by Shelby Reed
Her pleasure had become his own.
Chapter Twenty
They made love again, this time in her bed, where he propped a pillow beneath her hips and showed her what he knew about the play of a skilled tongue between her thighs. She was shuddering and limp by the time he rose over her, but with the aid of the remaining condom in his wallet, managed to wrap her limbs around him and take him inside her, and come to climax again, then again. Colm only came at the end, but the orgasm blew his mind, shaking the bed and drawing helpless sounds from his throat. Ah, she undid him. He lost sense of both sides of himself—the whore and the man—and became someone new under her hands.
At dawn they sat naked in the middle of the bed with a haphazard feast of pizza and chicken wings. They half watched a morning talk show, then lay on their sides, arms folded under their heads, and gazed at one another without speaking, too absorbed in each other to sleep. When they finally did doze off, the last thing Colm remembered was Sydney whispering his name as she brushed her lips against his cheek, his temple.
If he could ever love again, it was now, with this woman.
* * *
Hours later, he stirred and opened his eyes. Sydney was sprawled next to him, one knee crooked and an arm flung over his chest. He smiled. She was a bed hog.
His humor faded he glanced at the wall of windows and recognized the angle of the sun, and his stomach sank. Time to get to Avalon. He was a man falling, too soon, too deeply, and still he had to go to work entertaining other women. Not have to, he thought. You could quit. And then what? The cutting-edge treatment available to Amelia would eventually stall; she would end up in some shabby extended care facility when his savings ran out. It didn’t matter if he found a job in the architectural field or any other. Even with his education and experience, nothing could pay like being a whore in Azure’s harem.
Sliding out from beneath Sydney’s one-armed embrace, he eased from the bed and headed to the shower, then crossed naked to the kitchen, where their clothing still lay in a sloppy heap. He hated to leave her sleeping. All he wanted was to crawl back into bed with her and take her again.
After dressing, he folded her clothes on the counter, rifled through a drawer, and found paper and pen.
I want more of you. I’ll call soon. He found a spare key in the same drawer and not wanting to leave her unsafe, quietly locked the door behind him when he left.
He dialed Amelia on his way to Avalon.
“Where’d you go last night?” she asked, nosy woman that she was.
“Out,” he said.
She laughed. “All night? You slut.”
He changed lanes and stared ahead at the red, blinking lights of insane, after-Christmas traffic.
Slut. Wretch.
“All true,” he told her finally. “I probably won’t be home tonight, either.”
“I won’t ask where you’re going.”
“Thank you.”
“Is she the new love of your life? I can do your tarot cards to find out for you.”
“I’m hanging up now,” he said, and she laughed again.
At Avalon, Colm dressed and breathed himself into character. When his client arrived, he met her at the foot of the staircase and made to kiss her hand, but turned it over at the last second and brushed his mouth against her wrist instead. They all liked that kind of thing, the start of seduction before they even made it up the stairs. Azure, who had greeted the woman when she first stepped through the pleasure club’s doors, watched with a satisfied smile from her station at a nearby Chippendale desk. Colm avoided her flinty blue gaze, a knot of disgust tightening his throat.
He thought of this particular client as a blow-up doll with jointed arms and legs. She didn’t want to do anything for herself. Her companion for the evening had to strip her, bathe her, arrange her limbs for sex. He recognized her delectations as a lack of confidence, but it hardly made them bearable. Tonight he wasn’t in the mood to deal with a helpless little girl.
“Where shall I put my things?” the woman asked in a timid voice, lingering inside the doorway of his quarters. They went through this script every time she scheduled him.
“Allow me.” He set her purse on a nearby console, then slid the coat from her thin shoulders and hung it in the closet. She was an attractive forty-five-year-old socialite with fair skin and wavy red hair, but he never saw her beauty except when she laughed. Then he liked her. Then he could screw her. Her humor showed itself so rarely, though, this wasn’t a job he ever relished.
And now . . . he would never be the same.
He stood there and looked at her for a minute, knowing there was no way in hell he could have sex with her ever again, then regained his congeniality and crossed the room to the kitchenette. “What would you like to drink?”
“Just a glass of wine tonight would be nice.”
Shiraz, he thought, tasting its memory on his tongue. Tasting Sydney.
“Chardonnay,” she added. “I like the cheap stuff.”
He withdrew a chilled bottle from the wine refrigerator and uncorked it, then poured her a taste like a restaurant server and waited while she sampled it. At her nod of approval, he filled her glass and on second thought, one for himself. Tonight he needed all the help he could get.
He knew she would stand in the middle of the room, looking helpless until the end of time, so he downed his wine, set the glass on a table, and approached to take her elbow. “Sit down and tell me about you. We haven’t seen each other in a while.”
“I’ve been traveling with my husband,” she said as she seated herself on a nearby wingback chair. “And with the holidays, I had so many parties to prepare for—very important events. I’m still feeling overwhelmed.”
He sat in the matching chair opposite her and watched her face as she spoke, reading the little lines carved by anxiety that Botox or Juvéderm couldn’t banish. She was one of those social do-gooders that never stopped. Charities, parties, clubs, and five children at home. She didn’t like nannies. She liked control, except at Avalon. No wonder she was a rag doll when she got there.
Colm let her go on for a while about parties and her husband and friends who stressed her out until he couldn’t take it anymore. Then he stood and drew her to her feet. “I know what you need to take your mind off things.”
“What’s that?” She allowed him to take her wineglass, which he set aside, and stood stock-still while he came around behind her, removed her suede blazer and laid it over the back of the chair. Then he circled her slowly, his fingers tugging lightly at the blouse tucked into her tailored slacks.
“A bath,” he said at last in a low, practiced voice that promised multiple orgasms. The voice of a liar. He was in full-fledged escort mode now, although only half of him stood there. How the hell he was going to do his job after last night with Sydney, he didn’t know.
As expected, she stood with arms dangling at her side while he undressed her slowly, drawing each piece of clothing off as though uncovering one of Sydney’s paintings. Only what lay beneath was a canvas of a lonely, stressed human being, painfully thin to suit the latest fashions, and with none of the tactile, sensuous flow of Sydney’s work.
Get her under the bath bubbles, he thought. Ply her with wine. It could all be accomplished without giving a single bit of himself.
When she stood naked and shivering, he took her hand and led her into the opulent, gold-toned bathroom. Gilded mirrors on every wall shot reflections all around them so that there was no hiding, only naked flesh. Normally he loved the mirrors, loved to watch pleasure consume a woman’s face. But tonight the reflections showed a skeletal female form and Colm, fully dressed but weary, frustrated. Who was the more pathetic of the two, he couldn’t have said.
While the client waited with her arms crossed over her breasts, he wrapped her in a thick terrycloth robe and leaned to start the gold-leaf spigots on the tub, several of which gushed water so generously, the wide tub was filled within a couple of minutes. He a
dded a small bottle of the finest bubble bath, rolled his shirt sleeves to his elbows and checked the water temperature, then reached behind a Greek statue in one corner and activated the jets, which churned the water into an angry cauldron that both daunted and invited the weary.
“Ready?” he asked, and when she nodded, he moved behind her and slid her robe off, stopping to press a perfunctory kiss on her bony shoulder as he did so.
Clinging to his hand, she let him lead her into the bathwater and sank into the tumult with a groan. “Oh, Colm. I don’t know which feels better—this bath or you.”
Even though she hadn’t put her hands on him. The thought of her touch brought a wave of nausea.
He tried to think of the proper provocative response and came up with nothing, so he rose, poured her another glass of wine, and waited while she downed it. Then she opened her legs. She was a pro at this as much as he was. The purpose of the tub jets was to stimulate a woman as well as relax her.
“Stay just like that,” he said flatly, and when he adjusted a particular jet so that it hit her just so, she groaned and arched in the roiling water.
Colm suppressed a sigh as he watched her pleasure from miles away.
When she’d had her fill, he grasped her hand and helped her climb out.
“I need a little nap,” she said, sliding into the robe he held for her. “Will you come with me? You know how I love for you to hold me while I fall asleep.”
He nodded, a smooth liar. “I’ll tuck you in.”
In the bedroom, he drew back the down comforter and waited for her to climb beneath it. She collapsed against the pillows, stretched, and gave a sigh of delight. “Oh, this is amazing.” Reaching out her hand to him, she added, “Come to bed. We still have two hours.”
“I’ll be right behind you after I drain the tub,” he fibbed easily.
She would fall asleep before he got there, and he wouldn’t have to strip, cradle her against him, stroke her back, and listen to the even sound of her breathing. Those things, suddenly excruciatingly intimate, belonged only to Sydney.
Christ, his entire existence was unraveling.
When he had finished with the tub, he paused in the bathroom doorway and let his gaze drift over his client’s sleeping form. She hardly made a lump in the bed. One thousand dollars for tonight, and all he’d done was give her a bath.
Despite the heavy price for so little, when she woke, she looked rested and beatific. He walked her downstairs and offered her the standard good-bye, with promises spoken through a long gaze.
Then he gritted his teeth and headed to Azure’s office.
“How is Mrs. Weiss?” she asked, waggling a pen between her fingers as she sat behind her desk.
“Fine.” He paused. This wasn’t going to be easy. “I used to worry about asking anything from you, Azure.”
A smile curved her mouth. “And now?”
“Now I need something more than this job.”
“Darling Colm,” she said, twirling that pen between her manicured fingers, “I can be kinder than you think. Sit down.”
“I prefer to stand.” He braced his legs apart and crossed his arms over his chest. “I want some time off.”
“I see.” She set aside the pen and sat forward, propping her elbows on the leather blotter. “Why?”
It was none of her business, but he needed this favor. He needed Sydney, and time with Amelia, and time to decide what the hell he was going to do to avoid the implosion of his world.
“I’d like a few days to settle some things in my personal life, unless you want to fire me now.”
“You’re thinking of quitting me?” She stood, her ankle-length white vest flowing gracefully around her. Displeasure had hardened her expression. “What is it lately with my boys falling in love with these mindless women? You’re the third this year.”
He fought against showing his surprise. How did she know him so well? She could read the male animal more skillfully than any being he’d ever encountered. He knew better than to argue. It would make him look like a fool.
“If this continues,” she said bitterly, “Avalon will be a shell of its former self. Maybe I should hire younger men who have no desire other than to screw fifty women a week. There are a million in this city who would appreciate the job, believe me.”
He kept his face carefully blank.
“Fine,” she sighed at last. “I won’t ask how long you need. I’ll tell you. One week, Colm. One week to work out the mess you have obviously made of your life. Sydney Warren is a dangerous choice for you. She’ll find out what you’ve done eventually, and she won’t bear it.”
He didn’t bother to deny it was Sydney. Time with her was counting down, minute by precious minute. The truth from his own lips would come, and then her heart would break, and his, too, and she would hate him forever, but never as much as he despised himself.
It would come. But, God, not yet.
Azure flipped open an appointment book. “Do you have anything on the schedule for tomorrow night?”
“One,” he said. “Senator Foley.”
“She’s a good customer. I’ll give her to Garrett and pray to God she finds that acceptable after anticipating you. He is, after all, good with the hard-edged ones.”
He waited, knowing there would be more.
“Two things I want you to remember as you slog through the next seven days.” She came around the desk, the frown she wore marring the smooth space between her carefully penciled brows. “One, you’ll miss New Year’s Eve, which is quite a lucrative night for Avalon.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“I had three women scheduled for you. You would have left here with a nice paycheck, Colm.”
“This is more important.”
“Sydney is more important than maintaining care of your sister?”
Colm clenched his jaw and didn’t speak. It was a low blow and none of her goddamned business.
“Two,” she went on, her flawless features drawing tight, “if you want to keep your position here, you should remember that you are mine. If you can’t accept this truth, you don’t belong here. Don’t waste my time.”
Hers? His brows went up. He didn’t belong to anyone, not even to himself.
“Maybe that’s what’s wrong with you, Colm,” she continued with a sigh, as though she’d heard his rejoinder. “Maybe you’ve never realized that in this world we all belong to somebody. Our hearts, our bodies, our time. Think about it. I’m only one of many who own you. Sydney Warren is apparently the latest, and the most dangerous. Whether I fire you or you resign, she could cost you your job, and then I may not own you anymore, but you’ll wish I did.”
They stared at each other, the air crackling between them.
And just like that, her granite expression vanished in favor of a catlike smile. “Enough mothering, hmm? I only do it because I love you. Kiss me, darling. I can’t bear a week without you.”
He leaned to brush his lips against her cheek, the exotic scent of her filling his senses, cloying, too rich. At the last minute she turned her lips into his and swept her tongue inside his mouth, her fingers curling around the nape of his neck, nails digging in. When he jerked back, she hissed out, “Come back to me, Colm. Don’t forget your responsibilities.”
She knew too much. About his life. About Amelia, and now Sydney.
It was time to tell Sydney the truth.
Chapter Twenty-one
Waking to an empty bed was nothing new to Sydney. She shouldn’t have cared that Colm was gone when she awoke.
She hated it.
His note was on the kitchen counter, her clothes from last night neatly folded beside it, the rug they’d scooted all over the floor back in place, as though two people hadn’t found excruciating pleasure in that exact spot.
I want more of you, he’d written. She carried the note around the loft with her, laying it on the bedside table when she changed the sheets and then atop the dryer as she did l
aundry. She tried to picture where he was—he hadn’t left any indication. Was he modeling for some artist? What secret, mysterious world swallowed him when he left her presence?
It was ten o’clock when the buzzer sounded. Her heels clicked briskly on the wood floor as she hurried to answer it. “Yes?”
“It’s Colm.”
“Come up.”
His knock sounded so quickly, he must have sprinted up the stairs. When she opened the door, he stood there, smelling of leather and the cold night.
The smile on her face faded with the dark purpose on his. “I need you,” he murmured, and leaned to catch her lips with his.
It wasn’t enough. She drew back to look into his eyes, found them heavy-lidded and oh-so-green, and said, “I missed you. Make love to me.”
He shucked his jacket, grabbed a condom from his wallet, and then drew her against him, spinning her to trap her between his body and the wall as she’d once envisioned. They didn’t bother to undress, just unfastened strategic garments, and he dropped to his knees and put his mouth on her, his tongue inside her, soft flickers on her aroused flesh like the slow drift of butterfly wings.
Too much pleasure to bear. When she came, she bucked in his hands. There was little time to recover before he tore into the packet, sheathed himself, then lifted and entered her right there beside the door. They forgot the locks. They forgot the sounds they made, which might float into the hallway for anyone to hear. Everything except his flesh inside her, hers around him and drawing him deep, his hands on her backside, hers on his, so muscled and smooth.
It only took a moment before she climaxed again. His mouth was soft, sinuous against her arched throat when she cried out, and still he kept the rhythm, clutching the backs of her thighs as he buried his face against her breasts and thrust, and thrust, so she slid against the wall, its plaster cool and hard, rucking up her thin sweater.
“Sydney,” he groaned, breathing heat through its knit to warm her nipple. “Sydney!”
