Sixteen

The walls are quaking.

The thump of the bass line is so strong, I can feel it throbbing in my chest cavity. I'm pretty sure there's a crack on the ceiling that wasn't there earlier today. And my windowsill succulent? Rest in peace. Nearly half the dirt in my ball cactus has fallen to my bedroom floor in a wispy pile, which is steadily vibrating across the hardwood. If this keeps up, it'll make it to the other side of the room.

I glare at the wall above my headboard where my neon pink "Where the magic happens" sign flickers and finally sputters off when the pounding bass jolts its plug from the wall outlet.

"Doyouthink he'sdonning a porpoise?" Essie asks. Her palms are pressed flat against her ears, and she's squeezing so hard, she's squinting.

"What?" I bellow back to her, straining to make myself audible.

"I said, doyou thinkees donning etta purpose?" she repeats…probably.

Great question. Do I think Lander Dawson, a guy who has worked a sixteen-hour day every day since he moved into the condo next door, is intentionally blasting music on a Thursday night at precisely the minute I was supposed to start my livestream?

"I have my suspicions," I deadpan, mostly to myself and not to the two half-naked women standing on either side of me.

"We're late," Cora groans—at least I think it's what she said. She kneels in front of her laptop, which is perched on the end of my bed. "People are getting pissed, Valeria."

No shit they're getting pissed. We only do these collaborations once a month and our regulars lose their minds if we reschedule or, god forbid, cancel. And right now, with the music drowning out every other sound around us, a cancellation seems imminent.

We're professionals and we take this seriously, so a cancellation is unacceptable—especially for me. I've skipped two streams in the past week, a handful of my subscribers have already asked for refunds, and I can't fathom what irate bullshit is waiting in my inbox right now.

But more importantly, there are regulars who look forward to seeing me all week. Surely Lander, if he's such a big fan of mine, could relate to them. Wouldn't he be devastated if I cancelled on him? Based on how he's acting right now, I'd venture the answer is YES.

Nope. I refuse to let anyone down tonight.

I grab an oversize t-shirt from my dresser and tug it over the pink lingerie set I'm wearing. Once I've yanked off the halo I pinned in my hair, I storm out of the room and to the front door.

"Wherare yogon?" Essie demands(ish), chasing after me. Cora is hot on her tail.

Essie stops me at the door and flattens herself against it like there are monsters on the other side. Dressed in her signature emerald green—a negligee tonight—she looks hot and ridiculous at the same time.

"Why are you stopping me?" I ask, waving my hand. "To the side, Ess. I'm fixing this."

"Talk first!" She grabs my hand and Cora's as well, leading us to my bathroom where she blocks the door again once we're inside. Thankfully, it's quieter in here. "What exactly are you going to do?" she asks, finally able to speak.

"I'm going to unplug his speakers," I answer, shrugging. "If you'll excuse me—"

"So he can plug them back in again?" Essie questions. "Look, he's obviously doing this for a reason."

"Yeah, he wants to fuck her, which is ridiculous," Cora counters. "Valeria, I support you. Go over, cut the power, and get your ass back here so I can rub lotion on it for tips."

"Hold on," Essie interjects, holding up both hands to stop me. "Let's think rationally for a minute. We want him to be quiet so we can stream, right?"

"Right," I confirm.

"Well, cutting the power and yelling at him isn't the way to go about this. If I learned anything from raising my brothers, it's that boys aren't like us. They're primitive when they're horny. And Lander? Horny. If you go over there and pull the plug, he's going to plug it back in because he'll know playing loud music gets him what he wants: your attention, not to mention your hot ass in his condo."

She might have a point. I look over at Cora, who nods. "She's right," she admits. "He's like a chaotic Pavlovian experiment."

"So, in order to get him to stop playing music, I can't just go over and pull the plug. I need to do something to make him understand that playing loud music is going to result in an undesirable outcome," I reason. "Is that it?"

"You got it," Essie says before looking at Cora. "Right, Cora?"

"Exactly right," she confirms.

I glance between my two brilliant best friends who came over to make tens of thousands of dollars tonight and are instead standing in my bathroom like it's a fallout shelter. It's bullshit. And like I said, I'm not letting anyone down tonight…except Lander fucking Dawson.

"Got it. An undesirable outcome. I'll handle it," I assure them.

"That's my bitch," Cora remarks affectionately as I exit the bathroom.

In the hallway, I clear the twenty-five steps to Lander's front door in record time. I pound my fist against it until Dalton swings it open and a wave of heat pushes out of the condo and into the hallway. The place is packed.

"Hey, V, how's it going?" Dalton asks, grinning at me. There's sweat on his temple and his sleeves are shoved up his big arms, but the guy is obviously in his element.

"Where is he?" I demand, standing on my toes to see over Dalton.

Dalton points at the kitchen. There, Lander is propped against the counter, a drink in his hand, talking animatedly to a woman with long blond hair. While he speaks, she twirls a lock around a manicured finger and gazes up at him. She looks transfixed…and yeah, I get it. I know what it's like to stare up at Lander while he sets those blue eyes on you like there's nobody else in the room. The hair twirling sort of happens on its own.

My breath catches. I hate how much it annoys me to see him focusing his attention on anyone else.

But it doesn't take long for him to notice me in the doorway, and as soon as he spots me, his face lights up. He holds up a finger and says something to the woman before he leaves her to join Dalton at the door.

"Really good to see you," he greets, moving in like he's going to hug me.

Firmly, I place my hand on his hard chest and stop him short. "Cut the music. Right now."

"Pardon?" he asks, convincingly innocent, but I know better than to underestimate him at this point.

"Cut the music," I repeat, glaring. "Cut it now, or I swear to you, I'll do it myself. Try me, Lander."

Lander surveys the mass of people in his condo before he faces me again. "Yeah, it might be a little loud for a kickback, but since you're here, you should stick around. I'll introduce you to my friends."

"I told you I didn't want to talk to you," I emphasize, staring at him gravely.

"Like I said, I'm having a kickback. Completely unrelated to you giving me a taste and then leaving me starving." He grins.

He grins like he's so clever.

He grins like I haven't noticed the music is coming from his bedroom.

He grins like this pathetic scheme could ever work on me.

Well, I can scheme too. And like I promised Cora and Essie, I'm going to show him that interfering with my streams will result in very undesirable outcomes.

I shove past Lander and Dalton and head to Lander's bedroom. Without hesitation, I fling open his walk-in closet and stride in, pushing aside a row of expensive shirts to access the breaker panel. Before he can stop me, I flip all of them—every last switch—and the effect is instantaneous. The music stops and the room goes pitch black, leaving Lander and me in the dark.

"Are you out of your mind?" he demands. His body brushes against mine in his efforts to reach the breaker.

"Stop," I order, blocking him from the panel, not totally hating the feeling of him touching me again. "You wanted to talk so badly? Talk."

I can barely see his face, but I know he's stunned—and he doesn't say a word.

"Please don't tell me this was how you envisioned the conversation going," I comment drolly before turning around and flipping all the switches. The music doesn't resume, but the lights flicker back on, beaming down on Lander and me and his yards of incredible clothes. His expression is desperate, utterly unlike the guy I'm used to seeing, but there's a familiarity in his rare, disheveled state: This is the version of Lander I fucked.

He's about to meet his match.

"Well, I'm here," I announce, "and we're going to talk."

"Look—"

"No, it's my turn," I interrupt, pointing my finger at him. "Your little party delayed my stream. Camming is my career, and if you can't prove you support my career, we have a snowball's chance in hell of even being civil neighbors. Just because I sit on a bed with my tits out doesn't mean my career isn't as important as yours. Two hours of streaming makes me more than you earn after an eighty-hour week of bullshit meetings and contracts."

All he can do is blink. "Wait, really?" he finally manages.

"This is important to me. To you, it may look like I roll in and let my libido make the decisions, but that's hardly the case. Cora does market research on kinks and A/B testing on blasts to subscribers. Essie runs analytics on the best times of day for us to stream and even knows what kind of lingerie gets us more money. Hell, I wear pigtails because she proved I make more tips when I do. And I write scripts for all of us: pages and pages of dirty talk, comments to put into our chats, and plots for two-hour long cam shows where the viewers stay riveted the entire time. Be for real with me. Would you like it if I showed up at your job while you were on a call and blasted music?"

"No," he admits, his tone contrite. "I wouldn't."

"I know you wouldn't," I continue, "because my father was a lawyer and Sebastian was a lawyer, and I know what lawyers are like. This is what you wanted to hear, isn't it? Why I don't like lawyers? Look in the mirror, Lander. Take it all in."

"I'm sorry," he manages, speaking quietly. "Really. I just wanted to have a conversation—"

"Why do you want to talk to me?" I question, my voice low. I enunciate every word, glaring at him the entire time.

"I've said it a hundred times," he answers, obviously edging on frustration. "You can't seriously be asking me why."

"I am. Why me? Why don't you go talk to the blonde in your kitchen? She obviously loves talking to you."

"Because I want you," he answers, closing some of the gap between us. "Desperately. Obsessively. Direly. You're the most stunning and infuriating person I've ever met, and fifteen minutes be damned, I've never had a better fuck in my entire life. That's why I want to talk to you."

And then he drops to his knees. I'm already battling the uptick in my heart rate and the inexplicable neediness I feel in his presence, but he goes and does it. This powerful man gets on his literal knees in front of me, and I nearly lose my willpower. Nearly.

He's trying so hard, putting more into this pursuit than any man has ever given me. It's dizzying and frustrating all at once: dizzying because it feels so good to be wanted so badly, and frustrating because I know this shit. This relentless entitlement, this man's insistence on having a say in my choices, is the kind of thing Sebastian did for years. It's the kind of thing my father still does. It's the kind of thing that kept me grounded on weekends with an abysmal eight pm curfew, and fueled my father's tirades about how much I've humiliated him.

Lander grandstanding about how he wants me so much…it's just so fucking cunning.

It makes what I'm about to do next feel totally justified—and fun.

I'm about to have so much fun.

"Get up," I snap. "You think groveling is going to work on me? All your bullshit begging does nothing for me."

Lander's jaw lowers and he gapes at me in disbelief. For a minute, I actually think he's about to give me an earful like I'm one of his peons at the firm, but then he lets out a soft laugh. "Holy shit," he murmurs before rising to his feet.

"What? What's that look on your face? What's going on?"

"Are you going to hit me if I kiss you?" he asks, taking a step forward.

"What?"

"Fuck it." His mouth presses against mine before I can react.

Bastard. I was supposed to be the one to kiss him.

Whatever. I can make this work.

Within seconds, I'm frantic: hands roaming his muscular body, fingers gripping his thick hair, legs wrapping around his waist. The kiss grows filthier. Our tongues twine and when he groans, I feel it all the way down my throat.

I shove my hands under the hem of his shirt where I know I'll find his flawless, smooth skin. His body is to die for, the most sculpted I've ever touched, and I still can't believe he's a normal person living his life in DC and not making a career on a runway…or as a camboy.

Now that I'm under his clothes, he ventures underneath mine too. Strong hands shove up my shirt and rub my lingerie-clad body. His grip is firm and possessive on my bare butt, unreserved as usual. I undulate, telling him with my hips and ass that he's giving me exactly what I want. My movements draw a muted, admiring moan from his chest that rises from a deep, guttural place.

"You're built like sin," he murmurs, his tongue poking out through his lips before he swoops in for another kiss.

"And you're built to fuck," is my response.

"Are you going to let me fuck you again?" he asks between kisses, an adorable bit of hope in his voice amid all the raw heat. "God, I want to."

"If you earn it," I answer, making Lander groan again.

My head is spinning. It's blurry but beautiful. Chaotic. I still can't decide where to put my hands, but I need something to ground me before I spiral into sensory overload. I settle for raking them through his hair, tugging on it. He doesn't flinch—even when I know my grip is painful.

"More of that," he urges, nipping my lower lip with his teeth before nodding. "Show me how rough we can play."

So fucking rough. In fact, no amount of hair-pulling could reasonably show him how rough I like it.

I have a better idea.

I pull his hand off me, which is a feat because the man clearly doesn't want to let go of my ass. Before he can protest, I place his hand on my neck—the neck he licked indulgently in a nightclub four days ago.

"If I'm not gasping for breath, it's not enough," I tell him.

I barely finish my sentence before his mouth is back on me, kissing me like the alert just hit his phone all over again. He tightens his grip on my throat, his tongue working into my mouth and tasting my lips while my breath stutters.

"Valeria," he growls into my mouth. "If you want more, ask me."

Ask me. No man has ever asked me what I want. Every day, I fulfill men's desires, but no man has ever asked for mine until now.

"Will you give me more, Lander?" I request, pushing his lips down to an open spot on my neck so I can speak.

He spends a bit longer sucking a hickey onto my pulse point, marking me before he rears his head back. "Anything. I'd give you literally anything."

As he speaks, his fingers graze the side of my neck, caressing his mark in the moments before his hand slides around my throat once more. His pupils are dilated, blown big and black, and he's drinking me in, watching his hand squeeze.

"Good," I manage through a strained inhalation. "Prove how sorry you are."

A look passes over his face, hungry and desirous. He releases his hold and slides his fingertips around the side of my neck. This time, his hand goes around the back. "If you can string together that many pretty words, you can definitely take more," he grits, collaring me with his hand more ruthlessly than before. Yes.

He squeezes. It's relentless, bordering on scary, but I love it. I want it. The intensity makes me buck upwards, begging for his body. He squeezes harder.

I let my mouth open. My tongue is flat and waits lewdly for more kisses, more air. My chest heaves as I struggle to inhale. It's so fucking intense. My vision zeroes in on Lander's face, and just as fuzziness creeps into the edges of my line of sight, he relaxes his hold.

"Limits?" he asks, running his thumb over the taut tendon in my neck while he waits ever-so-patiently for me to respond.

My chest pulls and pushes while my lungs labor with the sudden influx of air. My cheeks are surely red, and my skin is dotted with sweat, but I'm still so into this. "Let's find out."

Beaming, he lowers his hand over the swell of my breast, across my waist, and down to my hips where his other hand joins it. After a singular upward glance that drips with cocky confidence, he strips off my pink thong in one pull, leaving me in my shirt and bra, naked from the waist down.

He takes us to the floor—his floor.

And once I'm nestled beneath him, Lander doesn't waste a second. His tongue touches my clit, and I see oblivion.