The Companion Contract

by Solace Ames

  “If I know the rules ahead of the game, then yes. I do.” I should have said that in a low, seductive voice. It came out high and nervous instead, and I couldn’t look in his eyes.

  He let out a laugh like a great big lazy cat, cautionary but not entirely cruel. “Do you play guitar?”

  “Oh, that was what you meant. I’m—” I shut my mouth around the apology. I didn’t have anything to apologize for. “No. I don’t really have any musical talent. I like music a lot, but I don’t play it. I just listen and sometimes I dance. But mostly I listen.”

  “Miles isn’t a very good guitar player. He keeps trying to learn, but his fingers are soft.” He shook his head and smiled wryly. “You have to play through the pain, in the beginning.”

  I looked up to meet his eyes. The way he looked at me, the way he measured me, was thrilling and terrifying all tangled together. I couldn’t measure him back. I just couldn’t. It was fucking impossible. “I’ll do my best,” I choked out. “I’m not scared.”

  “Good. I don’t want you to be scared.”

  And if you did?

  Downstairs, the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll put on a jacket,” I said. “A jacket from my suitcase. So I look more professional.”

  He nodded, laid my suitcase down and left quietly.

  I knelt on the wooden floor, and my hands shook as I picked through the suitcase. When I found the jacket and shrugged it on, I stayed there on my knees for a while, catching my breath, feeling more strange and naked than ever in my life.

  * * *

  “May God have mercy on your soul,” Miles Morrison told me in the acid voice of a preacher who’d long ago given up on salvation. He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. His eyelids seemed paper-thin and bruised, but otherwise he still had it, all right. Even if he was bald, toothless and three-quarters dead he’d probably still have it, whatever it was, the indefinable charisma that crackled in the air around him.

  I’d introduced myself as a sober companion. His companion. He didn’t exactly welcome the news.

  “Let’s try and be a little more optimistic, okay, sweetie?” said his mother, a slender faded woman with bright copper hair. I saw a hint of Miles in her regal cheekbones. She smiled serenely and patted me on the shoulder. “I’m sure Miss Mendoza’s seen a lot of people at their worst, and helped them get better.”

  “Oh yeah,” I lied. Well, at least the first part was true. “I’m not responsible for your son’s sobriety—that’s all him—but I’m responsible for continuous psychological support and teaching him practical tactics to avoid relapse triggers, and I’m totally confident I can fulfill those responsibilities.” I’d memorized that line from something I’d looked up on Wikipedia. I didn’t screw up the delivery, not even with Miles Morrison slouching three feet away, scrambling my senses with rock god radar waves.

  Her smile twitched, becoming less serene. “May I ask how old you are?”

  “Thirty,” I lied.

  “You look so much younger! You have great skin. But then, you people—”

  “Mom,” Miles Morrison groaned, still with his eyes closed.

  “I meant that as a compliment,” she said. “I’m so sorry if I—anyway, thank you. Thank you for taking care of my baby.” Before I could step back, she lunged forward and hugged me, clutching at my ribcage with all the emotional force of a quietly terrified mother. “Thank you for keeping him safe.” She tackle-hugged Miles next, then walked quickly out the door, maybe so no one would see her crying. I knew the feeling.

  She left us alone at the foot of the stairs.

  “Can you spare me the fucking recovery literature tonight? I feel like shit,” Miles Morrison said.

  I startled, my skin prickling, because I could hear the song in his voice now. Not what he said, but the way he said it, rich and layered as if there was a second meaning in the silences between the words. His voice was big.

  “Miles,” I said as an experiment, trying to cut him down to only one name so I could think of him as a person instead of a biographical entry. “Sure, Miles. But we do need to talk about our relationship, and we need to talk about it now.”

  He rocked to a full standing position, leaning down over me. He wasn’t going to make this easy. “You work for Emanuel, Miss Mendoza.” The title was a mockery in his twisted, sensual mouth. “And I’m working for him too. That’s our relationship.” He turned and paced up the stairs. The door to his bedroom swung open with a muffled crash.

  Emanuel came back into the house—he must have been saying goodbye to the Morrisons. He looked me up and down, took in my tight jaw and carefully neutral expression, and smiled. “Not too bad, then?”

  “I guess it could have been worse,” I said. “Is he kind of a manbaby?”

  “You could call him that.”

  “I’ll go upstairs and have a talk with him.”

  “He’s not as fragile as he looks. But he won’t hurt you. He’ll try to fuck with your head, but he won’t hurt you. And if he does...” His right hand tightened into a fist. I remembered the first night I’d met him, and what he’d done so casually with those fists.

  There was something between Emanuel and Miles, more than music, all tangled up with love and violence, and I knew I’d find it out, eventually.

  I just didn’t know why the thought of finding it out excited me so much.

  But when I nodded to him and turned to walk up the stairs, the heat was already rising in me.

  I’m going to know. I’m going to open that locked door and walk right in.

  I could feel Emanuel’s eyes on my back. I hoped he was proud of me. Confident. I put a sway in my hips just for him. Nothing showy or dance style, just something to remind us both who I was working for.

  By the time I got to the top of the stairs, I was in the mood, all the way. Ready to give myself over.

  Miles sat on the edge of the bed, tightening a string on the guitar. The motions of his fingers were complicated and angry. He looked at me without much emotion, a disdainful curl to his lip. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who wanted to be slowly seduced by a delicate courtesan, which was fine with me, because I don’t have the patience for that shit.

  “Your mother seems nice,” I said. “I’m sorry I had to lie to her.”

  That got his interest. One of his elegantly arched eyebrows shot up. God, he really was a beautiful man. “Don’t tell me you’re fifty,” he said, the acid tone carrying a little undertaste of something sweeter.

  “I turn twenty-one in August. And I’ve never been an addict, never been in recovery, never taken seminars. I’m a porn star and my stage name is Serena Sakamoto. Ever heard of me?”

  “No, I haven’t watched porn in five years. I sincerely hope you weren’t working five years ago.”

  I laughed and put my hand on my hip. The jacket tightened at my shoulder and I couldn’t wait to take it off. “We’re not back in Traci Lords’s day. I started in the business when I was eighteen. I’m old for my age and you’re young for yours, so I think we’ll get along fine.”

  “I never thought I’d get this old. Heroin was my insurance policy against getting old. But now that I’m here, it’s not so bad. I don’t have to care about a lot of the stupid shit I used to care about, you know? It’s freeing.”

  “Yes.” I stepped closer to the bed, unbuttoned my jacket and let it fall to the floor. I caught him looking, tracing the fall, before he angled back into the pose of princely disinterest he did so very, very well. “You can’t stay a kid forever.” Thirteen was that age for me, when they took my family away, but I wasn’t going to open that can of angst right now, not when I felt so warm and happy in my own body.

  “My parents are nice people. Nicer than I deserve.” He did, finally, look his age in that moment. No teenage rebellion left in him, jus
t weary acknowledgement. “But we don’t connect. I go see them, eat some good food, we catch up. It’s all very pleasant. And then my eyes start rolling back in my head and I want to run off to get high because I’m so fucking bored with having to keep up my end of the conversation.”

  “Emanuel told me about your issues with being bored.”

  “Did he read you my user’s manual? Fuck Emanuel.”

  I was almost certain he had. “He told me you’re easily distracted by sex.”

  “That’s Chapter One.”

  I unzipped my jeans, hooked my thumbs in the waistband and slowly pushed them down my hips, along with my panties. His eyes were dark and hungry, not the desperate kind of hungry, more calculating. “I’ll tell you how far you can go with me,” I said, keeping my voice low and soft, kittenish. “I’ll tell you and I’ll show you. Look over there on the pillow.”

  The line of my clothes slipped below my hipbones, far enough to show him I was immaculately hairless. Waxing wasn’t really optional in my line of work. The constricting waistband was maddening, pressing into my sensitive skin. Close to bondage, and I’ve learned to enjoy that very much.

  I also enjoyed watching him watching me. Most of all, I enjoyed seeing him torn between turning toward the pillow and keeping his gaze fixed on my prim, sleek pussy. Poor Miles Morrison wasn’t doing a very good job of fucking with my head. I wondered how long it had been for him, locked in a clinic. Whether he wanted to fall on me like a starving man.

  He eventually turned, picked up the piece of paper and scanned it impatiently. “Test results,” he murmured.

  “Yes. All negatives. I’ve already seen yours. And I’m on birth control. Do you want to come in me?” I wriggled the waistband down, showed him my own look of hunger—give it to me, all of you—and stepped out of my jeans. I didn’t make a move to take off my halter top. Men liked seeing a woman naked in the wrong order, breaking the rules about which part of us was supposed to be the most precious, the most hidden away. “I’ll get on my knees and suck you off, but this isn’t about what I want, it’s about what you want.”

  His pose of disinterest didn’t convince me anymore. I don’t think he even convinced himself. “How much are you getting paid?” he asked. The paper fell from his hands to the floor, and he tightened his grip on the edge of the bed. The lithe, corded muscles of his forearms were striped with tattoos, spikes and stars and sharp thorny things.

  “You’d have to ask Emanuel. I work for him. Just like you said. If he wasn’t paying me, I’d still let you fuck me, in case you’re wondering. You are who you are.” Not the god of my early years, but larger than life, more than human.

  “I’m not going to demand purity of intention on your part.” His smile widened, showing a glimpse of white teeth. Sharp, like his tattoos. He must have finished his mental calculations and arrived at the predictable answer. “As long as you’re willing.”

  “Very.” I sat down at the edge of the bed next to him, the quilt rubbing cool and soft against my naked skin, spread my legs and dipped the middle finger of my right hand between the wet, wanting lips of my sex. “This is yours,” I said in a breathy whisper, and my delivery was fucking perfect this time, enough to strike up a wildfire that blazed through every nerve, all over me, everywhere. I loved this feeling. No inhibitions. The power of shameless surrender.

  “You’re a firecracker,” he said admiringly, and pulled himself on top of my offered body. He smelled clean and good, and it was that last sense detail that finally pushed me over the edge and made me moan with a practiced but no less authentic desire.

  Yes.

  Now.

  Take me.

  The words were already catching in my throat. “You can fuck me as hard as you want, as long as you want.” I laughed and breathed in deeply. The air around him curled into my lungs, crazy erotic oxygen making me giddy. “Mmm. Unless you have a monster cock, then I need to warm up to it, okay, baby?”

  “Don’t call me that,” he said, his tone still friendly. “Let’s keep things clear. And I’m about average, so I’m just going to stick it in you and go hard, I think. It’s been a while.”

  “That’s what I’m here for, Miles.”

  He stretched me out right there on the edge of the bed, pulled his pants down and shoved my knees apart. Mean and fast. The way I liked it. I didn’t care that he didn’t kiss me, because I got to look at his pretty mouth and hear him take his pleasure, and that was good too.

  “Goddamn,” he gasped. “You...” The dagger—such a rough tattoo on his fine throat—quivered as he fucked into me, his weight pressing my ass down into the edge of the mattress, nowhere left to go.

  He slid all the way inside me, inside my well-pleased cunt. Taking his due with precision. I’d never even seen his cock but I loved the thickness of it already, and I needed him to know that. I writhed, pinned underneath him, and growled, “Call me anything you want, your slut, anything.” And then I tightened myself around him, crying out in unexpected pleasure at the heat and pressure splitting me open.

  “You’re his, not mine. But I love your tight little borrowed pussy. Do that again.”

  I loved his acid-honey voice. If I kept adding up the parts of him I loved, would I fall in love with him? Maybe I should try. “Hold my arms down and I’ll do it again.”

  “Mouthy bitch.” He grabbed my wrists to roughly spread me out even more, like I was on a cross, and it was sudden heaven to feel that force, to be held down. I gave him what he wanted, wrapping my thighs around his hips and squeezing. “Oh, you’re good, you’re really fucking good, I’m going to take my time with you.”

  He’s not as fragile as he looks, Emanuel had warned. No, Miles was all lean muscle and calculated hunger and sharp edges, a razor-wire man.

  And speaking of Emanuel, at that moment I remembered, through a haze of pain-pleasure, that neither one of us had bothered to shut the door.

  But Emanuel wanted this. Emanuel wanted me spread out on the bed, crying out at every one of Miles Morrison’s harsh strokes, because he knew how to work a woman like me.

  Emanuel would know how to work me too, and the thought almost had me coming. Just the very hint of it, the fucking theory, got me so hot and so close I screamed, begging wordlessly.

  Emanuel...

  Emanuel must have heard by now.

  Miles slowed, took a deep breath and yanked down my top so that my small, high breasts presented for him. I wanted to struggle and make him fight me back down, but even through my intense sex-high, a shred of logic told me to wait. Don’t scare him off. He grabbed my wrists again and pumped harder, harder, like he was punishing me, like he was punishing himself.

  I took every inch and fucking loved it.

  He took his time, just like he said, fucked me halfway across the mattress and made it last until we both trembled and gasped for breath before he groaned and softened inside me.

  “Anytime you want, Miles,” I whispered. “I’m here for you.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  He sprawled across me, his body lean but not so bony that his sharp edges dug into me too painfully. I traced those edges with my lips—the line of his collarbone, the sweep of his jawline—and hummed into the side of his neck, lazy sounds of contentment, no music to them.

  I’d pleased the man I wanted to please, and, of course, pleased Miles as well.

  He shifted, stopped holding me down, and reached between my thighs. Softly. Exploring.

  His thick seed trickled down between my tender lips, between his fingers. He circled my clit with come-slick fingertips until my flesh tingled with new fire.

  “You don’t need to...” I closed my eyes and let the sweet feeling wash over me.

  “I want to,” he said.

  A scream sounded somewhere outside the house, a scream holding
too much rage and need and demand to fit inside a human throat.

  It must have been the goddamn ocelot.

  The cat went silent again, and we kept on through the night.

  * * *

  The sun woke me. No point in drawing the curtains, because there weren’t any. I’d have to do something about that. I considered burrowing under the covers like Miles had—he was under there somewhere.

  Or was he?

  Fuck.

  I checked to make sure the human-shaped lump wasn’t just a pile of clothes arranged to look like a human-shaped lump, but it was really and truly Miles—I caught a glimpse of a tattooed shoulder blade when I peeked under the covers. If the very first day of my assignment involved Miles sneaking out on me to get high, I’d probably cry. And I hate crying.

  I was a companion, not a jailer. Just someone riding sidecar on the weird road of his life, right? Maybe that was the healthiest way to look at it. I couldn’t watch him every single second.

  So I went to the bathroom for a much-needed shower. The giant claw-foot tub had a complicated shower net and showerhead attached, and figuring out how to position it took me some time. When the stream of water roared out and pummeled my shoulders, I realized I’d never hear him escaping over the noise. I’m a companion, I reminded myself firmly. Companion. I wasn’t even sure what the word meant anymore, but it sounded reassuring.

  At least the sex was good.

  I enjoy what I do, often, but it’s not the kind of enjoyment civilians understand. If somebody is doing something with me, and I’m helping them do it, and if I’m doing it the right way, and it’s not too uncomfortable and we’re making it look good for the camera, then, well, I enjoy it. The way normal people enjoy being good at their jobs. But I wouldn’t call it good sex. I don’t have good sex that often.

  I ran my hands over my soapy hips and smiled to myself. I’d worn out Miles Morrison. I’d always have that memory, whatever happened.

  I finished washing, put on a fresh pair of black jeans and a black sleeveless tunic. I was hoping to hit the beach soon, so I didn’t bother to do my hair or face. I put on lip gloss, swooped taupe cream eye shadow over my eyelids with the ball of my middle finger, and smiled hopefully at my steam-fogged reflection.