Eleven

The following morning, I attempt to put aside the chaos of the last twenty-four hours, but my brain is on overdrive. I'm distracted. My hands are unsteady while washing my hair, and my skin routine ends up half-assed and incomplete. I'm barely brushing my teeth when my phone rings, and I nearly drop it into the sink when I see the name on the screen. Papá.

The red IGNORE button is so tempting. Even in the face of death, sending him to voicemail was beyond satisfying, but I know I can't form a habit. I know the consequences.

"What?" I question once the phone is on my ear. I immediately regret it though. He's going to be even crueler than usual now.

"Valeria." His voice is boreal, but crushingly familiar like always. "Sebastian said you threw him out because your boyfriend was there. You didn't mention a boyfriend at dinner last month. Is this some kind of ploy?"

Fury strikes me. There's no world where I would have ever mentioned Lander to my father, and of course, Sebastian went and did it. "What did he tell you?"

"Sebastian said he's a lawyer," my father goes on. "He said he's some rich white boy. Is that true?"

"That's none of your business."

"Do not take that tone with me, Valeria," he replies, enunciating each word. "What's his name? Where does he work?"

"You're out of your mind," I counter, taking the snarkiest tone I can. "Why would I tell you about my boyfriend?"

Fake boyfriend. So fake. Faker than my orgasms when I had to stream while I had strep throat.

My father, as is his custom, ignores what I say. "Bring him for Independence Day next month."

I stifle a scoff, but my tone is still indignant. "I'm not bringing him anywhere near you."

"Stop being childish, Valeria. I have to meet this boy."

"Why?"

"Because he should know what he's getting into."

Of course. Finally, it dawns on me what he meant when he asked if Lander was a ploy. He thinks I'm trying to cut him out. A boyfriend is the first step to escaping my father's reign of terror, and he wants to put a stop to it.

"I'll see you next month," he continues before adding snidely—lawyerly, "per our agreement."

And he's right: He will. Because no matter how much I hate my father, I have no choice.

He ends the call without another word, leaving me glaring at my phone.

I'm trapped. I'm trapped.

I unblock Sebastian purely so I can send him a threatening text (I hate you, you man-child, and if you ever talk to my father about me again, I'll beat you so badly that your dead ancestors will prune you from the family tree out of sheer embarrassment. They will replace you with a birdhouse and a tire swing and thank me for making the space), but it's not enough, so I add his email to the mailing lists for Danielle Steel and Nora Roberts, making sure to check all the boxes (Yes! I want updates on new releases! Yes! Send me links to exclusive merchandise! Yes! Send me recommendations for other romance authors I might like!). It's still not enough.

By the time I'm done clogging Sebastian's inbox with spam, I'm angrier than before. I try breathing the way I learned from my Muay Thai instructor—to focus on inhaling into my gut and not my lungs—but nothing helps.

I can't keep living like this. The emergency alert, as fake as it was, still got me thinking about all the mistakes I never corrected. Perhaps the biggest, beyond never pursuing Lander Dawson, is continuing to give my father power.

It's time to change that—and soon. I just need to figure out how.

Cora tucks her chin down, glaring at her nipples. Her brow is furrowed with unyielding concentration, like she's solving a complicated equation. "How about now?"

Appraising, I pull my mouth to the side and study her nipples. They're hard and the skin around them is scattered with pink from her touch, but the areolas themselves are still their usual medium brown. "Not quite. You need to get them redder."

She doesn't like my response, but she doesn't object. Cora is good with feedback; it's what makes her exceptional at what we do. "Uncuff me," she orders.

For the fifth time today, I unlock the handcuffs securing her to her headboard. Once her hands are free, Cora pinches her nipples, twisting her wrists at an odd angle so she can reach around the barbell piercings centered through each. "Now?"

"More."

She pinches them between her thumbs and index fingers, going so far as to pull her breasts up by her nipples and let them drop. "How about now?"

"Not bad. Let's try again."

But in the space of time between Cora getting back into position and me re-securing her handcuffs, her nipples no longer look just-sucked and just-fondled.

"Ugh," she murmurs. "I'd never change a thing about my body, but I earn so much more when my nipples look used and abused, which only happens when they've been messed with for hours. I hate them."

"Enough," I chastise. "They're amazing."

"No, yours are amazing." She lowers her focus to my chest. "You seriously had to make a deal with the devil to get tits like that."

"Sure did," I play along, dramatically sweeping my hand below my breasts like a game show assistant showing off a grand prize. She might be right though. Breast size is mostly genetic, and my horrendous parents are probably acquaintances with the devil.

Cora sticks her lips out in an exaggerated pout that persists until she lets out a sigh. Pleadingly, her dark brown eyes meet mine. "Can you help me? I'm sick of cuffing and uncuffing. It wastes time. Plus, I just got my nails done and they're getting in the way." She wiggles her fingers, showing off her usual long, matte black nails. This time, she has little silver studs on the ends.

"Fine," I acquiesce before putting down my DSLR camera. I sit next to Cora on her black satin bedsheets, briefly contemplating the best angle since the nipple piercings do make massaging them more challenging. Finally, I settle on flipping both my hands palm-up and coming in from below.

Within seconds of me rolling her nipples with the pads of my thumbs, Cora closes her eyes and nestles into her pillow, relaxing. "Shit, Fuentes. Have you been practicing?"

"Only on myself." I'm rougher with my boobs than she is, but I've always believed a woman's body is built to endure far more than anyone acknowledges. It's why I took up Muay Thai three years ago. Women bleed every month and literally grow babies in our bodies. There's no reason we can't fight like Kodiak bears and fuck like Valkyries.

With her eyes still closed, Cora releases a dreamy, relaxed exhalation. "Are you going to murder me if I get in the mood while you do this?"

"Go for it."

She slides lower and settles her head against the silky black fabric. The pillowcases and beddings complement her black hair, and the whole thing is so delightfully vampy. Part of me wishes I had gone in this direction when I started out. I'm so sick of pink, but some of my regulars would grab pitchforks if I drastically changed things after three years.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty, I guess.

Once Cora is comfortable, I pick up where I left off and continue to pinch and rub her nipples, working to get them bright red and perky—our goal for this photoshoot. Before I got to Cora's apartment, I figured it would be a straightforward task, but it's surprisingly difficult to make a nipple do what you want.

"Thanks again," she mentions. "Ever since Gage cheated—"

"Nope," I interrupt. "You're not going to thank me, and we're not going to say that asshole's name. This is your livelihood, and we're colleagues. I'll always step up when you need me."

"Colleagues," she parrots before rolling her eyes playfully. "You're so funny."

"Do you prefer work associates?"

"Soulmates is a good alternative," she counters, making me smile.

Cora and I stream together every month, hang out every week, and talk every day. I can say with total honesty: I've never loved anyone like I love her and Essie, our other best friend and "colleague."

When the three of us first met two years ago, it was a calculated business decision: We all cammed, we all lived in DC, and we appealed to vastly different audiences. My viewers are into innocent, feminine shit. Cora's are into alternative, gothy stuff. Essie's viewers like her hot-mess, coed party girl antics. We figured a collaboration could help us broaden our subscriber bases, and we weren't wrong. Our numbers soared after our first stream together.

Now, we're better cam models thanks to our different strengths: Cora is an incredible marketer who uses her background in psychology and human behavior to tap into sex trends and strategically sell our content, Essie is a data guru who runs analytics on our subscribers, and I'm an engagement pro who writes scripts and stock lines to make each viewer feel like they're the most important person in the room.

Business aside, we hit it off, and I'll never take for granted how lucky I am to have best friends in the business. Cora and Essie are my lifelines—and the closest thing I have to a family.

I scrape the tip of my fingernail around the edge of Cora's areola, and I've finally achieved the effect Gage used to get by sucking Cora's tits before taking stunning pictures of her. And yes, using my hands is bootleg, but I'm not about to suck my best friend's nipples on a random Friday afternoon—unless I'm getting paid for it.

"There. I think we're in business." I grab my DSLR, take a test shot, and show it to her.

Cora's face lights up. "Valeria, my nipples look stunning," she practically squeals. "You're amazing. A total tit whisperer."

I laugh. I should add that to my nonexistent resume: Tit whisperer who Lander Dawson checks out.

For the next half hour, I take pictures of Cora while she's nearly-naked, cuffed to her bed, and wearing a ball gag. Once I got serious about camming, I took a beginner's photography class, so I'm passable, but I'm nowhere as good as Gage, who was a professional. He and Cora only broke up a month ago, so my amateur images will have to suffice in the meantime. Artistic photos are a major part of Cora's shtick though, and she'll have to hire a professional soon.

Once we're done taking pictures, Cora insists on buying me lunch, although I'm tempted to say no. She's obsessed with this Korean-Mexican fusion place, which I know for a fact she had yesterday, because she texted me a picture of her eating a bulgogi taco with the message, I would literally declare this taco my next of kin if I could.

"Bitch, I thought I was going to die," she objects when I bring it up. "I might eat these tacos all week."

I wrinkle my nose. As a Mexican woman, I'm a taco purist, but I'm not going to shit on someone's passions.

We head out and find a table at the restaurant. "These are the perfect tacos for us. They're Latin-Asian fusion. If we had a baby together, it would be this taco," Cora declares before she digs into the first of her three ridiculous combinations: bulgogi and cilantro slaw.

"You're Filipina, not Korean," I remind her needlessly.

"Camaraderie counts. Asians embrace other Asians," she says before she waves off my comment like it's a pesky detail. "Anyway, what's going on with Lander? You didn't text me back last night."

"Trust me, I'm doing you a favor. The whole thing is a mess." And speaking of messes, my short ribs and jicama combo basically falls apart in my hands because this restaurant only uses one corn tortilla per taco instead of two—a street taco sin if there ever was one.

"Of course it's a mess. You banged your neighbor. Everyone knows you're not supposed to score next door."

"No shit, but when I made the choice, this wasn't supposed to be a problem. We were supposed to be incinerated or something."

Cora fakes a sad face, shoving out her lower lip. "Life is so unfair. Don't you hate it when you're supposed to die a horrific death and then it doesn't happen?"

"Big words from a girl who spent her last twenty minutes FaceTiming her ex so she could see his pierced dick one last time."

"Oh, you just went low!" Cora exclaims, gasping and pretending to be offended.

I flip her off. She mimes like she catches and kisses it.

Over the next few minutes, I give her the rundown of yesterday's chaos fest. By the time I'm done, Cora has inhaled all three of her tacos and is absentmindedly picking at the leftover food in front of me.

"Girl, you fucked a whale," is the first thing she says before she pops a piece of galbi into her mouth.

A whale: the term we use for men who spend more than the majority of customers. For most cam models, a whale makes up more than half of our revenue.

"Yep," I confirm flatly, resigned. "Cora, it's so fucked up."

"Maybe not. Is he going to stop watching your streams?"

I hadn't considered it, but knowing Lander—albeit barely and briefly—I'm pretty sure he won't stop. In fact, I'm willing to bet the only thing that could stop him is a ballistic missile headed to DC…and based on experience, I'm guessing he would keep watching right up until the very end.

Ridiculous man.

I shake my head.

"Sounds like the best of both worlds then. You were finally able to sample this delicious specimen of a man and he's going to keep sending mountains of tokens your way. It's a best-case scenario."

"It's not that simple. He wants to date me…or screw me again. One or the other. He asked for both."

Cora cocks a brow. "Which did he ask for first?"

"The dating."

"Good boy," Cora mutters thoughtfully, tapping her index and middle fingers along the line of her chin. "Are you going out with him soon? Because I bought this slutty bustier, but it's too big for me. You should totally wear it."

"I'm not going out with him. Not soon, not ever."

Cora throws down the taco she just outright stole from me and drops her jaw. "Are you nuts?"

"I can't date one of my regulars—"

"Yes, you can. He knows you cam and he likes it. You don't have to worry about any holier than thou bullshit."

"—well, I can't ‘score next door' as you put it—"

"Before I knew he was a subscriber. This is a different situation. Plus, you already fucked him and it's not like you can unsee his dick. You may as well see it again."

"—fine, but I'm not going to date a lawyer."

Cora finally pauses. The lawyer point is what gets her because she knows I'm not going to budge. "I hate the men in your life," she mutters, gazing distantly at the empty booths near us before she drums her fingertips on the table like she's searching for something to busy her hands instead of figuratively strangling Sebastian and my father. "They really did a number on you, didn't they?"

I don't deny it. They really did.

Cora faces me again and forces a placid smile that makes her eyes crinkle adorably. When she reaches across the table, it's not to pick at my lunch, but to put her hand on mine. "Listen," she says, "you know me. I don't have rules, so I'm the wrong person to tell you what to do with yours. But if it were me and I had a rule about dating lawyers, I would break it. I would break the absolute shit out of it for him."

"Why? Why should he be the exception?"

"Because you've taken him for a test run, and based on how conflicted you are, I figure it went well." Cora shrugs when I hesitate to answer. "Am I wrong?"

She's not wrong. It went exceptionally well, but I won't cop to it. Tens of thousands of people have seen me do all kinds of lewd, depraved things, but what happened between Lander and me is private.

Luckily, she accepts my silence and says, "These last two years have been rough, and you deserve to be happy more than anyone I know. If you can't give Lander a chance without worrying if he'll disappoint you, you don't have to. But on the flip side…"

I sigh, knowing exactly what she's going to say next. "He may not disappoint me."

"Exactly."

I push away my tray of food, which Cora tugs in her direction and gleefully begins to eat.

"I told him I'm not interested," I finally admit.

Cora glances up at me and shrugs again, her expression unsurprised. "He didn't believe you," she practically informs me.

"I'm sorry, what? How do you know that?"

"I know," she answers while scooping up errant taco filling with her fork. "All throughout his life, a man that handsome has gotten oodles of validation that he is, in fact, handsome. Accepting that someone who already slept with him isn't interested would be cognitive dissonance. He's incapable of it. So, trust me: He didn't believe you. I'd bet massively that he's going to make a pass at you again."

"We're giving each other space. Maybe he'll stay away."

"He won't," Cora replies, not missing a beat.

My heart shouldn't surge when she makes the suggestion, but it does—it really does. Cora is always right about these things. Before she started camming, she was getting a PhD in psychology, researching human sexuality and behavior. Yes—a PhD at twenty-two. She dropped out and started camming for several intelligent, logical reasons, the most intelligent and logical of all being: She realized she could make an absurd amount of money doing it. She says she doesn't miss being in academia, but I know she misses picking apart people's brains when it comes to sex and decision-making. Whenever I need an ear, she's the first person I call. She nails it every time.

"He's so hot," I mutter, my tone a mix of reluctance and begrudging honesty. "He's also unexpectedly…funny."

"Funny?" Cora scoffs. "Your big deal, big law neighbor is funny? I don't buy it for a minute."

"I know. He seems so intimidating, but he's an oddball. Half of what he says to me sounds like the edible just hit."

Cora bursts out laughing. "I love that," she muses, still chuckling. "When these stoic, serious guys have a fun side, it's my weakness."

"Fuck," I groan, forcing the image of Lander's grinning face to the back of my mind. "I'm going to cave, aren't I?"

Cora looks pitying. "Strong possibility."

"I don't want to give in, Cora. I can't deal with any more heartache."

"Then you're going to have to stay strong, babe. That's all I can tell you."

"Right. Stay strong," I repeat—but I know it'll be borderline impossible. Lander will make sure of it. "You and Essie will help me, right?"

"Of course we will. Just be sure it's what you want."

"I want to move on from Lander. I swear."

Cora nods for too long; she doesn't believe me. Hell, I don't even believe me. But regardless of what I truly want, moving on is my decision. Lander and I can't be anything more than neighbors. We just can't.

She squeezes my hand before she picks up her phone. "It's settled then. You'll stay strong, and Ess and I have your back. Now, tell me which of these pictures shows off my hood piercing best."