Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 93224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
It’s fine. The money means nothing to me. Besides, I graduated from Century twenty five years ago, and this place set me on my path to fame and fortune. Not only that, but my daughter, Stella, is now a junior at the school. But the fundraising sometimes sucks, even with the fancy setting and expensive wine. They keep calling me “Mr. Moreland” tonight, as if I’m my father, as if I didn’t already own half the committee’s net worth by the time I was twenty-five. My tuxedo is Tom Ford, the cut so sharp I could fillet a banker with a careless shrug; the watch is Patek Philippe, white gold, limited edition, a flex so restrained only real insiders notice. The cufflinks: platinum, mother-of-pearl, custom, each one monogrammed with the letter M. The scotch in my hand is older than the event planner, and it tastes faintly of vanilla and peat and something else—something almost blue, if blue could be a flavor.
But even here, even now, I can’t focus on the surface game.
All I can see, again and again, is the memory of her: the anonymous blonde from last week, the girl who let me spread her ass against the wet brick outside the Faculty Club, who moaned into my mouth and clawed at my lapels and took my cock like she’d been starved for it since birth. The way she’d let me finish, raw and deep, in a place which is hers alone.
That ass—perfect, peach-shaped, so tight I thought I’d break her. The little gasps she made when I first pressed my thumb inside, her trembling as I opened her up. I’ve fucked a lot of women in my life, some for sport, some for habit, many because they wanted a story to tell, but none of them left a mark like this one. I came so hard I was half-blind. It was the kind of balls-emptying orgasm that echoes up your spine and sits there, making every subsequent climax a dull afterimage.
I’ve spent the last week replaying that moment, slow-mo, every detail in crystal HD. The flecks of brick dust on her bare thighs. The little nicks on her knuckles from where she’d braced against the wall. The heat of her, the smell—warm skin, flowery shampoo, the sharp electric whiff of fear and need all tangled together. I’ve stroked myself raw every night since, always with that same image in my mind, but the real thing haunted me in ways I didn’t have a word for.
The only problem was, I never got her name. Not even a number. She was gone before I could zip up, vanished into the night like a cat burglar, and now she’s all I can think about. In a lifetime of plenty, I’ve found a new kind of scarcity, and it pisses me off more than I’d ever admit.
“Tom,” says a voice, honeyed and expensive, right by my elbow. I turn and find the Dean’s wife, a tall brunette in a backless silver sheath, her lips already parted for me in a way that’s pure muscle memory.
I smile. It’s the smile I use that’s practiced, yet polite. “Candace,” I say, just soft enough to make her lean in. Her perfume is high-velocity, something French and relentless. Her eyes scan my face for a tell, and when she doesn’t find one, she settles for the familiar: “You look like you’d rather be anywhere else.”
She’s not wrong. “I’m not a party person,” I say, which is both a lie and the truth. I am the party, but only when it’s on my terms.
She laughs, tossing her hair, displaying her neck the way prey does in documentaries. “Well, I hope the auction was worth it. They said your gift came with strings, but I think you just like seeing your name on things.”
“Names are important,” I say, and watch her file that away. She’s trying to decide if it’s there’s a double entendre. There isn’t. I’m not interested in this woman, I’m just too polite to snub her at this black tie event.
Across the floor, women orbit in slow, practiced ellipses. A statuesque redhead in a green slit dress catches my eye, holds it, then looks away with a deliberate shiver. I know her: she’s the faculty advisor for the Women’s Leadership Initiative. She hates me in public, but sends drunk texts every other Friday, begging me to “dominate” her at a nearby luxury hotel. I never do, but I keep her thirsty. It’s the only way to keep these events interesting.
Another one: the president’s assistant, thin and mousy, but in the right dress, she looks like a junior version of the dean’s wife. I watch her circle the room with a notebook and pen in hand, face perfectly blank, but every so often she sneaks glances in my direction—anxious, hungry. It’s the same look I’ve seen in boardrooms: the hunger to be seen, to be chosen.