The Pleasure Contract by Caitlin Crews (best books to read in your 20s txt) 📕

Even the panel made more sense to her now, still tender from the way he’d pounded them both into oblivion. It wasn’t like Lachlan Drummond could reveal himself on a dating app. He couldn’t ask for alley sex. It would end up on the front page of every tabloid on the planet.

Then again, maybe her sudden rush of understanding had more to do with all the orgasms she’d had.

But even thinking and analyzing connected to that blistering heat that still flared between them, it seemed. It was so bright it almost seemed like daylight, lighting her up there in a dark alley in the middle of the loud and careless city.

“Well?”

And Bristol couldn’t tell if that was a taunt or an invitation. Or some combination of the two.

Maybe she should have cared about that. But she didn’t.

“Well, what?” She tilted her head to one side and found herself smiling. “Are you looking for a performance review?”

And she was finding herself growing more and more addicted to that laugh of his, because he seemed so astonished that it was happening.

“I don’t need you to tell me how good I am. I know.”

“The kindest and most humble of billionaires,” she murmured. “You are truly a Renaissance man.”

“I don’t believe in false humility,” Lachlan said. “Especially not when you came so many times. But I do believe in contracts.”

Contracts. That word rebounded around inside her, a lot like a bucket of cold water. Bristol thought she ought to be outraged. She frowned at him, but it felt as if she was trying something on. Not as if it was in any way organic.

“I don’t need to sign a contract. I don’t want anything from you. I don’t want your money and I certainly don’t want to be your wife.” She shrugged. “The truth is, I don’t think I’m your type.”

“And that’s why I like you,” he agreed. And his eyes were really far bluer than was fair. “The thing is, Bristol, you want me. And there’s only one way you can have me.”

“I had you not five minutes ago. I’m good.”

“Will that be enough, do you think?”

And she would have recoiled if he’d sounded swaggery or full of himself. But he didn’t. The question sounded like a truth, and it echoed like a song.

Bristol sighed. “Contracts, then?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“That will severely inhibit the new career I was thinking of starting,” she told him, leaning into her frown. “I figured I’d wander about, having sex with famous men in alleyways, and selling the story to whoever would buy.”

“You can have sex with one famous man wherever you want,” he replied, leaning against the car of his. “And whenever I want. Which is going to be too much sex to worry about alleyways you might have known.”

“Right, right.” She ran her hands over her hair, pleased to find it was a mess. For some reason, it made her feel that much more beautiful. And somehow in control, that she could abandon herself so completely and then debate contracts. As she stood there, she braided it loosely and tossed it over her shoulder. “That’s the healthy sexual appetite you have a panel of your assistants discuss with a field of applicants.”

“I like there to be as little confusion as possible.”

“What exactly does that mean, though? One man’s feast is another man’s famine, or so I’m told.”

For a mouth she knew was hard and demanding, the way it curved looked inviting. Knowing. “This is the deal, Bristol. I like you. You seemed genuinely interested in a great variety of things instead of just playing a role to play it. I get the feeling you could talk about anything to anyone.”

“Well, yes, Lachlan. That’s called being a functional adult.”

“You might be surprised.”

He moved closer to her, but he didn’t tower over her. He thrust his hands in his pockets and studied her. And it was different, now, that they both knew how hot the fire between them burned. And how it felt when he was buried deep inside her. Much, much different.

Bristol had to press her legs together. Or maybe she wanted to.

“You don’t want anything from me, and strangely enough, that makes me want you more,” Lachlan said with a quiet intensity. “We have insane chemistry. I can’t think of anything that I’d like more than to get another taste of that, as often as possible, and with my schedule that requires a lot of effort. Or a contract.”

She considered that for a moment. “So, these girlfriends of yours. Girlfriend being a euphemism, clearly. These are women you hire but don’t call escorts. Or what they are—what I’d be. Prostitutes.”

Something was obviously wrong with her that she didn’t find the very idea appalling. That here, in this alley still wet for him, that word only made her shiver. Straight down into her clit.

“If there was a word for it, I think it would be mistress,” Lachlan said. “In the historic sense.”

“Mistress.” She laughed at that, because it struck her as such a glittering, archaic word for something that was far more prosaic. If not much discussed in polite circles, for all the strides the world had made in viewing sexuality more positively. “And these mistresses of yours all just...follow you around, making themselves available for sex on your schedule?”

He looked perfectly relaxed, standing there with that gleaming sports car behind him. Almost careless, but she could see the dark intensity in his gaze. It matched the current of fire and need that was only growing in her.

“Yes. That’s pretty much the entire job description.”

“Don’t they have lives? Their own jobs? Things to do?”

“Some do. Some don’t. It depends. And if they do, that often contributes to the length of our time together.”

“What job allows time off for being a billionaire’s plaything?”

“Again, you’d be surprised.” She started to say something else but he shook his head. “I don’t want to litigate my life, Bristol. There are far more entertaining things we could