"You know how sex with you always does the trick."

It made no sense. No sense at all for Leo to be lounging there masturbating while I was out in the living room yelling at Cameron, accusing him of all sorts of bullshit.

I should have been mad upon seeing this. I should have yelled at Leo, too. And yet...the vision of his cock, already so engorged and aroused and so ready for me, shut me up immediately.

I should have questioned him, questioned this. Should have told him to wrap it up and put that delightful thing away so we could have a serious chat, make an educated decision on how to proceed.

But...he was correct. Sex had loosened our tension before, especially his, and right now we were strung so tight we might snap.

Neither of us wanted to snap. Not here, not with Sapphire in the apartment, her manager and stylist and brand spanking new personal assistant to witness it and report it to the media.

No, they'd get to hear us fucking instead.

I smirked at Leo as I padded over, unable to take my eyes off his deliberate strokes, the clear throbbing of his member as he squeezed it. "Oh, yeah? With four people waiting for us?"

He wiggled his eyebrows as he gnawed on his bottom lip. "Yeah. Exactly. How hot is that, hm? Tell me, Emma—how turned on are you by the notion of getting caught? Is that something you're into?"

No matter my wild sexual past, exhibitionism was never one of my kinks. I didn't really have kinks, as a more vanilla individual, and that had never bothered me nor any of my partners.

But this, with Leo, for some reason pumped my blood faster and aroused me quicker than ever before. The idea that four people—one of them being a really high-profile celebrity—might listen to us, walk in on us, see us...it was titillating beyond anything I'd ever felt.

"Fuck it," I said, removing my shoes, my pants, my shirt. I kept my bra and panties on as I crawled over and took over for Leo, replacing his hand with mine. He squirmed at the contact, his slight amusement turning to serious lust as he watched me stroke him. "Wow, you're so hard, Leo." I made eye-contact as I massaged him, slow and torturing enough to see his breaths hitch. "Now all I want is to put this thing in my—"

His penis was at the tip of my tongue before he yanked me off it, his voice raspy. "As much as I want you to devour my dick and make me come all over your tits, I really do just want to fuck you, Emma. Hard and fast and explosively. Blow off steam, yeah?"

I nodded, understanding what this was—a quickie, plain and simple. Hot and dangerous, to get our adrenaline rushing to release our stress, then return to the meeting refreshed and too exhausted to be angry.

Hopefully.

"And..." He gulped, his gaze roving from my stomach down to my soaked panties. "As much as I want to stick my tongue between your legs and slurp you up, I need you to get fully naked now. Hurry, before I burst at the sight of you."

I pursed my lips as he rotated to the side and extracted a condom from the nightstand drawer. But I obeyed, tossing off my underwear, unhooking my bra to let my breasts spill out. He licked his lips at that, and dragged me closer to him so he could flick his tongue over my nipples while he rolled the condom onto his length.

I gasped at his tongue's subtle wetness on me, but it was so hurried I hardly got to enjoy it before he pulled me on top of him, straddling him.

"Ride me, baby," he said, allowing me to slide his thickness into my slit. "Ride me fast and fuck me hard."

The instant his tip passed my entrance, I wanted to scream. God, he always felt so fucking good inside me, every single time. He filled me up, spreading me apart, breaking me to pieces. I couldn't hold my desire in, so I grabbed his hand and pressed it to my mouth, blocking me from blurting out how much I needed him to come for me.

As I hopped atop him, my ass bouncing on his thighs every time I dropped, the sound of his entering and exiting drove me to insanity. That slap-slap of our bodies colliding was too much to handle. Everyone could hear it, they had to—and fuck, I wanted them to. I wanted them to know, all of them, that Leo and I were very much together for real. And very much enjoying every second of it, no matter what stupid, scorned reporters were saying.

A tiny, repressed part of me kind of wanted Cameron to hear us, too. A sort of revenge against him and his distrust, his decision to dump me based on untrue hunches. Take that, ex-boyfriend. Now, Leo and I were really together, and it was glorious.

Leo's cock pulsated inside me, and I could tell he was close to finishing. He opened his mouth, and on instinct, I covered it with my hand, muffling his cries of pleasure. His eyes widened and his lips slipped into a smile; he liked me being dominant, liked it when I decided the rhythm of our fucking.

As I quickened the pace, ignoring the burning pain in my thighs, I could have sworn I picked up on a creaking sound, like a door opening. I twisted my head briefly to see if someone had come to spy on us. My heart raced at the possibility, but I also almost froze up in surprise. Sure enough, the door had crept half an inch open, and I thought I saw one dark eye peeping in. But then the door closed again and I wondered if I'd been so dazed by Leo's dick inside me that I'd imagined it.

Who was it? Cameron, coming to get his proof that Leo and I were having sex and loving it? Sapphire, revealing she had a bit of a kinky, likes to watch side? Her stylist, hoping to catch a peek of Leo in the nude? Or the shy manager wandering over inadvertently and mistaking our love-making noises for something else?

"Shit," said Leo, completely unaware of what might have happened. He was thrusting up into me, deepening our union. "I'm going to...I'm going to..."

With one last shove he came, his cock shivering between my legs, his entire body shattering as his skin covered with goosebumps.

"Holy fuck," he said, once he'd regained himself, come back to reality. "That was...intense."

I didn't ride him that often, preferring to let him ravage me in ways only he could. But I grinned at my successful riding, and gently removed him from me so I could get off the bed and get cleaned up.

I used his en-suite bathroom to pee and then fix my face—a trace of runny mascara from the tears he brought to my eyes with that girth inside me. When I returned, he was fully dressed, holding out my clothes for me to do the same. In silence, I tugged everything back on, then he pressed a hasty kiss to my forehead.

"Let's go back out and pretend like his appearance didn't affect us." He took my hand and offered a small but kind smile.

"About that," I said, wincing, "were you not aware of me yelling at him?"

Leo scoffed. "Oh, that I did. But you said your piece, and I'll eventually say mine, especially if we're to work with him closely, because of Sapphire. But not today. We'll keep it light, exchange pleasantries, and send them off so we can go home and have a more thorough fucking, okay?"

When we emerged in the living room, Sapphire and her crew were back inside, seated on the couch, holding drinks. The manager was fluffing through his papers, the only one not sitting, and the only one not interested in our arrival. Everyone else lifted their gazes when they saw us, and not one of them flushed or snickered or made any gesture that implied they knew what we'd been doing. But if they'd been lounging here this whole time...

They must have heard us.

Cameron looked over at us, getting to his feet with his hands in his pockets. "Sorry, I know where everything is, and I figured I'd set everyone up with drinks while we waited for you guys to finish, uh...talking." The slightest pinch of red flared from his chin to his temples, but he turned away to hide it.

Oh, they absolutely heard us.

He'd also set up a few plates of snacks—pretzels, chips, cubed cheese—and opened the windows for some fresh air.

I sat beside Sapphire, who leaned in close to whisper near my ear. "I hope your little talk went well." As she moved back into place, she winked at me, further proving that everyone in the room had been listening to Leo and I's love-making.

Well, it was what we'd wanted, right? It turned me on at the time, so why was embarrassment floating through me now?

What's done is done.

"So, shall we do the small-talk shit or discuss business?" Leo fetched himself a beer from the kitchen, and returned with a spiked spritzer for me.

Sapphire got up, swirling the ice cubes in her drink. "Do you have a recording studio in here?"

Leo nodded, motioning towards the opposite hallway from his bedroom. "Down there. Did you want to see it?"

"Recording studios," Sapphire meandered over to him, her strides long and pronounced, like a cat stretching, "are where I like to talk business." She waved at her manager to follow, and he flurried over from the corner where he'd been standing, still ruffling through his paperwork.

Sapphire's stylist looked at me, opened her mouth to speak, then shimmied away from the sofa and back out onto the balcony.

Leaving Cameron and I alone, again.

He sat down, opposite me, as much space between us as he could muster. "So, he's pissed at me, right?"

I swung down a few gulps of my bubbly drink, desperate for the light booze to hit my senses so I wouldn't care anymore. So I wouldn't experience shame or anger or any emotion. It was exhausting. Leo's feelings, my feelings, now Cameron's feelings...I didn't come here for this today. I came on Sapphire's request, and still had no idea why.

"He'll get over it." I leaned forward to grab a handful of chips. "Not like we have a choice."

"So he isn't outraged?" Cameron angled back and propped one leg over the other, getting more comfortable now that most people had left the room. "I mean," he crossed his arms and frowned, "not so much about me, but about working with Sapphire? I was shocked he agreed. She's...the enemy, I'm sure he told you. No one knows what his beef with her is, if he even has any. I think he just hates that she popped up out of nowhere and is so successful."

I snorted at the memory of Leo's reaction about Sapphire, the first time I mentioned listening to her music. "Oh, yeah, he hates her." I plopped a chip into my mouth, letting the salt sink in, the crunch muffle my hearing for a moment. Blocking Cameron's voice and my thoughts in one fell swoop. "But after thinking about this, he realized it was a great opportunity for him and his career. He couldn't pass it up."

Cameron coughed to clear his throat. "It's a great opportunity for you, too."

"Huh?" I almost choked on another chip as I narrowed my gaze on him. "For me? What are you talking about?"

"Sapphire..." He rubbed his cheek with his knuckles. "She has a lot of ins with magazines. Fashion magazines." My gaze narrowed further, urging him to hurry and spit out whatever he was trying to imply. He perked up, blushing. "So I might have told her about an ex of mine who was into fashion, though I didn't say who...but now she's putting two and two together, I'm sure."

"Wait," I set my canned alcohol down, "you told her about me? Without specifying I'm currently dating Leo, of course, since she had no clue of our connection earlier."

"She was interested." He nodded at my surprise. "And she's also interested in you, as in Leo's girlfriend. Before she was made aware my ex and Leo's girlfriend were one and the same."

"Interested in me?" I jammed a thumb in the middle of my chest. "Me? Emma?"

"Emmaline Simmons," said Cameron. Him saying my full name out loud did something strange to my heart that I couldn't describe. "That's why she wanted you here. To gauge you, get a good look at you, maybe chat with you about some...opportunities."

"Why?" My legs were shaky, and I knew it wasn't the spritzer affecting me yet; those things had barely five percent alcohol in them. "Like, what does she want with me? What opportunities?"

Cameron uncrossed his legs and inclined forward, elbows on his knees. "She knows you're trying to get into the fashion world on your own. And she's offering to help, because she knows your struggle. Wanting to get in without handouts, without being berated for using connections," he used air-quotes, "and stuff like that. She understands that. Super down-to-earth type of woman. She started at the bottom, you know. No famous family members, no rich parents. When I told her about you and fashion, she looked you up, read your blog. And then she told me she was intrigued by you and wanted to do something about it."

"Okay but how..." I blinked at him, bewildered at this display of information. "How would she even know that about me? Me not wanting handouts, I mean."

He said nothing, and it spoke volumes. He had told her of my ambition. He knew how badly I wanted to make a name for myself on my own, without Leo's help. Had I mentioned it when we had coffee the other day? I couldn't remember. But whatever I'd said, Cameron had relayed it to her in great detail. They'd talked about me, and it wasn't a passing conversation in an elevator before a meeting or something.

"She's not quite someone you know, so no one would be able to link you to her and say she helped you." Cameron pulled the bowl of pretzels closer to him. "So if you want that sort of help, she'll give it."

Something told me that accepting this, as much as I wanted to, would upset Leo. I'd declined his help already, so if I went behind his back and took Sapphire's...

"You're thinking about Leo." Cameron winced as he filled his palm with pretzels. "About how he'll be disappointed that you didn't use him and his contacts."

How did he keep reading my mind like that?

"Listen, Leo can help, but trust me on this—Sapphire is better. She's been in tons of fashion shoots and articles because of her bold choices, how she defies color and disregards trends, while making her own." Cameron peered left and right, then lowered his voice. "And if it helps make this more legit and less suspicious in Leo's eyes, she can give you an exclusive interview and photo-shoot, to put in your portfolio. No direct involvement, but you'd be using her name, with her permission, to gain more attention."

He was right, and it made sense. If I told Leo that Sapphire reached out to me and asked for this, what was I supposed to do? Decline her? She was huge. Having an interview with her in my portfolio would open so many doors, I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

"Thank you," I said, giving Cameron my first genuine smile of the day. "I can't accept for sure, but...I'll consider it."

I only needed to find a way to ensure Leo wouldn't be immensely jealous and hurt that I'd take his biggest rival's help over his.

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