say quietly. “I’m invoking the no judgment clause.”

After a beat, she nods dutifully. “I solemnly swear not to laugh, gasp or lecture you.”

“Don’t even change your facial expression.”

“I won’t! Tell me.” We both glance at the clock on the wall. “We only have, like, five minutes until we can officially start complaining about our first times.”

My palms start to sweat. “Here’s the thing. I don’t know if I’m going to be complaining.” I close my eyes and blurt the rest. “I know who my customer is.”

“What? How? Estelle didn’t tell us.” She gapes at me. “Who is it?”

“This is where the no judgment part is critical,” I whisper, watching her face carefully. Perhaps for confirmation that I am, indeed, nutso. “It’s my step-uncle Mase.”

I’m really asking a lot of our no judgment clause here.

Alana’s face turns bright red. She’s become a human pressure cooker.

“How did you know that?” she asks, her voice strangled.

My nerves cause me to pace. “He was over at my house for dinner and I might have snuck a peek at his iPhone contacts. I, um…might have been looking for women’s number to delete. Weirdly, there weren’t any. But anyway. I found the number to this place, but there was no name. Mysterious. So I called it and…” She stops and turns on a heel, smacking her palms together. “Bam. I find the brothel that has been operating under our small-town noses this whole time.”

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Please don’t tell me you’re wearing that mask because…”

“I don’t want him to know it’s me.” I throw another glance at the clock. “It’s a long story. I’ve been in love with him for years and…look, we’ll talk about it after.”

“After you bugger your uncle!?”

My mouth falls open on a gasp. “That sounds like judgment.” Lamely, I add, “And he’s my step-uncle.”

Alana is prepared to grill me, but before she gets the chance, Estelle enters the room, looking every inch the small-town church lady. It’s a killer disguise. She pats me on the arm. “Room five, dear. He’s ready.”

* * *

My hand settleson the doorknob and a million butterflies are set loose in my belly.

This is by far the wildest thing I’ve ever done, but Mase left me on the precipice of self-discovery two days ago. The unused muscles between my legs have been in a permanent clench since he left me panting on my bed. Nothing compares to the ache in my chest, though.

The first time I ever walked into my dining room and saw Mase, I knew he would be important to me. My gut tells me I’m important to him, too. Way more than he’s letting on. So while I know I’m doing something a little reckless—and a lot deceptive—I tell myself this is for us. No one ever got what they wanted by sitting on the sidelines, right?

Mase is the man in my life.

If I can just eradicate limits he’s put on our relationship, I’ll be the woman in his.

I’ve always suspected that, despite Mase’s confidence, he doesn’t think himself a good match for me (our related-by-marriage status aside). Perhaps he feels that way because of his prison record. Or maybe because of the MC lifestyle he lived that landed him there. The words he spoke in the heat of frustration the other day seemed to confirm my theory.

Listen to me. I’ve got no business putting my cock in a sweet thing like you. You’re going to college. You’ve got a bright future ahead of you.

Don’t you dare fuck it up for someone like me.

Remembering how anguished he sounded starts a burn in my chest and I turn the knob, prepared to show my step-uncle exactly how worthy of my love he is. What happens in this room tonight is going to determine the direction of our relationship and I’m nervous as heck, but I’m beyond anxious to feel the passion of his touch again. My body is already humming from being so close to all of his intense masculine energy.

Before I step fully into the room, I reach in and dim the light, leaving the room almost dark. Having him recognize me right away would seriously put a dent in my plan, so yesterday I lopped off several inches of my hair, leaving it swinging just below my shoulders. Throw in the extremely low light and I shouldn’t be in danger of premature discovery.

With a deep breath I glide through the opening and close the door behind me, leaning up against it. And oh my God, there’s my uncle, sprawled out in a chair looking predatory, impatient and fueled up. The muscles in his big thighs flex at my arrival, a line jumping in his cheek. His size and the sheer maleness of him makes the room feel dainty in comparison. Makes me feel that way, too. Like a bunny rabbit willingly being sacrificed to a lion.

Trying not to betray too much of my excitement, I push off the door and advance toward him slowly, noticing the glossy, eight-by-ten photograph sitting beside him on the table for the first time.

It’s a photograph of…me.

Mase notices me eyeing the photograph and shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Listen, I don’t want to offend you. I’m sure you’re a nice girl. I’m sure you’re pretty and all, but…” He massages both knees roughly, like he desperately needs a way to occupy his hands. “I’ll be calling you Ripley. That’s who I’ll be fucking.”

Unadulterated happiness strikes my belly like a gong. Wow. Oh wow. Now I know for sure I’ve made the right decision. I haven’t been imagining the connection between me and Mase. It’s real. Remembering myself, I nod, but say nothing.

“I haven’t, uh…been with anyone in a while. Not since right after I got out of prison,” he says, his laughter tinged with strain. “After I met her…I just couldn’t anymore.”

My heart is going a million miles an hour. I want to throw myself into his arms and confess my love. Praise him for waiting for me. And I would do those things if I thought he’d drop his worries and be with me. But there are reasons he’s come to a brothel and not to me. He thinks us being together is wrong. So I can’t reveal my identity just yet. Not until we’re at the point of no return and his resistance to the idea of us has been crumbled.

Mase is staring at the picture. It’s one that was taken quite a while ago.

I’m in my cheerleading costume, looking back flirtatiously over my shoulder.

Bad, bad Uncle Mase.

“I don’t know why you’re wearing the mask. This is a small town. Maybe you don’t want your identity getting out there,” he says gruffly, running his fingers over the photograph’s surface. “Whatever the reason is, I’m glad. It’ll make picturing her easier.”

Every cell in my body tilts when Mase stands to his full, considerable height, carrying the picture over to the headboard of the bed, propping it between a pillow and the headboard. It excites me in a way I’m not expecting, this plan of his. To stare at my picture while he uses a warm body in frustration. And lord, must he be frustrated. A virile man like Mase not having sex for four years? His grumpiness is beginning to make a lot more sense.

Mase draws my attention when he lowers the zipper of his jeans. Staring at the picture of me in my cheerleading uniform, he reaches into the opening, winces, and starts to fondle himself roughly, his hard grunts filling the room. “I know you’re a virgin,” he says on a harsh breath. “You sucked a man off before?”

I’m supposed to respond? How can I even speak when I’m watching my uncle masturbate to a picture of me? How often does he do this? My nipples are in painful little pebbles, liquid warmth spreading on the seam of my panties. Flushed and beginning to tremble, I remember he asked me a question. You sucked a man off before?

He glances up in time to see my headshake.

“Come sit on the edge of the bed,” he instructs me, reluctantly taking his hand out of his jeans, leaving his bulky erection straining inside the denim. “You probably won’t have long to practice. I never make it longer than a few minutes looking at that picture.”

Catching myself mid-sway, I nod again.

“You don’t say much,” he comments dryly.

Distract him before he makes you speak.On unsteady legs, I go toward the right side of the bed, keeping my head down in case the darkness of the room and the mask aren’t enough to conceal my face. I try to make myself breathe evenly as I sit down in front of Mase, putting my mouth even with his lap. He reaches past me and adjusts the photo so he can see it better, then he shoves a hand back into his jeans, taking out his fisted erection. The first time his shaft made an appearance in my bedroom, I was too shocked to savor the sight, but now I trace every vein with my gaze and memorize every ridge.

His thumb presses to the middle of my bottom lip, tugging it down and guiding his thickness to my mouth at the same time. “Ah, fuck. Open up for me, Ripley, sweetheart.” His smooth head pushes past my teeth and fills my mouth, his salt and musk flavor hitting me in the back of the throat. My cheeks and the corners of my lips stretch to allow his size inside, his hand flying to the back of my skull to hold me steady. “This is the dick you’ve been teasing,” he rasps, canting his hips up and back, slicking out of my mouth and groaning his way back in, stretching me further this time. “Thought of doing this more times than I can count. Thought of doing it even when I was sitting right next to your father.”

I whimper around his next invasion, then fingers in my hair growing more insistent, the pace of his hips picking up. Maybe I’m not just a troublemaker, maybe I’m a bad girl, because I picture the scene he’s painted, Mase setting down his fork at the dinner table, tossing aside his napkin and rounding the furniture toward my seat. Unzipping his jeans and plowing himself between my lips while everyone gasps in outrage. The texture of him on my tongue, the hoarse sounds he’s making, the vision…they all join forces and lust coils in my belly.

My hands move of their own volition, wrapping around his swollen sex and stroking him toward my eager suck. Mase’s cock is in my mouth. I can’t believe it. It’s better than I could have imagined, especially when he makes a broken sound and starts to push deeper with every thrust of his hips, nudging the back of my throat with the enormous head of his manhood.

“Yeah, I knew you’d be like this, didn’t I, Rip? I knew as soon as you got a taste of your uncle’s fat cock, you’d be climbing the walls for it. You can barely stop yourself from stripping naked when we’re in the same room already.” He growls and starts to pump faster, more insistently, his ruddy arousal spearing between my lips so fast, his balls make a smacking sound off his thighs every time he rears back. “If I’d given in and dicked you down while your parents were off staring at their fucking phones, the next time I came over, you’d have crawled to me on hands and knees, fingering yourself and whining for another fuck. We’d never get away with it.”

God oh God oh God.Yes, he’s right. We’ve only just started and I can feel something inside of me blossoming. Finally. All of those times I strutted around in my bathing suit or a short skirt in front of Mase, I was frustrated and achy. Now I know. I was made to give this man pleasure. I was made to get pleasure from him. The switch is being flipped with every drive of his mighty hips and I’m never going back to before.

“All right. Enough,” he pants, using his grip on my hair to pull me off his hard length and I lick my lips, staring at it, internally begging for another suck. “That’s a sweet, little mouth you’ve got, Ripley, but I’m after the hot cunt you’ve been offering me for a lot longer than I should have been tempted. Take off the robe and get on your back.”

My hands are shaking so severely from need, from nerves, from everything in between, but I manage to peel the robe off my shoulders. I’ve barely got it down over my braless breasts when Mase rips it the rest of the way off, throwing it on the floor. He rakes hungry eyes over my chest, my belly, the blue silk panties—and in one fell swoop, he picks me up and throws me down in the center of the bed.

Visibly agitated, he strips off his shirt, but doesn’t bother removing his jeans. I have precious few seconds to marvel over the brute strength of him, seething muscles covered in intimidating tattoos, before he climbs onto the bed and kneels between my thighs. The panties are drawn down my legs slowly, painstakingly, and as soon as my sex is uncovered, a rope of white liquid belts from the head of his erection and stripes across my stomach. “Fuck,” he grates. “Let you give me head too long. Not going to last.” Throwing my underwear over his shoulder, he drops down on top of me and locks his attention on the picture beside my head, groaning, wetting his lips. “Been dreaming of getting between your thighs so long, Ripley. You’re going to open them now and give Uncle Mase that little cherry.”