Page 56 of The Through Duet
He immediately stopped eating me out.“Really?But...but look at you.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I said, still staring up at the ceiling.
“Nah,” he said, not in tuned with the tone of my voice at all.“I bet your pussy’s incredible.”
Of course, that’s all that I was to this guy.In fact, that’s all that I was to all of them.I had the perfect pin-up body to make all their sexual fantasies come true, so I was the one-night stand that you couldn’t take seriously anywhere else because I looked a certain way.
It also didn’t help that I played the part, but not for reasons that some people believed.I didn’t crave the attention because I was conceited, nor was it because I liked being the center of attention.It also wasn’t because I wanted free drinks or shopping sprees.
No.
I was looking for someone to spend just one hour talking with me, hoping that they’d see past the blonde hair, big tits, wide hips, and adolescent fantasies for just one second to see the real me.I wanted to have a real conversation with a guy, and I wanted it to lead to something more than just an image of me in lingerie.
I also wasn’t doing myself any favors by wanting a guy that I couldn’t have.Whenever I was with someone, it didn’t matter what he looked like because all I saw were dark brown eyes, dark brown hair, and a body covered in tattoos.All I saw was the face of a guy who couldn’t stand me, and I didn’t know why.
As soon as I felt two fingers slide inside me, I closed my eyes, then let out a quiet breath.I wasn’t here to wish for things that I couldn’t have.I was here to give this guy a story to take back to his investment buddies and nothing more.
Chapter 1
Leandra~
I hung up the phone, feeling depleted, but that wasn’t unusual after a phone call with my mother.She had a way of sucking all the energy out of me, and I still didn’t know if she did it on purpose or if she really had no idea what she did.
Now, from the outside looking in, people could probably accuse me of being ungrateful, though that wasn’t the case at all.I’d grown up with both my parents, and they hadn’t been deadbeats, physically abusive, drug addicts, gambling addicts, neglectful, etc.
No.
My parents had both been very involved in my childhood, despite their busy work schedules.My father, Rupert Rollins, had been and still was an investment banker, and he’d been able to provide a very decent life for our family.I’d even gone to college, but only because the money had already been set aside for that specific endeavor.
As for my mother, Mariah Rollins, she had worked her way up from a realtor to the administrative assistant for Cooper Realties, and it hadn’t been until I’d gone to college that she had really put her all into her career.As an only child, I’d left my parents as empty-nesters, and from what I understood, they worked a lot these days, which I supposed sounded reasonable.
Now, you’d think with my mother working so many hours that she wouldn’t have time to call and harass me, but she could always be counted on to make time for that.It was like her superpower or something, honest to God.
Nonetheless, life wasn’t all bad.I had a great job at Precious Pets, and if anyone ever asked, I’d tell them that there was nothing better than working with animals all day long.Yeah, I got pissed and crapped on often, and I’d even been nipped a couple of times, but I still wouldn’t give my job up for anything in the world.
I was also lucky that my best friend, Rya Harlow, worked there as well.Rya had already been working at Precious Pets when I’d gotten a job there, and she had immediately taken me under her wing.We were the same age, so we’d both been twenty-two at the time, me fresh out of college, and Rya with already two years at Precious Pets under her belt.
However, our ages were the only things that we had in common.Where Rya liked to keep to herself, I liked to mingle.Where Rya had this incredible auburn-colored hair and green eyes, I was your typical platinum blonde with standard blue eyes.Where Rya had a soft figure and looked like she’d be the perfect girl to introduce to your mother, I had an hourglass figure that made lots of people assume that I’d had surgery.I was also mistaken for being stupid, though I wasn’t.
Another way in which we were different was that I had a trust fund that’d been set up by my paternal grandparents, and so I actually didn’t have to work if I didn’t want to, something that my mother kept reminding me of.What she didn’t realize was that Iwantedto work.I wanted to matter, and I wanted to make a difference, and living off a trust fund didn’t accomplish either of those things.
At any rate, my father had been an only child, and with me being one as well, my paternal grandparents had set up a trust fund for me, giving me most of their accumulated wealth.Since my father had already been successful in his own right, he’d gotten thirty percent, I’d gotten fifty percent, and my grandparents were currently enjoying their retirement years on the remaining twenty percent of their good fortune.
My grandparents also hadn’t put any stipulations on the money, so I was able to do whatever I wanted with it.Well, since Precious Pets paid me enough to support myself, the point-oh-five interest on my ten-million-dollar trust fund went to animal charities every year, much to my mother’s dismay.
So, I had a degree in historical composition and a trust fund that I could live off of, yet I worked for not much over minimum wage, lived in a studio apartment, and drove an old Kia Forte.I didn’t belong to any country clubs, I didn’t live in a ‘smart’ house, and even my cellphone was a few models old.
It also didn’t take a genius to figure out why I resented the money enough to act like it didn’t exist.Though I was grateful for the safety net should I ever need it, my mother’s obsession with money, status, and appearances made it hard to appreciate it for the gift that it was.Though my parents had been doing well on their own, as soon as my father had received his four-million dollars, he’d immediately gone into investing it, so he had robbed my mother of all that on-hand cash, and it ate at her, though she’d never admit it out loud.So, she continuously pressured me into living the life thatshewanted, and it got to be rather exhausting at times.
That money was also another reason why Dalton Summit hated me, though I was just guessing at this point.However, since I’d never done anything to the guy, I couldn’t understand why he seemed to dislike me so much, and despite Rya’s protests, it was clear to anyone with eyes that Dalton didn’t care for me.Honestly, if it weren’t for Rya being his and my best friend, I seriously doubted that Dalton Summit would even speak to me.
Of course, like all the other females working at Precious Pets, I could remember the first day that Dalton had started working with us very vividly.Three years ago, he had walked into the shop in all his six-foot-one glory, and he’d broken everyone’s heart when it’d become clear that he didn’t do co-workers With his dark brown hair, dark bedroom eyes, and muscular tatted physique, it’d been a huge disappointment, but not only to us, but to our customers as well.The one thing that Dalton Summit didn’t do was shit where he ate, and three years later, he still didn’t.
He also worked at Blood & Ink on the bad side of town, and his two jobs were definitely a contrast to one another, but Dalton wasn’t one to do what people expected of him.At any rate, he was supposedly one of the best tattoo artists in the state, and I believed it.
A quick knock at my door had me hoping that it wasn’t my mother, and though that was an uncharitable thought to say the least, it was true.Even though we’d just gotten off the phone, she wasn’t above showing up at my door unannounced.
However, when I peeked through the peephole, I saw that it was my neighbor, Elena, and that made me smile.Elena was in her eighties, wore track suits like nobody’s business, and though I knew that she did-orelse it’d be a matted mess-it always looked like the woman didn’t brush her silvery hair.
