Serving Mr. Serrano

Seeing Other People

I slammed into the padded floor of the gym, pain shooting through my entire body, knocking the wind out of me. I grunted, immediately rolling away from my opponent as his foot came down where my chest had just been.

I jump into a standing position, my hands lifted in front of me, ready to either block or strike out. Mason comes at me again, this time with a kick sure to knock me out. I ducked underneath it, and circled around behind him, kicking at the back of his knees to bring him down. From there, it's easier to attack him. I punched at his face with both hands, leaning into the punches with enough power and force to knock him down. Like me, he gets up easily, wiping the blood dripping from his nose.

"That was nothing like your usual punches. Distracted?"

"Yes. Lucky for you."

Mason leans in for a punch, and I step into it, blocking it with my left hand before slamming my right fist into his jaw. The next one he blocks, punching at my stomach with his left fist, then right and following it up with an elbow to my left temple. I stumble back, my head spinning momentarily before I step back, away from him.

"Does it have anything to do with why you missed your training sessions two weeks ago?"

With my head spinning, I circle around him, buying time and looking for weaknesses.

"I'm surprised you picked up on that. I thought for sure you'd be too busy sucking your own d**k to notice much," I said, eyes sweeping over him slowly.

I knew he was slower on his left side, hands and feet. If I moved quickly enough - which I was very good at doing - I could knock him down long enough that he wouldn't be able to get up.

I approached him suddenly, lifting my left leg as if to kick him, but I didn't. With arms raised and angled to shield his chest, he tries to turn into the kick so he'd absorb the least damage possible. This leaves his back unguarded, and I know he won't move fast enough to cover it.

There was just one problem.

I was distracted.

So what should have been a magnificent kick to his lower back, one strong enough to bring him to his knees, didn't come. Because Mason had been expecting something like this. Instead, he turns into the kick further than expected, grabbing my leg and lifting me into the air. The punches to his face didn't stop him from lifting me clear off the ground and slamming me back onto the mat. The air in my lungs is forced out with a powerful whoosh, and my left shoulder slams into the floor hard enough to make me arch off the floor.

Fuck.

He doesn't move, though, choosing instead to punch at my face and chest while I block his attacks with futility. My body is still in shock from his counterattack, and my shoulder is screaming in pain.

"You're becoming a little predictable, Eden."

It would be easy to get out of this if he wasn't straddling my hips, putting all his weight on them and hitting me so hard I couldn't even break free long enough to launch an attack of my own. With a grunt, I tried to roll over, but he was too heavy. So I risked breaking my defence by lifting my hand and hitting his nose with the heel. Then his neck, which stops him punching at me long enough to circle my arms around his neck and pull him down. From there, it's easy to use my right leg to push off the mat. We struggle, wrestle with each other to gain the upper hand, his fists punching, my knees landing solid in his middle. Finally, I'm able to slip out of his grasp and manoeuvre so I'm standing behind him while he kneels, locking him in a tight chokehold.

He grunts when I tighten my hold around his neck, effectively cutting off his oxygen and all blood supply to his brain. His hands grab clumsily at my arms, and he tries to pull free with no avail.

"Call it, Mason. I'm not going to take it easy on you this time," I said, groaning when he elbowed me in the sides. Another grunt, followed by incoherent grumbling.

With the threat from Mason handled, my mind started to drift to my next attack, to how I was going to start the next round and beat him again. But the minute Mason's hands reach for each thigh, his fingers digging into the skin through my black gym tights, my mind flashes suddenly with the image of Dominic's face.

Involuntarily, I tighten my chokehold and forget all about my balance. Mason seizes the advantage and lifts me over his shoulder, putting me back on the ground.

"Ah, f**k," I exclaimed.

"s**t, are you alright?"

Mason gets up, and I close my eyes briefly as the pain in my shoulder worsens. But I open them and sit up, which only makes it worse. He hears me groan, and reaches out a carefully-wrapped hand to help me up. I take it, and he lifts me with ease. I try to roll the shoulder to ease the pain, but that only makes it worse, so I choose to wrap my forearm around my waist instead. A towel is thrown at my face, and I wipe off the sweat on my neck, my face.

"Water?"

"Yeah, thanks."

There are a few seconds of silence while we walk off the mat, and I sit down on the bench, tearing the tape off my hands as quickly as my body could allow.

"I think you should go to the infirmary and have them check out that shoulder. It's bruising," he says, touching the injury with delicate fingers.

"It's fine," I lied. "The bruise will go away in a day or two."

"Eden-"

"Mason. You and I have been at this for more than a year now. You know when I need serious medical attention."

"I do, which is why I'm telling you to go up there before this gets worse," he admonishes. He emphasises his point by gently pressing on the bruise, which hurts like a f*****g b***h.

"Fils de pute! Mason!"

"See? In a day or two, you might not be able to use that arm at all," he said, letting go. I shift away from him, and he raises both hands in surrender.

"I'll be fine," I repeated adamantly.

Mason decides to let it go, slowly handing me an open bottle of water. I gulp down the water, pausing briefly to inhale deeply. He watches me curiously, his hazel eyes narrowing with concern.

"What's up with you lately? You normally mop the floor with me, yet you can't even execute a proper attack these days. What's wrong?"

Now, there are things you share with your training buddy. You tell him when you're hungover, or haven't been keeping up with your workouts like you're supposed to be. You're supposed to let him know when you're feeling sick, or unwell, so you're not pummelled into the mat. But I think announcing, "I had the best s*x of my life and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it for a three weeks," wouldn't really garner as much sympathy as you'd expect. Especially when s*x was business.

"Just some personal s**t," I said instead, pushing the wet tendrils of hair off my face stubbornly.

"Anything you want to talk about?"

"I'll save that for the therapist, thank you very much. But this helps," I said, gesturing to the room. For about an hour, then I was floating around on a cloud again, my brain clouded with thoughts of Dominic and his-

"Hey! Are you guys done?"

We both turned to see Yara and Chae enter the room, both dressed in their yoga pants, carrying their mats. I notice the way Yara glances at Mason, but they both play it off as a greeting. The tall blonde gathers his things, tosses his bag over his shoulder and leaves with a smirk in Yara's direction, who blushes subtly before turning back to me.

I decided to let it be. I was the last person to be calling anyone out on anything right now.

"I will never understand why you choose this s**t over yoga. You're constantly covered in bruises," Chae reprimands, leaning down to examine my face.

"I'm fine, mom. This s**t is much more relaxing to me than yoga," I said.

Yara shrugs, and starts throwing my things in a bag.

"Let's hit the showers. I'm taking you out for lunch at the new Korean place on Eleventh," Chae said, wiggling her eyebrows.

I'm up in an instant at the mention of food, which sends that flare of pain through my shoulder again, but I ignore it and grab my bag from Yara.

Thirty minutes later, the three of us are sitting around a table, a variety of dishes sitting at the centre. There's kimchi, sundubu-jjigae, samgyetang, japchae and samgyeopsal. Chae insisted we try as many of the dishes as possible, so we know what we like when we come here for a dinner date. Yara and I don't complain since we live and for food.

"This is f*****g amazing," Yara announced, reaching for another serving of the stir-fry.

Chae shrugs, setting her chopsticks down.

"It's not as good as advertised, but it's much better than what they serve in those ridiculously priced restaurants in North Nito or Bella."

I swallow the mouthful of kimchi and wipe the corners of my mouth with the napkin.

"You said Taylor was meeting a client?" I asked, lifting a couple of beef strips to my mouth.

Yara nods, shovelling a generous amount of pork and noodles into her mouth.

"Apparently, he saw her on the arm of some other man last weekend and just had to have her," Chae said, sipping her sikhye. "If I had a hundred bucks for every time I heard that..."

"We wouldn't need to be working this job anymore, I can tell you that."

Yara gently chuckles at us both, swallowing gracefully.

"What are we doing for Independence Day this year?"

"It's Eden's turn to host it this year," Chae said, raising both brows and turning to stare at me.

"Oh, yeah. And before you bail again, just remember that you've postponed two years in a row," Yara admonished.

"I had to work. You both know that. It's not my fault that our country's birthday is the day before Valentine's," I argued.

This earns me very disappointed looks from both girls, and I sigh in resignation before I add, "But I'm not busy this weekend, so I'm more than happy to host you."

"This includes the football game, right? Because we cannot miss that quarter-final for anything in the world."

"Agreed. We could make a whole weekend of it, even. I'll get the beer, cook some traditional Tunyan dishes and we can settle in for the game. Then on Sunday we go up to the roof so we can enjoy the sun and pretend we're at the beach."

Chae lets out an appreciative groan, then sets her cup down.

"It's exactly what I need. I've been drinking way too much lately and it is not good for me."

Which was saying something, because Chae rarely drank excessively. Aside from New Year's Day and that night we went out, Chae hasn't had much alcohol. I know because she goes MIA for two whole days when she's been drinking. Then she comes waltzing into LPM like royalty, booking spa treatments left, right and centre. But then again, I had been avoiding my girls for a while, on account of all the bruises Dominic Serrano left all over me...

And just like that, I'm drifting again.

Except this time, I allow myself to float away on that little cloud of memories, recalling every intimate detail of that night. My core warms, heats, and I shift around on my chair to ease the ache that's been intensifying over the past three weeks.

The bruises were still there, but they were slowly fading away with the help of the ointment Dominic had used on me. Mona had handed me a large tub of it when I'd come in to see her the very next day.

"You cannot see any of your clients like this," she admonished, cupping my chin. "Mon Dieu, chéri, you look like you were beaten."

And this was just the s**t she could see. If she had any idea that I had hickeys on my p***y and the arch of my back, she'd probably bench me for a month.

Clients weren't allowed to leave hickeys.

Ever.

But I had woken up every morning and spent long minutes staring at those bruises, celebrating them. At the touch of each, I was able to relive the feel of Dominic's hands on me, the sensations he evoked, the moans he pulled from my lips. Every day, without fail, my hand dropped between my legs and teased my c**t. It didn't matter that I was still sore from his enthusiastic f*****g. I used the discomfort to my advantage, imagining the way he would thrust his fingers inside me if he were there.

I'd watch my reflection, wishing he were standing right behind me, one hand around my neck and the other between my thighs, teasing until I couldn't take it anymore, until I was begging for releasing, at which point he would fix those deep blue eyes on mine and whisper, "I want you to look at me when I f**k you."

That would be enough to make me come with a gasp, a loud moan. I would chant his name as if, by repeating it over and over, I could summon him into my apartment. But then the high of the orgasm would wear off and I found that the ache inside me, the desire for him had grown, intensified.

And there lay the problem.

How could a man give you the best s*x of your f*****g life and then move on as if it had never happened?

Not more than two days after that night and he was being photographed with an heiress of some oil empire, who was so obviously fawning all over him. I could bet he hadn't even f****d her yet and she was already weak at the knees for him. But honestly, I couldn't blame her. The man's magnetism was unparalleled, truly the stuff of every woman's fantasy, I think. He gave you exactly what you wanted, reaching places inside you that no man ever had before and forcing orgasms from you that left your entire body humming with satisfaction. And then the next morning, he just pulled away, taking all those gravity-defying orgasms with him.

I wondered, did he think of me? Was he thinking of me right now? It would be impossible for him not to after everything that happened. The s*x, the aftercare - which none of my other clients have ever done, mind you - that mind-blowing kiss afterwards...

I had to have popped up in his mind at least once. I couldn't be the only one feeling all this... hunger. I had hoped s*x would help, but the client who booked me after him had done nothing to even lessen the gnawing ache inside me. I'd had to force an orgasm for the first time in over two years, and my client wasn't all too happy about it. Douglas knew me well enough to know when I was faking, and when he couldn't ring my bell after three hours of f*****g, he kind of just gave up.

I was worried I would never have an orgasm during s*x again. That asshole had completely ruined me.

There's a resounding clap before Yara reaches over to grab me from my stupor, pulling me back to reality with her firm shaking.

"I told you she couldn't hear a thing," Chae said, leaning in, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"E, are you okay? You've been staring at the sundubu-jjigae like you want to f**k the s**t out of it."

"I was not."

Chae clears her throat loud enough to make her opinion known before reaching to pour more tea into her cup. Yara sets her chopsticks down, and I look down to see that all the food is gone.

"Where's all the f*****g food?" I yelled, drawing some attention from the other patrons.

Yara shrugs, wipes her lips with a napkin.

"I ate it all while you were reliving the best s*x you've ever had. Judging from your expression, I think we may have to buy this chair now."

"And the floor beneath it," Chae added.

I set the utensils down and leaned back in my seat, folding my arms over my chest. I immediately sit up when my shoulder flares up again, and I rub my face with both hands, obviously frustrated.

"I cannot stop thinking about it. f**k, I feel like I'm going to be comparing every man to him now."

"Bet he had that long, thick-"

"You're not helping, Yara."

"Sorry," she said, meaning it. She reaches over to pat my arm in comfort, and makes an adorable face, widening her hazel eyes.

"Can't you just gently invite him back?"

"The contract was for one night. And I don't think I need to fall any deeper under his s*x spell."

"I agree with Chae. You were about five minutes away from humping that chair, and I cannot think of any reason why you can't just f**k him again. You obviously want to."

They would understand the situation so much better if they knew who the client was and why it was such a bad f*****g idea to agree to f*****g him in the first place. I wanted to scream his name out to them, but I had promised I'd keep our night together a secret. Hell, I was bound by a contract. If I so much as hinted, pointed at or referred to him, I could be sued. And though I loved my friends to absolute death, these bitches couldn't keep a secret even if their souls were on the line. They'd discuss it among themselves, forgetting that words carried in the wind in Nito and that whatever they said would eventually find its way back to Dominic.

"Okay, failing that... Why not get another one of your clients to scratch that itch? Someone who you know is great at fucking."

"Hilton is married now, and I hear his wife is every bit as nasty in the bedroom as I am. De La Cruz is out of town for the next six months negotiating some merger. Fula is bankrupt and divorced, so most of his money has gone to lawyers and his ex-wife."

"That's not the fun kind of screwed, is it?" Yara mused, propping her chin on the back of her hand.

"No, ma'am."

They both kind of sigh, thinking.

"Maybe you shouldn't do this through the agency? Wouldn't it be nice to have s*x without the contracts, the strings?" Chae suggested.

"One night with a total stranger where you don't even have to give the guy your real name," Yara added.

They both get way too excited, and pull out their phones to look through their list of contacts.

"I know Orlando has a ton of very athletic, very gorgeous football players you could have fun with. He says his goalkeeper just got out of a relationship..."

"There are a few MMA guys who've been asking about you. You could pick one, bump uglies for a weekend or so."

I try to tell them I'm not very interested, but my protests fall on deaf ears. They both ignore me, and I sigh before turning my attention elsewhere. The TV in the corner of the restaurant grabs my eye, and I almost groan in frustration when I see Serrano's stupidly gorgeous face on the screen. It's some kind of "Serrano Success Story", with old interviews from his youth and a brief history of Serrano Enterprises. They briefly touch on all the women he's been pictured with, and there's one video of him with a famous actress at a red carpet event. I watch him lean in to whisper something to her which makes her eyes widen with disbelief before she glances at him. He graces her with a smile, then turns his attention back to the cameras.

"Okay, I've got it. Athlete, businessman, philanthropist, millionaire, perfection. Eden Conteh, meet Ekon Badu."

I turn my attention back to the girls and Chae thrusts her phone in my face, so I'm forced to look at the man on the screen. And holy f**k damn...

"Wow."

"Exactly! He's about twenty-seven, intelligent, sweet, and I hear he's a raging bull in the sack."

The old couple passing by our table glances at all three of us with disapproving frowns, and Chae blushes with a tinge of shame, looking away.

Yara yanks the phone away, and her mouth falls open before she growls low in her throat. "He cannot look like this in real life, Chae. I refuse to believe it," she says, even as she zooms in, so she can see every feature on his face.

"So if he's so perfect, why is he single?" asked, pushing my plate away.

"He was with someone for a while. High school sweetheart, I think. But they called it quits after he moved to Nito to play for the Gladiators. Long-distance is a bitch."

Which means he most likely still had feelings for his ex. It was only a matter of time before the two of them were back together, honestly. But I could still enjoy him while he was single.

"You have to do me the honour of sitting on his face, E," Yara said, finally handing the phone back to Chae. I can't help but giggle at her breathy tone, the desire on her face.

I chew on my lower lip, contemplating the idea of meeting and talking to someone outside of work. We were allowed to date, after all, so long as it didn't interfere with our duties.

For once, I could go out with a guy knowing that I could leave if I didn't want to be around him anymore. No business, no exchange of money. Just good old-fashioned chemistry and hormones at work.

And it wouldn't hurt, I think, to get out there and immerse myself in dating. After all, I'd most probably need some s*x every now and then after I eventually retired. Who better to start the next chapter of my life with than a football player, right?

"Okay, but nothing dramatic. And let him know I'm not looking for a relationship or anything…"

They both rolled their eyes at me.

"We're well aware, darling," Chae said, putting her phone down.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Warm, affectionate smiles spread across each of their faces and they both look at me as if I were a clueless child.

"It's obvious you have commitment issues, E. Whatever happened in your childhood…"

"It obviously f****d you up. But that's okay. You still have time to fix whatever's wrong with you," Yara encouraged, squeezing my arm.

"Should I set up the date for you?" Chae asked, her finger hovering above the send button.

I glance toward the TV screen, and my gut clenches when I see Dominic staring into the camera, his gaze as intense as always. I turned back to Chae with a determined frown, and said, "Can't really hurt, right?"