Nine

In my head, I figured this revelation would be weird for Valeria but also…flattering or something.

Yeah, I was dead wrong.

"What the hell?" Valeria demands, all but kicking me back before she springs over the side of her couch and scrambles away from me. She's remarkably nimble. "What do you mean you're my ‘best customer?'"

Objectively speaking, she looks horrified. Her lips are separated and she's clutching the front of her shirt with tight fists.

Subjectively speaking, she looks outrageously beautiful when she's horrified. God, she has incredible lips.

Holding my hands up in surrender, I clamber to my feet and back up, giving her the space she clearly needs. "I know I'm probably freaking you out, so maybe we should reset. Can we do that?"

"‘Probably?'" she parrots sharply. "No shit are you freaking me out. Look at me, Lander." She jabs her hand into her chest and glares.

I do look at her and I see a woman on the verge of abandoning her own home and not returning until someone has removed me from the premises—and burned a pound of sage to ward off lingering traces of my presence. Guiltily, I meet her gaze. The eye contact makes me feel worse. Valeria has these big eyes, the kind that make her look innocent no matter what she's doing. Right now, her eyes bear a vague glint of homicide—the farthest thing from innocence I've ever seen.

"Can we please talk?" I request, only then realizing I'm still holding up my hands.

After a few seconds, she seems to make up her mind about something. She nods and moves towards her front door, maybe giving herself an escape route. I don't like it, but I get it.

"Where do you want me?" I ask, glancing around her living room for the least creepy place to put myself. "Tell me where to sit. Or stand. I want you to be comfortable."

"There," she instructs, raising her chin at the couch. "Sit."

I drop onto the couch where a minute ago, Valeria was sitting while I was happily nestled between her legs. She was waiting for me to eat her pussy like a buffet, and I was so game for it. The disappointment stings, but not as much as the very real possibility that I've lost my shot. I inhale, calming myself for her sake. I'm not certain where to start.

Instead of speaking, I end up looking around her living room. Valeria's condo is identical to mine but flipped like a mirror image. It looks different from the vision I created in my head though. There's something unexpectedly offbeat about her place. So much of her décor is modern and black—not a speck of pink. I'd assumed a woman whose camming gimmick is wearing pink and white lingerie while dressed like an angel—literally like an angel with feather wings and a halo—would have some pink around her home. Instead, there's something daring about Valeria Fuentes, like a roughness around her edges. Despite my surprise, I'm steadily realizing it works for her. It fits.

I'm still trying to find Aurora Amada somewhere in this living room when I recline against the plush, black velvet sofa and grit out a rapid chain of expletives that sounds like, "Motherfuckingshitballs." I think my heart stops.

Hanging above the fireplace is a massive black and white photograph of a pair of tits.

Yeah, tits.

Her tits.

I'd know them anywhere. Full stop, no hesitation. I know everything about those tits. I practically have a PhD in them. Even before I saw this photograph, I knew how they slope down and curve outwards like a bell, and are—by most definitions—fucking huge. She has these dark caramel nipples and I can't guess how many times I've imagined what it would be like to trace the borders of those big areolas with my tongue. It's a wonder I can even breathe right now when those beautiful fuckers are magnified and staring me right in the face.

"Lander," Valeria murmurs from her spot by the door.

I face her, but I can't answer. I'm borderline catatonic, stuck in a tit-induced stupor.

When I don't speak, her eyes drift to the framed, three-foot pillow portrait and then settle back on me. To my relief, she smirks: her first sign of ease since I dropped my customer bomb on her (pun intended).

"You were going to explain yourself," she reminds me, letting the smirk on her lips remain for another beat before she forces her face back to stone.

I clear my throat, trying to decide where to start, but I have jack shit. And for fuck's sake I'm pissed off at myself because this is pathetic. I graduated from Harvard motherfucking Law School, clerked for a federal judge, and I'm on the partner track at the premier firm in the Northern Hemisphere. I haven't been at a loss for words since I was a teenager.

I'm really blowing this (pun not intended).

"Where's that from?" I finally manage, hoping to sound convincingly ignorant.

"My best friend's ex was a photographer," Valeria answers, not admitting those are her breasts, but not denying it either.

I clear my throat again. "I like it. It looks…" Sexy. Lickable. Suckable. Like I want to bury myself between them and motorboat the shit out of them. "…avant garde."

"I thought so too," she agrees, that quirk reappearing at the corner of her mouth for a moment until she smothers it with impassiveness once more. "I'd confess that those are my tits, but I figure you already know, don't you?"

I nod. I won't lie.

"How do you know those are my tits, Lander?" she presses, her tone unrelenting, matching her expression. She's losing her patience—and I need to salvage this right now.

"Like I said, I watch. I've known you were a camgirl for a long time…and I've watched the shit out of you."

Valeria's expression doesn't change but grows inexplicably stonier. "Before or after you moved in?"

"After," I answer immediately, realizing she's asking if I stalked her to the Halcyon. "You can check my subscription data."

"Ah yes, subscription data. Because you're my best customer, apparently."

I can practically see her struggling to reconcile this nasty little revelation with the guy on her couch. Rich. Successful. Fine as fuck. I'm not the type of guy who has to resort to the pixels on his screen to get off. And yet…

"Abraham," I clarify when she doesn't speak.

That gets her. "Holy shit. You're Abraham?"

I nod again, keeping my motions subdued because I don't know if she's impressed or disgusted. Both would make sense.

As far as customers go, I have to assume there's nobody better than Abraham. He subscribes to her most expensive content tier and watches her streams religiously, sending her exorbitant tips after each one even though he never makes requests.

On the flip side, she knows exactly how much money I've siphoned to her over the past year. Even I can admit it's excessive, bordering on lunacy.

I regret nothing.

"Abraham's my middle name," I explain, watching her hands rise to the back of her neck. She starts to pace. "Lander Abraham Dawson."

"This is absurd," she's muttering, eyes impossibly wide. "All this time, I've been accepting tips from a guy a few feet away?"

"Not always," I admit. "If I ever got held up at the firm, I would watch you from my office."

"Lander!" she exclaims. Her jaw falls so low, it's practically unhinged.

Yeah, that was probably more of a "need-to-know" confession, but it's out there and there's nothing I can do about it. I hold up both hands, the universal gesture for it is what it is, and shrug.

Valeria lets out the longest exhale known to mankind and finally stops pacing. She drops her hands from the back of her neck and folds them over her chest. "So what do we do now? Obviously, we're going to run into each other around the building."

"True."

"But it doesn't have to be weird," she goes on, holding up a hand and gesturing at me. "It can be totally normal. You're my neighbor, I'm your neighbor, and we can easily overlook…oh fuck, I let you finish inside of me…"

"Thank you, by the way."

"Not helping!"

"What am I not helping with?" I question, relaxing into her couch. "Are we problem-solving here? Because to be honest, Valeria, I don't think we have a problem."

Her eyebrow leaps. "How is this not a problem?"

"Well, let's see. You want me. I want you. We've already fucked it out. The next logical step is for you to go on a date with me."

"A date?" She lets out a delirious chuckle. "Are you high?"

"Occasionally, yes," I answer, bobbing my head. "Let's go out."

"I'm not going out with you. You're—"

"A customer? A fan? Facts. Facts that don't bother me. Do they bother you?"

"That's not it," she protests, and this time, the urgency is gone from her voice. In its place is something flat and resigned—reluctant.

"Whatever it is," I begin, rising and taking a tentative step towards her, "we'll figure it out."

"We won't."

I continue approaching her slowly like she might disappear in a puff of smoke. She watches me, her eyes focused and appraising, and when I'm standing directly in front of her, she raises her chin to keep her gaze locked on mine.

"Go out with me," I request.

"No."

"Yes. Go out with me, Valeria."

"No, Lander."

I lean in and stop with our faces a mere inch apart. "Fine. A date will come later. For now, let's fuck the shit out of each other." I pull back to gauge her reaction.

Surprised, she blinks several times before she shakes her head. "No," she repeats, her voice steady. "Hell no."

I don't quit though. My mouth is back by her ear and the whispered promises come pouring out. "Let me kiss you. Touch you. Let me taste every inch of your soft skin and find every sensitive spot on your body. Let me make you come, Valeria. Let me make you forget whatever is holding you back."

She doesn't move. Her lips remain in a flat line and her eyes continue to rake over me.

"I had fifteen minutes last night. Give me another fifteen. You have no idea what I could do with another fifteen minutes." Slowly, I place my hands on her upper arms, and she doesn't shy away. "All I'm asking for is one more night."

Standing with her spine straight and her posture rigid, Valeria looks circumspect. She takes a small step forward in bare feet, petite but commanding, as usual. "But you see, Lander," she whispers, speaking next to my ear exactly like I did to her, "you say you're asking me, but all I hear is you telling me what to do." She clicks her tongue before shaking her head, slow and sexy. "Unquestioned obedience and I have never been a good combo."

"You don't want me to tell you what to do," I clarify, suppressing a grin. I love this shit. Confident, impervious girls? They're catnip to me. "I won't, but—"

"So ask me," she interjects, pulling back and throwing the gauntlet. She folds her arms and cocks an eyebrow, waiting.

I've never been a man who asks. I'm a man who makes shit happen. I'm a man who sets his sights on something and does whatever it takes to get what he wants. And yet something about this woman has me casting off my pride and practically begging, "Will you fuck me, Valeria?"

Valeria unfolds her arms and places her hands on my chest. The flats of her palms move upwards, slowly traversing the planes of my body until they reach my neck. She leaves them there, grazing the skin above the collar of my button-down. I inhale sharply, and the sound of my heartbeat steadily crests in my ears.

She rises on her toes and once again puts her delicious lips so close to my ear that they graze my skin when she whispers resolutely, "No fucking way, Lander."