CHAPTER 24

My phone chimes, alerting me to a text while I’m in the elevator on the way up to The Sinful Night Club. I reach into my bag, pull it out, and smile when I see Ford’s text.

You’re relieved of hostess duty tonight. Your job is to keep me company. Meet me in The Social Room.

Shaking my head in amusement, I slip my phone back in my purse just as the elevator doors open. My eyes go to Ayesha, who’s on hostess duty, and I give her a smile. She doesn’t return it, so I lump her into the category of women who have had Ford once before. I know I should be disgusted by the number of employees he’s apparently fucked, but I can’t really be. He was single and had no commitments to anyone but himself. He owns a freaking sex club where inhibitions are not allowed and sexual gratification is the name of the game. Why wouldn’t he fuck these women?

But he’s not now and that makes me feel good. Doesn’t mean he won’t start doing that again soon because I’ve only got nine days left on my work contract with him. Of course, the thought of breaking ties with him doesn’t set well with me. I know this started as just casual, impersonal sex, but neither of us can deny it has gradually turned into something more. We’ve opened up and shared with each other. Committed to monogamy, which wasn’t hard for me, but was a first for Ford in a long time. At least that’s what he told me, but when I’d asked him to clarify what a long time meant, he redirected me with a hand between my legs. I forgot all about my question. In hindsight though, because he didn’t want to talk about it, I’m guessing whatever it was wasn’t pleasant at all.

My eyes scan The Social Room. Ford stands at the end of the bar, almost in the exact place he was the night I met him almost three weeks ago. His eyes are pinned on me and even from across the room, I can see the hunger in them. Hunger for only me, and that causes my entire being to ache for him.

I walk his way, putting a little roll in my hips. I’m wearing another sexy black dress with high heels, the standard uniform for the hostess podium, but this one is strapless and hugs every inch of my body.

But Ford doesn’t even bother giving me a critical scan. No, his eyes bore into mine and the closer I get to him, the more I’m sure I want him to just take me right to the floor and fuck me hard.

Shaking my head to try to clear the lustful thoughts—nothing I can do about the wet panties—I put a smile on my face when I reach him. “Hey, gorgeous.”

“That’s my line,” he murmurs as he slides a hand behind my neck and pulls me into him for a kiss. It’s nothing but a whisper… a soft sliding of his lips over mine before he pulls back. “Want a drink?”

I cock an eyebrow at him. “That’s two nights in a row you’ve given me off. How am I supposed to fulfill my contract if you won’t let me work?”

Ford doesn’t answer at first, but turns to the bartender and orders me a Manhattan, straight up. When he angles his body back my way, he says, “Last night and tonight count toward your contract.”

I sidle in closer to him, giving a tug on his silk tie of pale blue with gray diagonal stripes. “Why are you being so nice?”

“You made me a cake,” he says simply.

With a husky laugh, I lean in closer to whisper, “I’ve also swallowed for you many times, and I’d think that would make you a lot nicer than cake.”

Ford laughs, his eyes twinkling for a moment before turning dark.

Potent.

Intense.

Sizzling.

His hand comes up to cup my jaw, and his thumb runs over my bottom lip. “You going to let me fuck that mouth tonight?”

“If you want,” I respond hoarsely. Now my clit is pulsing.

The bartender returns with my drink. Ford takes it and hands it over. “What do you want to do tonight?”

I take a sip—a large one to steady my nerves—and my hand drops from his tie down to his leather belt where I lay my fingertips lightly on the edge of it. “I want to try the stocks.”

Ford’s eyebrows fly upward in surprise. I’ve not initiated any type of sex in public. It’s always been him pulling me off to do something dirty in front of others. He knows part of what gets me off is the wrongness of it all, and I know in a million years he never thought I’d suggest it.

“Are you sure?” he asks, eyes filled with slight worry.

I nod. “I’m feeling adventurous. As our time winds down… well, I think I want to give it my all here. Don’t want to walk away with regrets.”

Ford picks up his vodka tonic, takes a sip, and sets it down on the bar. When he turns to look at me, he asks, “What would you say if I offered you a permanent job here?”

Now my eyebrows are the ones to shoot up. “Doing what?”

“Hostess duty,” he says.

I take another healthy sip of my Manhattan, all thoughts of the stocks on temporary hold. After I set my glass down next to his, I say, “I’m not sure how I’d explain this job to my mother.”

Ford’s brows furrow. “What does she think you’re doing?”

My face flushes with slight embarrassment when I give guilty smirk. “She thinks I’m working as a secretary for The Hendrix Group. I’ve told her as a security firm you’re open 24/7, so she thinks I’m working the night shift.”

“Huh,” Ford says, not put out by this lie. “You’re in the front where no sex occurs and you’re just welcoming patrons. That’s respectable.”

“I suppose I could float that by her,” I respond pensively, wondering how to even start a conversation like that with my mom.

Hey Mom… um, I’m working at a sex club, but it’s okay… I’m just a hostess who greets people coming in.

“I’m going to have to think about it,” I say softly.

“That’s fine,” Ford concedes, but his expression is serious and somber. It makes my stomach tighten as he opens his mouth to say something else, and I brace. “But I’d also like to keep seeing you after the contract period is up.”

A physical jolt of shock causes me to jerk backward a bit. My eyes have to be as large as saucers. “You would?”

Ford gives a nonchalant shrug and looks out over the crowd. “Well, you know… you make a fucking phenomenal cake.”

I slap him on the chest, and his head turns back to me with a sinful grin.

“Let me amend that,” he says with a hand to the back of my neck to pull me close to him. “You’re fucking phenomenal in a million different ways, and I’m not ready to stop what we have.”

My heart is thundering in my chest because I’m excited at the prospect of more with Ford, but I’m leery at the same time. I didn’t let my heart get too involved so I wouldn’t be crushed when I walked away in nine days, and here he is making me open myself up again.

“When you say you don’t want to stop what we have,” I say carefully, so I understand exactly what he’s offering, “are you talking about the club sex?”

Ford gives me an eyeroll. It looks weird coming from him because he’s always so professional and put together. “I’m talking about dating you, Thalia. That would include fucking here in the club and a million different other places. Going out to dinner, movies, and whatever other shit people who date do.”

“Monogamous, right?” I ask, again not daring to hope.

“You’re usually not this dense,” he mutters, but then smiles at me. “Yes, monogamous. And if you say you have to think about it, I’m going to redden your ass when I get you in the stocks.”

My entire being is flooded with warmth over the fact Ford wants to be with me. He wants the emotional connection and not just an impersonal fuck. Still, I play coy, lifting a finger to tap at the corner of my chin as I look upward in contemplation. “Hmmm… let me think—”

Suddenly, Ford lifts me and throws my body over his shoulder. I shriek in surprise and offense, slapping at his back. “Put me down, you big ape.”

I get rewarded with a hard crack of his palm against my ass, crying out from the pain even as my panties get wetter from the pleasure of it.

I yell all kinds of vile curses as Ford takes me right to The Silo and the stocks room, which is surprisingly empty, but then again, it’s early. That usually doesn’t get busy until very late when some girl—or even a guy—works up the courage to get locked in and then fucked by multiple people.

When he bends over to set me on wobbly feet, I make the mistake of looking out the glass wall where a few people are walking closer to watch. My nerves go into overdrive and practically explode when I see two of the condiment tray girls glaring at me. My gaze slides to the wooden device that will hold me captive, and I look longingly at it. It’s a symbol to me right in this moment that I’ve got a naughty side that can be celebrated openly, and I have a man I can trust to lock me in there and do whatever he wants to me.

“Second thoughts?” Ford says as his hands come to my shoulders. He angles down to kiss my neck.

I shake my head as I stare right back out the window to those watching and shore up my resolve to do this. Right now, it’s what I want and what I can accept about this relationship with Ford. After we’re done though, I’m not sure he’s going to like my decision.

Ford makes swift work of locking me up in the stocks. He doesn’t even bother undressing me, only telling me to spread my legs apart, which I do. The position isn’t comfortable at all. While I can rest my wrists down on the wood, I have to hold my head up. Otherwise, I’d have too much pressure on my windpipe. But what really makes this a huge turn on and well worth the tiny discomforts is that I can’t see what Ford is doing behind me. I can’t turn my head and even if I could, the wooden boards would block my view.

I suck in a deep breath when I feel his hands on my hips, pressing his crotch into my backside. He’s already hard and the knowledge he’s ready just from putting me in this contraption makes me hotter for him. Ford pulls the bottom of my dress up. It’s stretchy and stays banded around my waist, so now my backside, which is covered by a pair of sheer deep green panties made of satin, is exposed for all to see. I feel his bare palms on my ass cheeks and he rubs lightly, sometimes squeezing the twin globes. It’s not enough, but it makes me squirm. I push my backside up a little higher, giving him a silent invitation to touch me somewhere else.

Instead, one palm disappears only to return swiftly with a hard crack to my ass. I shriek from the surprise and pain and my hips tilt inward trying to pull my ass out of his reach. Another crack and I cry out again.

“Told you I was going to redden that ass,” Ford growls behind me, and I receive another sharp slap, which was just as forceful, but now I’m not noticing the stinging pain as much. Instead, my sex clenches and releases with need, and I can’t help but moan when he strikes me again. Ford alternates slaps with a soft stroking of his palm across my skin. I need him inside of me so bad I start squirming, moving my legs inward so I can press them together and perhaps ease the ache there.

“Uh-uh-uh, Thalia,” Ford says in a soft, patronizing voice as he sweeps his leg left and right to get mine to spread my further. “Bad girl. It’s gonna cost you.”

I tense, waiting for another blow to my reddened ass, but he slaps me between the legs instead, right against the swollen lips of my pussy and I swear I almost orgasm from that.

Bracing for another blow, I’m stunned when Ford snakes his fingers under my panties at the back and sinks two fingers into me. I’m so wet it makes a squelching noise, and I wince with embarrassment even as my hips rotate involuntarily to try to draw him in deeper.

“I didn’t know spanking you would make you this wet,” Ford murmurs as he withdraws his fingers. Hell, I didn’t know it either but apparently, I’ve got a kinky thing for spanking.

While I can’t see what’s happening, I know what’s coming. Ford’s zipper and the tear of the foil pack to release the condom seem loud. Ford groans when he rolls it on, and I spread my legs out a little further, my entire body quivering in anticipation.

And then he’s rubbing the tip of his cock through my wet folds, having done nothing more than pull the material of my panties aside to give him access. Something about us not taking off a stitch of clothing makes this even naughtier. Ford pushes the head inside me, pauses just a second, and then simultaneously delivers another slap to my ass as he drives in deep.

So deep my shoulders hit the wooden stocks and the breath is knocked out of me slightly. Doesn’t matter though because the feeling of that hard, swollen length inside of me… pushing against the edge of my womb, feels so good I want him to do it again and again.

“Harder,” I moan as he starts to slide out, and he rewards me by slamming back in.

“Yes,” I hiss in gratitude, and then it’s on.

Ford sets up a brutal pace, thrusting hard and fast. He slaps my ass a few more times, but then his hand reaches around, slips down my panties, and plays with my clit. My blood is already racing and the feelings of him fucking me hard, rolling my clit, and sometimes slapping me is almost too much to bear. My climax starts barreling toward me even though I try to hold it off. He’s barely been fucking me a few minutes, but my entire body tightens as it prepares to break apart.

With a sexy grunt of pleasure, Ford drives in so deep that my climax is released in an amazingly violent burst that makes me call out his name. As my body trembles and shudders, Ford practically heaves himself into me, cursing and grunting with pleasure.

“I’m close,” he says through gritted teeth, fucking me furiously so his words come out in short bursts.

I wait for that moment I’ve come to know well—when he’ll bury balls’ deep and grind against me as he unloads. His pace tells me he’s almost there, but then he suddenly stops.

Pulls out of me quickly, so I cry out from the loss of this thickness.

But then he’s in front of me, whipping off the condom and staring down at me with eyes so darkened with lust I’m not sure I even see the real Ford residing in there. One of his hands grabs my jaw as he says, “Open up.”

I immediately comply because I told him he could fuck my mouth tonight. Frankly, I love giving him head. It’s one of the few times I have power over him. While I can’t touch him like I normally would to roll his balls or press my fingers against his anus, I merely double up on my sucking efforts to draw him in as I stare up at him.

His hands come to gently frame my face, and he doesn’t move in me the way he did from the back. He’s gentle so he doesn’t choke me, but he gives it to me as deep as possible.

“God, I love watching my cock slide in and out of that beautiful mouth of yours,” Ford murmurs, stroking a thumb across my cheek. “Not as much as I just enjoyed watching it ram into your cunt, but fuck, baby… this is really good.”

I’d smile if my mouth wasn’t so full of cock.

Ford picks up the pace, going a little faster but not as deep. I hollow my cheeks as hard as I can, getting swipes of my tongue on the underside of the head where he’s especially sensitive.

I keep my eyes on Ford and he watches me, both of us so focused on each other the entire world outside of here seems to have melted away. I no longer even think about being in stocks or people and coworkers watching me. All I think about is making Ford feel good, giving a little hum of need that he gives it up to me.

Ford sucks in breath between his teeth, baring them with an almost tortured expression on his face. Then he stops, throws his head back, and groans as he starts to come on my tongue. I swallow, my throat working for every spurt in my mouth. He’s salty and tangy, and I just love the taste of him.

Huffing out a breath of relief and exhaustion, Ford pulls his cock from my lips and I flex my jaw. After tucking himself into his pants, he squats down so we’re eye level and gives me a soft kiss. “That was incredible,” he says huskily when he pulls back.

“Very,” I tell him.

He smiles and moves to stand. “Let me get you out of there.”

“Wait,” I say quickly, and he bends again. His head is tilted in curiosity. “Don’t you want my answer?”

“You know I do,” he says with a smile.

“Yes, to your job offer,” I tell him. “And yes to us continuing to see each other—”

His mouth slams into mine, but I mumble against it. “Wait.”

Ford pulls back. “But… if I’m working here, I don’t want to use The Sinful Night Club anymore for our… um… intimate moments.”

“Excuse me?” he says, his brows furrowing inward, then he immediately stands up. “Wait… don’t answer that now. Let me get you out of there so we can go to my apartment.”

Before I can say another word, Ford is behind me, pulling my panties back in place, smoothing my dress down, and unlocking the stocks. I stand up, my back stiff but the ache between my legs very welcomed.

Ford takes me by the elbow and leads me out the door that goes into the perimeter hallway. As soon as the door closes and we are out of sight and hearing, he turns on me. “Why don’t you want to use The Sinful Night Club? I mean… what was that we just did?”

So much for waiting to talk until we get to his apartment.

I jerk my thumb over my shoulder toward the stocks. “That right there was amazing. One of the best sexual experiments of my life. But I can’t handle the animosity from the other staff when you like to publicly flaunt me. So, as long as I’m working here, I want our relationship to stay private and away from my coworkers’ eyes.”

Brows drawing in even closer together, he asks, “So as long as you work for me, no sex in the club. But if you don’t work for me, we can fuck in here.”

“That about sums it up,” I tell him simply.

“And this is all to keep harmony between you and the staff?” he asks for additional clarification.

“Yup.”

“Then the job offer to work at the club is revoked,” Ford says as he crowds in close to me. I take a step back, pressing into the wall. His voice goes low… hypnotic. “I’ll hire you to work for Hendrix Group. You’ll work at the office over on Tyson Avenue. Then some nights you can join me here, other nights my apartment. Sound fair?”

“You’re selling The Hendrix Group,” I remind him. “That doesn’t sound like good job security to me.”

Ford snickers and presses his lips to my head. “It won’t be any time soon, and I’ll make your employment there a condition of the sale with Kenneth.”

This is such an easy option that I feel terrible even considering it. Ford’s doing too much for me, and I don’t like how it’s making me feel. I’ve never been one to depend on others for help, outside of asking my brother for a loan… and I’ll not be making that mistake again.

Resting my hand on Ford’s chest, I say, “Let me think about the job offer.”

It’s obvious he wants to argue and force me into accepting, but he holds his tongue and gives me an accepting nod. My heart almost doubles in on itself when he asks hesitantly, “But you still want to see me? Regardless of whether I have you in the club or not?”

Smiling wide, I give him a resounding, “Yes. That part’s a done deal.”

“Then we’ll figure out everything else later,” Ford says as he drags me out of The Silo and to his apartment.