by Lexie Ray
“Thanks,” I said, surprised at the intimate gesture, then my eyes popped open as he sucked the offending chili off his thumb.
“I just wanted a taste of yours,” he said by way of explanation, his face the very picture of innocence.
“You could’ve asked,” I said, shaking my head at him. Really! Who did that?
“May I have a taste of what you’re having?” he asked, polite as can be.
“Yes, you may,” I said, wondering why. He had a perfectly good hot dog to himself, piled high with relish and ketchup and mustard and onions. Both of our breaths would stink to high heaven after this, but at least neither one of us would be able to tell with the other.
I made a move to offer him what was left of my hot dog, but he took me by the chin and kissed me again.
Again. Barely thirty minutes into this date, or whatever it was, and I’d already been kissed twice by a man I hardly knew.
This was something I felt like I should be complaining about, but I didn’t have a single one. I let him kiss me, let him “taste” my hot dog, and then I sampled what he was having — the mustard sharp on the tip of my tongue, the meals mingling.
We parted lips oh-so-slowly, and I smiled against his mouth, our foreheads touching.
“What happened to us taking this slow?” I asked softly. I didn’t know how we could take this. We apparently weren’t the type of people to take anything slow.
“I can’t help myself, Sol,” Xander said, his fingers trailing along my jawline.
“It’s the liquor,” I said, a grain of accusation seeping into my voice.
“It’s not the liquor,” he said vehemently, backing away from me and holding my face in place with his hand. “Maybe the liquor’s making me a little more forward than I would normally be. Hell, I don’t know what’s normal for me anymore. But what I feel for you … I can’t explain it. The second I saw you dancing on that stage I knew I had to at least meet you. This … this is beyond expectations.”
“What, exactly, did you expect?” I asked, almost afraid to do so.
“For you to not even give me the time of day,” he said. “For you to ignore me. I’m so beneath you. You are a goddess.”
I flushed. His praise was so high that it sounded almost insincere. There wasn’t anyone who could possibly believe that about me, was there? Antonio had called me his love, had always showered affection and compliments on me, but something about the way Xander was behaving was different from anything I’d ever experienced. Antonio and I had been through a lot together, sure, but the intensity had never been like this.
Was that even fair for me to think about, though? Antonio and I had been to hell and back and to hell again. Maybe there hadn’t been time or opportunity for magic and passionate intensity. There had only been time for survival, for just eking through situations and journeys.
It wasn’t fair, then, for me to be feeling the amount of attraction I was toward Xander. I would utilize whatever I could to make this “date” as lucrative as possible, but that would be the end of it. I wouldn’t see him again. The feelings I was having now told me that I couldn’t stay faithful to Antonio if I spent much more time with Xander.
“What you’ve told me right now leads me to believe that you have quite a bit of liquor to work out of your system,” I said, lowering my eyes and pulling away from him forcefully. “That leads me to the next part of this date.”
“Sol, I have to tell you, it’s not the alcohol talking,” Xander protested, reaching for me, but I took his hand on mine and shoved it back into his lap.
“I’m in charge, remember?” I said, as lightly as I could manage. “It’s on to the next part of our date. Come on. Finish up your lunch so we can go. No eating in the car, I imagine.”
“I was always okay with it,” he said, taking a glum chomp out of his hot dog. “She wasn’t.”
I gulped. I didn’t want to end this. There were probably too many reasons why I didn’t want to, but the foremost in my mind was the idea that I would lose out on money that would go toward Antonio’s ransom. But more and more of me actually wanted to make Xander happy. It felt stupid to admit it, but there it was. I wanted to make this virtual stranger happy almost as much as I wanted to make money off of him.
“What’s the first rule of our date today?” I asked, standing up abruptly.
“To have fun.” He said it so sadly it was almost pathetic, and I took instant pity on him.
“Would you have fun breaking all the old rules, the ones from your past?” I asked. “You can take your hot dog to go. In the convertible. With the top down.”
It only took Xander a half second to grasp what I was saying, and the corners of his mouth quirked upward instantly. He was so handsome when he smiled, but he was equally as good looking when he was scowling. How did that work?
“I think that would be fun,” he said. “I have lots of old rules I’d like to break.”
“Then get us another hot dog to share,” I said, polishing off mine. “Let’s go.”
Driving that car around the city was sheer joy. I took every long way I knew, did pointless spins around the block, slowed down at yellow lights just to extend my drive time.
“I would be perfectly happy being your driver, you know,” I shouted over the whoosh of the wind — and around the bite of hot dog he’d just fed me. “Are you hiring?”
“Believe me,” he laughed, dabbing at my cheek with a napkin, “I am nowhere near important enough to employ a chauffeur.”
“What is it that you do?” I asked, pulling into the parking lot for yet another park. This was a place Antonio and I had discovered together, and I hadn’t visited it in so long. I remembered the day we’d had here, splurging on ice cream cones and, for the first time, feeling at home together in Miami. This was a special place for me, and if I was in charge of orchestrating a fun day for someone, this was as good a place as any.
I glanced over at Xander, wondering if he’d answered me and I hadn’t heard it, lost in memories of Antonio still at my side. Instead, Xander was pensive, brooding, silent in the seat beside me.
“Did you hear me?” I asked playfully, trying to boot him from memories that were probably painful for him, too. “You know what I do for a living. I’m asking you what you do.”
“Better if I didn’t say,” he said, not looking at me. “Better for both of us if you don’t know.”
The day was warm, but I shuddered as if a chilly breeze had invaded the convertible.
“Is it something dangerous?” I asked softly, pulling into a parking spot. Just whom had I taken up with? Parker’s radar hadn’t binged at seeing Xander in the club, and she was generally an excellent judge of character. I’d felt just fine with Xander up until now. Had I overlooked something about him that should’ve clued me in to this?
“It can be,” he said lightly. “But don’t you worry about it. It has nothing to do with you, or us, or this.”
I had to puzzle over this. Us? This? What could he be talking about? My immediate thoughts turned to Honduras. Anytime anyone was hiding anything, it was usually because it was illegal, or having to do with the gangs. Could Xander be involved in illegal activity? He seemed too nice to be, somehow, or too honest.
“Let it go,” he said, smiling for me and pushing a strand of my hair out of my face. “Really. It’s nothing for you to worry about. It’s up to you to make me happy, remember? First rule.”
Now he was using my rules against me? I threw the car in park and sighed.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s follow the rules, then. Out of the car. After me.”
“I have to say, I do like you when you’re making demands of me,” he said, his smile morphing into more of a friendly leer.
“And what if I demand that you tell me what you do for a living?” I asked, whirling around on him suddenly, surprising him enough that he put his hands up defensively. “Would you like that?”
“I just really don’t want to say,” he said,
taking a casual approach this time, I noticed, as he shrugged and stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets. “Can’t a guy get a little break from talking about work? I’m there often enough.”
I scowled. He certainly wasn’t making this easy.
“Would your work put me in any danger as I’m spending time with you?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips. “Don’t you think I have a right to know?”
“Of — of course,” he said. “But I can assure you, you’re in no danger when you’re with me. I promise that, Sol.”
His liquid brown eyes were so wide, so earnest, that I decided to drop the matter. If he was an important man — possible, I thought, because of his nice car — maybe he didn’t want the possibility of besmirching his title. It rubbed me the wrong way a little, as if I were something that could harm a reputation, but it made sense. Some people wanted to maintain barriers between what they did for work and what they did for play. It wasn’t my place to pass judgment. I tried to shake it off, but it was hard to distract myself from guessing what he could possibly be.
“So, what are we doing now that you’ve filled me full of hot dogs?” Xander asked.
“We’re going on a bicycle tour,” I announced, clapping my hands and grinning at him.
He looked a little worried. “Bicycle tour?”
“The perfect activity to help you get rid of the last of the alcohol in your system,” I said. “And to work off the calories from those hot dogs. Those things aren’t good for you, you know.”
“I know,” he said, laughing. “But I don’t know how good biking is going to be for me in my condition. I can see it ending in a puddle of vomit, honestly.”
“Don’t be gross,” I said. “We’ll go easy. Now. What color bike would you like? Pink for me, of course.”
“Red,” he sighed, defeated as he reached for his wallet to pay the vendor.
Helmets strapped on and pedaling away, it was easy to forget about how much Xander’s secrecy troubled me. I focused instead on following the map the vendor had provided us, pointing out fascinating seabirds, and reading carefully from the piece of paper aloud about every landmark the tour recommended we stop at.
“I’m surprised at you,” I remarked, about halfway in to the event.
“How so?” Xander called, increasing his pace a bit so we were riding side by side.
“I thought for sure you’d at least be complaining by now,” I said, taking note of the fact that he’d hardly broken a sweat in spite of the hot sun above us. “And I guess I sort of expected you to throw up.”
“I knew it!” he said triumphantly, pumping a fist in the air. “You’re picking fun things to do that would also torture me.”
“I’m picking things I think are fun,” I protested. “I’m the one in charge, remember? I don’t know anything about you. What’s fun to you? Should we go back to the club and throw some dollars down on the stage? Drink until we couldn’t talk anymore?”
“That’s not fair,” he said. “You caught me on a bad day today. Go out with me again and I’ll show you. I like lots of things.”
“Oh really?” I chanced a glance over at him, raising my eyebrows so he could see how very much I doubted that and to cover up a surge of inappropriate excitement at him suggesting a second date. “Name three.”
“Fishing,” he said immediately. “Going to the beach. Eating good food.”
Again, the man surprised me. I guessed I didn’t have much to go by in the first place, and that the idea that he was only a drunken club customer was a little unfair.
“Well, I don’t know much about fishing, but I can make two of those things happen today,” I said. “Follow me. We’re making an unscheduled stop on this tour.”
I steered us toward the beach, my inner compass directing me. As soon as I’d figured out where my favorite place in the city was, I kept track of it internally at all times. I navigated through Miami always with my beach in mind. It helped remind me where I was, helped me find my way.
Without locks to secure them, we walked the bikes through the soft, powdery sand until we reached the hard-packed shore, lapped at by wave after wave.
I slipped my sandals off to feel the wet grains beneath my bare feet, letting the water wash over my toes.
“It doesn’t get any better than a day like today, I think,” Xander remarked.
I turned to see him pushing his bike over unceremoniously, unlacing his dress shoes, ripping off his socks, and rolling his trousers up. Something about seeing his bare feet was so intimate that it shocked me into silence, and I simply watched him enjoy himself, enjoy the same texture of sand underfoot that I was enjoying.
“Leave the bike,” he said, holding out his hand. “Come on.”
“What if someone takes them?” I asked, setting my pink ride down gingerly beside his.
“Then we lose the deposit,” he said. “Come on. It doesn’t matter. The ocean’s calling and we must obey. Roll your jeans up.”
I did as he told me to, then took his hand. He led me into the waves, stopping at about knee level, both of us giggling like schoolchildren when an unruly wave would lash at us, wetting the cuffs of our shortened pants. The whole time, either consciously or subconsciously, we never let go of each other’s hand, using the grip to steady ourselves against a swell, or to maneuver around the dips and divots of the ocean floor.
It was so easy to forget that this was just going to be a simple business transaction, so easy to let the trials of the past drop away. I was completely in the moment, shrieking when Xander splashed me with a handful of salt spray and feeling for seashells with my toes.
“I think the tour has a time limit,” I finally said with no small amount of regret as we were watching the sun sink lower to the horizon.
“We’ll have to take it again sometime,” he said, not sounding like he was ready to go anywhere as we stood in the endlessly blue water. “I’m curious to see where it all goes.”
Was he talking about the tour, or about the idea of him and me? I was fascinated by the possible answers, enthralled with just what they could mean.
The bikes were where we left them, spooning in the sand, their various parts all tangled. We extricated them and suited back up, me wincing at the discomfort Xander had to feel when he rolled his socks back on over his sandy feet.
“Don’t worry about me,” he laughed when he saw my sympathetic gaze. “I couldn’t be happier. This is the happiest I’ve been in a really long time, in fact.”
Even before his relationship ended? That was high praise, indeed. I glowed with a secret pride as we made our way back to the vendor, the sky purpling above us.
“I almost wrote you two off for long gone,” the vendor remarked as we returned the gear. “You looked like you were on a mission.”
“Mission accomplished, I’d say,” Xander said, smiling at me warmly. It was impossible not to return that smile, even as I blushed at the compliment. If, while doing my job, I’d made one man forget a little bit about the promises in his life, then I was more than just an escort. I was doing some form of community service, it felt like.
“So, tell me where we’re going now,” he said. “More exercising, I bet. You’ll have me pumping iron, sweating out the last of my cocktails.”
“I had no idea we’d be on the bike tour for so long,” I said. “I had other things planned for when the sun was up.”
“And now that the sun is down?” Xander asked, his voice wickedly dark. It made me grin in spite of myself, in spite of the clear implications of the question.
“I’ll just have to come up with something different,” I said.
“We’ll do the sunshine things another day,” he said. “Okay?”
“Deal,” I said, pleased with the idea of another date. “I imagine you’re hungry after all that exercise.”
“Starved,” he admitted. “Pretty sure I’ll feel back to normal once I get some food in me to soak up the last of this alcohol.”
“Well,
I need you to make the decisions now,” I said. “I don’t eat out much, so you need to pick your favorite restaurant. That’s where we’ll go.”
“My favorite restaurant.” Xander rubbed his chin as he considered it. “It’s an Italian joint. Best lasagna you’ll ever have. Trouble is, it’s a little bit formal. I don’t think your jeans will be that much of a problem, but I don’t want you to feel awkward or underdressed.”
“Any more underdressed than your sandy shoes?” I laughed. “I’ve come prepared. Never fear. I’ll be right back.”
I left Xander by his car, ducking into the nearby park restroom facilities. It was clean enough, and I slipped the dress I’d stuffed into my purse on over my head. It was an effortless outfit, the black fabric hugging me in all the right places, and I tousled my hair once more for good measure before stuffing my more casual clothes back in my purse.
When I exited the restroom, Xander clutched his heart and rubbed his eyes as if he couldn’t believe my transformation.
“Oh, stop it,” I said, slugging his shoulder. “It’s just a dress.”
“You look beautiful,” he said. “Really, Sol.”
“You saw me in costume at the club,” I said, feeling shy all of a sudden. “You know what I bring to the table.”
“You’re gorgeous in whatever you choose to wear,” he said. “I’m sure that you’d look even better not wearing a damn thing.”
Was it possible to blush any deeper? “Thanks for the vote of confidence. Are you ready to drive? Or should I continue?”
“I’ll drive now,” he said, smiling as he held the door open for me. “You don’t know where the restaurant is.”
It was a pleasure to be a passenger in the convertible, closing my eyes and letting the wind run its fingers through my hair. It had been a long time since I’d been so relaxed, an eternity since I’d been this happy. Part of me urged myself to move things along, to make sure I could earn every penny from Xander that I possibly could. The other part of me was simply enjoying myself. This was fun. Was there any rule against having fun while earning money? Most people hated their jobs. Did I have to hate this?
