Vain - Part One (Vain, #1)(8)

"Was he your boyfriend?" He stares at me through the camera lens for several seconds. I know he's gauging my reaction. I know he's chasing the perfect shot.
I try to temper my chuckle. "Nathan? He's not a boyfriend?"
"What does that mean?" His voice is low and uncompromising.
"Nathan is a one night stand guy. He doesn't do relationships, just random f*cks." I push my cheek into the sheet to hide the blush I feel wafting over my face. "We hooked up at a club."
"When?"
"It was a long time ago." I adjust my legs to try and hide any hint of arousal that may be rushing to the surface. "I guess about three years ago now."
"You were old enough to go to a club three years ago?" His finger slides to the right and juts into the air. "Shift your hips to the right."
I push my heels into the bed as I move my body. "I had fake ID," I confess.
"How old were you?"
"I was nineteen then," I groan. I'd felt so mature back then.
He pulls the camera down to look directly at me. "So you f*cked him that one time?"
I nod as I feel the rush of arousal spread to my breasts. My nipples harden under his gaze. "He f*cked me five or six times that night." I'd lost track after the first. It was the only time in my life I'd come more than once in a row.
"You compare every other man to him, don't you?" It's not meant to sound challenging, but it does. At the very least, that's how I absorb it.
"I did at first," I say as honestly as I can. "I actually kept going back to that club to try and find him again to f*ck."
"Did you?"
"Did I f*ck him again?" My hand twitches at the thought of Nathan's skilled body inside of mine. I want to touch myself right now thinking about it.
"Did you find him again?" His eyes fall to my legs and I know that he's wondering if I'm as aroused as I sound.
"No." The defeat in my voice is evident. "I heard he moved to New York so that was the end of that."
"You think about him when you get yourself off, don't you?" he growls. "You close your eyes when other men are f*cking you and you think about his dick being inside of you."
I almost moan at the sound of the words. "Yes," I whimper under my breath as I slide my legs apart. "Yes." I'd f*cked dozens of men since then in pursuit of the high I felt that night.
"Like that, Alexa." His voice fades into the distance as I close my eyes and run my tongue over my lips thinking about the one night stand I'll never forget.

Chapter 8

"When are you going to schedule your practicum, Lexi?" she asks, knowing full well that I haven’t liked the nickname since I was seven-years-old.
"Why do you insist on calling me that?" I bark back. I'm tired of it. I thought that after I returned from Paris, my mother would have a newfound respect for me. She was the one who told me I'd never survive a month there, and I'd lasted more than half a year.
She shakes her head as if to ward off my question. "The practicum? When are you scheduling that?"
It was an important step towards my degree in education and before I'd stumbled into Noah Foster's life it had been on the top of my priority list. Now, I was so caught up in the idea of posing nude for him, that I'd pushed my actual career to the side. That needed to change today. "I'll arrange that today." It's a definitive answer that I plan to back up with action. In fact, if I leave now I can not only avoid a dessert course with my overbearing mother, but the midday traffic that clogs up the arteries around Boston too.
"What are you doing for money?" She taps her hand on the table in the upscale restaurant she dragged me to for lunch. "I thought you'd go back to working at the bistro when you got back."
My part-time job at Star Bistro being a barista had been fun when Sadie worked there with me. Now that she was married to the man whose family owned many restaurants along the east coast, serving coffee wasn't on her radar. I assumed I'd fall back into that routine after Paris, but my modeling job with Noah had changed all that. He was paying me enough that I didn't have to work, at least for the immediate future. I knew I'd need to start considering my options in the next few weeks though.
"I might look for something in child care," I say it as much to stun my mother as to appease my need to be around children. At first glance, I'm not exactly the type of woman that you'd immediately peg as being a kid person, but I love them and since I'm not qualified to teach just yet, helping out at a daycare of after school program seems ideal.
"Seriously?" She doesn't even try and disguise her surprise.
"Seriously," I repeat back as I stand and reach over to kiss her cheek. "I've got to run, mom. I'll talk to you next week."
With that, my parent quota for the week is officially filled without her having even the slightest inkling about what me and my naked body have been up to.

***

"You're going to tie me to that bed?" I point at the bed as if I'm trying to distinguish between it and an invisible bed within the bedroom room we're standing in. This bedroom, which is down the hall from the one we were in last time, is darker, edgier and actually has window coverings. "Noah, you never said anything about bondage."
"Your contract includes bondage." He glances back at me briefly as he sets up a light next to the four poster bed. "It's scarves, Alexa. They're for show."