Cleo had been in plenty of expensive fast cars with rich men. If there was a rich man archetype, it had to be “wastes money on a car they’d dreamt about as a kid,” and it was usually #boringAF. Just a rich man-child with a shiny, costly new toy. Been there, stole that. But from the minute Mr. Shimizu opened his car door for her, his lanky body bent nearly half over, two fingers casually holding the car handle and his eyes searing into hers as he waited patiently for her to walk to the curb, nothing about this ride had been like all the others. He wasn’t like all the other men she’d met before, and that, at least, burned away some of the guilt she felt at leaving a job half-finished. That, and the way she felt when he slid into the driver’s seat and turned his key in the ignition.
“Are you ready?” he practically growled at her.
Cleo shivered, but not because of the cold. “Let’s go.”
He nodded and turned to ease the car down the winding driveway back toward the main road.
Based on their plan, Marcus and Gina were probably prepping any small items their fences had requested for transport. In about three hours, when the crowd had begun to thin — or pass out — they’d start the heavy lifting. The security for the party, while big and intimidating, was provided by Kismet, not Frank, and their contract was to protect the company’s sculptures, not Frank’s possessions. Once they were gone, the house was as vulnerable as any other; maybe even more so, because Frank couldn’t afford his own security anymore.
That was the beauty of the plan they’d spent an entire year crafting. Who would dare rob a house that had so recently been filled with hundreds of people and crawling with some of the best security in the world? Cleo and Alex and their crew, that’s who.
As soon as Kismet’s sculptures and security were gone, Alex would hand Frank his last drink of the night. It would be laced; he’d pass out and then the real work started. They’d snatch and pack away all the artwork he’d had recently appraised, the jewelry he was holding hostage from his wife because she’d dared to leave him, even some of the good silver. It’d take them no more than two hours — an hour and a half, if Alex had her way — and then they’d pack up their fake catering vans and scatter.
By the time Frank woke up the next morning, the vans would be in a different state, Alex and Brian would be on a plane to a different country and, according to the plan, Cleo would be on another plane to some place warm, all destinations unknown, just in case. And as Cleo settled into Mr. Shimizu’s roadster, she did so with full knowledge that Brian was already cleaning out Frank’s bank accounts. A job very well done.
As the car began to inch forward, she took the opportunity to slyly take her earpiece from her ear and shove it into her purse. She also sent Alex a quick text saying she would be MIA for a few hours. She’d never done this on a job before and she knew her sister would wild out when she saw it, but that wouldn’t be for a few hours, and by then… Well, anything could have happened by then.
“What’s your name?” she asked. “Your first name.”
He turned onto the two-lane rural highway. It was so dark out here, not a streetlight to be found. All Cleo could see was the black asphalt of the road cut through with yellow and white lines, washed out by Mr. Shimizu’s almost too bright headlights. On either side of the road, there seemed to be nothing but dark forest, tall trees looming over them and blotting out most of the sky. The further he drove, the more Cleo felt as if there was no one else in the world but the two of them. And she liked that more than she expected.
“Robert,” he answered after a while.
“That’s so… regular,” she laughed, turning her head to look at him and confirm that there wasn’t anything about him that seemed regular. At least not to her.
His lips barely moved but his eye crinkled at the corner. Even that simple move seemed extraordinary to her. “What should I call you?” he asked, glancing quickly at her and then back to the road.
Ah. So here was a moment that made dating hard. To give her real name or the alias she’d been using while throwing money around at the Derby? It was a conundrum. If Alex was here — she’d never have let Cleo get in the car; but if she were already in the car — Alex would have yelled at her to use her alias. But the thought of introducing herself to this man as Jessica Hare made her frown. The alias was a cute inside joke with her crew, but she wanted to hear this man say her name desperately. So, she decided to ignore the advice of her imaginary sister in her head.
“Cleo,” she said. “Just Cleo.” A girl’s gotta have boundaries.
“Okay, Just Cleo. Buckle up and let me take you for that ride.”
More than a few men had whispered a series of explicit things they wished they could do to her; filthy promises their actions rarely lived up to. But not a single wet paragraph whispered into her harassed ears had ever turned her on as much as that simple sentence. She felt desire coil tight in her stomach as she reached behind her to grab the seatbelt, never taking her eyes from him.
“I’m gonna call you Mr. Shimizu,” she said in her sultriest voice.
“Is that what’s gonna get you off?”
Her thighs clenched at the lack of judgment in that question. His voice was full of nothing but curious interest, as if he was trying to figure her out as keenly as she was trying to understand him. “For starters,” she whispered.
He grunted.
Cleo felt a small lag as he prepared to shift gears, moving his foot from the gas to the clutch. The back of his hand brushed her thigh as he moved the gear shift. They both jumped as the wind picked up, blowing her hair around in the air.
She hoped she’d glued it down tight enough.
Cleo crossed her right leg over her left — her already short dress riding dangerously high up her thighs — and smiled as his head darted to the right to take the sight in quickly.
“You should watch the road,” she purred.
He smiled and turned to her. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Some people tried to rationalize their grifts. They liked to tell themselves they stole just to put food on the table, or they created elaborate self-serving stories in their heads, casting themselves as Robin Hood types. Cleo didn’t. Sure, she’d first started picking pockets and boosting from stores to feed herself and Alex, but she’d had a lot of friends back then who’d tried it, realized it wasn’t for them and moved on. But Cleo hadn’t, because she liked it. No, fuck that, she’d loved it. The thrill of the unknown, the danger of knowing they could get caught, the escape; she’d never known a rush like it.
But over the years, her excitement had begun to wane. Never make your passion your job, she’d heard someone say once, and she was just starting to feel it. There was so little joy these days in slipping a man’s timepiece off his wrist while he looked her dead in the eyes, trying to seduce her. She could do it. She had done it. She’d started to suspect that she needed more, even though she wasn’t ready to admit it to herself and certainly not ready to broach the topic with Alex.
But as Mr. Shimizu pushed the car one more mile over the speed limit and then another and another, Cleo felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time: the exhilarating rush of so much dangerous possibility. By the time the small car closed in on one hundred miles an hour, she was squirming in her seat, her knees pressed so tight together she was worried she might strain a muscle. Her back arched from the seat. She wanted to feel the wind on her barely covered nipples. This feeling was new and different, and she let it take over.
Her head thrashed side to side in ecstasy as small orgasmic ripples began to radiate up from her clit to her stomach and the sensitive undersides of her breasts and down her thighs to her toes. Had a man ever gotten her off without touching her? Fuck no. Was she desperate to see what happened when Mr. Shimizu inevitably did? So much.
She moaned as her muscles relaxed and she slumped in her seat, her body momentarily overloaded with excitement. Her head lolled to the side, and her gaze zeroed in on the dangerous combination of his big hand and long fingers wrapped around his gear shift and the very obvious bulge in his pants. This was the biggest rush of her life, and it had only just begun.
“Is this too fast for you?” He had to practically yell the words at her, but they still made her shiver.
“Not yet, Mr. Shimizu,” she said, sounding confident but also nearly mad with lust, which was exactly how she felt.
“Good girl,” he muttered just loud enough for her to hear.
Her eyes closed on those two words and she started squirming in her seat again. She heard the gears shift and felt the car accelerate as she lost the battle to keep her knees together. The moan that fell from her lips was obscenely loud and she loved it.
“It’s a good thing this seat is leather,” she gasped, “it’s going to be very wet soon.”
“I wish I’d known that I might be in this situation,” Mr. Shimizu said.
“Why?”
His eyes darted to her open legs. “I would have brought an automatic.”
“You don’t seem like the kind of man who owns one.”
“Oh no, I do. Just one. It doesn’t see much action, but this would have been worth pulling it out of storage.” He licked his lips so she knew exactly what he was thinking, and now she was thinking about that too.
“If you had a free hand, what would you be doing with it right now?”
He didn’t laugh or smile. When he turned to her, his face was serious and his eyes were full of dark intent. It made Cleo shiver. “If I had a hand to touch you, it’d be inside you already. Probably would have been before we even left the Estate.”
That was all she needed to hear.
Cleo sank down in her seat, slipped her feet free of her shoes and lifted her right leg up, spreading herself open for him to see. She moved her hand to her inner thigh and caressed her skin.
“I’m happy to lend you a hand.”
The car sped up just a bit more as her hand descended toward the warm depths between her legs. She groaned and circled her hips when the tips of her long nails scratched the crease of her leg. He didn’t turn toward her, but she knew she had as much of his attention as was possible; maybe even a bit more than was safe.
She ran the pads of her fingers over the gusset of her underwear. “My panties are already soaked,” she breathed.
“Then you should take them off.” Such a polite command.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Shimizu.”
He grinned.
It wasn’t easy or particularly sexy to get her underwear over her ass and down her legs with the seatbelt still across her chest and waist while in a car built for someone at least five inches shorter than her, but she did it. And in life, completing the task was more important than making it pretty. At least that was Cleo’s motto. Besides, Mr. Shimizu didn’t seem to care, since his only response was to take his hand from the gear shift and hold it out to her.
She happily dropped the small wet scrap of fabric into his palm and then watched as he brought it to his nose. He sniffed it deeply and then stuffed it into his pants pocket before resting his hand on the gear shift again.
“You didn’t seem like a freak at the poker table,” she breathed wistfully.
“Then I guess my poker face is still intact. But you were the only person at that table I wanted to fuck, so I didn’t have to hide it for long.” He spoke to her in an easy rumble, his voice calm and nonchalant as if nothing untoward was going on. It was driving Cleo and her pussy over the edge. “Now, where were we?” he asked with an arched eyebrow.
“You were driving fast as hell and I was about to fuck myself with my hands. For you.”
She felt the car speed up yet again.
“Is there anything else you want me do?” she asked, as she ran the pads of her fingers up and down her wet slit.
“Besides be as loud as possible?” He shook his head twice and then stopped. “Actually, yes.” He downshifted the car to take a curve in the road, slower but still fast as fuck, and then sped up again. “I want you to tell me when you’re close. I don’t want you to come until I say so. Do we have a deal?”
Cleo should have been surprised, but she wasn’t. Every rich man she’d ever conned or legitimately dated had wanted to take control of her in any way possible; whether it was what she wore, how she spoke or how they fucked. It was the kind of personality trait that came part and parcel with money and power and she always denied them that, even if it might get her the money she wanted faster. She was about to deny Mr. Shimizu that as well, but then he spoke again.
“I want you to tell me when you’re close because I want to get you off myself. You can warm yourself up, but every time you come tonight, it’ll be because I gave you exactly what you needed. Deal?”
Cleo moaned, which was the most enthusiastic yes she could imagine. It was also the only response she could give since, halfway through his declaration, she’d slipped two fingers inside herself.
“How wet are you?” he asked, as if this was the kind of thing he did regularly. Hell, maybe it was.
“Soaked.”
“Warm?”
“So fucking hot,” she corrected.
“Aching?”
“I’m not going to last long if you keep interrogating me while I fuck myself.”
“How many fingers do you have in your pussy?”
“Oh god,” she groaned. “Two.”
“Add another.”
She did.
“Are you touching your clit?” he asked.
“God, no,” she gasped. “I’ll come too quick. Fuck, I’m gonna come soon anyway.”
“Don’t,” was all he said.
She shivered. “I’m not going to last,” she groaned, the heel of her hand just brushing her hooded clit.
He didn’t answer, but she felt the car slow in increments as she plunged her fingers in and out of herself. She alternated between fast and slow strokes, trying to stave off the inevitable. Her free hand was holding onto the car’s center console for dear life, because what she wanted was to drag his hand to her pussy so he could touch her. But that was certainly dangerous, so she forced herself to wait.
“I’m so close,” she panted in a strained voice.
“I know, sweetheart. Just give me a second,” he said, his voice soothing and calm.
He pulled the car to a stop in a dirt runoff. Cleo whined as he put the car in park and then practically tore his seatbelt open.
Cleo fumbled to unlock her own seatbelt. And then he leaned over the center console, covering her overheated body with his.
She screamed when his hand covered her clit.
“That feel good?” he asked.
“That’s the only dumb thing you’ve said to me all night,” she said.
He smiled down at her, still rubbing hard circles over her clit. Then he moved his free hand behind her neck, pushed her fingers aside at her aching core and replaced them with his own in a forceful thrust that made Cleo’s back arch.
“Oh fuck,” she breathed, shuddering.
He started fucking her in slow, deliberate strokes with three fingers, his thumb still grazing her clit.
“Give me your other finger,” she begged.
His grip tightened on her neck. “Ask me nicely,” he demanded.
That made her moan so loudly she might have just yelled.
He wasn’t fazed. He just kept fucking her and holding her against his chest, watching her come undone, waiting.
“Please,” she gasped, circling her hips, desperately trying to get those fingers deeper inside her pussy, as deep as they could go. “Please put another finger inside me.”
He lowered his head and sucked her bottom lip into his mouth, leaning back to let it slip through his teeth. How did he know she’d like the soft pain of that? she thought. But it really didn’t matter, since he’d pushed that last finger into her cunt. She felt full and stretched. It was perfect.
Now that the wind wasn’t howling in their ears, they could both hear the wet squelch of her pussy fighting to keep his hand inside her. It was obscene, made even more so by the way he stared down at her, holding her gaze, as if he didn’t want to miss a millisecond of her pleasure. As if getting her off was serious business.
“Good girl,” he whispered against her lips. “Now feed me your fingers.”
“Oh god.” She didn’t waste a second complying.
He kept his eyes glued on her and his hand fucking her while she slipped her wet fingers into his mouth.
She watched him lick and suck her essence from her digits, his tongue swirling around each one individually. All of a sudden there was nothing else, not a heist on the horizon, not a crew she was responsible for, hell even the car disappeared. In that moment Cleo couldn’t concentrate on anything but the coming orgasm and the way Mr. Shimizu felt inside and on top of her.
Her eyes slammed shut. “Oh fuck, I’m gonna come. Fuckfuckfuck.”
He moved his mouth from her hand only briefly, and Cleo already knew what he would say. “Ask m—”
“Please, fuck, please let me come, Mr. Shimizu,” she whined.
“Of course,” he said, kissing her wet knuckle. “Come.”
There are orgasms, and then there are life-changing moments between your legs. Cleo had had many of the former and a few of the latter. But this orgasm was different. It was transcendent. She felt as if she were floating above herself, somewhere up in the ether. From that vantage point, she looked down at herself; half-naked, splayed out, a complete stranger’s whole hand stuffed almost entirely inside her pussy as she came in a wet gush on his Italian leather seats, and she smiled down in smug approval at her life choices. This orgasm was life affirming and earth shattering.
And through it all, Mr. Shimizu kept sawing his fingers into her, drawing out the full force of her orgasm, extending the electric aftershocks until they built and built and she was coming again. And he stayed with her. His face hovered above her, calm and relaxed, his burning, excited eyes the only sign of how much he was affected by her as she shivered and shuddered in his arms.
Eventually she had to closer her thighs with a whimper, the crash of too many orgasms making her sex overly sensitive.
It took a few seconds more for her to be able to speak. “I probably ruined your seat,” she whispered up at him with a hoarse voice and a small smile on her lips.
His hand had stopped moving at her core, but he didn’t abandon her. He left his fingers buried deep inside her, letting her squeeze and clench around him. And then he brushed his mouth against her cheek gently. “You let me know when you’re up for ruining the back seat.”
“Oh fuck,” she gasped.
And came again.