Chapter 4: Climax
Ace let the last of his clothes hit the hotel room floor as he step into her space, his hand resting on her hips, this time with purpose. "Yeah, if that's what you want, I can make sure to pull out. Now, let's lay you back and take care of the bride to be."
The silence after Chloe left was a living thing, thick and heavy in the lamplight. Candice’s fingers still rested on the knot of his robe. Her question hung between them, vast and unaddressed.
“You guys must have a method.”
Ace’s tongue felt like dry paper. He saw the trust in her eyes, a trust born of alcohol and reckless, last-night freedom. He thought of the six hundred dollars. He thought of his tuition statement, sitting unopened on his dorm desk. He thought of the agency’s rules, the ones he’d skimmed, the implicit warning about “client relations” beyond the show.
His conscience, a quiet voice he’d been drowning out all night, screamed a single, clear word: No.
But his body, keyed up from performing, from tasting her, from the raw need in the room, thrummed with a different answer. He was here. She was willing. The money was already in his pocket.
“Yeah,” he heard himself say, the word leaving his lips like a traitor. It was easier than the truth. It was what the moment demanded. “A method. Sure.”
It was all the confirmation she needed. Her face lit up with a relief so profound it twisted something in his gut. She pulled the knot free, and his robe fell open. The cool air of the room hit his skin, a sharp contrast to the heat building between them. She looked at him, her gaze traveling slowly down his body, and let out a soft, appreciative breath.
“Wow,” she murmured, almost to herself. No performer’s tease now. It was pure, unfiltered want.
She leaned forward and kissed him. It was different from before—softer, more searching, less frantic. Her hands slid inside his robe, palms flat against his chest, feeling the pound of his heart. He kissed her back, one hand coming up to cradle the back of her head, his fingers tangling in the strands of her hair, dislodging the now-forgotten tiara. It clattered softly to the floor.
He guided her back onto the mattress, the cheap satin of the bedspread rustling loudly in the quiet room. His robe slipped from his shoulders. For a moment, he was just a guy in a hotel room with a beautiful, willing woman. The pretense of the performance fell away, leaving something more dangerous and infinitely more real.
He braced himself above her, looking down. Her dress was a ruin around her hips, her makeup smudged. She was the most beautiful mess he’d ever seen.
“Just so you know,” she whispered, her voice husky, “my fiancé… he’s a good guy. Really. He’s just… safe.”
Ace understood. He was the opposite of safe. He was the last wild thing before the cage door shut. The responsibility of it was terrifying.
He didn’t answer with words. He lowered his mouth to her neck, kissing a trail along her pulse point. She arched beneath him, her legs wrapping around his hips with a surprising strength. The contact was electric, final. There was no going back from this.
His hesitation lasted only a second. A second too long.
With a smooth, desperate shift of her hips, she guided him inside.
The sensation was a bolt of white-hot lightning, obliterating thought. She was tight and warm and welcoming, and a ragged groan was torn from his throat, muffled against her shoulder. Candice cried out, a short, sharp sound of pleasure and relief, her nails biting into the muscles of his back.
For a few blissful, brainless moments, there was only rhythm and heat and the slick sound of skin on skin. The outside world ceased to exist. The money, the lies, the fiancé, the conscience—all burned away in the raw physicality of the act. She moved with him, meeting his thrusts with a growing urgency, her breaths coming in hot, damp pants against his ear.
“Don’t stop,” she chanted, her voice cracking. “Oh, god, don’t you stop.”
He was losing himself, the edge rushing up too fast. The practiced control from the stage was gone. This was primal, consuming. Her heels dug into the small of his back, pulling him deeper.
He was so focused on the feel of her, on the building tension in his own gut, that he didn’t hear the door.
The soft click of the latch was camouflaged by Candice’s gasp. The first he knew of it was the dip of the mattress behind him, a new weight, and then hands—firm, insistent hands—clamping onto his hips.
Chloe.
She said nothing. She just leaned over his back, her breath hot against his ear, and pushed. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a forceful shove, driving him deeper into Candice with a rough, jarring motion.
Candice’s eyes flew open, meeting his in startled confusion that quickly dissolved into something else, something overwhelmed. The new angle, the sudden, intensified pace was too much. For both of them.
“Chloe, wait—” Ace gasped, but it was too late. The peak was there, rushing at him, a wave about to break. He tried to pull back, to disengage, his muscles coiling to withdraw.
As he moved, Chloe pushed again, a final, aggressive thrust that knocked his balance. He pitched forward, catching his weight on his hands on either side of Candice’s head. At the same moment, Candice shattered. Her back arched violently off the bed, a choked, silent scream on her lips, and her legs, which had been hooked around his thighs, locked around the small of his back in a sudden, convulsive vise.
The grip was absolute, paralyzing. He was trapped, buried to the hilt inside her as her body pulsed around him. The sensation ripped through his last shred of control.
He came.
It wasn’t a release; it was a seizure, a white-hot explosion that emptied him in deep, helpless pulses. He cried out, a ragged sound of pure shock, as he spent himself inside her, unable to move, held captive by her clamping limbs and Chloe’s triumphant, relentless hands on his hips.
The pleasure was so intense it bordered on pain, his vision swimming as his body convulsed in helpless waves.
Candice’s eyes were wide, her lips parted in a silent O of surprise. She was still coming, her inner muscles fluttering around him in slow, milking pulses, drawing out his own release until he was spent, trembling, and utterly undone.
Chloe finally released him, her hands sliding away with a slow, deliberate drag of her nails down his back. He collapsed forward, catching himself on his elbows, his breath coming in harsh, uneven gasps. The room spun around him, the air thick with the scent of sex and sweat and something darker, something that made his stomach twist.
The pleasure was so intense it bordered on pain, his vision swimming as his body convulsed in helpless waves.
Candice’s eyes were wide, her lips parted in a silent O of surprise. She was still coming, her inner muscles fluttering around him in slow, milking pulses, drawing out his own release until he was spent, trembling, and utterly undone, but the creeping realization of what had just happened slowly dawned on her, as his heat pool inside her.
Candice lay beneath him, her chest heaving, her fingers still tangled in the sheets. Her eyes were wide, unblinking, as if she were trying to process what had just happened.
Ace’s mind raced. The money. The lies. The way Chloe had pushed him—no, *made* him—finish inside her. His stomach lurched. He had broken every rule. The agency’s contract. His own moral code. The unspoken agreement with Candice.
And Chloe.
She was still there, watching from the edge of the bed, giddy as she watched the thick white liquid trickle down Candice's ass crack when Ace finally pulled out.
"Oh lighten up, Candy. It's just a bit of fun. Getting filled is the best part. Johnny with never know. Live a little.
The words hung in the air, thick and mocking. Candice’s breath hitched as the reality of them sank in. She untangled her legs from Ace’s waist, her movements slow, deliberate, as if she were emerging from a dream. The sheets were damp beneath her, the scent of sex and sweat clinging to her skin. She swallowed hard, her fingers trembling as she reached down to touch herself, the evidence of what had just happened still warm between her thighs.
Ace stared at her, his chest heaving, his mind racing. The taunt had been cruel, but the truth behind it was worse. He had failed. He had *failed* in the most fundamental way, and now—
“Chloe,” Candice said, her voice steady despite the way her fingers curled into the bedspread. “I’m not on birth control.”
The words landed like a stone.
Chloe’s smirk faltered. Just for a second.