If I could change it, I would. The wanting him. The craving him.
I close my eyes at night and touch myself, imagining it is him. His hands stroking me. His fingers penetrating me.
I do this, and I hate myself. Because my desire isn't warm and soft, but twisted and wild and wrong.
We destroyed each other, he and I. Even now, after so many years, we're still cracked and broken.
And broken we'll remain, because without the other, we can never be whole. And yet we can never be together. Not again. Not like that.
Our desire has teeth, after all. We survived once, just barely.
But push our luck, and it just might swallow us whole....
Even by Southampton standards, the party at the nine-thousand-square-foot mansion on Meadow Lane reeked of extravagance.
Grammy Award-winning artists performed on an outdoor stage that had been set up on the lush lawn that flowed from the main house to the tennis courts. Celebrities hobnobbed with models who flirted with Wall Street tycoons who discussed stock prices with tech gurus and old-money academics, all while sampling fine scotch and the season's chicest gin. Colored lights illuminated the grotto-style pool, upon which nude models floated lazily on air mattresses, their bodies used by artisan sushi chefs as presentation platters for epicurean delights.
Each female guest received a Hermes Birkin bag and each male received a limited edition Hublot watch, and the exclamations of delight--from both the men and the women--rivaled the boom of the fireworks that exploded over Shinnecock Bay at precisely ten P.M., perfectly timed to distract the guests from the bustle of the staff switching out the dinner buffet for the spread of desserts, coffee, and liqueurs.
No expense had been spared, no desire or craving or indulgence overlooked. Nothing had been left to chance, and every person in attendance agreed that the party was the Must Attend event of the season, if not of the year. Hell, if not of the decade.
Everyone who was anyone was there, under the stars on the four acre lot on Billionaires' Row.
Everyone, that is, except the billionaire who was actually hosting the party. And speculation as to where he was, what he was doing, and who he was doing it with ripped through the well-liquored and gossip-hungry crowd like wildfire in a windstorm.
"No idea where he could have disappeared off to, but I'd bet good money he's not pining away in solitude," said a reed-thin man with salt-and-pepper hair and an expression that suggested disapproval but was most likely envy.
"I swear I came five times," a perky blonde announced to her best friend in the kind of stage whisper designed to attract attention. "The man's a master in bed."
"He's got a shrewd head for business, that one," said a Wall Street trader, "but no sense of propriety where his cock is concerned."
"Oh, honey, no. He's not relationship material." A brunette celebrating a recently inked modeling contract shivered as if reliving a moment of ecstasy. "He's like fine chocolate. Meant to be savored in very limited quantities. But so damn good when you have it."
"More power to him if he can grab that much pussy." A hipster with beard stubble and a man-bun wiped his wire-rimmed glasses clean with his shirttail. "But why the fuck does he have to be so blatant about it?"
"All of my friends have had him." The petite redhead who pulled in a six figure wife bonus smiled slowly, and the flash of her green eyes suggested that she was the cat and he was the delicious cream. "But I'm the only one of us to enjoy a second helping."
"All your friends?"
"How much pussy?"
"At least half the women here tonight. Maybe more."
"Man, don't even ask that. Just trust me. Dallas Sykes is the King of Fuck. You and me? Mere mortals like us can't even compare."
--
Three floors above the partygoers, in a room with a window overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, Dallas Sykes sucked hard on the clit of the lithe blonde who sat on his face and writhed with pre-orgasmic pleasure. The blonde's cries of "yes, yes!" mingled with the throaty moans of delight coming from the curvaceous redhead who straddled his waist while he finger-fucked her hard and deep.
They'd surrendered to him, these women, and the knowledge that they were his tonight--for tenderness, for torment--cut through him. A wicked aphrodisiac with an edge as sharp as steel, and at least as savage.
He was drunk--on sex, on scotch, on submission. And right then, all he wanted was to get lost in pleasure. To let all the rest of the shit just melt away.
"Please." The redhead's muscles clenched tight around his fingers, and a tremor ran through his body, his need for release now so potent that it crossed the line into pain. "I'm so close, Dallas. I want you inside me. Now. Oh, god, please. Now."
He could barely understand her words, lost as they were in the wet sounds of his mouth on the blonde's sweet pussy. But he heard enough, and in one wild, rough movement, he rolled the girl above him to the side, so that she stretched and trembled on the bed, her nipples hard and her pussy slick and open and inviting.
Dallas felt his body tighten with need. With desire. But only for release. He didn't want either of these women. Not really. Their company, yes. The escape they offered, sure. But them?
Neither was the woman he craved. Neither was the girl who had both saved and destroyed him. The woman he wanted.
The woman he could never have.
And so instead he sought pleasure and passion in the violent rapture of hard, hot sex.
"Sit back," he said to the blonde as he pushed away his dark thoughts and regrets. He reached for the crystal highball glass and downed the last of the Glenmorangie, relishing the way it burned his throat and buzzed his head. "Back against the headboard. Legs spread wide."
She nodded, moving eagerly to obey as he urged the redhead off his waist. "Fuck me," the redhead begged. Her green eyes flashed, her expression pleading. Her lips were swollen, her skin flushed. She smelled of sex, and the scent--so familiar, so dangerous, so goddamned compelling--made him even harder. "I want you to fuck me." Her words were a pout--a plea--and Dallas almost smiled in response.
Almost, but not quite.
Instead he lifted a brow. "Want? Baby, this isn't about what you want. This is about what you need."