Chapter 1

“You know the rules,”Natalia said, nude body perched on the cool, white marble of her bathroom counter — her foot propped on the edge of her freestanding tub for balance.

The woman between her parted thighs, who she affectionately referred to by her place of employ, looked up at her — a grin on her gorgeous, kiss-swollen lips. “I can get you close, but not over,” she uttered the magic words.

Natalia nodded before reaching down, fingers gliding over the soft stubble of the woman’s fade haircut before touching the smooth skin at the back of her neck and pulling her in.

With her head tossed back, Natalia focused on the sensation of the woman’s tongue. On the pressure and predictable rhythm of her movements.

Each gentle swipe, slow and purposeful, made the heat over her damp skin rise. Rolling her hips, Natalia signaled for her to move faster. Impatient that she hadn’t changed tempo on her own.

Ever generous, the woman on her knees unfurled one of the arms wrapped around Natalia’s thighs and found her sensitive nipple with her fingers. She made up for not having read Natalia’s mind.

Cursing, Natalia let the pressure build inside of her. Let the euphoria make her feel light and her lungs constrict. Raced the addictive pleasure to the very edge before she moaned, “Stop.”

UPSstopped without hesitation, although a whine echoed against the marble when Natalia replaced UPS’s tongue with her own fingers. Natalia didn’t have to tell her what she wanted next. They’d been practicing this choreography once a week for months.

With her mouth on her neck and her hands gripping her thighs, UPS held her while Natalia gave herself a perfectly satisfying orgasm. The moment Natalia’s body stopped trembling, and not a second later, she released her.

Instead of going again, UPS slipped into the shower for a quick rinse. Natalia would wait until she finished to shower. Adults bathed alone.

“So, I’ve been meaning to tell you something, and I’m not sure how,” UPS — dressed only in the pressed shorts of her delivery driver uniform — said when Natalia joined her in the master bedroom wrapped in a towel.

Natalia flicked the corner of her brow like a rattlesnake’s tail. “The point is always a good place to start,” she said before sitting at the vanity next to the entrance of her walk-in closet.

While Natalia applied suspensions and serums to her face, UPS finished getting dressed. No one had ever looked so good in brown polyester, Natalia decided, her gaze roaming in the mirror.

“I’ve started seeing someone,” she said after Natalia applied her tinted moisturizer. “And I think it could actually lead to something real.”

Natalia turned in her seat to look at her rather than her reflection. With her attention fixed on the big, brown eyes looking back at her, she tipped her head to the side and waited to learn what that had to do with her. They’d been clear with each other from the beginning. Their entanglement was strictly physical and entirely non-monogamous. They owed each other nothing. Nothing was preferred.

The woman stepped closer, heavy lace-up boots in her hand and hideous brown socks covering her strong calves. Expectation swirled around her like cologne.

“I’m giving up my route,” she said, as if that meant something to Natalia. After a beat, she added, “I won’t be delivering to Dominion anymore.”

Natalia furrowed her brow as much as Botox would allow. “Why?” There was no need for drama. She didn’t have to change her life because they would no longer be having string-free sex.

UPS stared at her for an eternity — eyes exuding misplaced hope — before shaking her head and chuckling with something like disappointment. “I’ve always known what this is, and it’s been incredibly fun. But I turn thirty in a few months, and I don’t know… it feels like time to look for something more than just fun.”

Natalia was a year and a few weeks from fifty and didn’t get her point. Was there an expiration date on sex? She hadn’t found one.

“I hope you let someone in, Natalia.” She leaned in and kissed her cheek. “That was never going to be me,” she said when she pulled back, “but everyone deserves a chance to be loved.” She hesitated by the door, obviously waiting for Natalia to say something. When she didn’t respond with some histrionic display, she offered a restrained smile. “Take care of yourself.”

A few moments later, the sensor on her front door chimed. And she was gone. Entanglement untangled.

An hour after that, Natalia was descending the stairs in a sapphire blue jumpsuit, nude heels in hand as she crossed the ice white of her Statuario marble floors in slippers.

Natalia changed into her shoes before opening the door to her four-car garage. In the gleaming, cavernous space, there were only two things: a 1995, white Jeep Wrangler with its top and doors removed and stored, and a new, emerald green Jaguar.

Just a few days into the new year, the morning was hazy and cool. The sun was trying and failing to reach her through black, frameless glass garage doors. Miami would only give them a handful of cold snaps. The sixty-degree morning almost made her consider taking out the Jeep.

Natalia put her hand on the relic she kept in mint running condition, hesitated for a moment, and unlocked the Jaguar. She didn’t have time to put her freshly cut bob, newly dyed chestnut, under a scarf.

The early morning drive from her waterfront estate in the exclusive and gated Old Cutler Bay community to her office downtown was a relatively low-traffic half-hour along the coast. After a lifetime in Miami, Natalia refused to drive during rush hour, leaving her smaller and smaller travel windows. But it wasn’t usually a problem. She arrived at Dominion before the melee and left well after.

When she pulled into the high-rise’s garage, Natalia’s head was on a swivel. Lola’s mother hadn’t been back since she ambushed the kid in the office two months earlier. Security was on alert not to let her inside, but Natalia didn’t put it past the monster to slither in.

Natalia didn’t see any of the vehicles her background check revealed belonged to Lola’s mother or her other progeny. She dropped her shoulders, relieved she wouldn’t be clawing any eyes out. Gucci was not designed to be perspired in.

As soon as the elevator opened on Dominion, Natalia took a deep breath. She loved being home.

“Good morning,” the new receptionist named Millie called to her from behind enormous glasses and clothes that were far too baggy for her figure because Gen Z was launching a targeted assault on good fashion.

In the reception area, a frosted glass door led to the central hub of Natalia’s professional world. Early in the day, the bullpen was sparsely populated, but her presence quickly caught the attention of the seven assistant agents working there. As they looked up from their desks, with the scenic backdrop of Biscayne Bay behind them, a reverent hush fell over the room.

In her corner office, all glass so she could see everything, even when people didn’t think she was watching, Natalia paused to look out the plate-glass that brought the dark bay into her sacred space. Centering herself only took a few moments.

By the time Zoe Plaza-Jones arrived for their meeting, she was ready. Zoe was a woman in her late forties who’d defied the odds by parlaying her career as a child actor into award-winning work as an adult. When she got fewer opportunities to play the hot bisexual disaster next door, she smashed expectations again by going behind the camera. Now that directing wasn’t challenging enough, she wanted to produce. As Natalia’s first and most famous client, it was her job to get Zoe what she wanted.

And what she wanted was the film rights to the book she slid over the glass conference table toward Natalia. It was all she’d been talking about for months.

“She won’t even answer my calls now,” Zoe complained. “I heard nothing back after that letter you told me to send.” She flung her hands up and tipped back in the white leather chair. It was obvious that she’d considered throwing her feet on the table, but a single lingering look from Natalia made her sit up straight. Zoe had never fully shed the child-like petulance she’d acquired after becoming a teenage millionaire.

Natalia’s attention darted from Zoe to the book with a cover that was drab and hideous and not improved by being upside down. A plain red jacket with a black square for a Times New Roman title was the most uninspired thing she’d ever seen — and she’d seen the return of scrunchies and mom jeans.

“If she’s not interested in negotiating, why did she send you a copy of the book?” Natalia asked mostly to herself while reaching for the small hardback.

Power, Procreation, and Patriarchy: A Critical Analysis of the Vampire Myth and the Daughters of Lilith by Dr. Samantha Reyes. A title as riveting as the cover.

“The only time she took my call, she insisted she didn’t send it to me,” Zoe continued ranting, bordering on supersonic. “But come on. I’ve been in this game too long to fall for that shit. Who else would mail a copy to my manager with no return address?” Zoe drummed on the desk with her fingers before regaining control of her right mind. “She wants to play hardball,” she guessed.

Natalia flipped the book over. Dr. Samantha Reyes couldn’t even be bothered to include an author photo. That didn’t speak of someone desperate to take big swings.

“This is going to be a seminal work, Natalia. I can feel it in my freaking bone marrow.” She jumped to her feet, pacing the back of the room enough to make Natalia motion sick.

Flipping through the pages Zoe had tagged and highlighted and scribbled on, Natalia failed to see what Zoe saw in the clinical tone and walls of text. Did academia frown on short sentences and paragraph breaks?

“Get me a clean copy,” Natalia said after dropping the beat-up hardback on the table. “I’ll get you the film rights.”