8
I flinch at the sharp tear across my skin and mutter a few choice words. F*ckshitcrapouch! The young esthetician looks at me apprehensively, and I cover my eyes with my hand.
“I’m a wimp. Ignore me.”
That earns a small smile. She spreads some more wax onto my skin, and I grit my teeth because I know this one is gonna hurt. The sides always do. Tear. Wax. Tear. Each strip gets another hiss of breath, a curse, a punch to the bed.
“Do this quickly. I mean it. Whip it off,” I beg as she applies the wax to the very back of my core, right by my ass.
“Absolutely, Miss Black.” She’s as good as her word. The wax barely dries before she rips it off with the vigor of a mother pulling a Band-Aid from a screaming child.
“Sonofa…” I bite my tongue and kick my heels against the bed.
Brazilians. F*cking hate them.
“Thank you.” I smile at the girl, albeit a tight one, and wrap a fluffy robe around me. Sweet god. My legs bend into a half-squat position and I do an odd half twerk. The tender, itchy feeling I always experience after… I let out a long breath. I really need to invest in laser hair removal.
I walk through the spa barefoot to the private elevator that will take me to the presidential suite. The Cheshire Hotel is easily the most exclusive and expensive I’ve ever stayed in. It’s obvious in everything. The décor, the furniture, the way the staff treats their well-dressed, well-mannered, good-looking clients.
Aaron and I certainly got star treatment.
Australia is hotter than I imagined it would be in March, and although I’m not short of clothes to wear, nothing seems light enough. And what is light enough is courtesy of Agent Provocateur. Not suitable for public viewing.
I shrug off the robe and step into my underwear. Nothing in my suitcase is even remotely appealing to wear in this unexpected heat wave. The temperatures are hovering around one hundred thanks to a late-summer heat wave, and if I make it through this without melting, I’ll be amazed.
The suite door closes. “Dayton?”
“In the bedroom.” My cheeks flush. This is the first time we’ve spoken since we left Vegas—since he pinned me against a glass wall and f*cked me with his fingers until I came spectacularly. We both slept during the flight and he left early this morning while I was still in bed.
My skin hums with awareness when he walks into the room, and a low, appreciative chuckle leaves him.
“Not what I was expecting to see, but welcome all the same.”
I flip him the bird over my shoulder. “I have nothing to wear.”
“You’re standing in front of three suitcases. How can you have nothing to wear?”
“I didn’t pack for a trip to the surface of the sun.”
Aaron unzips his own suitcase on the other side of the room, and I hear the swish of material as he changes. “It’s not that hot.”
“Are you kidding me?” I spin. And stop dead at the sight of him.
He’s wearing a white polo shirt that stretches across his shoulders and hugs his torso like a second skin, and his shorts hang just below his knees. There’s even a pair of sunglasses resting on top of his head, and I can’t help the way my eyes travel over his body. From his head to his toes, I appraise him. Heat floods my body when I catch sight of his fingers on his hips, remembering them inside me last night.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he warns, his eyes hot and heavy and lidded. They hold me captive, turning the heat spreading through my body up a notch.
I straighten. “Like what?”
“Like there’s nothing you’d rather do right now than rip these clothes off me and f*ck me.”
“Maybe that’s what I’m thinking.”
He smirks and moves to me. “No you’re not. You’re remembering the feel of my fingers inside you last night.” Those same fingers tease the hem of my panties. “You’re remembering how easily I made you come all over them.”
I exhale loudly and knock his hand away. “Stop playing with me, Aaron. I’m not a toy.”
“Actually…” He trails his hand up my body and cups my chin. “You’re whatever I want you to be, remember? I just have more respect than to treat you like a toy. I told you last night. I don’t play. Whether that be with fire or games. I’m not the one hiding my desire behind a thick wall of defiance.”
“Hiding my desire? I think you found it last night, don’t you?”
He tilts my face back, his lips curving deliciously. “For a second, until you locked it away again.”
I step back and turn to my suitcase. “If you’re going to f*ck me, just do it. It’s part of what you pay for.”
“If you’re going to let me f*ck you, just do it. And again—I don’t give a shit what I pay for. When I f*ck you, it’ll be because you need it so badly you won’t be able to breathe. When I f*ck you, it’ll be because you’ll feel like you’ll die if you don’t have me inside you. I won’t be taking you to bed just because I pay for it.”
I grab a dress and ignore him. My core is aching too much to respond, because if I do, it’ll be to beg for that f*ck.
“Get dressed. We’re going out.”
“Where?”
“To buy you something suitable for a week on the surface of the sun, Bambi.” He walks through the door, and I throw my hairbrush after him.
“Stop calling me that!”
Aaron reaches across the table and threads his fingers through mine. I look at our hands. Large and small, two different shades of tan, linked together and held there by his tight grip. His tan is likely more natural than mine. I can’t imagine Aaron Stone lying on a tanning bed for ten minutes twice a week.
He rubs his thumb across the back of my hand. “So. Dot com work, huh? How’s that working for you?”
I bite the inside of my cheek and gaze at the harbor through the café’s window. “Shut up.”
“I’ve heard it can be a lucrative business.”
“Aaron.”
“Particularly with the e-book boom lately. How have you managed to take time off?”
I look at him, unable to hide the stupid grin on my face. “Shut up.”
“That’s what I was going for.” He returns my smile. “Seriously, dot com? That was the best you had?”
“I was put on the spot! It was the first thing I thought of.”
“You realize they’ll try to look you up, don’t you?”
“Then they’ll find themselves incredibly surprised if they happen to come across Monique’s website.”
He quirks an eyebrow. “There’s a website?”
“Why? Wishing you’d thought to try before you bought?”
“No. I’m thinking I’m not a fan of your picture on there for the world to see.”
“It’s pixelated. You can’t tell it’s me.”
“I’d know your face anywhere.”
“It’s good you didn’t go on the website then, isn’t it?” I tap the back of his hand with my fingers. “How did you get her number?”
“A friend of mine has used her…services…before.”
“This could get awkward very quickly,” I mutter.
“Not you. He said he saw Shelly or someone.” He pauses, and I nod. “I had no idea who I was booking when she gave me your name.”
I smile wryly. “That’s the reason we have two. Working with people you know is off-limits and not something that’s ever happened to me. But it did to another girl. She was due to meet him for an evening function but he was the brother of a high school friend. Monique had to send another girl out pronto.”
“You all grew up in Seattle? Isn’t that risky if you don’t want to be found out?”
“The risk is…well, irrelevant. It doesn’t matter where you do it, there will always be the chance you’ll run into someone you know. It’s why there’s always one or two of us off. We’re always ready to jump in for another girl.”
“Or for calls like mine.”
“Or for late calls, yes. I happened to be the lucky one that night.” I roll my eyes.
“Hey.” He tugs on my hand and I lean across the table. His thumb teases across my bottom lip and he keeps his eyes firmly there. “No luckier than I was when it was you who walked into the booth.”
“There’s nothing lucky about me walking into your booth. I’ve wrecked more guys than I’ve made.”
“And you did both to me, once upon a time.” He leans in and brushes his lips across mine. “But it was lucky because every time I’ve been in Seattle, I’ve always thought about you. Wondered where you were living, what you were doing, if you’d met anyone or had kids. And now I know.”
I pull back slightly, this revelation making my head spin. “Why didn’t you ever look for me?” Is that hurt in my voice? F*ck. No. Get back in your box, teenage Dayton.
His blue eyes find mine. “I don’t know. I didn’t know where to start, and I was a little scared. We promised each other we’d be just a summer romance, a fleeting fling in a European city. I should have forgotten you the second we got back to the US, but I never did. I was afraid if I found you, you’d tell me my worst fear. That it was just a fling and wasn’t anything real. I loved you too much to hear those words.”
My throat constricts and my chest tightens. I struggle to swallow the emotion in my throat. This… This is what I wanted to avoid. What I never wanted to know.
“I wanted to leave that summer as it was,” he continues, his thumb once again rubbing the back of my hand. “Six beautiful weeks of you and me wrapped in our bubble of passion and love and bliss. I didn’t want anything to ruin that.”
“Maybe… Maybe that was the best idea,” I manage in a voice calmer than I feel inside. Inside, I’m a raging mess of longing and remembering and need.
“Would it have made a difference? If I’d looked for you and found you?” He pushes some hair back from my face in a move that seems too soft. Too tender. Too loving. “Would you have let me love you the way I did in Paris?”
I draw in a deep breath. “At first. But not…after. Not after. Excuse me.” I pull my hand from his and force myself to walk into the ladies’ restroom. I want to run. I want to run and hide and make sense of this shit.
“Remember, call girls don’t fall in love.”
Aunt Leigh’s voice fills my mind, ringing out in my ears and reverberating through my body. The words wrap around me, reminding me, taunting me, striking me, and bringing a pain I didn’t know existed.
I lock myself in a stall and put the toilet seat down. It’s hard as I sit and bury my face in my hands. Call girls don’t fall in love. They don’t feel anything other than physical things for their clients. They don’t feel tingles at the touch of their lips, a hum when they enter the room, a buzz when their eyes darken. They don’t get shivers at a hand on the bases of their backs and their bodies don’t go into overdrive when lust-filled eyes appraise them.
“Remember, call girls don’t fall in love.”
I lean my head against the cubicle wall, staring at a spot on the door, and whisper, “Unless there was always a small part of them that never let that love go.”
The new dress Aaron bought earlier is lightweight and flirty while still giving the impression of class. I stare at the water of the pool swirling around my feet and grab my cocktail glass. He’s having a conference call with his dad in the US, which means I have the next while to myself. To think.
Or I would if the concierge didn’t approach me.
“Miss Black? There’s a call from America for you.”
I accept the phone he offers. “Thank you.” I wait until he leaves, and when I’m alone once again, I hold it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Dayton!”
“Liv? Why are you calling me, you crazy bitch?”
“Because I’m half-asleep, and f*ck it all, I miss my best friend!”
“And drunk.”
“I’m sorry. Did you not hear that? I f*cking miss you!”
Definitely drunk.
“I know. I miss you too, Liv. You’d love it here.”
“Wait. Where are you?”
“Sydney.” I kick the water. “By the pool with a Blow Job in my hand.”
“Babe, that better be the cocktail or I wanna know why you’re talking and not sucking.”
I laugh. “It’s the cocktail. I’ve never seen a bartender blush so much.”
“You did it deliberately. Okay. Enough bullshit. How’s McDreamy?”
“You mean Aaron.”
“Pssh. I want details.”
“Of what? How he’s my client and I’m working?”
“F*ck you, Dayton Lauren Black. If you think for one second that I, your best friend, believe you can sleep in the same bed as that gorgeous man and be at his side most of the day and not want him, you need a slap upside the head.”
I look down and sigh. “I don’t want to talk tonight. Are you free tomorrow? Uh, my tomorrow.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“Skype date?”
“As long as you bring Pop Tarts.”
“On it, babe. Just… You’re okay, right?”
I smile sadly at my feet. “Yeah, I’m okay. No losing my shit over a guy, remember?”
“Good. I don’t look forward to getting on a plane to kick your ass. I’m going to bed now because this chat has probably cost me a hundred bucks already because my stupid plan doesn’t include stupid international minutes. Goodnight, I love you, and absolutely do not be good.” She kisses down the phone and hangs up. I shake my head and grab my flip-flops.
I leave my cocktail on the table and walk to the main lobby. My eyes find the concierge desk. They must have switched shifts while I was talking because now a young guy is sitting behind it. He looks uncertain, his eyes flitting about nervously. And goddamn, I’m a bitch, but I’m using this to my advantage.
I saunter up to him with my best smile. “Hi there.” I look at this name badge. “Steven.”
“Uh, hello there, madam.”
“Dayton Black. I’m finished with my call. Here’s your phone.” I shoot him a dazzling smile and he accepts the phone with a shaky hand.
“Thank you, Miss Black.”
“Steven, I was wondering…” I lean on the counter. “Could you do me a little favor? I need to send a message to someone back in Seattle, but my international thing hasn’t been set up yet.”
“Um. Of course I can. If you just, uh…” He grabs a pen and paper and gives it to me. “Write the details down here. I’ll do it right away.”
I smile widely and scribble a note.
To Monique Park, from Dayton Black.
Pay Liv two hundred for international calls. I owe you—take extra from the next.
And get my cell sorted so it works. I don’t wanna be paying her crap again. Thanks xo
I hand him the message with her contact details and touch his arm. “You’re a doll, Steven. Thank you so much.”
“You’re… You’re welcome, Miss Black. Oh, Mr. Stone. Can I help you?”
The hair on the back of my neck prickles, and I turn to Aaron. He’s amused and pissed off simultaneously. I rest my hand against his chest.
“Hey, baby. Did your call go well?”
“It did.” He wraps an arm around my back.
“How’s your dad?”
“He’s fine. Are you harassing the concierge?”
I raise my eyebrows and glance at Steven. “Of course not. He’s just sending a message for me, and he’s been so helpful. He’s a real doll.”
“I’m sure he is,” he says. “If you’ll excuse us, Steven, I believe I need to have a chat with my woman.”
With my woman?
He guides me into the penthouse elevator without a word. We make the journey in complete silence, his hand curved at my hip and his eyes forward. His body is tense, and annoyance radiates from him.
What did I do now?
The concierge—oh. I threatened to sleep with one just a few days ago. Double oh.
Aaron moves me out of the elevator and into our suite. Still keeping his silence, he pulls off his tie and rolls up the sleeves of his shirt. I stand by the doors and sink my teeth into my lower lip in feigned ignorance.
After a small slice of forever, he turns. Dark blue, angry eyes hit me. “You seem to have a thing for concierges.”
“I needed to send a message to Monique.”
“And you needed the concierge for that?”
I wave my phone before throwing it on the sofa. “No international calls yet. I’m like a hermit.”
“And you needed to get the message to her right f*cking now?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” He flattens his hands against the door.
I tilt my head back to look at him. “Because my best friend is an idiot who thinks calling Australia from Seattle is a smart idea when her only steady income just about pays her bills.” I jab him in the chest. “My message to Monique was to pay her the cost and then some in case she calls me again and to sort out my international shit. Don’t worry. I wasn’t trying to f*ck the concierge. Not that I wouldn’t, given the chance. He’s kind of—”
Aaron takes my lips with his and cuts me off. He wastes no time sweeping his tongue through my mouth, dominating the kiss and every one of my thoughts. He tugs my bottom lip between his teeth. My stomach coils, and each time I feel his teeth against my lip, the same old ache starts up. It deepens, spreading from the tip of my * to right inside me, and I squeeze my legs together. Holy…
“The next time I see you talking to a concierge, any concierge, I’m doing that right in front of him.”
“Oh, please. You say it like it’s such a hardship. You’d love to do that in public.”
“And let every guy in the immediate area know you’re off-limits? Damn straight, baby.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He rubs my swollen lips. “You were being very unfair to him, you know.”
I straighten. “I was not!”
“You were. I watched you the whole time. You had the guy completely spellbound, Dayton. You don’t realize how incredibly beautiful you are, and you emit a raw sexuality that makes every guy you pass look at you. It’s palpable. I know exactly when you walk into a room because of it. It hits me full force. I know how far away from me you are because I feel it.”
I have a raw sexuality? This coming from the guy who makes my skin hum so badly I turn into a walking vibrator.
“Do you feel it now?”
“Feel what?”
“My ‘raw sexuality.’”
“I can’t not feel it. It calls out to me, and that’s exactly why I can’t touch you again right now. If I touch you, being mad at you and wanting you this badly will end up in you coming again. Likely on my tongue.”
He pushes away and strolls into the kitchen area. My heart is pounding in my chest as I imagine me pressed against this door and him on his knees. As I imagine my legs hooked over his shoulders and his hands cupping my ass and holding me up and his tongue gliding along my p-ssy and across my *…
I glance up and meet his eyes. “F*ck you,” I mutter, turning to the bedroom. “F*ck you one hundred times over.”
“You will. Soon enough.”