She smiles. “Oh, sure. A guy I know, who fucks women for money, offers a hypothetical that’s probably filled with illegal shit he’s done.”
Does that ding my pride? Fuck, yeah. “Being an escort isn’t illegal.”
She rolls her eyes, because escort is a nice way of saying I fuck for money but on the sly.
“Hypothetically,” I say with a smile, “a man used to work for a company that hired out erotic dancers.”
She lifts her hands then says, “Dancers,” with air quotes.
I could be stupid with how much I like her. “This was at the height of a certain movie that I won’t name.”
“Magic Mike,” she mumbles.
“And certain women wanted the full fantasy. Some of us were willing to give it. Some were willing to give it for a price. One guy in particular.”
Her brows slash down. “Then what happened?”
“We, as a group, went our separate ways.” I laugh thinking about Nathan Ellis. I haven’t checked in with him in a while but I have no doubt he has a story to tell in his own Southern way. “We were an interesting group, but one of those men kept getting paid for off the book…dancing.” I wait to see what she says to that. Nothing. “No judgment?”
“Confusion. You’re not exactly a troll under a bridge.”
My ego was getting a pretty big head. “Imagine a college kid who knows what it means to be hungry. He gets an offer to fuck a woman who he would have pinned against the nearest flat surface for a kiss on the lips. That woman wants to fuck him for four figures. He could take some of that money and head to therapy for putting a price on his dick if he has sleepless nights afterward.”
I hadn’t known how much I’d end up paying in return. I’m not talking the threat of jail which is bad enough, but the loss of true intimacy. I didn’t think I’d ever miss that. I was still getting my dick wet, right? I was still being fueled by the way a woman moans, the curve of her hips, her mouth being stretched by my cock. I hadn’t thought about the shit women don’t pay for and I still needed. It’s why a woman just doing her job and finding me attractive made me soft like a damn marshmallow.
“Long story short,” I say, “he got found out. Not for pandering but tax evasion.”
“You get hit with a RICO case…” She worries her lip for a second “…unless you what? I can’t imagine what happens after that.”
She still believed the government, for the most part, wouldn’t, couldn’t do unsavory things for the right reasons. The things I could tell her. “My dad served. He was exposed to some nasty chemicals. The kind of shit that can do horrible things to your intestines over time. He needed to get at least half cut out just to stay alive.” I shrug off the bitterness. “Just take a stroll in a VA and let some of those men talk about what they’ve done for their government. What’s been done to them for their government. Now ask the average Joe how they get their freedom, and they won’t know. They can’t fantom it.”
That last is why I’ve been in it for me for a long time, but I see her take those words in, her eyes darkening. I swallow the rest down. “Anyway,” I say, “this man might have agreed to inform on a client to keep his ass out of jail.”
“And in this mythical circumstance, taking this woman and her father down by other means screws him over?”
“That’s the gist. If anyone thinks this person is leaking information to outside sources, he is fucked.”
“But in this hypothetical isn’t everyone kind of corrupt?”
That’s a question that had kept me up nights. “He’s by no means a good guy. He’s more like a cliché. He stripped to pay for college. Women aren’t the only ones who do. He had hopes and dreams, and it’s safe to say he got sidetracked along the way.”
I had a father who saw shadows where there were none that left him unable to work more often than not. I had a mother who did her best, but that never translated to always getting dinner on the table. People always say education is your way of getting out. I was determined to make that true.
Hayley’s eyes are wide and they feel forgiving. “What were his hopes and dreams?”
“Not this kind of life, Hayley. I can say that much.”
I glance at the house behind me. It’s not something one would expect from a gigolo. It’s picturesque to the white paint and black shutters. From the actual white picket fence surrounding the land. It’s three bedrooms and two full baths. After walking around it once I paid for half upfront in cash. It’s how I got caught, funnily enough.
Before then whatever I made, I kept some and sent the rest to my parents. I lived well beneath my actual means. Ill-gotten gains as my handler liked to throw at me whenever I stepped out of line.
“But don’t feel sorry for me,” I add because I could see her gaze softening. “My father signed up to give his life for this country, and now at least he never has to worry about where his next meal will come from. My mother doesn’t have to work as hard anymore. Nothing could make me feel guilt for that.”
“You mean the man in this hypothetical?”
So. Stupid. With how much I like her. “Yeah, Hayley. That man. He finds that explicit consent makes his dick hard. Finds using woman distasteful, and it’s much more fun to have an open, honest discussion about all the things he can do to get a woman off.”
She scoffs. “You’re no saint.”
“Never said I was.”
She lifts the glass to her lips and drains it. Hayley looks at me and shakes her head. “You scared me.”
“For that, I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” her voice is hard. She puts up her hand as though my answer doesn’t matter. “I can understand the position you’re in. I do. Yet if the shoe were on the other foot, I wouldn’t have let you think you were about to die. So… I hope to never see you again.”
Does she have every right to be pissed? Yes. Still I grab her wrist before she can waltz by me. “Hayley,” I say, my voice low.
Her chuckle sounds raw, and sharp. “You scare me half to death and now you think it’s okay to touch me? To use that voice of yours like you’re promising sex?”
I tug until her hip rests against my chest. “I’m sorry. I mean those words.” I let that settle on the air before adding, “For the record, I’m not trying to make my voice promise anything.”
She lifts one brow, leans forward until her face is inches away. She smells like lemons and fresh laundry. I would have not considered that sexy until now. And it is as Hayley is a lip lick away from my mouth. I hold still. She hasn’t given me the go ahead.
Her gaze narrows. “As for the question you asked me in the hotel?”
Every part of me wants to close those inches, take her mouth, turn this moment into something heated until our bodies are slick. Hayley’s making a point, and given how I treated her I’m going to let her. “What question?”
“Did I like what I saw?”
That had been a rhetorical question. Her gaze, her flushed cheeks told me she had. I ask, “Is it too much to hope we’re about to do something sweaty and primal?”
She closes that inch and bites my lower lip. The banked need I’ve been holding back explodes inside my chest, and there’s shrapnel in it. Those sharp edges cut into me. I ball my hands to keep from cupping the back of her head and turning that nip into a kiss. She tastes of scotch and pissed-off woman. I fight to keep from delving my tongue into her mouth to get the full taste of her.
Hayley swipes her tongue over the indents I’m sure she’s left behind, and my heartbeat thuds in my cock. Images of us naked, greedy for each other fill my mind.
Her mouth lifts into a smile as though she can see exactly what I’m thinking. “Never,” she murmurs then pulls away. “You’ll never fuck me now.”
She straightens and I follow the movement like I’m a puppet on a string until I’m standing. Her glare is the only thing that keeps me from fisting her shirt and bringing her mouth back to mine.
“Don’t walk away.” My tone is har
d, and I’m panting. I’m not sure if it’s from anger or need. Both emotions have stiffened my limbs.
“Or what?” The question is a challenge. “I’ll regret it?”
“I’m not threatening you.”
“Now.”
My lips continue to buzz from the brief contact of her mouth on mine. I’d like to believe it’s because she’s the first woman to touch me intimately when no money has exchanged hands. But Hayley has been an anomaly in my life since she walked into it.
“Let me drive you home, at least.”
“I’ll walk. You’ve done enough for the day.”
She’s right. There are no excuses or explanations good enough to overshadow how I made her feel. So I watch her disappear through my glass sliding doors. An ache burrows into my gut. I tell myself it’s because she’s the only person who knows the truth about me. I haven’t told a soul about the deal I have with the government. That’s kind of the terms. I tell myself it’s because I haven’t had sex that wasn’t paid for in…shit long enough I might consider myself celibate.
The only truth is I watch Hayley leave, and I don’t want her to go.
But I’m in no place to talk her into coming back, or staying or talking to me ever again. I pull out my phone. It’s time I call old friends and ask them about their cutthroat attorney connections, because if I’ve learned nothing else in the last six months, it’s that you’ve got to make your own luck.
CHAPTER 5
HAYLEY
M y life goes back to normal, or my new normal. I continue to play grunt at the hotel. I do it because I heard all those stories about Steve Jobs only attending calligraphy courses. Or rather when the world was my oyster those stories guided me. I was the exception. I didn’t need college to climb my way out of my circumstance. What I didn’t consider is how poverty is quicksand, and now I do all the things at the hotel to save up money so I can survive in between classes and my future career.
This all seems like a tangent, but as usual I’m working my fingers to the bone, and not once do I see Davis.
I tell myself not to worry. He’s a grown man. He got himself into the kind of trouble the government can then dictate his life in exchange for his freedom. How could I have known my snooping would screw that up for him?
That logic is right, solid and I’m sure someone can put a plaque on that bedrock. Guilt and worry still gnaw at me when a week goes by and there’s no sign of him. Telling myself to be concerned with my own neck ups by a thousand. I’m leaking information to a hacker, and though I’m invisible to the people around me, eventually when leaks happen everyone looks to the paid staff. I stand to lose everything that matters. A co-worker can get caught up in my mess and that’s the last thing I want.
All I hope for is that if I go down more than a few corrupt people go down with me.
On day nine, as I’m making a bed doing my rounds just as a maid—not maid slash Deep Throat—I’m thinking about Davis going down with me. He’s not faceless. Oh, he’s so corrupt. So am I if one wants to be honest. Principles aren’t white and black. I used to believe good people never broke the law or strayed from their moral compass.
If an unbiased party wants to weigh actions…I’m taking whispered confessions, forgotten cell phones under beds or notes tossed in the trash and giving that information to someone who has no problems leaking it to the public. I’m invading people’s privacy for political gain.
What was Davis doing? He fucked people. He fucked people with their full consent, and he got paid for it. Maybe my life is upside down now, but that doesn’t seem like a damning offense.
Or maybe it’s all excuses. I tell my gut that as I go room to room, cleaning up things, collecting some and being invisible.
It’s not until the end of my shift on day nine where I’m picking up food trays that the world shifts under me. But I should have known. The penthouse had a Do Not Disturb sign up for three days. Management had already set up deliveries of food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was weird, but by now I was use to that at the hotel where whims are wishes that get granted.
Today, though, the occupant stands at the door waiting for me.
Why, of course, it’s Davis.
I’m flooded with relief at the sight of him. I shouldn’t be. Nor should I be making eye contact with his nipples but I’m starting to understand why a man would be obsessed with breasts. He laughs softly, and I force myself to look up and say something.
“Do you have a thing for our towels, or did you know I was coming?”
“Both?” His stare doesn’t waver from mine as he backs into his room. “Come in.” He said he didn’t make promises with his voice, but his tone is coaxing.
“I’m working and I don’t want to.” I lean forward to check the bed. It’s mussed, and even though I haven’t seen him or his client, that doesn’t mean anything.
“I’m alone and I’ve been alone since I checked in.” His smile widens. “Yes, I can read your mind.”
I really hope not, especially when he’s only in a towel. “Anyway, work. For me. My kind of work. Cleaning things.” See. I can’t shut up when he’s exuding pheromones and speaking in a voice that begs me to get naked.
The way his gaze kind of smolders tells me he knows, and enjoys me being flustered. Bastard. “I really do want to talk to you. We can stay out in the hallway if you want.”
“Or how about I pick up your tray and we pretend like we don’t know each other?”
“I’ve retained a lawyer.”
I don’t want to admit how much that matters. I shrug instead. “What you do—”
“You’re off the hook.”
“Who said anything about—”
“My smirk might look vulnerable to you, but your eyes are very expressive. You looked relieved when you saw me. For the record, I wasn’t being waterboarded for the last week. I was being dragged over hot coals by my attorney, and then I was told to hide out in a safe place.”
I stop trying to act like I don’t care. “Is he any good?”
He gives me the smirk and I want to bite his lip again. “If he’s a hard-ass with me, and I’m paying him, the FBI won’t stand a chance.”
“You were an FBI informant?” No wonder he’d been pissed at my meddling. “They didn’t freeze all your money?”
“You really want me to talk about this in the hallway?”
I glance around us then sigh. This is the penthouse. No one else is up here, but you never know who might be listening. I drag in the cart, and step inside the penthouse as a guest of a guest. I’m in my maid’s uniform, which is barely functional as clothing to clean in, much less to stand in a room with a man wearing muscles and a killer smile.
I stuff my hands in my pockets and move over to the bay window that faces downtown Hartsburg. The hotel is only twenty floors up, but I can see everything from the local college to where I grew up on the other side of the tracks. The sun setting makes all the glass downtown sparkle. My city is beautiful.
I’m not here to enjoy him or the view. I ask, “What’s your attorney’s name?”
“Do you need him?” I can hear the smile in his voice.
I likely couldn’t afford him. “Curiosity.”
“A friend of a friend, Duke Alexander. He’s kind of a big deal.”
I’ve seen his name in the newspapers a time or two. He’s always representing criminals and getting them off on technicalities. I make a face. “I guess he’s a good attorney.”
He laughs. I turn to see it play across his face. He’s handsome in a disgusting way as in no man should look that good. It’s just not right or fair. Still I bask in the way his laugh lines make indents around his mouth.
My eyes track to the door. Before I walked in I had ten minutes left on my shift. This was the last floor to pick up food trays. I probably smell like that’s what I’ve been doing all day.
And I shouldn’t be here alone with him. He’s not everything I’m fighting against, but he’s part of it
in a smaller way.
Isn’t he?
His hands close on my shoulders, and his thumbs easily find the knot just below my neck. I close my eyes. The scent of sandalwood surrounds me. “Davis…”
“You’re tense.”
“Yeah, and?”
“I’m not trying to get into your pants. I just…”
It’s not until hear I sincerity in the pause that I relax under his fingers. “This is my life, Davis. I don’t need a massage. I need to get downstairs to clock out before my manager crawls up my ass.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes. He writes up anyone who he thinks is trying to get overtime.”
The warmth of his hands slips away. I turn only to see him strolling over to his phone. He picks it up. “Xavier,” is all he says.
Xavier? I gasp. “You are not calling my boss,” I whisper loud enough only he should hear me.
He ignores me. “Xavier, I need the room cleaned up. One of your staff is here and she’s doing it. Clock her out at the end of her shift.” He’s quiet for a second. “I don’t know what that word is.” He laughs. “Appreciated. That one I know.”
He drops the phone back into its cradle then looks at me, pride—maybe ego—in his eyes.
“Are you fucking serious right now?” I say. “You don’t think he won’t ask me questions later?”
“And you’ll tell him that asshole in the penthouse made you change the sheets and leave new toiletries before I let you leave.”
That lie is plausible. I hate he’d thought of it with such ease. “So you’re not being waterboarded, you have an attorney and you’re hiding out in the penthouse. Is that all you felt you had to tell me?”
“No, actually.” He walks to the edge of the bed and sits down. The towel parts along his thigh.
I swallow. “Then what?”
He leans back on the bed, propped up on his palms, puffing up his chest ’cause he knows I can’t help but look. He’s not half-man, half-bear hairy, which I’m not entirely against. The light blond strands slick down his chest and grow darker below his belly button where the towel barely hides the shaved skin.
Rogue Desire: A Romance Anthology (The Rogue Series) Page 9
