Allure (Forbidden #1)

by Michelle Betham

  ‘Kevin’s gone to fetch Joey.’

  His voice drags me back from memories so recent I’m still living them. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You a friend of his?’

  He obviously wasn’t there the night we were here, or he’d probably have some idea of who I am. ‘Not really. I know Kira.’

  His expression suddenly changes; becomes more wary. He’s heard about me, then. I can tell by the look on his face.

  ‘You’re Neal?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m Neal.’

  He looks me up and down, his eyes scanning me slowly. ‘Hmmm… they were right. You are hot!’

  ‘Leave him alone, Ricky.’

  Joey arrives, and Ricky sashays away with a flick of his long hair.

  ‘What can I do for you, Neal?’

  His tone is something I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s neither welcoming nor unfriendly. ‘I need to see Kira.’

  ‘Yes. You do.’

  I frown, because I hadn’t expected that. ‘I… have you seen her? Today, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve seen her.’

  I try to read his face, to see if I can get anything from his expression. ‘Did she tell you? What happened last night?’

  He nods, and I don’t know whether to be relieved or nervous. I still don’t really know what to feel. Maybe she doesn’t either. Maybe that’s why she ran.

  ‘If she told you what happened to her, then she trusts you, Neal. I know Kira. And I know she would never have told you about Simon if she didn’t feel she could trust you.’

  ‘So why did she run? Why did she leave without saying a word?’

  ‘You know why. She got scared. She’s been scared most of her life, and this – this life she leads, it’s a barrier; something to hide behind. But she talked to you. She told you. And even though she’s still trying to deny it, that means she’s starting to let someone else in. And you have no idea what a move forward that is for her.’

  I’m confused, and I just want to see her, I want to hold her and tell her it’s all gonna be OK, before it’s too late.

  ‘Take a minute, honey.’

  I look at Joey, and his expression is one of kindness now, although there’s still a hint of wariness there behind the eyes.

  ‘Look, I don’t know what the hell’s gone on between you two, but whatever it is you need to sort it out. You’re leaving tomorrow, right?’

  I nod, and another shot of pain cuts across my chest. ‘Did she tell you everything?’

  ‘Yes. She did. And she also told me about you asking her to go back to New York with you.’

  ‘I mean it, Joey.’

  ‘It’s too soon, Neal. She isn’t ready for that.’

  ‘I can’t leave here without her.’

  ‘She isn’t ready to go. And I’m not ready to let her. And that isn’t me being selfish, because I want that woman to be happy more than anyone else, believe me. I have watched her struggle through every day, watched her go out there to meet men like you and it never stops tearing me apart because she deserves better. She isn’t ready to leave here, not yet. But she is ready to leave that life.’

  ‘I don’t know how to deal with this, Joey.’ And I don’t. I have no fucking clue. I need to go home, I have to go home. I’ve got work and clients and a business that I can’t just leave behind. But I can’t leave Kira. I can’t do it.

  ‘She’s gone to The Draysman.’

  My head shoots up. ‘She’s meeting someone there?’

  He says nothing. He doesn’t have to.

  ‘This is such a fucking mess.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me that, handsome.’

  ‘I didn’t come here looking for this. I didn’t want to turn anyone’s life upside down, but when she walked into that bar, man… I was fucking lost.’

  ‘She has that effect sometimes. I swear she could turn one of us straight if she tried hard enough.’ He sweeps an arm around the empty bar and I smile, because he’s one hell of a friendly guy when he drops the suspicion. ‘Look, if you find her… and be careful, OK? She can be a feisty little madam when she wants to be, but you probably already know that if she’s given you the… well, let’s not go there. If you see her, just be careful, alright? She’s got those barriers well and truly pulled back up, but I think, deep down, she wants to see you. She needs to see you. She just panicked, last night. What you both shared with each other, it’s opened up old memories, caused fresh pain, that’s all. For both of you. And she panicked. But I know that if she just lets you walk away tomorrow without seeing you one more time… she’s going to regret it.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say to her, Joey.’

  ‘Just tell her how you feel.’

  ‘I already did that. And look what happened.’

  ‘Maybe you should try talking outside of the bedroom. Sex clouds things, Neal. And, lets face it, where that’s concerned you two have barely come up for air.’

  I push both hands through my hair and throw my head back, letting out a frustrated sigh. I didn’t want this. But maybe it’s what I need – to feel something again. But, man, it fucking hurts!

  I look straight at Joey, because I’m still confused as to why he’s even talking to me, let alone trying to help me figure this out. ‘Why are you doing this? I mean, it wasn’t that long ago you didn’t want me anywhere near her.’

  ‘Did I ever say that?’

  ‘I got a vibe.’

  He smiles, but it reaches his eyes, so maybe he really is being genuine now.

  ‘I’m probably just a romantic old queen, but I see something in her, when she talks about you; when she comes back from seeing you… I see something. Something I’ve never seen in her before. And it took you to make that happen.’ He shrugs, and throws me another small smile. ‘Maybe I’m just a sucker for a happy ending.’

  ‘We’re a long way from that,’ I sigh, pushing my hands through my hair again. I’m emotionally drained, and I’ve never felt so fucked-up.

  ‘You said you were falling in love with her, Neal.’

  I look at him again. But I can’t say anything, and I don’t know why. The words are stuck in my throat; I can’t get them out.

  ‘And you shouldn’t – you really shouldn’t say anything like that, unless you mean it. Because I love the bones of that girl, and I know… She might come across as some strong, independent ball-breaking bitch sometimes, and she is. She can be just that, believe me. But it’s a front she’s created, to protect herself from exactly what you’re throwing at her. You’ve started to push those barriers down and that’s why she’s scared. That’s why she ran.’

  He fires me a look, and suddenly all this shit seems so fucking real, it’s like I’m drowning, I can’t freaking breathe! It’s only when I feel him touch my arm that breath finally escapes me.

  ‘She can’t live behind those barriers forever, Neal. I don’t want that for her. But you have to be so sure; you have to be really, really sure about what you say to her. You have to mean it with every beat of your heart. This is complicated and it’s crazy and it’s not going to be easy but… Look, just do one thing for me, handsome, OK? Before you go over there; before you even try to find her, be sure – be so fucking sure about what you’re doing here. Think about it, Neal. Please. And think hard.’

  Kira

  The figure-hugging PVC nurse’s outfit sits high on my hips as I ride my client hard and fast. It’s how he wants it.

  I make all the right noises, bite down on my lip and take his cock deep, but I feel nothing. I’m back to being numb; going through the motions.

  I had to dig this costume out from the back of my wardrobe, and I’m grateful it still fits because I haven’t done nurse costume-play for a long time. I was the dirty porn-star and the naughty schoolgirl for Neal, and anything else he’d wanted me to be I would have become. Anything. Costume-play is one of my specialities, and if he’d wanted the works he could have had it. I would have done anything, been anyone, for Neal. But I’m not
with Neal. I’m with a middle-aged man who wants the full-on porn-star experience and likes me to fuck him cowgirl, with the nurse’s outfit still on. He’s not even that bothered about my tits, unlike most of the other men I see, although he did tell me he thought they were pretty spectacular. He’s only touched them once, and prefers them to stay covered by the costume, but who am I to question any man’s preferences when they’re paying me so much money to carry out their own personal fantasies?

  I feel him tense up, which means he’s about to come, any second now, so I hurry it along by slamming down hard onto him and faking an orgasm like the pro I am. I moan and cry out and grind myself against him until he climaxes in a barrage of long, low groans. And I feel nothing.

  His hour’s almost up now. I know he has to get back to work, and I’m relieved. I’ve given him what he wants, and he seems more than satisfied. I hope he is. I may do all of this on auto-pilot but I always want my clients to have the best Kira Blu experience. I still have a reputation to uphold.

  I climb off him and give him my best smile – the one that lets them all think they were the best fuck I’ve ever had. And I suddenly realise I never gave Neal that smile. I hadn’t needed to. I hadn’t needed to lie. Neal Cannon and Kira Blu – together the sex was off the scale. I hadn’t needed to lie.

  ‘I’ll be booking you again, sweetheart.’

  I did good, then. I pulled it off. Again.

  I watch as he gets ready, transforming himself from client back to office worker with his smart suit and short cropped hair. The sun streaming in through the window catches his wedding ring and I look away, that guilt I’ve recently started to feel creeping back over me, but if I’m going to keep on doing this I have to remember this isn’t my fault. I don’t go looking for this. I don’t go looking for them. They come to me. For whatever reason. I serve a purpose; I give them something they can’t get at home and it isn’t my job to question that. Or feel guilty. But I do. Sometimes.

  He walks over to me and slips an arm around my waist, pulling me to him. ‘You’re hot-as-hell, Kira. Hot as fucking hell.’ He moves in for a kiss, and I don’t really want to kiss him. I don’t want to kiss anyone. Except Neal. His kisses were soft and sensual and I don’t want to kiss anyone, but him. But this is my job, and right now, what I want doesn’t matter. So I close my eyes and kiss this stranger and try to forget that Neal Cannon was ever in my life.

  Neal

  For the first time in my life I’ve been unprofessional. I’ve cancelled a meeting I really should have gone to, and it could lose me a potential client. He was about to fly up from London specifically to see me when he heard I was in the country, and I don’t know if he’s willing to reschedule. I’ve got the New York office talking with him, because my head isn’t in the right place to deal with it now. Not yet. Not until I’ve seen Kira. I can’t be anywhere else right now. I need to be here, nursing a whiskey in the middle of the afternoon as music blares out and all around me drag artists rehearse and laugh and carry on like everything’s normal. It might be for them. I don’t even know what normal is anymore.

  I’d got as far as my car before I turned around and came back here, to Bam-Bams. I don’t want to see her at the hotel. I don’t want to see her with a man she’s just fucked. I can’t do it. So I came back here, because she’ll come here, too, I know she will. And I think Joey’s secretly relieved that this is all gonna happen in close proximity to him. Not that I intend to do anything with an audience. But there’s less chance of her running, if we’re here.

  ‘Joey!’

  I hear her voice, and my heart stops dead in my chest. She doesn’t want to see me, but I’m here. Because I need to see her.

  She’s talking to Joey, and she’s laughing, and I don’t want to wreck her mood but I have to do this. I have to see her.

  I get up and walk over to them. Joey sees me approaching and he whispers something to her before walking away and I feel my heart shudder again, because I don’t know what she’s gonna do next.

  ‘You ran out on me, Kira.’

  She turns around to face me, and I’m dead, man. I’m fucking dead, she’s killing me. I can’t leave her, I can’t go anywhere. Jesus, I am so fucked!

  ‘Don’t do this, Neal.’

  ‘You ran out on me. I opened my fucking heart to you, and you ran out on me.’

  ‘What did you expect me to do? Marry you? This isn’t a normal situation, Neal. This isn’t how people meet, it isn’t how it works. You paid for me…’

  ‘And that part of our relationship stopped, Kira. It stopped. And something else took its place.’

  She shakes her head and I know she’s still denying it all, everything we did, everything we talked about, she’s denying it. All of it.

  ‘It was a bubble,’ she whispers, and I feel my heart break a little bit more. ‘A beautiful, wonderful bubble. But it wasn’t real.’

  I move a little closer to her and she doesn’t back away. She stays where she is, and that’s something. ‘Everything I said to you, Kira, that was real. Every fucking word.’

  ‘Don’t, Neal, please.’

  She turns and walks away, out back towards the dressing rooms, and of course I’m gonna follow her. I’m not giving up on this, on her; on us. My whole world changed forever last night, so I’m not giving up on this.

  ‘Kira!’

  She stops and swings back around to look at me. Her expression’s changed, she’s pulled those barriers right back up, just like that. ‘I can’t be the woman you want me to be, Neal.’

  ‘And who the hell do I want you to be, huh?’

  She doesn’t answer that.

  ‘I don’t want you to be anyone but you, Kira.’

  She backs up against the wall, buries her fingers in her hair and gives me the kind of smile that stirs my cock, and I have no control over that. It’s happening, whether I want it to or not, because I’m seeing the woman I met that very first night now. She’s back.

  ‘I’m an escort, Neal. Your whore; the woman you paid for sex, and now you think you love me?’

  ‘Don’t do this, baby.’

  She reaches out and grabs my tie, pulling me towards her, and before I can take another breath she’s kissing me, and I’m drowning, again, I’m falling so far under I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.

  ‘That’s all I’m ever going to be,’ she whispers, and her words anger me. She can be so much more, she just needs to set herself free. ‘I don’t know if I can do anything else.’

  ‘You can do anything you want to, Kira.’

  She shakes her head, and for a second the barriers are back down, and I can see something in her eyes that tells me I almost got to her, but in a second she’s swung them right back up.

  ‘You can be anything you want to be.’

  ‘I want to be me,’ she whispers, and I don’t know what she means by that, exactly, but she’s got her fingers in my hair and her body’s pressed right up against mine and I’m still trying desperately to gain some kind of control.

  And then she pushes me away and heads into the dressing room, but I’m still not done. She can play this game, whatever the fuck it is, but I’m not done. I’ve got all fucking day.

  ‘You really want to throw your whole life away, huh? Because of something that happened so long ago?’

  She swings around to face me, and her eyes are blazing. ‘You were willing to do it. Face it, Neal, we’re both messed-up, and I don’t know what fairytale scenario you’ve got going on inside your head… you really think we can fix each other, is that it?’

  I stride over to her. I’ve had enough now.

  I reach out and grab her arm, pushing her back against the wall, kissing her hard, and I’m acting on auto-pilot now. My cock’s just taken charge and all I want to do is fuck her. Right here, right now. That insane need, that burning ache is back. And I can’t control it. Because I’m not sure I want to. I’m not sure I ever wanted to.

  I shove my hand up her dress and yank
down her panties, ripping them from her as she claws at my shirt, drags my tie from around my neck and tosses it on the floor. Our breathing’s heavy and ragged and I don’t even know how the hell we got here. We need to talk, not fuck. We need to talk, but I’m inside her now, and she’s warm and wet and I’m thrusting hard and she’s taking me, willingly, and it’s fucking crazy! My head’s spinning, and I really don’t know what’s happening here.

  ‘Pull out,’ she whispers, her eyes boring into mine, and she’s got me, I’m freaking trapped. ‘Now. Pull out.’

  I withdraw, and she turns around so she faces the wall, pulling her dress up around her waist, and I get it. OK. I get it.

  I place a hand over hers, my palm resting against her knuckles as our fingers thread together, my other hand pulling her ass back against me and I’m inside her again. I wanted to make her listen, make her realise that all this shit is real, but she looks at me and I’m fucking gone. I’m gone.

  I bury my face in her hair as I thrust into her gently, and her fingers grip mine tight, her moans long and low. I’m so close to her; my body’s right up against hers, inside hers, and I can feel those moans vibrate right through me, and my cock responds. I’m coming, and she’s pushing that perfect ass back against me and I want to fuck her bareback so freaking bad. I want to feel her, properly; come inside her without the intrusion of that latex barrier she insists upon. I want that, so freaking bad. Yeah, I fucked her ass without a condom, but that was different. I want to feel her pussy engulf my naked cock and I want to come, inside her.

  ‘We need to talk, Kira,’ I murmur into her hair as her own climax hits and she comes in a series of short, violent waves. ‘We need to talk, baby.’

  I pull out of her and she turns around. The barriers are still up, and I don’t know what else to do.

  ‘I’m out of here, tomorrow, darlin’. Tomorrow.’

  She looks into my eyes and I see nothing. She’s spent so long closing herself off to so many emotions that she can do it at will. The perfect escort. Detachment – their default.