She left before dawn.

The apartment was still dark when Jessie slid out from under Stacey's arm, careful not to wake her. Stacey's breath barely changed—soft and even, her face half-buried in the pillow. The sheets were a tangle around her tan thighs, her brown hair messy against the white cotton.

Jessie stood at the edge of the bed, watching her.

Something ached in her chest. Something she couldn't name and didn't want to look at directly, like a bruise she kept pressing just to feel it.

She dressed in the bathroom, her clothes from last night—the black silk dress, crumpled and smelling of wine and Stacey's perfume. She pulled on her cardigan over it, not bothering with the bra she'd left somewhere in Stacey's room. Her reflection in the mirror looked hollow-eyed, her blonde hair tangled, her lips still slightly swollen.

She didn't look like a virgin.

She didn't look like someone who'd never been kissed.

The bus was nearly empty at 5:47 AM. Jessie sat by the window, watching the Strip lights fade as the sky turned the color of old pearls. She thought about Stacey's hand in hers. The way Stacey had whispered her name. The way her body had tightened and released under Jessie's gaze.

She thought about sin.

The word had weight in her chest—a familiar, heavy stone she'd carried since she was twelve and the preacher told her that even looking at a boy with longing was a stain on the soul. She'd spent ten years keeping herself clean, keeping herself pure, saving herself for a husband she'd never even let herself imagine.

And now she'd kissed her best friend. Watched her come. Fallen asleep in her arms.

She might love Stacey.

The thought sat in her chest, quiet and certain. She might be bisexual—a word she'd heard Stacey use casually at parties, a word that had never applied to her, to the good girl from Georgia who said yes sir and no ma'am and kept her hands folded in her lap.

She might be going to hell.

The bus lurched. Jessie gripped the metal pole beside her seat, her knuckles white. Hell was a real place, with real fire and real torment, and she'd believed in it her whole life. Every Sunday. Every prayer. Every time she'd closed her eyes and asked God to keep her pure.

But she'd felt God less and less since coming to Las Vegas. And she'd felt everything else more. Steve's hands on her hip. Victor's fingers tracing her spine. Stacey's mouth, soft and warm against hers.

She wanted to feel more.

The office building was empty when she arrived. The lobby lights were on a timer, still dim, and her heels clicked against the polished floor as she walked to the elevator. The air smelled like cleaning solution and stale coffee.

Steve's door was closed. The light was on.

She knocked once, her heart already beating too fast.

"Come in."

He was at his desk, reading something on his phone, a coffee mug in his other hand. He looked up when she entered, and his eyes moved over her—the crumpled dress, the cardigan pulled over it, the hollows under her eyes.

"You're early," he said, without surprise.

"I couldn't sleep."

He set down his phone. "Sit."

She sat in the leather chair across from his desk, her knees pressed together, her hands folded in her lap. The posture of a good girl. The posture she'd been taught.

Steve watched her for a long moment. Then he leaned back, his chair creaking, and took a slow sip of his coffee.

"Something's different," he said.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do." He set the mug down, his fingers tracing the rim. "You've got that look. The one a woman gets when she's done something she hasn't decided how to feel about yet."

Jessie's throat tightened. She looked down at her hands, at the chipped nail polish on her thumb—she'd bitten it off on the bus without realizing.

"I kissed Stacey," she said. "Last night."

The words hung in the air between them. She hadn't planned to say them. They simply fell out of her, as if her mouth had decided she needed to confess, needed someone to tell her what it meant.

Steve didn't blink. "Your roommate."

"Yes."

"The one who warned you about me."

Jessie nodded.

Steve's lips curved slightly—not a smile, not quite. He picked up his coffee again, took a sip, and set it down. "And how was it?"

"I don't—"

"I'm not judging you, Jessie. I'm asking. How was the kiss?"

She thought about it. The cab, the streetlight sliding across Stacey's face, the taste of wine and something sweeter. "It was good," she whispered. "It was really good."

"Then why do you look like you're carrying a corpse?"

She opened her mouth. Closed it. The words were there, heavy and shapeless, but she couldn't arrange them into something that made sense. "Because I'm supposed to be good," she said finally. "I'm supposed to wait. I'm supposed to save myself for—" She stopped. "I don't even know anymore."

Steve stood up, slow and deliberate. He walked around the desk, his footsteps soft on the carpet, and leaned against the front of it, facing her. His knees were inches from hers.

"You asked me a question," he said. "At the beginning. About whether you'd have to do anything with the men I send you to."

She looked up at him. His tie was loose, his sleeves rolled to the elbow, his dark hair falling across his forehead. Silver at the temples. Brown eyes that saw too much.

"Yes."

"I'm going to answer it now." He folded his arms. "The answer is yes. If you try to use your sex on a man who has more power than you, he will take it. He will expect the full transaction. And you will have to decide, in that moment, how far you're willing to go."

Her heart was a drum in her chest. "You said I had power."

"You do. But power isn't a fixed number. It's a negotiation. Every man you meet has his own leverage—his money, his position, his connections. And some of them have the same weapon you do."

"What do you mean?"

He leaned forward, his face closer to hers. "I mean sex. Some of them will use it too. They'll offer you pleasure, comfort, protection—and expect you to give something back. Some of them will want to own you."

She should have been afraid. A part of her was—a small, trembling thing at the back of her skull. But something else was waking up in her chest. A hunger she didn't have a name for.

"For example," Steve said, his voice dropping lower, "me."

She stilled.

"Your sex won't overpower me, Jessie. Do you know why?"

She shook her head.

"Two reasons." He held up one finger. "First, I'm your boss. You can't sell me anything. I'm not a client. I'm the one who sends you to clients. There is no deal I want from you that you can offer—only what I decide to take." He held up a second finger. "Second, I also hold the power of sex. I have the same weapon you do. I know how to use it. I've been using it longer than you've been alive."

Her throat was dry. She wanted to look away, but she couldn't. His eyes held hers, patient and certain, like a man who had already won a game she hadn't realized they were playing.

"You kissed me," he said. "In this office. You felt something."

"Yes," she whispered.

"Do you still feel it?"

She did. The heat in her chest. The pull low in her belly. The same thing she'd felt when Victor's hands moved over her back, when Stacey's mouth found hers, when she'd touched herself in the dark and imagined—she didn't know what she'd imagined. Just more. Always more.

"Yes," she said again.

Steve uncrossed his arms. He reached down, took her hand, and pulled her to her feet. She stood in front of him, close enough to smell his cologne, to see the silver threading through his stubble.

"I'm going to show you something," he said. "And you're going to make a choice."

He guided her hand to his belt. Her fingers brushed the leather, the cold buckle. She looked down at her hand, pale against his dark trousers, and then up at his face.

"You can stop any time," he said. "But if you stop, you're fired. Not because I'm angry. Because if you can't do this with me, you can't do it with Victor Castellano. And Victor Castellano will eat you alive."

It wasn't a threat. She knew it, in her bones. It was a continuation of the lesson. The same lesson he'd been teaching her since the dinner at Andiamo's, since the parking lot, since the kiss.

She was becoming someone who could choose.

And right now, she chose this.

Her fingers moved, slow and clumsy, unbuckling his belt. He didn't help her. He watched her, his breath even, his eyes dark. She pulled the leather through the loop, let it fall open. The button of his trousers was next—a simple brass disc, her fingers trembling as she worked it free. Then the zipper, sliding down with a sound that seemed too loud in the quiet office.

His cock was already hard when she pushed his boxers down. It sprang free, thick and heavy, the tip flushed against his belly. She'd never seen one before—not in person, not like this. She'd touched herself, she'd imagined, but the reality of it was different. The heat coming off it. The pulse she could see at the base.

"Touch me," Steve said, his voice low.

She reached out. Her fingers brushed the shaft, tentative, featherlight. The skin was hot and soft, and she felt him twitch under her touch.

"Wrap your hand around it."

She did. Her palm closed around him, and he was so much wider than she'd expected, so solid and alive in her grip. She could feel his heartbeat through the skin, a fast, steady thrum that matched her own.

"Now move. Slow. Like you mean it."

She started to stroke him, her hand sliding up and down the length of him, learning the weight, the texture. Her thumb brushed over the tip, and it was wet—a bead of something clear and slick that made her breath catch.

Steve let out a soft exhale. Not a moan. Something controlled. "Tighter," he said. "And don't be afraid of it. It won't break."

She tightened her grip. The next stroke was smoother, her hand gliding over him with a wet sound that made heat pool between her legs. She was getting into a rhythm now—up, down, her wrist twisting at the top the way she'd learned to do to herself in the dark. The way Stacey had done last night, her fingers working her own wetness.

Steve's hand came up, not to stop her, but to guide her. His fingers wrapped around hers, adjusting the angle, showing her where to press harder. "There," he said, his voice rougher now. "Right there."

She felt it when he got close. His breathing changed, his hips pressing forward into her hand, his stomach tightening under his shirt. He was looking at her the whole time, his brown eyes half-lidded, watching her face as she worked him.

"Don't stop," he said.

She didn't. Her arm was starting to ache, but she didn't care. There was something hypnotic about it—the rhythm, the heat, the way his body responded to her touch. She could feel the power in it. She was doing this to him. She was making him lose control.

His breath caught. His hand tightened over hers. "Jessie—"

And then he came, hot and thick, spilling over her fingers. She felt the pulse of it, the shudder that ran through his body, the way his head fell back for just a second before he caught himself. His cum was warm and wet, sliding down her knuckles, pooling in her palm.

She stopped. Her hand was full of him. She looked at the white streaks on her skin, at the way it dripped slowly toward her wrist, and she didn't know what to do.

Steve opened his eyes. He looked at her hand, then at her face. His expression was calm again, the control back in place.

"Eat it," he said.

She stared at him.

"You heard me. Lick it off your hand. All of it."

Her heart was pounding. Her hand was trembling. She looked at the cum on her fingers—at the evidence of what she'd done—and thought about Stacey. About the way Stacey had tasted on her tongue last night, sweet and salt, a woman's body. About the way Stacey had looked at her afterward, like Jessie was something precious.

She brought her hand to her mouth.

The taste was bitter, saline, unfamiliar. She licked the cum off her palm, off her fingers, her tongue working slowly, deliberately. She thought about Stacey's mouth. The way it had felt. The way she wanted to feel it again.

When her hand was clean, she lowered it. Her eyes met Steve's.

He was watching her with something like satisfaction. "Good girl," he said.

She should have felt degraded. She should have felt used. Instead, she felt something else—a warmth spreading through her chest, a sense of having passed a test she hadn't known she was taking. She'd done it. She'd obeyed. And it hadn't destroyed her.

Steve tucked himself back into his trousers, buttoned them, refastened his belt. His hands moved with practiced efficiency, and within seconds he looked as composed as he had when she walked in.

"Saturday," he said. "Victor's yacht."

She nodded.

"Wear the black dress. No underwear. And this time, when he touches you, don't pull away."

She thought about Victor's hands on her back. The heat of the sun. The way she'd wanted to turn around and press herself against him.

"I won't," she said.

Steve picked up his coffee, took a sip, and sat back down at his desk. The dismissal was clear.

Jessie walked to the door. Her hand was still damp, the taste of him still on her tongue. She paused at the threshold, her hand on the handle, and looked back.

"Steve?"

He looked up.

"Thank you," she said.

He didn't smile. But something flickered in his eyes—approval, maybe, or anticipation. "You're welcome, Jessie. Now go home. Take a shower. And think about what you want next."

She opened the door and stepped into the hallway, the fluorescent lights flickering overhead. The city was awake now, the Strip already baking under the morning sun, and she walked toward the elevator with a taste in her mouth she couldn't decide if she liked.

She was still carrying the bruise in her chest. Stacey's name was written on it, she realized. And Victor's. And Steve's.

But it didn't hurt the way it had before.