Page 89 of Strut

I shot him a look over my shoulder. “You okay?”

“Much better, thank you.” He kept washing. “I know nothing’s gone away just because we fucked. Your dick’s great and all, babe, but it ain’tthatgreat. But I do feel more like me again, if that makes sense. Like I’ve taken something back. Reminded my body it’s mine, no one else’s. And I’ll do with it whatIwant to.” He fell quiet as his hands soaped my arms and then across my pecs and down my belly, making me squirm. “I’m calling it an exorgasm.”

I choked out a laugh. “Well,myhead certainly spun. Perhaps they’ll make a movie. I bags Henri Cavill to play me.”

“Then I get Chris Hemsworth.” He frowned. “Jesus, who’s gonna top out of those two?”

My mind ran through the scenarios without any prompting. “Yeah, I’d pay good money to see that.”

When Alec was done washing my body, I returned the favour and then we dressed and cooked dinner together. It was the first time in two days I’d felt anything close to normal, revelling in Alec’s buoyant mood and genuine smiles, a reminder of just how deep he’d burrowed into my life.

We ate and watched some mindless television—Alec stretched on the couch beside me with his head in my lap, my fingers playing with the silky threads of his blond hair. He was quiet. Too quiet. And I was pretty sure he had no idea what movie was playing.

After a little while, he reached for my hand and brought it to his lips. “Do you remember that photog who was done for sexual assault a few years ago? He used to make his models do some so-called ‘breathing exercises’ where heguidedthem through some bullshit meditation, making them undress while he touched them.”

I stroked his cheek. Sothat’swhere his mind had been... again. “Yeah, I remember. Makes me sick to the stomach. Plenty of people knew about his dirty little games—models, agents, labels, stylists—but all the agencies wanted their models to be shot by him, so they kept sending them even though he was clearly a predator.”

Alec rolled onto his back and stared up at me, his blue eyes tight. “It’s like we’re fair game, Hunter. Fuckers like that rely on us not saying anything, particularly the male models, cos who’s gonna listen, right? We’re guys. We don’t talk about that shit. As if being sexually assaulted means we’re not men or something. And if we don’t fight them off, it has to mean we’re complicit, right? I mean, how could we possibly be forced? And then there are the women who get way too touchy with us as well, and that shit just gets laughed off.” He grunted in disgust. “Jesus, people are so fucked up.”

I cupped his jaw and tried to hold my shit together. “I am so fucking sorry for what happened to you.”

Alec reached up and pressed a finger to my lips. “You didn’t do anything, Hunter.”

I shook my head, guilt tearing at my heart. “But like you said, we all know this shit happens. I’ve heard rumours before and dismissed them or put them aside when maybe I could’ve done something. Even just asking the dickhead concerned would let them know people were watching and listening.”

“I love that you understand that.” Alec stroked my cheek gently. “And you’re doing it now. But it’s a bigger problem than just a few bad eggs. It’s the whole fucking system. Our agencies drum it into us from the minute we sign. Be compliant, be on time, be polite, be nice, make them like you, don’t make waves, be easy to get along with. We need every job we can get just to keep our agency debt down, so heaven forbid you get a name for yourself asdifficultortouchyor wanting any control of your images. Or say you don’t like how a photog is touching you, because no one will want to work with you then, right, and you’re screwed. And photographers, labels, casting directors, all of you buy into that.” He eyeballed me pointedly.

But damn if he wasn’t right, and I want to crawl under a rock and hide.

He shuffled upright from my lap and sat facing me with one leg curled under him. “So tell me honestly, have rumours about a model beingdifficultordemandingever influencedyouin a casting decision?”

I sighed and closed my eyes. “Shit. Yes, much though I hate to admit it. There are so many models that word of mouth simply helps shorten the list I guess. Fuck.” I dropped my head back on the couch. “I hate that I even said that.”

“So where is the line between beingdifficultand just looking after your own rights and needs?” Alec asked pointedly, tugging on my shirt to make me look at him. “You guys do it all the time in your own contracts, so why shouldn’t we?”

“You’re right.” I cradled his face. “The systemisfucked. Most models, unless they’re right up there, have very little power. It sucks and it needs to change, especially since it leads to shit like this happening.”

“So, you get it then?” Alec’s gaze softened. “You get that this isn’t just about me and Darcy. You get how much poweryouhave? As a photographer, you guys often have as much say in who gets booked as the casting and art directors and labels themselves. Can you imagine how fucking hard that makes it for us models to sayanythingabout inappropriate stuff that happens in a shoot? It’s our bloody careers on the line every single time.”

I leaned forward and cradled his face. “I get it.”

“Good.” Alec continued, “And it pisses me off that most people have no idea what this job takes, and they ridicule it, especially us guys. That because you’re a model, you therefore have no brains and it’s not arealman’s job. Hell, even my parents struggle with that.” Alec’s eyes flashed with fury and my heart broke a little more.

“And then—” He waved his hands in the air. “You get arseholes like Darcy fucking Fenchurch—” He choked, and I pulled him to me and kissed his hair.

“I know, baby. I know.”

His face pressed into my neck, hot and damp. “And none of it’s gonna stop people assuming that I was just trying to sleep my way to the top, just like Cage did. They’re supposed to be on my side, but they have zero obligation to protect any of us during shoots no matter our age, and a lot of the new guys are barely out of fucking school. How the hell are those kids supposed to know what’sokayandnot okaybehaviour in a shoot?”

He fell silent and I simply rocked him in my arms. There was nothing to say. It was all true.

A few minutes later he stood and held out his hand. “Come on. I’m sick of talking.”

Alec led me to bed, and there, with the streetlights striping the cover and the clamouring serenade of Manhattan traffic on the streets below, he stripped us slow as syrup, kissing and licking and teasing every inch of my body until we were naked and sprawled sideways over the bed.

Then he ordered me onto my back, put a pillow under my hips, and rimmed me until garbage spilled from my mouth. And with our skin hot and slick with sweat, he slid inside me and fucked me in long, languid strokes, like warm honey, in and out, pegging my prostate just enough to keep things going in the right direction without a rush.

In and out, until nothing made sense, nothing except his mouth on mine, his breathless gasps against my lips and brushing my ear. Nothing except the exquisite burn of his cock in my arse, the back-and-forth rock of the bed, the irresistible squeeze of my dick caught between our bodies, my moans, his grunts, my heart thundering in my chest so loud it surely filled the room.

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