by Molly Joseph
Ransom had searched Mo Reynolds online and watched a few videos of concert footage from crowded Memphis clubs. In one of them, he’d seen little Lola Mae sitting off to one side, knobby knees resting against the side of a speaker. She’d been about seven years old in the video, nodding her head to the thumping cadences of southern blues. He hadn’t been sure it was her until the little blonde smiled. That impish grin had barely changed in the ensuing years.
No, her music was nothing like her dad’s, even if she’d watched him play back then with worshipful eyes. A couple minutes in, Ransom had closed out the video, feeling like a stalker. He’d only searched “Mo Reynolds blues” because of his fascination with Lola, and that was inappropriate because she was a client, and almost two decades younger than him.
He took off his tie and sat back on the bed to rest his mind before they headed out to dinner. Grandpa needs a nap. Between the two of them, he was more fit, but she had boundless energy and amazing creativity. She never did her hair the same twice. She wore outfits that both puzzled and attracted him. Then there were the wistful tunes she played on her guitar.
“Are you going to sleep?” she asked, switching to a lullaby.
“No.”
“Your eyes are closed.”
He sighed. “I’m not going to sleep.” He never slept unless she slept, and she only slept at night. He didn’t trust her to be awake and on her own, even trapped in the room with the door alarm.
He cracked an eye open as she began to sing in a soft, sweet voice. “Lullaby, and good night, go to sleep Mr. Ransom. Lullaby, and good night, time for bodyguards to sleep.”
“I’m not sleeping,” he muttered.
She ignored him, continuing her made-up song. “I won’t take off your clothes. Or at least I’ll try not to. I’ll protect you from harm…” She thought a moment. “As I stare at your arms. Hmm, that’s kind of tame. Oh, I know!” She started the phrase over. “I’ll protect you from shock, as I stare at your co—”
“Lola.” His sharp voice brought a high-pitched spate of giggles. He wanted to be irritated by those giggles, but the sound of her laughter aroused him just like everything else. No, man. No. Get over it.
He knew he wouldn’t feel so drawn to her if she wasn’t always flirting with him. She had no clue about couth and professional relationships, or maybe she just didn’t care. He wished he didn’t have to care. He wished he could act out the fantasies churning in his brain, but he knew he’d end up hurting her. For all her sexual bravado, she was an emotionally fragile, frequently tearful twenty year old who probably had no idea what a real man could do in bed.
Not that it was his job to teach her.
Sometimes being the older, more responsible one sucked.
He braced as she started a new verse. “Lullaby, my sweet knight, with your five o’clock shadow. Such a handsome face to lick, how I’d love to suck your—”
“Seriously, stop it. That’s crass. Why are you singing lullabies anyway? It’s light outside. We’re going to dinner soon.”
She grinned. The more he tried to be the distant, professional bodyguard, the more she poked at his growing frustration. “I like lullabies, Ransom. And you like to listen to me sing. You said my voice was pretty.”
“It is pretty, when you’re not singing profane lyrics.” He turned to her with his head on his hand. “You shouldn’t come onto me. Don’t you understand how inappropriate it is?”
“Inappropriate?” She rolled her eyes. “You sound like a freaking dad.” One second. Two blessed seconds of silence, then: “Can I call you daddy when we finally hit it? Ooh, daddy, harder, faster!”
“Lola, enough.” His seriousness finally seemed to get through to her, or maybe it was his tone. He’d beg her to leave him alone if he had to. His self-control could only hold so far. “What you’re doing here constitutes sexual harassment. I’m your bodyguard, not your boy toy.”
Emotions cycled across her face. Shame, embarrassment, humor, and that frightening feminine voodoo that undid him every time. She knew she had power over him. She knew she was making him suffer, and protest, and want.
“You want me,” she taunted in a soft voice. “Why can’t you just admit it?”
He turned his head away like a coward, then turned back to face her, because he needed to deal with this head on. “I’m your bodyguard. I’m here to do a job.”
“So am I. I’m on tour. I do interviews and dream up new mixes, and sweat through sets in front of thousands of people. That doesn’t mean I can’t have fun. I can play the guitar. I can go out to clubs. I can fuck my bodyguard.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Why not?”
Yes, why not, Ransom? She didn’t understand about professional distance, personal space, and self-protection. She was a reckless, pink-haired kid, and he wanted to fuck her every hour of every day, and he was coming to hate himself for it.
“I’m waiting for your answer,” she poked.
“You’re not getting an answer, because we’re not going to have this conversation. Nothing is happening between us, ever.”
“I’ll pay you.”
He held up a hand. “Don’t even go there.”
She pushed her guitar aside and flung herself onto her stomach. “I’m good in bed. You’d like it. I’d suck your cock for days, whenever you wanted. I’d let you do anal. I fucking love anal.”
“You know what I love?” Ransom asked, wishing he could unhear everything he’d just heard. “Clients who don’t sing lullabies about my genitalia.”
“Oh, come on!”
“I’m sorry, but you and I are not happening. I’m not like you. I prefer not to have casual sex.”
“What does that mean?” She laid on her side, gazing over at him, the very picture of outraged disappointment and lust. She loved anal. He wished he didn’t know that.
“It means that I prefer to sleep with women I love, who are in a relationship with me,” he said. “I need to feel emotionally connected to my partner.”
She threw back her head and laughed. “That’s bullshit. You wouldn’t look the way you look if you didn’t want to hit it all the time. I see women drooling all over you everywhere we go.”
“How many have I slept with? You may not share my views, but that’s how I feel. I don’t like empty sex. I need it to mean something.”
She gave him that flirty smile, that smile that knew, that saw through all his lies and protests. “We’ve been together for weeks now, Ransom.” She jumped up off her bed and climbed onto his, flinging herself against his chest. “I almost died in your arms, remember? I don’t mean something to you?”
He moved away from her, even as his body responded to her closeness. He was going to say something that would hurt her. It was necessary, even if it was a lie. “A paycheck, kid. You mean a paycheck to me, every two weeks.”
Her lips went tight. No answer for once, no grinning comeback. She turned away from him and got off the bed, and went into the bathroom. Crying? Maybe. Probably. Yes.
He wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t do empty sex. He wouldn’t only hurt her if they started some shallow, hookup relationship. She would hurt him too, and he’d endured enough sexual desolation in his life.
He closed his eyes again. Maybe he should have taken Liam up on his offer to leave this assignment. Maybe he should have removed himself from this fucked up situation, for both their sakes. But what might happen to her? He didn’t want to lose ground when they’d made so much progress. She was way more than a paycheck to him, and he was a liar, and all of this made his head hurt, and was she crying?
She came out of the bathroom and flopped back on the bed. If she’d been crying, she’d composed herself. Now she just looked mad.
“I’m sorry for what I said,” he began.
She held up a hand. “No. Forget it. You’re a sexless virgin prude or something, so whatever. Your problem, not mine. But I have needs, and you aren’t helping me meet them. I haven’t had s
ex in ages and you won’t let me pick up anyone in the clubs.”
“Because they could be creeps. They might be carrying drugs. They might hurt you, and I’m your bodyguard. I’m supposed to keep you from getting hurt.”
“All you’re keeping me from is getting laid, and it’s totally unfair, so here’s the deal: when we get to Paris, I’m hiring a gigolo.”
“Lola—”
“I’ve done it before. I promise I’ll go through a legit agency. Hell, you can pick out the fucking guy if you want, but I’m having sex, do you understand? I’m getting laid in Paris.”
Her voice had risen to a yell, while he thought, I’ll pick you a gigolo over my dead body.
“Can’t you call someone?” he asked. “Isn’t there someone back in L.A. you know and trust, who can fly to Paris to entertain you for a night or two?”
“Hell, no, I’m not flying anyone out here for a night or two. All the dudes in L.A. are fame whores, and they all suck in bed. Gigolos are better. They’re skilled labor, and when you’re done with them, they go away.”
Ransom didn’t know how to handle this. Maybe a gigolo was a reasonable request. Why did it bother him so badly that she wanted sex? Most twenty year olds had rampant libidos, and he was all for women getting it as good as men. Why couldn’t he just let her pick up some manwhore and fuck him, and get it out of her system?
Because he couldn’t bear to know she was doing it with anyone other than him.
But he wasn’t willing to put out for her, and he couldn’t force her to live like a nun for another six weeks, not without suffering these constant meltdowns, and being barraged with lullabies about his cock.
“You can’t just wait until you get home to L.A.?” he asked in exasperation. “You have your whole life to have sex.”
“I might die tomorrow,” she shot back. “I can’t wait.”
*
Ransom paced the hotel hallway, berating himself for letting this happen. The goddamn gigolo was five minutes late, which seemed like the perfect excuse to cancel everything.
He’d interviewed the agency manager himself after Lola made the appointment, to reassure himself this was legitimate, that this manwhore would be safe and trustworthy. Monsieur Vivant had promised complete discretion and satisfaction from the most exclusive escort agency in Paris.
Fuck. Ransom wasn’t okay with this “satisfaction.”
Lola, on the other hand, was fresh off a successful Paris appearance, showered and primped, dressed in a miniskirt and a mesh top that pretty much revealed everything. He wanted to take off his suit jacket and wrap it around her every time she stuck her head out the door to ask “Is he here yet?”
“He’s going to be ugly,” Ransom said. “And he’s late.”
“The traffic’s horrible in the city. He’ll be here.”
Ransom stared toward the elevators because he couldn’t bear to look at her. He’d told her she was the most reckless, stupid, self-indulgent client he’d ever had to wrangle, but that hadn’t made her reconsider her plans.
She went back into the room and slammed the door. He rubbed his eyes. He’d have to get a different hotel room tonight. He wouldn’t be able to bear the smell of Lola’s scent mingled with someone else’s, couldn’t sleep with even a hint of sex in the air.
He opened his eyes, and then blinked in disbelief at the man sauntering down the hall. Black vest, black vinyl pants, every cheesy tattoo imaginable, and more piercings than he’d ever seen in someone’s face. His hair was a black, glossy mop that ended just below his ears. He carried a duffel bag with a screen print of a snake on it. Hell no. This was what passed for “exclusive” in Paris?
The man stopped when he got to the room. Ransom would have laughed in his face, but none of this was funny.
He studied Ransom for a moment, then shrugged. “Ménage à trois? Okay.”
“No. Non.” Ransom stared at him, flabbergasted. “You’re from Vivant? You’re the…” He couldn’t say it.
“Why else would I be here?” the man answered in a thick French accent. He dropped his bag and ran his palms down his skintight vinyl pants.
Ransom suppressed a shudder. “I’m the bodyguard. I’ll need to look through your bag before I let you in.”
The lip piercings gave way to a lurid grin, as he raked his eyes down Ransom’s body. “Go ahead. Maybe you like what you find.”
Ransom rolled his eyes and leaned over the duffel, unzipping it. The first thing he saw was a cheaply made flogger. Handcuffs, blindfold, rope, ball gag, all of questionable quality. He looked up at the escort in consternation.
The man shrugged. “The ladies, they love the Fifty Shades of Gris, non? I come prepared.”
His grin turned Ransom’s stomach, and it wasn’t just the alarming number of piercings that stretched apart whenever he smiled. He was just…ugh. Not attractive. Possibly high. Lola opened the door and stuck her head out, then did a double take at the gigolo’s numerous piercings. Ransom glared at her.
“This is the guy you picked out?”
She looked down into the bag as Ransom drew her attention to the tacky fetish gear. “I said I wanted someone hardcore.”
That note of uncertainty in her voice ended everything, at least for tonight. “We’ll try again,” he said under his breath. He took her wrist, squeezed a little too hard. “Another night, okay? Someone else.”
She pulled away. “No. Tonight. I need cock, dude. Go down to the bar for an hour. Go away.”
“I’m not going away.” There was zero chance he was going anywhere and leaving her alone with this creep. “Is this seriously what you wanted?” he hissed in her ear. “Does this guy do it for you?”
Lola gave the gigolo a dubious look, but Ransom knew she’d sleep with him just to prove a point, just to irritate him and have her way.
He wasn’t going to allow it. No. She wasn’t getting it hardcore from some stranger who looked like Prince Valiant crossed with Marilyn Manson. He was the bodyguard, so he made the judgment, one he knew she wouldn’t like. He shoved the guy’s accoutrements back into his bag and started going through the smaller pockets. It took him about thirty seconds to find what he needed to end the date: three fat joints and some ecstasy. He scowled at her. “You asked him to bring drugs?”
“No. I didn’t!” He could tell from her expression she was telling the truth. “I don’t have any control over what he brings in his fucking bag.”
The gigolo grabbed his drugs, in fact, snatched his entire rig from Ransom’s grasp. “Never mind. I go.”
“I don’t want you to go,” said Lola. She pushed Ransom in the chest. “Get lost, okay? This is none of your fucking business. You said I could have sex in Paris.”
“Are you really going to yell that down the hall?” he snapped back at her.
“This is not my scene,” said the gigolo, holding up his hands. He glared at Lola. “Why you call Vivant anyway, when you have a perfectly good porn star right here?”
“What?” Lola blinked at him. “Porn star? I thought you were an escort.”
“No, not me. Him. Rico Rockhard.” He pointed toward Ransom.
Ransom stared back at him. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Lola’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “He’s not a porn star. He’s my bodyguard.” Her laughter died when she noticed Ransom’s face. He tried to fix his oh-fuck expression, but it was too late.
The man shook his head at Lola, and pointed again at Ransom. “You don’t know he’s Rico Rockhard? He made sooo many films.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Ransom snapped.
The man ignored him, trying to make his point to Lola. “He has a, how do you say, éclair tattoo on his prick.” The man pronounced it preek and gestured to his crotch. “He’s famous. They call him Le Grand Eclair.”
“What?” Lola turned to Ransom, aghast. “You have a doughnut tattooed on your cock?”
“Lightning,” he corrected, equally aghast. “A lightning bolt. Eclair is the French word for—
”
For lightning. And also for being fucked, because he might have pretended mistaken identity before. There was no way to do it now. But for fuck’s sake, he didn’t have a doughnut tattooed on his cock, and no one had ever called him Le Grand Eclair outside of France.
“So it’s true?” Lola gawked at him. She hadn’t even noticed the gigolo escaping down the hall. “Is this fucking accurate? You’re a porn star?”
“Can we go in the room, please?”
“No!” She shoved him back against the wall. “Answer my question. Are you, or are you not, a porn actor named Rico Rockhard with a lightning bolt tattooed on your penis?”
“I was a porn actor, okay?” Ransom held up his hands to stop himself from pressing them over her mouth. “Was. Past tense. Look, it’s a long story. It’s also ancient history, so I’d appreciate if you’d never mention it again.”
He reached around her to key open the door and push her inside. She sputtered and turned on him, her eyes alight with fury. Why should she be angry? He was the one who’d just been outed by a buffoon of a French gigolo. He should have just let the two of them fuck. He should have shut his mouth and waited down in the lobby.
“I. Cannot. Believe. This.” She said each word like a condemnation, a curse. “I can’t fucking believe this. I can’t.”
“It’s not that big a deal. It was years ago.” He hated being on the defensive. He’d paid the price for his stupid choices, oh, so many times, but he’d moved on. “It’s part of my past. My employer knows about it, and he doesn’t care. It has nothing to do with my ability to look after you.”
Lola threw her arms out to her sides. “Oh, it has everything to do with your ability to look after me.” She sucked in a breath, then blew it out. “You judged me, you fucker. You lectured me. You wouldn’t let me have sex because you said the men I chose were creepy, or dangerous, and you… And you…”
“That guy was scary,” he said, pointing down the hall. “He probably has a thousand diseases.”
