18. Wyn

To say I'm unraveling would be the greatest understatement of all time. The flowers are arriving tomorrow. The installation is complete and being hoisted into the air as we speak. The photographer has gone radio silent, and instead of feeling any sort of hysteria about it, I've found a little stool to sit on, and I'm staring at the horizon, trying to make sense of what happened this morning.

Did Derek really say he wants to experiment on me?

And that he'll pay me?

Pay me?

What the actual fuck?

As insane as that sounds, it's far from the most insane thing that's happened. Far from being infuriated or insulted, both of which are entirely appropriate emotions given the circumstances, I'm so turned on at the thought that I'm starting to feel like a danger to myself.

Did he say he wanted to taste me, or did I hallucinate that?

No, no. I'm pretty sure he did. I want to try things and taste things. I'm pretty fucking sure he said that.

I emit a small, pathetic "Meep" at the thought, which draws the attention of one of the men working on the installation, so I ball my fist and shove it against my lips, trying to disguise it with a cough.

I haven't jerked off since I got here, and it's really starting to show. My lube and two of my favorite toys are stashed in my bag, untouched. Still beautifully packed in their own purpose-bought luggage cube. I tried to make a break for it earlier this morning. Twice. Only to be thwarted by housekeeping the first time and a beachy, wet-headed, manly as all get out, Derek MacAvoy the second time.

If my dick doesn't explode soon, my head will.

I'm in a bad way. A terrible way. I don't think sex sabbaticals are for me after all. I really don't. I don't feel good. My skin feels too tight, and my heart's beating too fast, and I'm hot all the time, like seriously overheating, going red in the face, hot. It's not nice.

"Wyn!"

I look up and almost crumple with relief. It's Emily. Emily's here. Thank God.

She half dances, half skips across the room, causing her top to fall off one shoulder and her bag off the other. I stand and bounce on the spot until she reaches me. Given that Bridget has been man-down from the breakup, Emily has been my rock for the past few weeks. We've FaceTimed almost every day, but there's nothing like meeting someone in the flesh.

"Oh my God, you're so beautiful in real life," I cry.

"You're beautiful!"

"No, you're beautiful!"

"No, you!"

Kat, Emily's girlfriend, leans a heavily tattooed arm against the doorpost, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. "God, the two of you are as bad as each other," she drawls.

I abandon my post to show Kat and Em around.

"Holy cow, the venue is amazing!" squeals Emily.

"Right?" I all but screech. Finally. Thank God someone understands that one should get overexcited about things like this.

"The view! Those windows! And, oh my God, the ceilings. They're soaring! It's unreal. It's—"

"Better than the brochure, right?"

"Way better. I honestly didn't think it could be, but it really is."

Kat looks around and says, "Sweet." I have a feeling that coming from her, it's a high form of compliment.

"Come on. I'll take you to Ryan and Miller. They're at the swim-up bar. It's not far, but it's tricky to find. There are a hell of a lot of palms and ferns around here. It takes a bit of getting used to."

Once we get there, there's a profusion of arms and cheeks and the type of hugs that swing you clean off your feet. Everyone looks happy, even Ryan, and for a brief moment, all my troubles are forgotten, and I feel like the god of wedding planning and having my shit together.

Derek arrives on the scene, fresh out of the water, barefoot and dripping wet, wearing nothing but a pair of swim shorts that do impressive things to his bulge. Before he even has time to plant a sopping kiss on my cheek, I realize I am the god of wedding planning only. I have nary an ounce of my shit together.

He stands at my side, a heavy, cool arm draped over my shoulder, and makes small talk with Emily and Kat about their trip as I give new meaning to the word unraveling. My body tenses and relaxes spasmodically, leaving me leaning against him involuntarily, laughing almost manically whenever he speaks, and then whipping upright and overcorrecting when I realize what I'm doing.

I walk with Emily to the ladies' restroom as Kat gets them checked in. I use the time to attempt to center myself.

"Oh my actual God," she whispers loudly. "I cannot believe you're with the Dark Lord."

There's a chance I may have overshared one or two things with Emily, but I haven't told her that my relationship with Derek is fake. For one thing, I think secrecy is the first rule of fake dating, and for another, if she knows Derek and I are fake as fuck, I think my performance would suffer. And it's not like I'm up for any awards as it stands.

"I know. It-it just happened, you know. Neither of us was expecting it. We went for drinks after work, and one thing led to another." My voice lilts up and trails off from the strain of my dishonesty.

"Well, I can see why," she says conspiratorially. "The way you were looking at him just now, I'm surprised you didn't set fire to something."

I stop dead. "Just me? I mean, was it just me looking like that or him too. Did you see how he was looking at me? ‘Cause, like, I'm fine if it's both of us, but if it's just me, then I don't feel…"

"Ooh, I dunno. I'm not sure. I didn't look at him." Emily places her hand on my shoulder firmly. "Hey." Her tone is soothing and soft. "D'you want to come over to our room later so we can break this down and overthink it?"

Kat, who's just arrived back on the scene, nods sagely and says, "You should really take her up on that, Wyn, ‘cause there's no one better at overthinking than Em. There isn't. You can't do better."

"Ohmigod. I'd love to, but I can't. Jamie's arriving this afternoon, and I have to go into town to buy chicken nuggets, ketchup, and an air fryer for him."

"You are such a good wedding planner," says Em, and Kat makes noises that imply she doesn't completely disagree.

"Thanks. Wish I was planning your wedding instead," I sniff. "Ryan and Miller still haven't got the song list to me."

"Careful what you wish for," says Kat with a lazy smile. Emily giggles, leans in, and kisses Kat a little longer and harder than I'm comfortable with.

Seeing others disgustingly happy is the last thing a man on a sex sabbatical needs. Especially one whose best offer in months is to be sexually experimented upon in exchange for cash money from his horrible boss.

I beat a path back to the venue, half-hoping someone has made a massive fuck-up of something. I could use a good shout right about now. Not a big, bad one. Not one that would hurt anyone's feelings or anything like that. Just a quick, loud word to give me a little release. Just a sharp "Oh NO!" would help at this point.

Derek appears at my side as if he's apparated. It makes me squawk and jump ungracefully into the frangipani next to me. Honestly, lush as it is, all this vegetation is starting to get to me. The last thing I need is assholic men appearing out of tropical plants, looking predatory and smelling like saltwater.

He falls into step with me and asks, "How much for a blowjob?" calm and cool as you like.

Every ounce of oxygen leaves my lungs, my thoughts slow, and I feel a tell-tale warmth radiating from my inner ears. I recognize the signs immediately. I'm about to faint. I pause, looking around for a safe spot to land on when I hit the ground.

I don't faint though.

Instead, I hear a voice that sounds remarkably similar to mine saying, "Giving or receiving?"

"Receiving," says Derek with no hesitation.

It takes me a lot longer than I care to admit to work out what exactly that means. Is he receiving? No. Me? But he's paying. Wait. I'm receiving the money, and he's paying, but I'm the one who said giving or receiving, and he said receiving, so that means I'm going to be receiving a blowjob from him.

My ears feel hot again, and I feel extremely lightheaded. I'm not sure if that's because of the impending fainting spell or the fact that all the blood in my body seems headed straight for my dick.

I'm a PA, for Christ's sake. How the hell am I supposed to know how to quote on something like this? It's completely out of my wheelhouse.

Wait, wait. Get it together.

Think.

How much do I need to be paid to allow Derek MacAvoy to suck my dick?

One dollar.

No.

Jesus, no!

Have some pride, Wyn, for fuck's sake. This is a man who regularly spends four hundred dollars on a bottle of wine.

"Four hundred," I hear myself saying. Derek's eyes narrow slightly. I know that look. I've seen it before in meetings. He gets it when he thinks he's getting a good deal. A steal. "And…" oh fuck, what now? Ninety-nine seems very bargain basement, and that's not at all on brand for me "…eighty-two dollars."

"Four hundred and eighty-two dollars?"

"Yes," I say, suddenly wedded to the number to the point I'm prepared to call the whole thing off if he doesn't agree to it.

"Hmm…" He keeps walking slowly, ambling really, as if we're discussing nothing more than the weather. "Is there anything I should know or anywhere you don't want to be touched?"

Now, between you and me, there's nowhere, nowhere, I don't want Derek MacAvoy to touch me. In fact, if he looked suitably stern when he asked, I'd probably pull my pants down right where I'm standing, drop to my knees, and let him rail me so hard there'd be a Wyn-shaped dent in the cobbled pathway from now till eternity. I'd let him use spit as lube, and you wouldn't hear a word of complaint from me. I'd let him fuck me so hard he might even manage to fuck some sense into me, and believe me, he'd have to pound my ass to get any sense in or out of me now.

Since I feel I should say something, and my hole seems to be the part of me most likely to cause immediate trouble, I look down demurely and say, "My asshole."

"Ah." He nods as if he understands completely. "The asshole's extra, huh?"

Ooof

"That's right."

He turns to face me, scalding me with a look so hot I swear I can feel individual strands of hair start to frizz. He lowers his chin and smiles. I've seen this look too. At work. It's a smile that has nothing to do with friendliness or even happiness and everything to do with closing a deal and winning.

I watch his lips closely as they part. I see his tongue rest briefly on his pallet, right behind his front teeth, and release as he expels the same word he says at the end of all of his negotiations.

"Done."

I'm in the shower after a quick but mortifying experience where I think I said something about sweating like a pig and smelling disgusting, but I can't be completely sure. I'm currently using all my power to block out whatever happened. When I think I've managed to repress the memory deep enough, I get started on an emergency pep talk. The main themes are you can do this, get it together, and don't blow your load prematurely. It's a pretty basic pep talk. Usually, I prefer them layered and meaningful with a nice inspirational punch at the end, but there's no time for that.

I rinse the suds off my front and turn around to do my back. As I do, I levitate for three or four full seconds. Derek is standing in the bathroom, leaning against the vanity unit, eyes dark and filled with heat, thumb flicking slowly across his bottom lip.

"Are you watching me?" I ask dumbly.

"Yes."

"Why?" I'm dimly aware that's an even stupider question, but my filter seems to have left me.

"It's what people do." He smiles. "They buy things ‘cause they're pretty, then they look at them."

I should feel deeply insulted about the reference to being bought, and I do on some distant level. It's just that Derek MacAvoy called me pretty and, sweet Jesus, I have a huge thing for that.

He tosses me a towel, obviously unaware of his strength because it all but hits me in the face and bowls me over. I burrow my way out of it and pat myself dry with what I hope is a normal, not overly keen, speed.

"Lie back on the bed," says the Dark Lord, voice low and laced with such command that I all but crumple onto the mattress, barely able to find the strength required to be ashamed of my nudity.

He undresses unhurriedly. Unbuttoning his shirt slowly and sliding it off his shoulders as if he's completely unaware I'm flat on my back, trying my best not to choke on my own saliva. He unbuttons and unzips his shorts and pushes them down, letting them drop in a heap next to his shirt. He steps over them and closes the space between him and the bed as my heart beats so loudly, all I can do is pray he can't hear it.

The mattress dips as he raises a knee and climbs on, crawling like a leopard stalking its prey until he's stretched out beside me. He's on his side, and I'm staring at the ceiling. There's a large colonial-style ceiling fan rotating above me. It's moving slowly, so I try to time my breathing with the light breeze on my neck. It takes me longer than it should to work out that it's not the fan I feel on my skin. The disturbance of air isn't cool. It's warm. Hot. I look up into a river of dark, molten chocolate, and thank God I'm already on my back.

Derek holds eye contact and smiles like he did yesterday right before he kissed me. Slow and seductive. A sultry bow of lips curling up.

He circles my wrist nearest his body and lifts it over my head. I watch, removed, as he lifts my other arm too. He covers them both with one hand, thick fingers pinning me down, applying just enough pressure that I feel the exact moment every ounce of resistance leaves my body. It's a real, visceral thing. A stream. No, a flood that rushes out of me via my fingers and toes.

My eyes track lazily as the back of a big hand runs down my arm. My skin tingles at the light touch, a sensation that rushes down to my dick, making it throb. I've been hard on and off since this morning. Scratch that. I've been hard on and off since I met Derek MacAvoy. What I am now isn't hard. It's solid steel, swollen and hot, and goddamn uncomfortable.

Derek's hand moves slowly, dancing up and down the soft skin of my underarm. Forearm first. Upper arm next. One arm, then the other. He inches toward my armpits, and if I still had use of my vocabulary, I might consider telling him I'm ticklish. I don't though, so instead, I say something that sounds like "Glngg."

He murmurs his reply. A soft, sympathetic "Mmm" vibrates through me as he dips his head down. His nose disturbs my hair, making me squirm as he inhales one pit and then the other. He does it loudly, proudly, with no shame whatsoever, and, Christ, if that isn't a brutal turn-on.

When he looks up, flames flicker in his eyes, glowing with unmistakable hunger. My torso arches up violently as my spine contracts at the sight. I watch his hand track down my body, palm flat over my chest, doubling back to circle my nipples until I say, "Glngg," again.

His hand travels lower, this time accompanied by his mouth. He leans over me, pressing my wrists hard into the mattress, stamping them, binding them, making it so I'm completely unable to move even when he releases them and cages me with his arms and legs as he moves down my body. Hot lips graze my belly, stubble scouring my skin. Hard, but not hard enough. Fingertips chase sensations up and down my sides, tracing meridians that all lead to my cock. He moves closer with each invisible line he follows, skirting my shaft and balls and working his way up again until I'm on the brink of a breakdown. My hips and torso work together, tensing and bucking off the mattress in slow, rhythmic undulations. Chest first, then hips, then chest again.

The bed dips once more, and I blink hard, realizing I must have closed my eyes at some point when broad daylight sears my retinas. I struggle to find focus, vision hazy, as the man in my bed reaches down and pushes my legs apart.

He bites his bottom lip and gives me a broad shithead grin. A solid stripe of white that lights the room. "Brace yourself, baby. I'm about to blow your mind."

That snaps me out of it. Arrogant much? English comes rushing back at me.

"Um, actually, Derek, giving head is an acquired skill. It's actually something you learn, not something you just know. You're likely to be quite average at it."

I know I'm saying actually a little too much, but I'm so proud of myself for landing on something other than glngg that I let it slide.

Derek moves so he's kneeling between my legs. He smiles down at my dick and uses both hands to stroke my inner thighs from my knees to a hairsbreadth from my balls and then tracks back up again. He takes a knee in each hand and spreads my legs roughly and impossibly wide. As wide as they'll go. Wider than I thought they could go. So wide it makes me blind with arousal.

He reaches down and fondles my balls. Pleasure darts up, down, and straight through me. His touch is light, almost impossibly so for a man his size, and then it's not.

"But, Wyn," he says reasonably, "when have I ever been average at anything?"

In fairness, it's a good question. One I don't answer because he has both my balls in the palm of his hand. He's not hurting me. He's teasing me, threatening me, letting me know he could. Letting me know that he bought me. That he owns me.

That thought, along with his words and the sensation traveling from my balls to my dick, unglues the moan I now realize I've spent most of my life trying to keep buried. It's a helpless, wild sound that reverberates off timber and makes linen and tropical plants quiver.

It makes Derek smile. He likes it. He looks down at me, and for the first time in my life, I feel completely naked. More than naked. I feel like he can see through my skin and bone, through muscle, and maybe even through whatever thin film it is that makes me, me.

My dick throbs, pulsing steadily, causing it to jerk to attention and lift clear off my belly with every second or third beat of my heart. Derek watches in wonder, rolling my balls gently in his fingers, eyes creasing deeper at the corners each time my dick twitches.

At last, he has mercy on me, scooping me up in his hand and circling my shaft. My heels dig into the bed, and I squeal in relief as I thrust jerkily into his hand. Relief doesn't last. His grip is tentative and loose. Too loose. I moan again. It's the moan from before, but this time, it's angry. Derek ignores it. Maybe he doesn't even hear it.

He's focused completely on my dick. He touches me tentatively. His hands are steady, but his breathing is shaky. He follows my dorsal vein from root to tip, pressing down and releasing it, exploring me, experimenting on me, traveling agonizingly slowly until, at last, he gets to my head. He tugs gently at my foreskin and looks up at me as my head peaks out. His mouth opens and slashes into a smile. He drags the skin up, covering it, and then drags it down again. This time, he looks up, lets out a boyish giggle, and says, "Whoa."

He squeezes the tip, milking it and rubbing his forefinger in the glistening bead his ministration earns him. He looks at his finger, face a picture, and shows me.

"Look," he says more to himself than me.

Then he lifts his hand to his lips, considers what he has for a moment, and tastes me. His eyes flutter shut as his lips close around his finger, and for a second, he looks peaceful. His lashes are dark, casting soft shadows down his cheeks. His features are relaxed, his jaw slack, hair black.

It doesn't last long, just a beat or two, but damn, it's beautiful.

When he opens his eyes, they're pitch dark, pupils completely blown out. He grunts like he's been punched and dives down, hands hard on my thighs, pushing them open so roughly my hamstrings sting in protest as he slurps my dick into his mouth.

The sound I make isn't a moan so much as a shout. Loud and long. High-pitched and frantic. He's taken an astonishing amount of me into his mouth, and holy fucking fuck, it feels good. It's a little too rough, then a little too soft, and I swear to God, I don't care. It's heaven. Maybe it's the sex sabbatical talking, but I swear, Derek MacAvoy's mouth is the best thing I've ever felt. The best thing by far.

A soft, swirling warmness envelops me. Tongue, lips, and the smooth insides of his cheeks. They all work together to caress me. Everything is soft and warm. Safe. Nerve endings sing, then scream. Sing, then scream.

He bobs his head, taking a little more of me and then backing up. Teasing until I've had several personality changes in quick succession and seem to have landed on a part of me I've never shown to anyone. A part that's helpless and hoarse, voice broken but begging. And I really do mean begging, not asking, not even asking with meaning. Begging.

A chorus of "Please!" and "Jesus!" and possibly even a couple of regrettable cries of "Help!" bounce around the room and get caught up in the ceiling fan, spinning around and around until they merge into one long, garbled sound.

My eyes are open, then closed. I see suit jackets and spreadsheets. Marble and glass. Big hands and unmanageable men. Blurred-out faces and dark features in sharp focus. The entire time, one thing remains constant. One thing doesn't change.

Derek is smiling.

It's that smile wrapped around my cock and the soft, happy hum that goes with it that makes me lose my mind. My entire body tenses, clenching and pausing as I'm held on a ledge in a chokehold so tight my vision swims until a primordial gear lever shifts. There's a dull impact. A pained sound, as tension gives way, and mind-bending pleasure breaks free.

When I land a long while later, I find I'm still unable to move. My hands are still above my head, crossed at the wrists, and Derek is lying beside me again. I'm dead to the world, limbs heavy and numb. My face is tingling, and I'm pretty sure I've melted five or six inches into the mattress.

It takes some effort, but I manage to turn my gaze to Derek. He's on his back too, arm moving steadily as his fist pumps up and down the length of his shaft. His dick is beautiful. Big and thick, wrapped in a big, thick hand. A soft, squelching sound and a glint of slickness on his skin make me think he's using what came out of me as lube. I don't just think it. I know it. I can smell sex in the air. My eyes roll back, and I whine because it's all I can manage. I can't move, can't help him, can't stroke him, can't take him into my body while I'm like this, and it's torture.

I blink hard, fighting to regain my focus. Watching. Waiting.

Waiting for Derek to come.

It doesn't take long, a couple of minutes at most, but by the time his chest is coated in thick ribbons of cream, I'm rock solid again.