The Right Man

by Mankin, Michelle

  A shiver that had nothing to do with the chill in the air rolled through me as I withstood a heavily hooded leisurely scan from him.

  His verdict? I couldn’t tell.

  Mine? He was great—if you went for an incredibly handsome guy with arrogance stamped into every single cell of his flawless body.

  “What do you want?” Not giving an inch, I narrowed my gaze, shooting haughty daggers at him.

  “How much?”

  My mouth went dry. There was no mistaking what he wanted.

  Me. For a price.

  My mind blanking, I licked my lips to moisten them. Sex with him? I shook my head, but the thought of it only increased the heat that had combusted within me.

  Pulling in a deep breath, I forced myself to take a mental step back. Methodically, I sized him up like Cam had taught me to do, and discounted his looks and his body. It was the car and the value of his clothing that mattered.

  “Two hundred,” I said. “Cash.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I never joke about money.”

  At an impasse, we stared at each other. One heartbeat became one too many.

  “You’re wasting my time,” I said, deciding for him, and moved toward the other car.

  “All right, Harley.”

  I stopped and turned to give him a big smile, and he went completely still. When his smoldering gaze dropped to my mouth, my lips tingled from its intensity.

  He whistled under his breath. “You should’ve led with the smile. I would’ve agreed to twice that.”

  Chapter 5

  * * *

  Rush

  My gaze was drawn to her pretty mouth as it gaped at my admission. It was wide, glossed in red, with a Cupid’s bow at the top and a plush bottom lip. Perfect. I imagined tracing the lines of her mouth with my tongue, then I would lick the gloss off. Make a feast of her.

  Her mouth was made for making love to as much as it was for expressing her mood. That amazing smile took her from beautiful to blinding. As surely if she’d flipped an internal switch, she went from intriguing to irresistible. That smile alone changed her from a possibility to a certainty in my mind.

  My previous rendezvous was easy to dismiss. I had no interest in her at all anymore.

  No, I wanted this girl.

  I’d take those ruby-red lips wrapped around my shaft to start. Then I would peel away her clothes and explore every inch of her sexy body.

  Taste it.

  Feel it.

  Take her, again and again.

  In my mind, I traded the fire of our opposing wills for the heat of our mutual passion. I’d been imagining how hot it would be to fuck her from the moment she shot me down and turned her back on me.

  As I hurried to open the passenger door, my already eager cock jumped when my arm brushed against hers, and my grip tightened on the metal handle. My pulse raced as fast as my imagination, and my nostrils flared as I watched her slip into the seat.

  “Thank you,” she murmured softly, glancing up at me through sooty lashes.

  Her voice was low and throaty. I wanted to hear it and feel it when I had my cock buried deep inside her.

  I noted that she seemed surprised when I opened the door for her. Yeah, well, I guess most of her clients just popped the locks and ordered her to get in.

  Why the hell I was treating her like a date instead of a hooker, I didn’t really know. Maybe it was my Midwest upbringing. Maybe it was my guilt for the flinch she hadn’t been quick enough to hide after I insulted her earlier. Maybe it was her million-dollar smile.

  Whatever. I didn’t plan to fully analyze it. Hell fucking no.

  “You’re welcome,” I said politely while taking a self-serving moment to fully enjoy the view. She was a looker, for sure. Long shapely legs, round ass, full breasts. She had an hourglass shape any guy would lust over, though she seemed a little undernourished.

  Pressing her legs together and crossing them at the ankles, she settled in. Her demure behavior only added to my confusion as I shut the door.

  Time to move things along. To get out of this neighborhood. To get us out of this neighborhood. It wasn’t safe. Plus, I needed to get her alone to have my way with her. Anything I wanted with her, I could have. I was a paying customer, after all.

  Her gaze followed me as I quickly rounded the hood. What was she thinking? She seemed genuinely into me. I wasn’t totally clueless with chicks. I recognized the signs. Darkened eyes. Parted lips. But then again, maybe she was just really good at her job.

  I yanked open my door with more force than necessary.

  “Smiles cost extra,” she said, her tone sassy as she flipped her platinum pigtails over the black leather headrest.

  I lowered myself into the seat and glanced at her, noting the remnants of one playing on her lips. The stinging retort I had ready to deliver evaporated from my tongue.

  She was damn cute. The supple red suede of her seat seemed to conform to her. More confusing than her behavior was the proprietary rush I felt looking at her beside me in my car.

  I reached for my seat belt and snapped it into place.

  “What? No comeback?” She let out a low, sultry laugh that affected me as strongly as if she’d wrapped her slender fingers around my cock.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, then mentally cursed myself for sounding like a dumbass.

  “You do that.” Her small smile widened into a full-blown one that lit up her eyes.

  Suddenly, she became the only thing I saw. Gone was the interior of the car. The rounded aviation-style dials. The polished chrome. The gold-and-red crest on the center of the steering wheel. Everything receded but her.

  I ripped my gaze away from her. “You have a usual place?” My voice was overly loud, my grip tightening on the wheel.

  She was staring at me again; I could sense it. What could possibly inspire such unnerving scrutiny? I desperately wanted to know.

  “What?” she asked, and I couldn’t resist.

  I turned my head to take her in.

  Her golden eyes widened, and she blinked at me in return. At a distance, they were striking, but up close, her eyes were fucking phenomenal.

  Suddenly, I couldn’t think straight. My cock twitched, so tight and uncomfortable that I had to make a conscious effort not to adjust myself.

  I pulled in a deep breath. A necessary one, but a mistake that flooded my senses with her fresh peachy scent, a light fragrance that took me home, reminding me of the peach pies my mom used to bake.

  Fuck me.

  I cleared my throat, and when I spoke, my voice was gruff. “Where do you want me to do you, babe?”

  “Oh. Yes. Um.” She wet her lips, seeming caught off guard by my abruptness. “Don’t you mean me doing you?”

  “Yeah, darlin’.” Oh, hell fucking yes. Now we had things refocused. “For sure.”

  Her gaze dipped to my lap as if to gauge the magnitude of that task. My already steely-hard cock hardened even more. Her gaze pinned to my lap, she made a low appreciative sound. My spine tingled as if she’d actually traced my sizable length.

  “Where?” I asked, trying to focus and remind her of the issue of logistics. “This ain’t happening here.”

  “There’s a park nearby,” she said.

  “I’m not having you blow me in a public place. You want us both to get arrested?”

  “No.” She shook her head. Her expression clearing, she no longer appeared dazed. “But if you want to go to a motel, that’s a different price structure. I have to consider travel time. Hookups like that tend to go over an hour. Plus, they . . .” She trailed off, seeming nervous.

  For the first time since she’d gotten into the car, she glanced away from me. Her brow creasing, she stared out the windshield. Her focus seemed to be on the car in front of us, where a hooker with long black hair was bent over with her face near the open window, propositioning the driver.

  I glanced at my passenger. Was the other hooker someone she kn
ew? Or maybe the other driver was a potential customer she thought might pay better? Or had her attention wandered because of something else?

  She licked her lips. Swallowed.

  Was she scared to be alone with me? Given the direction of my thoughts, she probably should have been.

  I cleared my throat. “I’m not doing a by-the-hour shithole place either.” Motels like that were often a roach-infested health-code violation. I hadn’t stayed in one since my first tour.

  “Okay.” She turned to face me, tilting her head as if she didn’t fully get me.

  I found it cute. She was more than cute, but I ignored that and all the other conflicting feelings I had regarding her. I needed to take charge and get the situation back on track to get what I wanted.

  “The Chamberlain’s close.” I typed the hotel’s name into my GPS.

  Avoiding my eyes, she said, “I can’t go in there.”

  “Why the fuck not?” My lips flattened.

  “I just can’t.”

  She frowned as if I’d insulted her again and crossed her arms over her chest. The movement lifted her tits. I bit back a groan as I imagined her holding them for me so I could suck on them.

  “Well, we gotta go somewhere, darlin’.” As a concession to the possibility that she might be frightened, I left off the and fast.

  “I don’t have to do anything,” she said, her tone defensive. “Sorry to waste your time.” She reached for her door handle.

  Oh. Hell. No. I clicked the locks.

  “What are you doing?” She glanced back at me, her eyes wide.

  “You stay.”

  “Open the damn door.” Her voice rose as if she were panicked. “That’s my friend at the car right in front of us.”

  Ah. Realization dawned.

  “I’ll scream.” She rooted around in the bag in her lap and pulled out a small cell phone. A cheap burner, for sure, but it would still work. A shadow passed through her eyes as she added, “I don’t like being trapped.”

  Had she been trapped before? Had someone hurt her? That thought made me see red, and I reconsidered the way I’d handled the situation.

  “It’s okay, Harley.” I clicked open the locks and raised my hands in a conciliatory gesture. “You can go if you want to.”

  Disappointment rose as she swiveled to the door and grasped the handle.

  “But I’d like you to stay.” I let out a breath. “Please stay.”

  When she froze, I realized it was the politeness that she’d responded to. I filed that away as something to remember.

  She turned to glance back at me, her brows raised. Surprised, maybe? Apparently, she’d noted that I was a little arrogant.

  “You’re right. I don’t use that word often. I rarely have to anymore,” I muttered, and she tilted her head at me again. “Listen, I’ve had a particularly shitty day. One of the worst I can remember in a long while. I’m dead tired, but wired too. You ever feel like that?”

  Slowly, she nodded.

  “Then you know how it sucks. But I know one guaranteed way to feel better. You offered to have sex with me, and I’m willing to pay. If we can agree on a new price and a place, can we proceed?”

  “I guess,” she said hesitantly.

  “So, will four hundred cover the extra commute time?”

  Her nostrils flared as she stared at me. Seconds ticked by before she said, “Eight hundred.”

  My eyes widened. “That’s a lot of money, Harley.”

  The chick had balls to ask for that amount, but I already knew I was willing to pay it.

  “Done.” I wasn’t wasting fucking time on haggling. “So, we’re agreed on price. Now on to location. Is it the Chamberlain in particular you object to?”

  “No. Not really.” Her gaze straight ahead, she narrowed her eyes as she watched her friend climb into the car in front of us.

  “Hmm. Well, the rooms are nice, and I’m familiar with the staff. If I call them, they’ll do everything they can to make sure my stay . . . our stay . . . is comfortable.” I grabbed my phone from the center console. “Is there any special request you might have? Something I can have them do that might change your mind about going there?”

  I hit her with my most sincere expression, and she stared back at me as if I were an enigma to her. Well, that went both ways. I couldn’t for the life of me figure her out either . . . a girl who looked like a hooker but acted like an ingenue and smelled like a juicy peach.

  “Could you ask them for a room near the entrance?” she asked softly.

  “I could do that. Sure.”

  “Maybe one on the first floor?” She bit down on her lip as if uncertain of my reaction. “With a patio, if they have that?”

  “All right.”

  The silver ring on my middle finger glinted in the light. A gothic cross, an homage to my upbringing. I spun the cross around to my palm so I didn’t have to see it. I’d remove it before we got started.

  It wasn’t that the things I planned to do with her were anything I hadn’t done before. Just that the way I felt right now—afraid to get busted, afraid she might throw on the brakes—it reminded me of my awkward teens and fooling around in the back seat of a car with a girl I really liked.

  My hair fell into my eyes as I completed my task and returned my phone to the console. The call connected and rang over the car’s speakers before someone answered.

  “Chamberlain Hotel, West Hollywood,” a woman said in a chirpy voice. “Manager Mindy Johnson speaking. Can I help you?”

  “Yes, Mindy. This is Rush McMahon.” I paused to glance at my companion. Did she recognize my name? She was studying me as closely as I was studying her. But there was no recognition in her gaze.

  “Mr. McMahon. Yes, we haven’t seen you since your last launch party. How are you?”

  “I’m fine. A little tired from traveling. I’ve got someone with me, and we could use a room.”

  “Absolutely. The usual amenities?”

  “Yes. Only I have a few additional requests. Is there a first-floor suite available? One near the front entrance? With a patio?”

  “Let me check.” A keyboard clacked in the background. “Yes. Only it’s just a regular suite.”

  “Does it have a separate shower? A garden tub? A seating area? A fully stocked bar?” Basically, easy alcohol access and plenty of places to fuck her.

  “Yes, all of that.”

  “Then that’ll be fine. We should arrive shortly.”

  “We’ll be ready for you.”

  “Your name is Rush?” the girl asked after I ended the call.

  I nodded.

  “Should I know you?” Her gaze narrowed.

  “Most would.” I assessed her. “However, you don’t seem to.”

  “No, I’m sorry. We don’t have a TV, and I’m not big on movies and all that stuff.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not from around here.”

  “Obviously.” I’d noticed an unfamiliar accent in some of her phrasing. “Most everyone in LA is obsessed with the whole entertainment industry. Are you against that kind of thing?” I asked. “Even music?”

  “Not really against. Just not interested, I guess.”

  My lips curved. No built-in expectations or biases. I liked that she didn’t know me.

  “Gran wasn’t keen on those things,” she said.

  “Gran?”

  “My grandmother.”

  The girl’s expression changed, closed off. There was something more, but she wasn’t going to share it with me.

  “So, the one hour? At the hotel?” Her lips moved for a few seconds as if she were doing some internal calculations, then she said, “I only take cash. You have it on you?”

  “No.”

  “Cash up front. No exceptions.”

  “Pretty steep up front.” I slid my gaze over her. “How do I know you’re gonna be worth it?”

  “I’m worth it.” She blazed a confident smile at me.

  “I’ll be t
he judge of that. Soon.”

  Anticipation coursed through me. For the first time in a long time, I found myself not only engaged, but looking forward to something.

  “You, sir, are getting a bargain since I’m not charging you for the first couple of smiles. From now on, the tack-on fee for those is a hundred each.”

  Her grin widened, and my brain short-circuited on the brilliance of it.

  “I’m sure you know,” she said softly, “that nothing worth having is ever free.”

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  Jewel

  From the corner of my eye, I watched him whip the car out of a slow lane into a faster one. Focused. Quick reflexes. Steady grip. He handled the Porsche capably.

  Cam believed you could learn a lot about a guy by how he drove his car. If that theory held, there was a lot for a girl to like.

  “So, your name is Rush.”

  “That’s right.” His eyes nearly obscured by layers of hair—expertly and expensively cut, I could tell—he gave me a quick glance before he returned his attention to the road.

  I added careful to his attribute list. High on the list. In my profession, guys didn’t always handle me with care.

  “Is that a nickname for some reason?” I asked.

  “Um, no. Not exactly. Brother Randy. Father Ronald. My mom has a thing for names that begin with R, I guess. Plus, I was born early.”

  He shrugged, then frowned as the car in front of us suddenly stopped. Throwing his arm in front of me, he applied the brakes. Hard.

  Momentum slung me forward, then threw me back as my seat belt engaged.

  “You hurt?”

  When he glanced at me again, I was struck by several things at once. What a unique shade of gray his eyes were, and how they changed with his emotions—they were darkened in concern at the moment—and how his instinct had been to shield me from harm. I added protective to the list.

  “Sorry.” He withdrew his arm, and his hand brushed my breasts.

  My cheeks warmed. I watched his grip tighten on the wheel, straining the leather. Was his apology for the contact or the braking?