THE PEARL by Tiffany Reisz Excerpt

“Get on your knees,” Regan said.

She said it so he did it. Arthur released his grip on her pearls and went down onto his knees in front of her. As soon as he was there, he realized this is where he’d wanted to be all along.

“You whore,” she said, and cupped him under the chin. “Did I make you like this? Or were you like this before me?”

“I was like this before you, but I don’t want to be like this after you.”

“Why not? You’re enjoying it as much as I am.”

“I just…don’t.” If he could have waved a wand to make it go away, he would have waved it like a drowning man signaling for help. Once Regan was done with him, who would treat him like this? Who could he trust to tell that he needed it? Where would he begin to find someone who made him feel what Regan did?

“Who told you this was wrong?” she asked him.

“What?”

“Someone must have gotten it in your head that this, what we’re doing, is wrong, bad, the sort of thing real men don’t do? Who was it?”

“Nobody. You know the Godwicks. We’re one big happy whoring family.”

Regan stared him down, but he refused to be goaded into answering.

“Do you want to keep glaring at me,” he asked, “or do you want me to make you come?”

“Well, when you put it that way,” she said and finally smiled. Then she grabbed him hard by the chin, hard enough he knew she’d leave red marks from the rough grip of her fingers. “But make it good.”

He met her eyes. “I’ll make it good.”