by Chloe Adler
“This place is a mansion!” Sydney rushes through the foyer without even commenting on its magnificence and into the living room.
I trail behind her on autopilot and then almost fall to the floor, catching myself on the wall. An intense shock shoots through my system and I clutch my chest. Am I having a heart attack? I slide down the wall and come to a slump on the living-room floor, trying to catch my breath. My vision clouds, black at the edges, and I get ready to pass out.
“Dios mío, Jerome, what’s wrong?” Sydney rushes over to me, sinks to the floor and grabs my hand. A warm, penetrating shock shoots through my veins from her hand, to my heart and then down to my cock.
I look up at her, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Prettier than Maggie by far and so kind and amazing, in every way. I can’t even remember why I was in love with Maggie in the first place. This is who I want. This is the woman for me.
“Sydney.” I reach for her face and she lets me touch it. I stare into her eyes, realizing that just like that, at a snap of the fingers, I’ve fallen in love with her. But if I say that, I’ll scare her off. “I’m completely smitten with you.”
“What the fuck, Jerome?” She pushes my hand away and stands up, her hands planted on her hips. “You’ve lost your marbles from grief. It happens.” She extends her hand toward me and I grasp it. When I do, another jolt of electricity follows the same pathway as the last one, shooting through my body as she hauls me to my feet. She’s strong too, especially for a human.
She fishes in her pocket and pulls out a bottle of painkillers, pops the lid and throws one in her mouth. “Let’s finish this tour so I can get to Ichor.”
My cock twitches. My woman is going to whore herself tonight. Why do I like the sound of that? Why do I want to watch? I slowly lick my lips, imagining another man touching her, giving her pleasure, and I want to grab her and throw her on the floor. Take her right here and now.
“Stop looking at me that way,” she barks.
I look away but I don’t want to.
“So this place comes furnished?” She walks around the living room.
“It does. Do you like the décor? Because if you don’t, I’ll redecorate.”
She snorts. “No need to waste money like that. This place is amazing.” She flings open the door to the kitchen. “Oh my fuck.” She runs her hands over the brand-new quartz countertops and the shining stainless-steel appliances.
The kitchen area opens onto a dining room boasting a substantial table and four chairs. She runs to the sliding glass windows just beyond and rests both palms on a pane.
“Have you seen this yard?” Without looking at the rest of the house, she slides the door open and bursts through onto the patio.
I’m too busy watching her perfect ass to worry about the yard. The woman of my dreams.
She steps outside onto the back patio, which is covered in beautiful stone pavers. Around it are flowerbeds and large planter boxes, each area teeming with succulents, small shrubs and flowers. A tall glass fence surrounds the yard, the ocean glittering just beyond. As Sydney admires the expanse of blue before her, I move next to her and drape an arm around her waist. Touching the woman I love, another shock runs down my legs.
“Is there a way to get down there?” She points to a trail winding down to a private beach.
I motion to a glass door on the right, practically hidden.
She spins to face me, throwing her arms around my neck. “This is paradise. I don’t know how to thank you.”
I do. Love me only half as much as I love you. “Just say yes. You’ll live here with me?”
“Yes! Yes, yes, yes!” She pulls back, her eyes roaming over the yard again.
“Without even seeing the bedrooms?”
“I’d be happy sleeping out here.” She points to a lounge chair. “What about people from the beach coming up to the house?”
I shake my head. “It’s private. The only way to access it is from the backs of these units.”
“I think I just fell for you too.” She laughs and grabs my hand.
My heart leaps into my throat, almost choking me with the fullness of my excitement.
13
Sydney
Reluctantly I follow Jerome back inside, my eyes sliding down his back to rest on his ass. Shit, is this guy a gym rat too? Those globes don’t just make themselves. The way he’s started acting toward me might confuse me if I hadn’t experienced similar reactions from men in the past. Once they’re caught, they assuage their guilt by thinking they adore the whore. Classic displacement—or misplacement or whatever.
“Hey, where do you work anyway?” I slide the door shut behind us.
Jerome moves from the dining room into another living room to the right. Another living room? This one is even larger than the one we entered through, spanning the length of the dining room plus the kitchen and then some. The sliding glass doors lead to the yard here as well.
He whirls to face me and I take a step back but he’s smiling that puppy-dog smile of his. “La Mason Sur L’eau.”
From his tone, I’m obviously supposed to be impressed. Why is it that all fancy restaurants are French? “How the hell do the patrons even pronounce that?” I speak fluent Spanish and English, but French always confused me. All that phlegm.
He chuckles. “They don’t. They call it by its English name, The Restaurant on the Water. Or they just say La Mason. It’s the only French restaurant in town.”
“Were you born in France?”
Jerome stops and takes my hands in his, holding my gaze. His blue eyes shine in a way they didn’t last night or this morning, almost as if lit by an invisible fire. “Kiss me?” He puckers up and leans in but I place a hand on his chest and gently hold him in place. He doesn’t resist. I want to be angry that he’s not respecting my “no-kissing rule” but he was pretty out of it last night so I’m not surprised he doesn’t remember.
“Not right now, Romeo.” Ah, now the proverbial other shoe drops and he didn’t even wait twenty-four hours. Yikes. I just can’t figure out exactly what he wants from me, and at some point we’re going to have to have that conversation. I may even have to rethink my no-sugar-daddies rule if I can’t get my face fixed. I already broke one rule . . . or was it two? Shit—I’m losing track. Not a good sign.
“Romeo was Italian.” He crinkles his nose.
“Um, okay, not right now, Casanova?”
“No, no. This is worse!” He places his hand on his chest and turns to walk through the massive living room. I follow. It boasts two full-size couches, a coffee table and two bright blue chairs with odd angled, tilting backs. Eclectic, I suppose. On our way into the hallway we pass a floating circular staircase and I crane my neck upward, spying wooden floors and a small metal railing at the top.
“I was born in France, yes. My parents are still there, in Paris.” He says it the French way, Par-ee. “My father is a chef and taught me everything I know.”
“Wow, Mr. Fancy Pants,” I say and immediately regret it.
He ignores the slight and pushes open a door. I peek over his shoulder into the long, narrow half bath. It’s gorgeous, like everything else in this place. Quartz countertops and shining faucets in a classy raised bronze basin.
I push past him, squinting at the toilet, which has some kind of lighted panel. “What’s this?”
“It’s a bidet. That’s one thing Maggie always joked about. You wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water after you go the bathroom but you wipe your butt with paper?”
I smirk. “Can’t be too clean down there. But are you sure the bidet was for her and not because of your French upbringing?”
He shrugs. “It does make sense. Unfortunately, they don’t include them in the houses in France anymore either, but when I was a boy we had one.”
“Do all of the toilets have this feature?”
“Why don’t you take a look?” He gives me a playful wink.
He doesn’t sound heartbrok
en at all anymore. Definitely some sort of coping mechanism. We quickly peek into the room at the end of the hallway. It’s staged as a library but could be used as a workout room or an office and has a door leading back into the front room of the house.
Jerome mounts the stairs first and I follow. At the top, the landing opens onto a long hallway that leads to a balcony. There are two doors on each side of the hallway. I open the doors to each and peek in. On one side, the rooms are identically sized bedrooms facing the ocean, while the rooms facing the street side are equally sized bathrooms. With bidets.
I run into the bedroom at the end of the hall and glide to the sliding glass window. It opens onto a shared balcony and I pause to blink at the spectacular sunset descending behind the water.
Jerome follows behind me and I tear my gaze away from the beauty. “Why are both bedrooms and baths the same size?”
“The owners said it’s a new trend. They’re offering it as a husband-wife unit, meaning each person gets their own space and no one has to fight over it.”
Interesting. Someone’s finally catching on. “How much is the rent?” I’m afraid to ask.
“I can cover whatever you can’t.”
I put my hands up. “I already explained, handouts make me uncomfortable. Like I owe something I’m not prepared to pay on the back end. Something other than money.” Or sex. Geezus, Syd, you’re forgetting you’re a whore. What’s the fucking difference? You’re running out of options. This guy wouldn’t be offering if he didn’t want to and Maggie did say he’s loaded. The idea of living somewhere safe and luxurious speaks to every part of me I’ve kept hidden.
“I want you to live with me here, and I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to make that happen.”
Time to jump off my high horse. I move to the bed and pat the space next to me. He eagerly sits down. “Whatever it takes?”
“Oh yes.” He cups my face in his hands. I flinch and draw back, the bruises and gash throbbing despite the anti-inflammatories I took. He sits back, placing his hands on his lap. “Sydney, please just let me take care of you.”
14
Niall
I pace around the room upstairs. What the hell is taking Sydney so long to get here? My watch says it’s after eight and I asked for her at six fucking thirty. The bottle of champagne I ordered is swimming in a sea of melted ice. I am not used to waiting. As a matter of fact, I don’t wait. For anyone. People wait for me. After several minutes of grumbling to myself, I draw a bath.
My favorite room here at Ichor is room H. In my more maudlin moments, I call it the starlight room because it sports several skylights and a glass ceiling in the bathroom above the Jacuzzi tub. I fill it to the top with near-scalding water, just the way I like it. By the time I’ve stripped and dropped myself into the tub, I’ve been waiting for the woman for almost two hours, and why? Why don’t I pick some other piece of candy from the menu? I don’t even like fucking the same woman twice, and Ichor always has new beauties available for my delectation. The one time I came here and Miss Cheryl didn’t have any new girls, I left. She hasn’t made that mistake since.
The bathroom door creaks open without a knock. I startle, a little water splashing over the edge.
Sydney peers around the doorjamb, her face in shadow but her pale green eyes sparkling in the fake candlelight, a prism of color and radiance. “Knock, knock.” Her voice holds a layer of playfulness.
My anger bristles in the warm tub and I sit up, barely able to contain myself from pouncing on her, but I say nothing.
She pushes the door open and enters. I bite back a wail—her gorgeous face is a ruin. I will fix it first and then kill whoever did this to her. I leap out of the tub and reach for her face. She shies back.
“I was supposed to work tonight, and then this happened. No one wants a whore who looks like this.” She gestures to her face.
“Let me heal you.”
“Miss Cheryl insisted I drink from a vampire and heal before coming in, but I refused.” She raises her chin. A flash of pain stabs her eyes and her brows crease.
Does she think I don’t want her because she’s broken? If it were another woman, any other woman, I can’t say that wouldn’t be my first thought, but for some strange reason it’s the last thing I care about right now. I’d take this woman in any form, and seeing her hurt this way only makes me want her more. To heal her. To help her. To hold her and keep her safe. “Why?”
Her eyes shut and she sucks in a deep breath. “So many reasons, but . . .” She sits on the edge of the tub. “The most important reason is my mamá. I promised her I never would.”
I sit down next to her. “Okay, I will respect that, but I want to know who did this to you.” And where I can find him. I don’t want to reach for her face and spook her so I just touch her leg. “Does it hurt?”
She waves a hand in front of her face. “Of course it hurts but I’ve endured worse and I don’t know who did it. It was too dark and it all happened too fast.”
“Where?”
“Here, right outside of Ichor.”
What. The. Fuck? I bristle with anger, muscles tensing to the point of a spasm, but I’m not sure which piece of information I’m more upset about. I will talk with Miss Cheryl and insist to see the camera footage so I can find—and take care of—the guy who did this. She had better have a camera trained on the front of the building.
“Pimps and johns know to go for the body, not the face. Never the face. This is my moneymaker right here and now . . .” She looks away, blinking rapidly.
Not bothering with a towel, I pivot toward her and wrap my arms around her trembling frame. We’re so much alike, she and I, putting on a solid front to mask the pain inside. I stand up with her, walk out of the bathroom and over to the bed, then sit her down gently.
She looks up at me and forces a smile but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Another show. Reaching for my cock, she licks her lips. I shake my head and she lets go, falling back on the bed. She grabs a pillow and covers her face, then pulls up her mid-thigh-length skirt. She’s wearing crotchless fishnet stockings and no panties. I groan at the sight of her pussy shaved into a perfect landing strip, beckoning me to touch down.
Sydney raises her ass and spreads her legs open with her hands, dipping a perfectly manicured nail into her warm cleft. Putting on a show, she groans and gyrates her hips. I place a hand on each of her thighs to still her, then lie down on the bed next to her and prop myself up on an elbow. Gently, so as not to startle, I remove the pillow from her face.
“Let’s talk first,” I say.
Remaining on her back, she lets out a sigh. “I knew it. I’m too hideous to fuck. Just say it.”
I touch her upper arm, stroking up and down with one finger. “That’s not it, beautiful.” It’s about as far from the truth as she could imagine.
She closes her eyes, a small tear running out the corner. I reach up and wipe it away. She turns away from me, her lips tightening. “Fuck off.” Sydney sits up and adjusts her skirt to cover her exposed crotch. “If you’re not going to fuck me, I’m leaving.”
I sit up too but refrain from touching her, which I’m finding increasingly difficult to do. “I paid for your time. You’ll stay.”
Shifting to look at me, she crosses her arms below her ample chest. “Fine.”
“Move here, please.” I motion to the headboard and wait until she’s sitting back against it. I sit cross-legged, facing her, and reach for one of her hands. She pulls it back out of reach. “I’m the client and though you should do as I ask, when it comes to physical contact, I won’t push you.”
Looking up at me, she touches the base of her neck, her fingers pressing in and out of the notch there. “Seriously?”
I push my ginger hair out of my eyes and nod at her. “Seriously. But that doesn’t mean I won’t ask for what I want. You can either comply or refuse, it’s up to you. Understood?”
That green gaze searches mine, the purplish bruises surrounding
her left eye almost pulsing in the low light. After a few beats she nods, once.
“May I hold your hand?” I don’t reach for it. I keep mine in my lap, my very naked lap.
After another second she holds hers out to me and I reach for it, grasping her long cold fingers in my warm ones. I make no other moves. I don’t run a thumb along the ridges of her knuckles or bring them to my mouth for a kiss, even though that’s all I want to do. My concern for this woman both confuses and thrills me. I haven’t felt anything like it before. Women and men have been mere conveniences. It’s not that I disrespect them. I only use those who want to be used and leave the rest alone. It’s an agreement I made with myself long ago and one I intend to keep. Still, there’s no harm in exploring this a little bit. It’s not like I wear my heart on my belt buckle. I don’t even have a heart. Do I?
15
Sydney
I don’t know how to react to Niall. No doubt this act is all because he’s assuaging his guilt for not wanting to fuck me now that my face is messed up. Whatever, his time, my money.
His hand is warm and stirs a memory I’ve worked to hide. My first “love,” if Connor can even be called that.
Niall doesn’t squeeze my hand in his, he doesn’t caress it. He just holds it, which is kind of weird but what’s weirder is that I like it.
He doesn’t move. His eyes don’t roam over my body or linger on my glaring facial bruises. They remain glued to my eyes. Other than the occasional blink, it’s like the man is a statue.
“Okay, I give. Whatcha thinking?” Why the hell do I care anyway? It’s easier money if I just sit this way with him for an hour without speaking.
He shifts his body to the left and looks me straight in the eyes. “I have an offer.”
Of course he does. Let me guess, turn around with my ass in the air so he can do the deed without me pulling a pillow case over my head? Now, why didn’t I think of that? I pull my hand from his and turn around, throwing my body over one of the larger pillows and hiking my skirt back up over my ass.
