Allure (12 page)

Fourteen

Neal

‘Does Joey know where you are?’ I squeeze her hand as we walk along the banks of the river. We needed the fresh air; a break. We’ve spent most of the day holed up in my hotel suite, making love, talking – although, she’s still trying to avoid opening up on any aspect of her life. And yet, there’s something in her eyes that tells me she wants to talk. Maybe I’m just not the right person.

‘I tell him everything, Neal. Well, almost everything.’ She turns to look at me, a slight smile on her face. ‘So, yeah, he knows.’

She stops walking and bows her head briefly before her eyes meet mine again.

‘He knows I’m with you, anyway. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know what’s happening. Because it’s got nothing to do with him.’

‘I’m guessing he’d believe in fairytales, though.’ I smile, trying to make light of something that’s been hanging heavy over us all day.

‘Do you? Believe in fairytales?’

I shake my head, because I don’t. I don’t believe in happy-ever-afters or anything like that, not anymore. Or I didn’t. Before I met Kira. I’ve had so much crap thrown my way that I’ve become numb to it all.

‘So what do we do, Neal? How do we deal with this?’

Her eyes are so full of sadness now and I’m not sure I can take it. It’s overwhelming; suffocating.

‘We were so good together, when we were just having fun.’ She smiles a small smile and I smile back, because she’s right.

‘But we were just pretending, Kira. We were only doing that to mask the reality.’

‘And what
is
the reality, Neal?’

I stare deep into her eyes, holding her gaze, my hand tightening around hers. ‘The reality is that I think I’m in love with you.’ The words fell so easily from my lips, and now I feel like I’ve been punched right in the solar plexus. I was in love with her from the second I first fucked her, I think I’ve always known that. But saying those words out loud was the scariest thing I have ever done.

Her eyes haven’t wavered from mine, but there’s a wariness in there that makes me nervous. I know she feels something for me, she told me as much. But love is such a big word to use to describe what you’re feeling for anyone, let alone a woman I’ve only known for four days. An escort. She’s an escort; she fucks men for a living, and I’m in love with her.

‘You shouldn’t have said that,’ she whispers, finally breaking the stare, and I feel another metaphorical punch to the stomach.

‘Kira…’

She looks up, and I want to take her away from this life, I really do. She doesn’t need it, she doesn’t deserve it. Whatever I thought could never happen, I was wrong. Anything can happen; anything has. I want to take her away from this. I want to fucking love her.

‘You don’t know me, Neal.’

‘But I want to. I want to know everything about you, Kira…’

She shakes her head, and there are tears in her eyes again, and I know I’m breaking her down now. I’m getting through, and it’s a start. We’re moving forward, and we need to do that because time is running out.

‘I can’t…’ Her voice is so quiet, and it’s shaking, and I want to go back to our bubble now. I want to crawl back inside our private world and get to know this woman who’s turned my whole existence on its fucking head. ‘I can’t do this.’

She turns to go, and I panic. I silently freak out as she starts to walk away and I reach out to grab her hand, stopping her from going anywhere. I’m not letting her go, I’m not. I’m not ready.

‘We need to talk about this, baby.’

Her eyes lock with mine, and they’re still shining bright with tears and I feel my own eyes start to fill up,
Jesus!
I haven’t cried in years. There’s been nothing that’s made me want to cry – nothing that’s made me want to feel
anything
. Because I never allowed anything to get through. Until now. And I don’t even know when I let those defences down… yeah. I do. The second I kissed her they were never going back up.

‘OK… maybe we
do
need to talk.’

I squeeze her hand and smile, reaching out to gently wipe a tear from her cheek. ‘This doesn’t have to hurt, Kira. It really doesn’t.’

It doesn’t.

But it might.

Kira

I want to run, so fast no one will ever catch me. I want to run and forget this is happening; forget that Neal Cannon ever walked into my life and messed with my head, and told me he loved me. He can’t love me. He doesn’t love me. You can’t love someone after four days. All we’ve done is fuck each other; we’ve shared showers and beds not secrets and feelings and all the things that make life real.

Pulling my robe tighter around me I stare out at the city below. My city. It’s my home, it’s all I’ve known. The people I love are here; the people who love
me
are here. Joey, all our friends, they’re all here. I feel safe here. Or I used to. That already fragile safety feels threatened now.

I feel him come up behind me and I close my eyes and lean back against him. His arms wrap around me, his mouth brushes my neck and my stomach flips like it always does when he touches me. I love it when he touches me; when he’s deep inside me. And I’m lying to myself if I say I don’t want to feel him there, again and again. I don’t want to wake up and him not be there, I’m so used to it now, after just four days. It’s crazy, and it’s wrong, but it’s happening.

‘Are you hungry?’ he asks, his mouth so close to my ear I can feel his breath warm on my cheek.

I shake my head, reaching back to touch his face, bury my fingers in his hair, but I don’t look at him. Not yet.

‘No. Me neither.’

A silence descends, but we don’t need to talk. Everything’s shifting, and we know that. But neither of us really knows how to deal with it.

‘Come to bed, Kira,’ he whispers, and I feel my heart lurch and my insides twist up. ‘We need to talk, baby.’

He’s right, we do, but I still don’t know if I’m ready.

I turn around and smile at him – my best “Kira Blu wants you” smile – and I stroke his cheek and kiss his slightly open mouth, sliding my tongue inside, and his cock springs to life almost immediately. ‘Come on, Mr Cannon. It’s time for you to fuck me.’

He takes hold of my wrist, stopping me from touching him any more; his expression serious, so serious I’m slightly taken aback. ‘Take the mask off, Kira. Put her away and let
you
out. You don’t have to play the whore for me now, OK? That’s over. It’s done. I don’t need Kira Blu. I don’t need her.’

‘She’s all you know, Neal.’

His eyes bore deep into mine, and I feel like every ounce of strength I had left is slowly being sucked out of me.

‘No, she’s not.’

He pulls me closer, and he kisses me so slowly and so softly I never want to leave his arms. I am struggling so much with this, fighting every feeling that’s being thrown at me, but the only thing I know is I can’t let him go. I want to, I need to, but I can’t.

‘Come to bed, Kira.’

He takes my hand and we go into the bedroom, and I watch as he becomes naked in front of me, my heart hammering so hard it actually hurts. Then he walks over to me and loosens my robe, pushing it back off my shoulders before he picks me up and my legs wrap around him like they belong there.

We fall onto the bed and he smiles at me, and I laugh, and the way he can lighten a mood and turn it around is incredible. I feel like a weight is slowly lifting from my shoulders as he kisses the base of my throat, his hands on my hips as he moves lower, murmuring filthy, dirty promises as his mouth finds my breasts, his tongue taking the time to flick over my nipples before it continues its journey. He isn’t done until he reaches my inner thighs, pushing them further apart, his tongue diving in and it draws the longest, lowest groan out of me. I arch my back as he sets to work, and he’s a master of this game; a man who knows just where to touch, what to do to make a woman cry out loud and beg for more. But I want to look at him; I want to see his face when we make love… When did the fucking stop and the making love start? I don’t care anymore. I really don’t. My head’s a mess and I don’t know what I’m doing but I don’t care. My whole
life
is a mess when I stop and think about it. This is just another one, another mess, but a far more beautiful one.

‘Get up here, Cannon. Now.’

He obeys, of course he does. He hasn’t forgotten who’s still really in charge around here.

‘You want something?’ He grins, and I laugh again, and his smile is just the most wonderful thing in the world to me now.

‘Yeah, I do. I want
you
inside me.’

‘Not a problem,’ he murmurs, deftly rolling a condom over his rock-hard cock and before I even have a chance to draw another breath he’s pushing into me, and I lift my legs up and draw him in deeper, because I need to really feel him tonight. I want all of him, every part of his heart and soul I want it.

Is he going to get mine?

That’s something I really can’t answer…

Neal

It’s a distraction – sex.
I
know it,
she
knows it. We’re having sex, and it’s great, it always is, but it’s a distraction. We need to talk, but I can’t do that with my dick inside her, so I’m gonna fuck her, then we’re talking. Because my head is full of shit I need to tell her now. All those closed-up feelings and secrets I’ve never told another soul; the reason why I’ll only sleep with escorts; why I’ve never let myself get close to a woman in so long – I need to tell her, all of it. Now. She needs to know, and then
she’s
gonna tell
me
why she’s spent over ten years living a life I don’t think she deserves. And we’re gonna start making sense of this whole crazy situation, before it’s too late.

Kira

‘
Oh, Jesus, Neal…!
’

I’m coming, and he’s still thrusting into me. My skin is on fire, and I can’t breathe my throat’s so tight, my body bucking and shaking with the sheer force of an orgasm I’m feeling with every inch of my being. It’s coming from so deep within me I didn’t even know I could feel something like this.

So when it finally subsides I’m left with such a harrowing sense of emptiness I can’t even think straight for a second or two.

I close my eyes, for the briefest of moments, and then I feel him gently kiss my eyelids, first one then the other, before his mouth touches mine and I pull him back down. I want to hold him, and it feels so good, just holding him. But I know I’ve thrown enough distractions in the way since we got back to the room. We need to talk. I can’t put it off any longer.

But how much I tell him – that’s still something I haven’t yet decided.

Neal

I sit up and rest my back against the head board, pulling her onto my lap. She straddles me, wrapping her beautiful legs around me and I kiss her, placing a hand gently in the small of her back and it draws the tiniest moan from her; a noise I’m not sure she even knows she’s made, but it makes my stomach dip and I know I can’t move forward now until I’ve told her what I need to tell her. And then see what she feels she can tell me.

‘We need to stop hiding behind these façades we’ve created, Kira.’

She looks at me, and I can see it in her eyes; she knows I’m right. Stay as we are, and it’s over. We really are done. Talk to each other, and we might actually have some kind of chance. Of what, though, I’m still not sure.

‘I wasn’t always the kind of man who only sleeps with escorts and carries a cold heart in his chest.’

Her eyes are fixed on mine and I know I’d be lost without her now. I have never wanted to talk about this to anyone before, not even my closest family. It affected them, too, and the pain is something I still can’t forget, but this beautiful woman I paid for sex, she makes me want to talk. And maybe allow myself to understand why I became the man I did for far too long.

‘I was married, Kira.’

I feel her stiffen slightly as I hold her, but her eyes never shift from mine. They just become a touch more confused.

‘We married fairly young. But we were in love, y’know? Didn’t see the point in hanging around.’ I take a deep breath before I continue. Because this is gonna hurt, I know it is, because I haven’t talked about it or re-lived it since the day I turned into a cold, emotionless bastard. ‘And we were happy. We had a good life, great careers…’ I have to look away. Those alien tears are back, and so are all the memories I’ve kept battered down for years. ‘But something… something happened, to change all of that. A couple of years after we were married, Lisa – my wife, she… she was on her way home, from work, and she… there was an accident. A real bad car accident…’ My voice quietens. I don’t think I can raise it above a whisper, but she’s touching my face and stroking my cheek and she’s helping to ease the searing pain I can feel flooding through me. ‘She was paralysed, from the neck down. And it changed our fucking lives, Kira. It changed everything. One stupid, fucking second and our entire world came crashing down around us…’ The memory is so brutal I have to close my eyes until the moment passes; until the pain subsides, just a touch. ‘I took time out, to look after her, because I loved her, she was fucking everything to me. But I couldn’t cope. I couldn’t fucking cope…’ The tears are streaming down my face but I’m not ashamed. They’ve needed to fall. For over six years they’ve needed to fall, and she kisses them away as I cling on to her like a frightened child. Because I’m scared. I’m so fucking scared.