Alone With an Escort

by Angela Claire

  “Well, I’d say your job pays a little better than mine, judging by this house.”

  “Yeah, that’s not one of the problems with the job. I have to say that. Come on.” He slapped a slice of cheese on a roll and handed it to her. “Eat something. You must be starving.”

  The sharp tangy taste of the cheese reminded her she was and she made short work of the sandwich while Jonathon did the same with his. He handed her a cold beer to wash it down, opening one as well and taking a swig.

  She hesitated, looking around for a clock. “What time is it?”

  “Never mind the time. It’s all relative, anyway. And you could use a beer.”

  She flipped open the top and had to admit the icy brew hit the spot. “What now?” she asked after a few healthy sips.

  “Now we take a shower and get some sleep and worry about everything else later.”

  The ‘we’ sent a shiver down her spine, ridiculous as that was.

  He took his beer and her hand and led her through the great room, past a flat widescreen TV and a couple of couches that looked soft and comfy, throw pillows here and there. It was upscale for sure, but homey.

  “This house was built by some kind of movie mogul who wanted to get away from it all. It’s perfect for me. I just added a few extra safety precautions.”

  He led her to a room at the top of the stairs, flooded with sunshine from the wall-to-wall windows leading out to a balcony, again with that heart-stopping view of the mountains.

  “Are we in Colorado?” she asked.

  “Never you mind.”

  The huge bedroom, complete with another television and fireplace, although this time with thick blue carpet instead of the hardwood floors on the first level, led into a bathroom bigger than her whole bedroom at home.

  Home. Looking at the foreign glass-block shower made her a little homesick for her battered copper tub and polka-dotted shower curtain. Funny, she hadn’t thought of her house much since she’d left it.

  “There are some towels here.” He gestured to a linen closet. “And a towel warmer if you’re interested. I don’t have any women’s clothing—”

  A flush of pleasure flooded her at that admission.

  “But I’m sure you want to get out of that dress, so I’ll dig out a clean white T-shirt and whatever else I can find and leave it on the bed for you, all right?”

  She nodded, feeling awkward.

  “Take as long as you like. You’re probably sore. That wasn’t the easiest plane ride.”

  “What about you? I mean,” she stammered quickly, “you’ve earned the shower first.”

  “I have another one in my suite. This is the guest bedroom.”

  “Oh, well, thanks, then.”

  He was gone a moment later.

  Stripping off her wrinkled clothes and all they represented felt wonderful. As she closed the door and turned on the shower—more water pressure than she ever got at home and a lot better than the sheriff’s cabin—she found she could block her mind from going over recent events and just concentrate on the hot stream against her tired muscles.

  Taking Jonathon at his word, she stayed in the shower for a long, long while. He was right. Time was relative. And right now, she would just enjoy the lemony lather of the soap against her skin and the clean feel of the water pummeling down on her.

  She would not—repeat, not—think of men without faces and guns and running for her life. Not a bit of it.

  By the time she forced herself to get out of the shower, she probably looked like a prune, although she wouldn’t know since the mirrors were all steamy. Wrapping herself in a fluffy white towel, she opened the bathroom door to let some cool air in, turning on the fan while she was at it.

  Jonathon was putting a stack of clothes at the foot of the bed and staring at her through the open wedge of the door. She started. “Oh, you scared me.”

  His dark hair was wet and he was dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt, plain white like the one he was apparently loaning her.

  “Sorry. I was just leaving these for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  He stood at the edge of the bed, watching her, making her very conscious that she was just in a towel, nothing else.

  “Veronica—”

  She rushed him, yanked his head down and kissed him. They tumbled toward the bed, rolling around until he got the upper hand and used it to tug the towel away, unwrapping her like she was the birthday present, his cheekbones flushed and his green eyes shuttered. He glanced from her breasts, heavy and peaked now, back up to her eyes, his breathing quicker. One corner of his mouth came up and he reached out a palm to cup a breast. “God, these are beautiful.”

  Before she could dispute it—her size DDs had always been the bane of her existence and she had directed her whole fashion look, such as she had one, toward hiding them—he leaned his head down to toy with one nipple, his lips hot and skillful, just as they’d been in the cabin. But the thought that they could complete their lovemaking this time, that she could bring him to fulfillment, excited her. Her fingers tangled in his silky black hair as he played with her, going from one breast to another, until he was sucking fiercely and she was writhing under him.

  When she was nearly incoherent, he spread her legs, sitting back on his heels between them.

  He climbed out of bed. “Hang on one second.”

  He left the room and when he came back, threw a condom on the side table and pulled his clothes off. She watched his muscled ass and the jerking of his cock as he rolled the condom on and glanced at her. “Don’t worry. I’m not done with the foreplay. I just want this on in case. I’m breaking so many rules here that I’m liable to slip into you and forget to put a condom on first.”

  She didn’t know what rules he was talking about—that one about not sleeping with charges no doubt—but she doubted something that size was going to ‘slip’ into anything. Crossing her arms over her swollen breasts, she bit her lip and considered his naked erection. For all she had felt him, it was her first sight of him, of it. And it was a little overwhelming. Big jockstrap indeed! “You’re a little more…I mean I’m not used to…and you’re very…”

  He came back to the bed, straddling her. “Hung?” he offered as the evidence spoke for itself.

  “Bigger than my vibrator even.”

  He laughed.

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but let’s just not be in a rush here, Jonathon.”

  He smoothed her hair back from her face, mesmerizing her again with his touch. She wondered how he would feel if she asked him just to pet her all day. Or maybe brush her hair or something. God, his touch…

  “I won’t rush,” he promised.

  Then he went to work on her breasts again, rubbing his thumbs against her nipples, licking them and reaching his hands down lower to do more damage below. When he slipped one blunt middle finger up her and pushed lightly, she moaned, closing her eyes, his mouth on her breasts. He eased another finger inside her, moving, thrusting.

  “Oh!” she cried out, feeling it so deep, so wildly inside her that she was shuddering with it, coming, even as his fingers slowed and his mouth moved leisurely down her stomach. It was hard to calm her breathing—God, was she panting?—and he kissed her hip bone and slid his fingers out of her, caressing her thigh as he did so.

  “I thought we’d get one of those out of the way first,” he murmured against her skin.

  She started to sit up. “How do you do that?”

  He pushed her back to the pillow and kissed the inside of one thigh. She shivered. “You inspire me. Just sit back and let me do the work, will you?”

  “Okay. I get the feeling you have a lot more practical experience than I do.”

  “I do my best.”

  When he moved his mouth from her sensitive inner thigh to the plump lips of her vagina, she was flooded with the sense of how right this all was. Maybe ridiculously so, but there it was.

  His hands came underneath her legs and he
pulled the cradle of her body closer as he devoted his lips and tongue to pleasuring her.

  She wasn’t floating above herself now. She was feeling every breath on her ultra-sensitized flesh, every kiss, every lick. God, how could she have never felt this before? How could she not have known her body had been made for this?

  When his fingers went inside her again, two at least, maybe three, the fullness of it excited her and she arched her hips into the sensation, wanting it, dying for it.

  But he deprived her of the climax, removing his fingers and sliding up on top of her instead, his poker-hot cock rubbing against her bare skin.

  “Wait,” she cried out in disappointment. She wanted that peak, that soaring she had been so close to again.

  His hot breath was against her ear now, his hands beneath her as he tilted her up to him. “No waiting, Veronica.”

  He plunged into her, the force of it shocking her, and she braced her palms on his hot shoulders. “Stop,” she gasped, whether she meant to or not.

  He stayed still, not thrusting, not moving at all, but the heavy weight of him inside her stretching her anyway. She wasn’t used to it.

  “I don’t think—”

  “Trust me,” he whispered in her ear, nipping the lobe, reminding her of how right he had been with every touch.

  “It’s just I don’t think I’m ready for that. Hang on a minute. It hurts a little.”

  “You’re ready. Relax.” He stroked her ass soothingly and moved one thumb to the front of her, to her clit, rubbing to devastating effect.

  Without volition, she moved against him, though he kept himself still. The pressure of him inside her was changing. Not the size of him. He still felt huge and hot. But her. She was changing for him. In her excitement, she was stretching, molding to accommodate him.

  “That’s right,” he coaxed. “You’re ready for the best fuck of your life.”

  She gasped at the pleasure as he pulled out slightly then thrust back in. “Oh, God.”

  “Yeah.” He was pulling out again by gradations, her wet flesh clamping down around him to try to keep him, making it only that much better. When he varied his rhythm to swirl his hard cock inside her in some way that she never could have imagined, she came, and the heft of him inside her made her feel as if she could die with the pleasure of it.

  She shuddered as she came down from it.

  Oh, he was so going to hell. But it would be worth it. Making love to his sweet little charge would be worth every second of the fire and brimstone that’d be waiting for him if his bosses ever got wind of this. In the eyes of the Agency, it was wrong. It was bad enough that he’d brought her to his house, crossing the line between personal and professional. But an agent could never, ever have a sexual relationship, any relationship actually, with a charge, and most especially not while he was still on the case. He was so screwed.

  And at this moment, he didn’t give a shit. They were as safe here as they could ever be and he was going to use this brief respite to give her what she wanted for her birthday. Better late than never.

  Veronica came apart underneath him so sweetly, her heavily lashed eyes a combination of wonder and hot, hot womanly acknowledgment. As if by fucking her just like that, just that way, deep and hard and relentless, he was giving her what she was made for. What she needed.

  He knew she was ready for it, that she could take it, no matter how tight and sleek she had been at first. And he couldn’t believe, given how responsive and sexy she was, that she had never experienced ‘good sex’.

  He would have thought she’d inspire any guy who was lucky enough to be in her bed to herculean efforts to make sure it was good.

  As for him, sex had always come easy to him. He had no hang-ups about it and very little trouble getting it. And he had always enjoyed sex.

  But by the time he had given this woman her third or fourth orgasm and allowed his own, coming hot inside her, it felt like something more. What he had no idea, but something. He rolled off her when he could catch his breath and she snuggled up next to him and was asleep in seconds.

  “Happy belated birthday, Veronica,” he whispered.

  When he opened his eyes again, the light outside was fading and Veronica was beside him. She shifted her soft weight and turned over in her sleep.

  He was a live-for-the-moment guy. It was kind of a job requirement. But for just a second, he let himself wonder where this would all end. Even if the leak in the Agency was plugged, what would that mean? That Veronica would be whisked away to some secret laboratory to work her magic and he’d be…what? On to the next job?

  It didn’t sit right with him. But long-term relationships between agents and civilians never worked. That was Agency dogma. They liked their agents to be lone wolves. But God, how sweet it would be to have this woman in his bed for more than just the stolen night or two. To spend a week with her to get to know her better, a month, a lifetime someday even, and not worry about enemy agents and assignments and all the crap that went with this life.

  But nobody left the Agency.

  He reached one finger along the curve of Veronica’s shoulder and tangled one leg between her long, silky limbs.

  She came awake to the subtle urging of his thigh and smiled, stretching sleepily. “Should we get up? What time is it?”

  “Remember, time is relative.”

  Then he pulled her on top of him.

  If Jonathon Vale ever wanted to leave the spy business, he’d be a natural fit with Mattie’s boy-toy agency. He seemed to know what a woman wanted, or what she wanted anyway, before she did. He had withheld himself for so long on the road that she’d had only a tantalizing glimpse of what he could give her, as he maintained, with varying degrees of success over the past few days, that he had to keep his distance from her.

  When he stopped holding her off, it felt as if his surrender, or hers, or something, was complete.

  His timing, his engrossed devotion to her body while they were in bed, his own hot, hard body, had whipped her into such a sensual daze she wasn’t even sure how long she’d been at Shangri-La. Days blended into nights as they explored each other, any other needs falling temporarily to the wayside. God knew how long it was before they made it back to the kitchen, a trip that had ended satisfying their primary hunger with a bout against the granite-topped island almost immediately after the few bites of food satisfied their secondary one. She felt as enthralled with Jonathon as she had with her work, when it was going extremely well. As if time stopped while she tended to it.

  But she had never thought to feel that way about being with another person. She thought that kind of focus, from her, anyway, was reserved for scientific discovery. It made her realize what a lonely life she’d led so far. And what a lonely life Jonathon seemed to lead.

  “Did you want to be—to do this?”

  They were in his bed this time, limbs entwined, naked as they almost always were. He trailed his finger along her lower lip. “It’s all I know.”

  When he kissed her, she melted into it, loving his touch as always, but not wanting to be distracted from the subject. When he ended the kiss, she asked, gesturing to their surroundings, “So how does this all fit in?”

  “What?”

  “This house.”

  “It’s my downfall, if you ask my mother. She’s the one who came up with calling it Shangri-La. I don’t think it was a compliment, either. I bought it because I wanted someplace of my own. She thinks that kind of thinking is dangerous. Makes you sloppy on the job. Afraid to take chances. And who the hell knows? She might be right.”

  She hated the fatalism in his voice and pulled away a little, her hand on his chest, to watch him. “What if you left the Agency?”

  He gave her a wry look. “I don’t think they have a retirement plan.”

  “What does that mean? You’re not allowed to leave?”

  “It’s hard to explain, Veronica.”

  “What about when you’re old?”

  His
face closed.

  “Or don’t agents get old?”

  “Not usually,” he admitted. “But why are we talking about this?”

  “Because I want you to get old,” she whispered.

  He smiled. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

  “You seem so relaxed here. Is that why you brought me here?”

  “I wanted you here. Period. And you’re safe now, Veronica. As you saw, we’re in the middle of a canyon. The only way to get in is to fly in or to cross the mountains. Any flight we’d hear in plenty of time and the whole perimeter of this place is wired with thermal sensors that would trigger an alarm if a human came within one hundred feet. We can keep the world out. At least while we’re here.”

  “Shangri-La.”

  “Yeah.”

  She had a sudden vision of the blood and bones that comprised the missing face of the man who had held a gun to her head in the hotel room. The crumpled form of the junkie who she, yes, she, had killed. The defenseless form of the sheriff when Jonathon had finally brought him down.

  So much death.

  And yet all she felt right now was the sweetness of life, trite as it was.

  “It’s peaceful here, I know, but doesn’t the violence, out there, I mean, get to you, even here?”

  He shook his head. “No way. I told you, we’re safe.”

  “Not get to you by coming here. I mean get to you here”—she tapped his forehead—“in here. How can you tune it all out, what you do, the violence?”

  Again, his face seemed to close. “I just do. That’s life.”

  “That’s not life, Jonathon. That’s your life.”

  “I won’t let it get to you, Veronica.”

  She kissed his cheek and laid her head back on his chest, listening to his strong heartbeat. “I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about you. After a while, all this violence, this killing and fear of being killed must get to you.”

  She would have thought someone in his line of work would deny he was afraid of being killed. But he didn’t and it made her fall a little deeper.

  “I try to look at it in a sort of comic strip way. Like it’s not real. But it, ah…”