9
Aaron’s arms slide around me and grab the mug of coffee I just made.
“Hey! That’s mine.” I spin right into his grinning face.
“It was yours. I have to run.” He downs it. “I won’t be back all day—probably just in time to get ready for the party tonight.”
“Okay.” I tilt my head back. “What do I wear?”
A smile curves his gorgeous lips, and he brushes his thumb across my cheek. “Not that it matters what you wear, but it’s formal. So something long but sexy.”
“Long but sexy?”
“Excuse me if I want everyone to know the most beautiful woman in the room belongs to me.” His smile widens as he leans in and touches his lips to mine. “Behave today. I left you my card on the nightstand. Go and buy that something long but sexy.”
“What if I have something?”
“I don’t care if you have something. I’m telling you to go and buy a dress, Dayton, so do it. I want you there tonight in something I bought you.”
I narrow my eyes. “I can buy my own dress.”
“But you’re not going to. You’re going to take my goddamn card and buy yourself something.”
“Your card?”
“Yes, my f*cking card. Jesus Christ, Day. I have the company card. You have mine. I am buying you a dress, not my father. Spend whatever.”
The hardness in his eyes tells me that he isn’t budging, and I give in. Reluctantly. Because I despise things being bought for me.
“Fine. I’ll take your card and buy a dress. But I’m warning you, Aaron.” I skip from his hold and point my finger at him, walking backward to the bedroom. “I’m buying the whole shebang. Dress, shoes, purse, jewelry. All of it.”
He opens the elevator doors and smirks. “Get your nails and hair done while you’re at it. You have a few split ends.”
“F*ck you!” I shout as he disappears behind the closing doors.
Do I?
I grab a section of hair between my fingers and pull it in front of my face. My eyes flit over it, examining it, and I drop it with a curse.
“Bastard,” I mutter to the buzzing of my phone.
Kidding, he texts. Your hair is perfect.
I’m making you pay for that, a*shole.
Good.
I toss my phone on the bed and look at the time. Shit. Skype date with Liv!
I run into the front room area and pull my laptop from its case. The Wi-Fi connects in seconds, and two minutes later, I’m staring at the blond bombshell that is my best friend.
“Spill. Everything,” she demands.
“Hello to you too. I’m having an okay time but I miss you like crazy. Hope everything is good in Seattle.” I stick my middle finger up.
Liv laughs. “Everything is fine in Seattle, I miss you ten times more, and you should be having an amazing time. Not an okay one. I mean, hello! Have you seen Mr. Aaron Stone? He’s a walking f*cking orgasm.”
“Considering I see him every day and sleep next to him each night, I’d say yes, I have seen him. I’m very well acquainted with him and his looks.”
“Sarcastic bitch.” She sighs. “Seriously, babe, what’s up? You look like you need a girls’ night.”
“Oh, Liv. I do. So badly.” I rest my head on my hand and stare at my screen. “This job is impossible.”
“Nah, it’s not, baby girl. You can get through it. Only four and a half weeks to go, right?”
“Right.” I sigh. “Liv?”
“Yeah?”
I chew on the inside on my lip as I mull over what to say. “Have you ever wanted someone so badly it hurt to look at them? Like, your world would fall apart if you didn’t have at least one touch from them each day? Like nothing else matters except the all-encompassing feeling of their lips against yours?”
“Yeah, I feel that way about you every day.” She laughs. “Kidding. Kind of. Um, not really.”
I sigh again, more heavily this time. “It sucks. It sucks Big Foot balls, for real.”
Her eyes soften. “If you want him that badly, why don’t you have him?”
“Because. It’s dangerous. I already have to kiss him a hundred times a day, touch his cheek, stare into his eyes like I’m helplessly in love with him… If I had to have sex with him too, I think I’d die.”
“You haven’t had sex with him yet?”
“That’s what you took from that?”
“Seriously? You sleep next to that each night and you don’t f*ck his gorgeous brains out?”
“Liv!”
“Who the f*ck are you and what have you done with my blunt-talking best friend?” She taps the webcam to make her point. “Sex is your f*cking job, Dayton. It’s what you do for a living.”
“He hasn’t called it in. He said on the flight to Vegas it was optional, and he’s since said he won’t until I want him for him. Until I don’t treat him like he’s my client.”
“But he is your client.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t get it.”
I bury my face in my hands and rub my eyes. “I do. I get it.”
“Explain.”
A small, bitter laugh leaves me—a bitter laugh tinged with sadness. “He remembers everything, Liv. Every single thing about that summer is encased in his memory, and every chance he has, he reminds me.” I swallow and look down. “Everything.”
“Holy mother of...”
“Yeah.” I nod roughly. “He wants me, Liv. Not as his escort or the girl to keep his bed warm.”
“Okay, you don’t know that for certain, do you?”
I smack the table. “He still calls me f*cking Bambi!”
Her silence is telling. Ironically deafening. “Shit.”
“You really need to work on getting some stronger cuss words. Shit doesn’t cover any situation where Aaron Stone is concerned.”
She shrugs. “S’all I got, baby girl. What are you gonna do?”
“Long term? Not a f*cking clue. Short term?” I hold up the card I pulled from the nightstand. His card.
“Is that a black Express card?”
I nod. “I’ve been ordered to go shopping.”
“Well, shit. Send something back for your poor model friend, won’t you?”
“I don’t think I can fit a hunky Australian in a box.”
“Plane tickets to said Australian will be fine.” She grins. “Look, I gotta get to work. By the way, you didn’t have to pay me back for that call. It’s cool.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Okay. Monique said your calls will be sorted in two days, so you can call me next time. Got that?”
“Got it.”
We end the video call and I close the laptop down. That was as helpful as it was a hindrance. I love her, but sometimes I wonder if having someone who understands anything past a casual hook-up would be a good idea.
The red strapless bra hugs my breasts perfectly, giving them just enough lift above the neckline of the equally red dress I’m wearing. The satin hugs my body perfectly before flaring at my knees in a mermaid-style skirt. It’s the sexiest classy dress I’ve ever worn, and it leaves nothing to the imagination while keeping everything hidden.
I smooth my dark hair back and grab a lipstick from my makeup bag. The fire-engine red color is smooth as I slide it across my lips. I grab the black purse I bought to match the dress with a trembling hand.
Aaron decided to call at four and tell me that tonight isn’t just any party. It’s a party in his honor. For the man who will soon be the CEO, the boss, the owner of the global whirlwind that is Stone Advertising. “Sorry,” he said. “Should have mentioned that.”
“You a*shole,” is what I said. Give a girl some time to prepare appropriately.
For that, I spent an extra six hundred dollars on this dress and hated every cent of it. The temptation to whip out and hand over my own card was almost consuming.
I run my hands along my sides to smooth the dress. But damn, it’s worth every penny. Aaron wanted sexy, and sexy is what he’s going to get.
“Holy f*ck.”
His voice echoes through the room and wraps me in a warm bubble of pleasure and smugness.
I turn my face to the side and catch his eye. “Is the dress okay?”
“Okay? You’re standing in front of a f*cking mirror and you’re asking me if it’s okay?” He crosses the room and rests his hands on my sides. He drops a kiss to my bare shoulder. “There’s no way you won’t be the most beautiful woman in the room tonight. If every guy doesn’t have their eyes on you the whole time, they need their eyes tested. Shit, Dayton. You look f*cking incredible.”
I look at the floor and smile.
“No.” He cups my jaw from behind and lifts my face to the mirror. “You don’t get to look at the floor. Look in this mirror and see how devastatingly beautiful you look.”
“Shut up,” I murmur. “It’s just a dress.”
“No. It’s the woman that makes the dress. And you? You make this dress something that borders on illegal.” He lowers his mouth to my ear. “Tell me I bought this.”
“You did. And the shoes.” I stick out my foot, which is wrapped in a black stiletto.
“Good. Now I know every part of you, including your clothes, belongs to me. And I’ll be thinking of that when every man in the room tonight is undressing you with his eyes. More importantly, I’ll be a smug bastard knowing you’re leaving with me tonight.” His lips brush the nape of my neck. “I’m going to shower and change. Don’t move.”
I nod. An unexpected emptiness fills me when he releases me, and I perch on the end of the bed, staring at myself in the mirror as the shower starts.
Wishing I could see myself the way he sees me.
I know I’m good-looking. I can pull off sexy and cute and everything in between. But to supposedly look so beautiful that you can devastate a powerful man like Aaron? That’s something I’ve always believed was beyond me.
Until now. Looking in this shining mirror, with my dark eyes and red lips, my face framed by a head of dark brown curls, my body encased in red satin, I believe I’m beautiful.
I believe I’m beautiful enough to be more than just a casual f*ck for a guy that can spare a few hundred dollars.
Because that is the essence of my job. It was. It should be. It’s supposed to be.
My title is high-class call girl. An escort.
In reality, I’m nothing more than a whore. An expensive one, but still a whore.
And I know that.
But I’m not with Aaron.
I’m something. Someone he’s proud to have on his arm and introduce to people. I’m someone he doesn’t mind pushing into the public eye as something that belongs to him. Someone he doesn’t mind the world knowing about.
That takes me above and beyond the title of whore, escort, high-class girl call.
It makes me Dayton.
The bathroom door clicks as Aaron walks into the room. A towel is wrapped around his waist, soaking up every drop of water that falls down his sculpted body.
I know that body. I know every dip and crevice, and I know what spot turns him on and what makes him groan with pleasure.
And I can’t watch when he changes or I might just touch those spots in a moment of impulsive insanity.
Aaron stands in front of me, clad in a tailored suit and bow tie. His fingers wrap around mine and he pulls me to standing. His eyes never leave mine as he tugs me up, and they only do when he stands behind me. Then they leave me for a handful of seconds until our gazes meet again in the mirror.
“Never doubt it,” he murmurs, running his hands down my arms to mine. “Never doubt your ability to walk into a room and stun every man into wanting you.”
I swallow and let him link his fingers through mine.
“Never doubt the way you walk into a room and make every man in there want you. And never ever doubt how beautiful you are to me. Not even for a second.”
“You and I see different things,” I whisper.
“You see things jaded by what you believe.” He rests his chin upon on my shoulder. “I see the raw truth of you. I see that you’re the most beautiful woman in the world, and I’ll spend as long as I have by your side convincing you of that.”
A long moment passes as we stare into each other’s eyes in the mirror. A long moment that seems to be everlasting. That makes me want to cocoon myself in his arms and not go this damn party tonight.
“We should go,” I say softly. “You can’t be late to your own party.”
He chuckles. “I suppose not. I could always blame it on you, you know.”
“Try it, Mr. Stone, and I’ll be forced to publicly kick your ass.”
“It’s really quite dangerous to call me that, you know.”
I back into the elevator with my lips curved. “Why, Mr. Stone? Have you had a change of heart about your name?”
He pins me to the back wall of the elevator with ease. “Why yes, I have, Miss Black. Surely you haven’t forgotten the way my fingers feel while they’re stroking inside your beautiful p-ssy?”
“No.” I wrap my fingers around the lapels of his jacket. “I was just reminding you.”
“Believe me. There’s no way I could forget you squeezing around me as you came.” He touches his lips to mine, his voice lowering and turning huskier with each word until it’s a low hum that vibrates through my body. “No f*cking way.”
My breath catches. This man is irresistible. “Are you going to behave tonight?”
“Around you? Impossible.” The elevator doors open and he pulls me into his side. “Especially when you’re wearing a dress like that. That bright red against your gorgeous skin makes me want to f*ck you in ten different ways.”
“Only ten? I can think of more,” I whisper in his ear as we enter the room.
“Enough,” he snaps, his voice raw with sexual need.
Over the next twenty minutes, I’m introduced to more people than I’ll ever remember. Gorgeous Australian women and their high-flying partners. Single men with eyes that rove over my chest. Women who eye me with jealousy and disgust. Investors and workers in the business.
I let their looks and quiet comments go over my head. By now, I’m a pro at it. By now, they’re mere whispers in a world of screams. By now, they’re as commonplace as a kind word.
Nothing in my job is easy.
The Australian models signed with Stone Advertising’s agency are here, tall and lean and gorgeous. Some are on the arms of men equally as beautiful. Others are with slightly older men, and the rest are alone, their eyes stalking the room for someone who can support them when their modeling days are over.
And those eyes are on Aaron. Some fleeting glances. Some blatant stares. Some coupled with fluttering eyelashes and pouting lips.
I hate every single one.
I hate that I hate them.
I excuse myself for a moment, and a server directs me to the restrooms. The room is suffocating. The whispers and stares I usually ignore are all encompassing, making my head spin and my stomach turn. Things that shouldn’t matter do. Things that shouldn’t bother me do. Because of Aaron.
Because I care about him, and the way people view me when I’m connected to him matters. It matters for his reputation as a man and a CEO.
And right now, all I can hear is the not-so-quiet mumbles asking who I am and wondering how I ‘bagged him.’ I’m remembering how dangerous this world is—where money is no object and no price is too high for information—and how stupid it is to lie.
Yet again, I’m protected by Mia Lopez.
I pat my cheeks and apply some more lipstick, more to pass another few measly seconds instead of walking back out there. My eyes rove over my face in the mirror. I’m just as beautiful as the girls out there. I don’t look out of place or as if I’m playing dress up from Mommy’s closet. I look like I belong in a dress that costs as much as I earn in a day.
Taking a deep breath, I leave the restroom and enter the party. Aaron’s standing by the bar now, leaning lazily against it, completely surrounded by models. Of course. I suppress my eye roll.
He looks up as I approach and shoots me a dazzling smile that eclipses any look he’s given the models. He straightens and holds out his arm. I step into his side and ignore the cold looks being shot in my direction when he touches his lips to my temple.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
I nod. “Fine. I just needed a moment.”
His lips twitch. “Dayton, let me introduce you to the girls. This is Kirsty, Jay, Maria, and Lola. They’re our top Australian models, and I expect we’ll be seeing one or two of their faces on some billboards when we head into the city later this week.”
“Isn’t the Marielle makeup campaign running now?” Maria asks.
“I believe so.”
She beams at him. “Then you’ll definitely see me. You’ll have to let me know what you think of it.”
Ugh.
“I’ll make sure to do that.” He smiles politely. “Ladies, if you’ll excuse us, there are a lot of people to see tonight. I’m sure I’ll see some of you again this week.”
“Looking forward to it!” one of them trills to our backs.
And that right there is why I chose f*cking over modeling. God forbid I’d end up all dried up at twenty-five when the next big thing came along, begging any hot, rich guy to take care of me.
“Not a fan of the models?” Aaron murmurs in my ear, pulling me outside.
“Oh, yes. I loved them. Can you tell?”
He laughs. “I imagine they feel the same way.”
“I’m sure we’ll be braiding each other’s hair in no time.” I roll my eyes.
“I like it when you’re jealous.”
“I’m not jealous. I might look it, but I’m not.”
“You’re a terrible actress.”
“I take offense to that, Mr. Stone.”
His eyes darken, and he runs his thumb along my jaw. “I take offense to you not being jealous.”
“So we’re both offended. Gee, aren’t relationships great?”
His lips curve as his thumb tugs on my bottom one. “If you’re not jealous, you won’t mind if I go and buy one of those girls a drink, would you?”
The thought makes bile rise up my throat. “No.” I swallow it down. “Go ahead. I think Maria would be very accommodating.”
A low laugh leaves him. “Jealous. I knew it.”
“I’m not—”
He touches his lips to mine tenderly. “Don’t worry,” he says against my mouth. “I’ve barely taken my eyes off you all evening.”
“I should hope not. You shouldn’t be looking at other women when attending a party with your girlfriend.”
“F*ck the ruse, Dayton. Whether you were here with me or not, I’d still be eying you like a sex-starved teenage boy all night. Don’t tell me you haven’t seen the way men, married or not, are staring at you?”
Nope. Felt it, not seen it. “I don’t notice that stuff. Besides…” I run my finger down his jacket. Time for a little honesty. “I might be too busy looking at someone else to notice.”
“Who am I kicking out?”
I laugh. “Can you kick yourself out of your own party?”
“Shall we try it?”
“Aaron. You can’t just leave your own party.”
“Sure I can. I have an early start tomorrow. I can use that as an excuse.” His lips are soft against mine. “Come on.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
He grins over his shoulder and leads us to the manager of the Sydney office. “Mr. Marks. I’m afraid Dayton and I are going to have to leave early. I have an early start tomorrow. I’d love to stay longer, but my schedule is full this week.”
“Of course! Such a shame, but we’ll see each other in two days, correct?”
“Yes—to discuss the incoming contracts. Thank you for organizing this. It’s been a wonderful evening.”
The two men shake hands, and Mrs. Marks pecks my cheek.
“I do hope we’ll get to see each other this week, Dayton. This evening’s meeting was far too short.”
“I agree. Perhaps I can convince Aaron to bring me along to the shoot later this week.” I wink at her.
Aaron squeezes my waist. “I think you could convince me to do just about anything, Day.” I smile. “Goodnight, everyone.”
We step into the elevator and Aaron presses the button to go up. He slides his hand from my waist to my hip and curves me into him. I’ve barely grasped his shoulders when his fingers are in my hair and his mouth is covering mine. His tongue forces itself between my lips and sweeps across mine, making me whimper at the sudden onslaught.
Shivers snake through my body and I arch into him, a primal instinct taking over. I feel his kiss everywhere, feel it reverberating through my body in tingles and aches and shots of pure lust. It tightens my stomach and clenches the muscles in my p-ssy, and when he breaks the kiss, I gasp for air.
“What the hell was that?” I breathe.
“That was what I’ve been wanting to do all night.” He takes my bottom lip between his and sucks gently as he pulls me into the suite.
He leaves me standing in the middle of the room. I kick off my shoes and let my eyes follow him as he enters the kitchen and pours a glass of wine. He puts it in my hand and smirks down at me.
“I’m going to shower.” Aaron backs out of the main room into our bedroom and pauses by the door. “Before I do something crazy.”
Something crazy? As opposed to dragging me around the world and kissing the ever-loving shit out of me at every opportunity?
Do we have different definitions of the word?
The sound of the shower running reaches my ears, and I slowly bring my gaze up. Something crazy. He wants something crazy?
I’ll give him f*cking crazy.