Page 22 of Filthy Rich Daddies
“Too sensitive?”
“No, god, keep going!”
She might think she’s ready, but still, I take my time. I don’t want to truly hurt her, and I like teasing us both. My sadomasochistic side is cruel in the best and worst ways.
When I’m finally seated, I get going. Our bodies smack together, and to her credit, Thalassa gives as good as she gets. Her exuberant cries send me into overdrive. The balcony has privacy walls on both sides, but it doesn’t take a genius to know what you’re hearing. The building across the street has a full view of us.
So be it.
I bar an arm across her shoulders to hold her to me, slamming upright into her pussy. She meets me thrust for thrust, like she can’t get enough. Maybe she can’t. When I reach my other hand down for her clit, she comes undone in my arms, crying out in triumph like an animal rutting in the forest. Her climax brings me over the edge with her, and I lose control, slamming home like never before.
8
COLIN
I joltawake to the phantom whine of server fans and the smell of ozone that isn’t really there. Moonlight has faded, and a lavender dawn sneaks through the drapes to paint my suite the color of eye strain. I’ve slept—if you can call it sleep—in useless ten-minute bursts, each one spitting me back into consciousness with a fresh angle on last night’s outage.
The glitch itself was tiny. A memory-leak hamster wheel in the archaic POS middleware, which Marcus refuses to retire because, quote,it works fine when you patch it regularly.
Fine? Sure. If you like spontaneous reboot roulette at peak dinner service across three time zones.
I offered to mothball that system three years ago. Brought him a cost-benefit deck, migration road map, and case studies from chains half our size. He shook my hand, congratulated my “initiative,” then kicked the proposal straight into a vault labeledMaybe Next Fiscal.The next fiscal has come and gone three times.
I punch my pillow, then sit up. The suite’s thermostat says it’s cold in here, but I crank it lower, like cold can freeze the frustration before it curdles into more resentment. Marcus Burgh has been Copeland Restaurants’ CFO since Atari Pong. Boardrooms treat him like sacred mahogany furniture—scratched, squeaky, but impossible to replace because the company’s origin story is carved somewhere in his grain. Firing him would feel like banning grandma from carving the Thanksgiving turkey.
Still, part of me wants to pry the carving knife out of his eighty-year-old fingers before he slices another artery in our infrastructure budget.
My phone’s lock screen glows. Twenty-seven new messages in the DevOps channel—Asia team benchmarking the patch I pushed after midnight. Stable for now. I toss the phone on the mattress and flop face-down, inhaling hotel laundry detergent, telling myself to rest with my eyes closed for twenty minutes. It won’t meet the criteria for real sleep, but it’s something. But I’m on vacation. I should at least get to sleep in. Or in my case, nap in.
A soft knock taps on my door. Twice. Pause. Twice again.
Not housekeeping. They’d ring. And someone else would have stopped them from bothering me.
I roll, swing my feet to the carpet, shuffle over, and crack the door.
Thalassa stands there in leggings and an oversized college hoodie, braid tucked under a beanie patterned with cartoon rabbits. Her eyes scan my bedhead. “Sorry if I woke you.”
I rouse a weary half grin. “Technically, you rescued me from the world’s most boring fake nap.”
She bites her lip. “Breakfast?”
My stomach answers with a whale song. I haven’t eaten since the protein bar at two this morning.
She’s about to apologize for interrupting when I realize my answer is a hundred percent yes, so I tug the door open wider. “Give me ninety seconds to look human.”
We sneak out like teenagers skipping curfew. Atticus is still hibernating. Dean’s door is closed, but I clock soft shower sounds—a tell that Mr. Schedule has already completed morning cardio and half a dozen emails. Good. Let him.
The elevator whooshes us to the lobby, and Thalassa rocks on her heels, hands in hoodie pocket. “There’s a diner in Grant Park—old school, open all night, pancakes bigger than Frisbees. You okay leaving the downtown bubble?”
“Diner pancakes used to be my nocturnal fuel.” Nostalgia pokes my ribs. “Before every line cook in the city learned my face.”
“This place won’t care.” She flashes a conspiratorial smile. “Cash only. Yelp page last updated 2011.”
My pulse slows its anxious tap dance. “Shit. Let’s go.”
Outside, the November air is crisp, brightening with that peculiar sweet quality Atlanta gets before traffic heat haze sets in. I summon a rideshare, and a dented silver Corolla slides to the curb. The driver doesn’t glance back beyond a half-hearted greeting. Perfect.
We cruise south. Office towers shrink to two-story brick, murals peeling, sidewalk oaks shedding gold confetti. Thalassa narrates local lore—apparently, the diner’s owner once halted service mid-Saturday rush to defend a stray kitten from a hawk. “So, you know, solid moral compass.”
