Page 48 of The Trade

“He’s pumping his fingers in and out, and you start bucking your hips.” My movements match my words as I imagine my fingers inside of her. “You’re—you’re fucking his hand, Jade.”

“Oh fuck,” she breathes out, the words half moan, half gasp. “I want—I want him inside me.”

My heart slams against my ribs. “He is inside you, baby.”

“I want his dick . . . I want his dick inside me,” she clarifies, the words punctuated by shallow, rapid breaths. “I want to—” Another breathless gasp. “—be fucked.”

“Jesus,” I whisper, and the vision of her body writhing under mine sets me on fire. I can imagine her flushed skin, her chest heaving, her fingers clutching the sheets in ecstasy.

Her little cries of pleasure echo in my ear, the sounds driving me to the brink. And when she finally lets out a cry of release, I know she’s reaching her climax. The mental image of her coming unravels me.

“Fucking hell,” I groan, my own release pulsing through me in powerful waves.

Panting, I hastily discard my phone, collapsing back onto my pillow, my mind a whirlwind of sensations. We just ... inadvertently had phone sex. And it was the best damn thing I’d ever experienced.

“Jade?” I manage to gasp out, fumbling to retrieve my cell phone.

But all I’m met with is silence. She just ... hung up.

14

JADE

Holy shit.Holy shit. Holy shit.

The phrase reverberates in my head, a three-beat litany of stunned disbelief, an echo of shock that shivers through my entire body.

Last night, I had phone sex with West. The sentence still sounds absurd when I say it in my head, too surreal to be true. The raw intimacy of it all, the whispered words that slipped so easily over the line and broke down barriers we’d carefully kept in place.

We got each other off, lost in a tangle of sighs and gasps that soaked through the air between us. And then ... I just hung up.

God, what was I even supposed to say after something like that? A weak “Thank you?” that would somehow trivialize it all? Or maybe I should have tried for calm, cool, and collected, brushed it off with an airy “Oh, oops, I guess we just got carried away!”

But the memory of his voice, husky and raw with desire, floods back into my mind. I mean, why did he have to sound so fucking hot on the phone? That voice. Those words. Just thinking about it now is making me wet, a steady thrum of desire that I can’t ignore.

This is bad. This is really fucking bad.

I’d already made up my mind about him before this happened. I thought I had wrestled my crush into submission, had trampled it down until it was nothing more than a distant echo of feelings. But then he had to go and say all that shit at the library.

The memory of it still burns, a sharp-edged reminder of how easily he can unravel me. Oh God. He offered to be my fuck buddy, and I declined, the words coming out automatically, serving as a defensive shield.

After fight night, I’d allowed myself to believe that he didn’t want me. The rejection was a bitter pill to swallow but also a comforting lie that I let myself believe. Now, in the stark light of day, I know he wants me. He’s made that very clear, his words echoing through my mind, hot and insistent. But it’s the way he wants me that’s the problem.

West just wants to “get up my skirt,” which is exactly what he accused Miller of.

A bitter taste lingers in my mouth as I think about the truth of it all. I mean, he flirts with Shan, his words casual and easy as if they mean nothing at all. Then he flirts with me, his gaze burning into me as if I’m the only person in the world.

And then he probably flirts with any other girl with a pulse, spreading his attention around like it’s free for the taking.

God, it’s like some silly little game to him, and I’m just one of the players. Yeah. Nothing real is going to happen between us. I have to keep reminding myself of that, have to keep that reality firmly in front of me.

I have a crush on him, and God help me, I want to sleep with him.

But that’s not what I need right now. I was supposed to find someone else to cure my sexual boredom, to spark some excitement into the monotony of my life. But instead, I went and made things ten times worse.

I want to write this off as a onetime lapse in judgment, a moment of lost control that I can brush off and move past. But instead, it’s become a gnawing reminder of the attraction between us.

And now, I’m stuck in a vortex of conflicting feelings, caught between what I want and what I know is best for me.

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