‘Come closer,’ he invites.

Clubland chart music is playing in the background.  ‘Give Me a Reason’ by Pink and Nate Ruess comes on.  Pink is singing, Right from the start you were a thief. You stole my heart.  And I your willing victim.

Lana walks slowly into the middle of the room.  Her stomach is in knots.  Her mouth is dry.  Her eyes are saucers.  There is not an ounce of fat on his sleek body.  This is definitely not a man who imbibes Hobnobs.  When she is two feet away from the bed, he says, ‘Stop.’

She stops.

‘Strip.  Slowly.’

She freezes with shock.

He laughs.  The sound is soft but carries some hint of cruelty.  He is the cat playing with the mouse.  From his position of dominance and control he says, ‘I won’t say relax, I’m not going to eat you, because I am.’

She straightens her back and steps out of her platforms.

‘No,’ he commands.  ‘Not the shoes.  Keep those on.’

Silently she steps back into them.  She can hear the blood pounding in her ears.  Nobody has seen her nude.  She unties the ribbon in front of the dress and shrugs.  It slips off her, whispering and sighing.

For a moment she stands in her lacy underwear, suspenders and stockings.

Pink and Nate are belting out, Just give me a reason.  Just a little bit’s enough.

For a second Lana thinks of Billie saying every puss needs a good pair of boots, and she tells herself, sure, why not?  It is just sex.  She twists her hands behind her back and takes her bra off.  Lets it dangle at the tip of one finger before she lets it drop.

‘Take your panties off.’

She slips the fingers of both hands into the bit of lace and string and eases it slowly down her legs.  She comes up slowly resisting the urge to cover herself with her hands.

‘You have a very, very beautiful body, Lana Bloom,’ the man on the bed says. His voice is thick with lust.  

We’re not broken, just bent.  And we can learn to love again.

She faces his gaze again.  His eyes are eating her alive.  She has never seen hunger like that.

‘Turn around.’

She turns around.

You’re pouring a drink.  No, nothing is as bad as it seems.

‘Now spread your legs.’

We’ll come clean.  We’re not broken, just bent.  She steps outwards.

‘More.’

She obliges.  Her calve muscles strain to hold the position in the high shoes.

‘Bend forward.’

She bends.

‘Touch the floor.’

She spreads her fingers, lays them on the floor, and hears his gasp.  For some long seconds she is bent forward, her legs spread far apart, and her bum high in the air.  His eyes are a hot tingle on her skin.  The pose is blatantly demeaning. She should feel degraded and humiliated. Instead there is an unfamiliar heat between her legs.  And her belly is clenched with feral excitement.

‘Come here.’

She drops to her knees and crouching low, turns around.  He is sitting on the edge of the bed.  She stands and goes to him.  His strong hands span her narrow waist and before she knows it she is travelling in the air.  She lands on the bed with a slight bounce.  On her back she watches him.  His eyes are black and impenetrable.  His body hard and big, the muscles rippling.

‘Mine,’ he says possessively.  ‘You’re mine to do with as I please.’  Then he pins her on the bed and she watches with wide eyes as he takes off his trousers and steps out of his boxers, a truly magnificent creature.

She stares at his cock with fascination.  It is thicker than her wrist and huge.  Will it fit inside her?  He picks up a condom by the bedside, tears it open, and puts it on.  He is as hard as a rock.  Then he bends over her, opens her legs and stares at her opened, freshly waxed pussy.  She feels her body tremble with anticipation.

‘What a beauty you are.’  He runs his fingers along the slit of flesh. It opens out further, like the petals of a pink flower.

‘Soaking wet.’

He takes his fingers out and puts them in his mouth.  ‘And as I expected: sweet.’

Her heart is hammering in her chest.

‘You want this too,’ he says so softly she has to strain to hear him.  ‘As much as me.’  And she realizes that he is right: she does.  She wants him as much as he wants her.  She wants from him what she has never wanted from any other man.  She wants him inside her, stretching her, possessing her.

She stares at his angrily throbbing, erect dick.  She wants all of that inside her.  Her hands come up and touch it.  Silky.  But that small and tentative response from her drives him over the edge.

‘Sorry,’ he grates suddenly.  ‘I just can’t do foreplay this time.’

He put his hands on either side of her and plunges into her.  The shock of his sudden entry makes her cry out in pain.  He hurt her.  A lot.

He freezes.  The ferocious lust is wiped away from his eyes.

‘Jesus,’ he swears, and pulls out of her.

She cannot help it.  Tears well up in her eyes and escape down the sides of her temples.

She closes her eyes.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘You didn’t ask,’ she sniffs.  She feels incredibly stupid.

His hard length shifts and he sits facing away from her.  ‘It will be better next time,’ he says, and without touching her or comforting her, stands and begins to dress.  Rejected and defeated, she watches his strong V-shaped back, the beautifully proportioned buttocks, and the columns of muscular legs as he shrugs into his shirt.  He buttons it as he walks to the door.

He cannot wait to get away from her.

She is a great disappointment to him.  She should have asked Billie for some lessons on how to pleasure a man.  Instead she has lain there like a pillow and then worse still, she screamed when he entered her.  She covers her cheeks with her hands.  Oh, the shame of it.  And this was what she saved up for.  A fine mistress she was going to make.  She hears the door close and she is alone in that stupendous apartment.

Blake punches the button on the elevator and waits for it to come.  He is in a state of shock.  It is unbelievable.  He curses himself.  He should never have been so rough.  He treated her like a common prostitute.  But he never suspected that air of untouched innocence was not cultivated.

Strange how badly he wants to go back into that bedroom and hold her.  How much he wants to wipe away those tears and hold her until she falls asleep in his arms.  But a larger part of him hates the way he feels.  He doesn’t want to feel for her.  He is glad he has left her body.  Away from it he can think rationally.

Still he shouldn’t have done what he did.

He got carried away and lost himself in her essence, and the undeniable need to possess her completely.  He doesn’t exactly understand why, but whenever he is near her, he loses all his carefully cultivated ‘cool’.  All he wants to do is strap her to his bed and have total control of her body.  And why shouldn’t he?  He has paid for the privilege.  The urge is strong now, he tells himself, but it will lessen with every single coupling.  She will never be more than his three-month itch.

A bottle-blonde is walking down the corridor towards the lift.  The occupant of the other penthouse is an Arab sheik.  He glances at her.  She is wearing a tube top and white leggings.  Her boobs are obviously fake, but she is beautiful in a hard sort of way.  The way a mistress should be.

He thinks of Lana again.  The way the helpless tears escaped. He had not expected that.  He cannot understand.  Why would a virgin be propositioning someone like Lothian for money?  For the first time he wonders why she had wanted the money.

The lift arrives and he stands back to allow the woman to enter first.  She has a good ass.  She turns around in the lift and their eyes meet again.  Neither smile, but her mouth twists.  The air becomes thick with her unspoken invitation.  He lets his eyes travel down her body and convinces himself Lana is not special.  Even this one will do too.