Escorted (24 page)

But the selfish
part of her was terrified that he was going to drop her as a client, that she’d
never see him again.

Either way, she
was more invested in this answer than was entirely healthy.

Finally, Ander
said, “I would have told you if I no longer wanted you as a client.”

Lori swallowed
hard. Then let out her breath. “Yeah. I assumed you would. But I guess this
former client seemed pretty sure of your retirement.”

Ander cleared
his throat. His blue-gray eyes were oddly tentative. He opened his mouth to
speak. But then shut it again without shaping a word.

“What is it?”
she asked breathlessly, tilting her head toward him instinctively.

He shook his
head and glanced away. “I told you I was cutting back on my clients. And I had
to tell her something.”

“Yeah. That’s
what I told Sabrina. I figured it was just an excuse. I mean, it would be kind
of rude for you to retire without telling me, wouldn’t it?” She smiled at him,
trying for ironic teasing although she still felt oddly nervous and
embarrassed.

He returned her
smile easily and Lori relaxed a little. Everything was as it always was between
them. There was no reason for her to get so uptight about what Sabrina had told
her on Monday.

“Oh, I meant to
tell you,” she said. “I’m going to be out of town for a couple of weeks at the
beginning of next month.”

“Work trip?” he
asked, arching his eyebrows.

It was actually
a book tour for her new release but Lori cut off the explanation before she
spoke it. Ander didn’t know she was Claire Kent, and it might become too
obvious if she said she was going on a book tour right when Claire Kent’s
highly anticipated new romance was released.

“Yeah,” she
said vaguely. “Something like that.”

Ander nodded
and didn’t pursue the subject.

They lay side
by side and both stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes.

“So your new
book is coming out on the first of the month?” Ander asked at last, speaking
casually and without any prelude.

“Ye—” Lori
answered automatically before she realized what he’d just asked. She jerked up
to a sitting position with a gasp and stared down at his bland face. “You
know
?”

Ander gave her
a slight, sheepish smile. “Guilty.”

Lori’s heart
hammered and her belly twisted—with a collection of emotions she couldn’t
entirely work out. “You’ve known all along?” She was dismayed to hear the hint
of betrayal in her words.

Shaking his
head, Ander sat up too. “No. When we talked about it at first, I had no idea.
But I’ve reread some of your books in the last few months, and I kept seeing...seeing
you in them.”

“Oh.” Lori felt
herself blushing for some reason.

“I thought it must
be you. And then, last weekend, it didn’t take too much searching to discover
what writers’ conference was being held in Quebec during those days and who the
keynote speaker was. It just affirmed my suspicions.”

Lori slumped
back on the bed, releasing a long, shaky breath. She should have known Ander
was too sharp and observant to hide something like this from.

A tiny little
part of her was glad he knew. Glad he knew that she was his favorite romance
writer.

Ander reclined
back as well, but his face was turned toward her, his eyes resting on her face.
“Are you upset?”

“No,” she
admitted, turning to smile at him almost bashfully. “I guess not. I mean, now
that I know you, I feel pretty safe about a story not appearing in the tabloids
about how Claire Kent has been using the services of a sex professional for the
last six months.”

Ander’s eyes
were unusually sober. And after a moment of silence he said, “I hope you
believe that.”

“I do. I know
you’re not going to the press with the story.”

“The story will
never come out through me,” he murmured. Then his lips twitched a little. “It
won’t even appear in my true-life confessions bestseller.”

“Hey,” she
said, giving him a reproachful look, “Don’t mock the book idea. I was serious
about that.”

“I know you
were.” For just a few seconds, his smile looked almost tender. Then the
softness disappeared in his easy irony. “Although it was a rash suggestion,
since you don’t even know if I can string together two sentences.”

Lori sniffed
disdainfully. “Please. Someone as intelligent and articulate as you? Of course,
you can write. Besides, you don’t have to be a brilliant writer. Just
interesting and basically coherent. You’d have an editor to clean things up.”

Ander chuckled.
“You’re serious about this.”

“Yes. I am. Why
shouldn’t I be? Just say the word and I’ll do anything I can to help.”

That softness
flickered in his eyes again, disappearing just as quickly as before. “I
appreciate it. But I’m not sure I’m a project worth pursuing.”

Lori hated the
resignation she heard in his last words. It was worse than the bitterness she
heard far more often. She opened her mouth to argue but then changed her mind.

Nothing she
could say would change his mind about himself, would make him believe he had
true value.

She reached
over and turned his head toward her again, keeping her palm on his cheek. Then
she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his.

She had no
delusions about the powers of her kiss. It wasn’t going to change anything
about his attitude toward himself. Couldn’t reshape his whole world. But it was
the only thing she could think of to do to express how she felt at the moment.

And she needed
to do something.

Ander responded
immediately to her kiss, but he let her take complete control of it. His mouth
opened and his tongue moved at her urging. But he didn’t roll over or reach out
to touch her.

They kissed for
a long time, joined only by their mouths and Lori’s hand on his cheek. It felt
sweet and oddly innocent, and Lori felt both her body and her emotions
responding. But eventually she wanted more, so she slid her hand down to his
chest and then lower to his abdomen. Ander wore a slate blue dress shirt and
she stroked his belly through the expensive fabric.

She loved the
feel of the flat, firm muscles there, rising and falling with his accelerating
breathing.

Then she slid
her hand even lower. To the front of his trousers. Realized he was already
getting hard.

Lori wondered
why he wasn’t making any moves, why he just lay on the bed and let her kiss and
caress him.

Sometimes Ander
was so unknowable she wanted to scream.

She wanted to
know how he was feeling. She wanted him to feel as deep and overwhelmed as she
did at the moment. She wanted him to react to her with genuine pleasure and
affection.

She wanted him
to respond to her in a way he did with no other client. No one else but her.

And suddenly
she knew what she wanted to do.

Her hands moved
to his belt and started to unhook the buckle. Then she unfastened his trousers
and untucked his shirt. Started to slowly unbutton it, baring his chest to her
view. She slid his shirt off over his shoulders. And then she started to push
off his trousers.

Only then did Ander
help by lifting up his hips.  His eyes hadn’t left her face the whole time she
undressed him, and his gaze was quiet and questioning with a depth she didn’t
understand.

“Ander,” she
said at last, surprised her voice came out so unsteadily. “Can I ...?”

Ander found and
held her self-conscious gaze. “Lori, you can do whatever you want.”

The words made
her belly twist at the same time they reassured her. “I wanted to...I’ll need
to add some money to the envelope, but I ...”

“Lori, just
tell me what you want.”

“Oral sex,” she
managed to choke out, her cheeks burning hotly. After all this time, it was
silly to be embarrassed. But she was. Not so much by the act but by the
vulnerability of saying she wanted it.

Ander’s brows
drew together and he started to turn on his side and push himself up. “Of
course. I can—”

“No,” she
interrupted, realizing he’d misunderstood. “I wanted to do it.” She swallowed
hard. “On you.”

“Oh.”

“Can I?”

Ander froze for
a moment. “Yes,” he said softly. “If you want.”

“I do.”

For a minute,
they just looked at each other. Then Ander rolled off the bed and walked over
to his case, where he pulled out a foil packet. “This condom will be easier for
you to use. It’s slightly mint flavored, and it will taste a lot better than
latex.”

Lori nodded and
watched as Ander rid himself of his boxers and returned to the bed. He was
already almost fully erect.

He handed her
the condom and lay back down on the bed on his back. He stared up at her face
and waited.

Lori really
wanted to do this, but she was also getting very nervous. “I’ve never done this
before,” she said, “I won’t know what I’m doing. You’ll have to help.”

“Of course.
Anything you want.”

She scooted
down on the bed until her face was in range of his groin. She stared down at
his erect cock, a deeper shade than the rest of his body. She thought she saw
it twitch as she watched.

Her eyes darted
back to his face and he gave her a little smile. Oddly comforted, she laughed
nervously. “I’m not going to be any good at it—just to warn you. And I hope
you’re not going to expect anything fancy. I mean, you’re not going to go down
my throat or anything, are you?”

Ander’s lips
twitched, although his gaze was still that quiet, intense one. “Of course not.
I’ll just lay here and let you do your thing. Just tell me if you want anything
different.”

Lori snickered
at his choice of words. And then she inhaled a long, shuddering breath. She
took his cock in her hands and stroked it for a minute, running her fingers up
and down the shaft and then twirling the tip a little.

She liked how
he sucked in his breath very slightly at her touch. And how she could feel his
erection twitch and harden under her fingers.

Since he was
plenty erect already, she opened the condom packet and carefully rolled it on.
He’d always taken care of the condoms before, so she made sure she got it on
securely and didn’t nick it with her fingernails.

Then she
adjusted her body on the bed, leaning over so her face was hovering above his
pelvis. She held his cock upright with her hands and experimentally licked a
line in a circle near the top of his shaft.

She heard Ander’s
breath hitch, and she smacked her mouth around the taste of the condom. It
wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terribly unpleasant. She imagined it would be
better without a condom at all, but that was out of the question, of course.

Looking back up
at Ander’s face, she saw his handsome features tense and unreadable. Again, she
wondered what he was thinking. Whether he really wanted her to do this to him.

She wondered
whether it would please him. She
wanted
to please him. The way he’d
always pleased her.

She took a
breath and then licked his cock again, this time going from the bottom to the
top. Then she took the head in her mouth and started to suck.

On the first
hollowing of her cheeks, Ander gasped and his hands shifted slightly on the
bed. Assuming this meant he liked it, she took more of him in her mouth and
sucked again.

It felt like
his cock was pulsing, even through the latex of the condom, and the more
suction she applied, the tenser his body became.

She knew there
was more she should do as part of a blow job, and she tried to focus her
scattered thoughts on the scenes she’d read in books for something to add to
the sucking. Landing on a couple of ideas, even through the blurred excitement
of her mind, she wrapped one hand around the bottom half of his shaft and used
the other to stroke one of his thighs.

She had a
little trouble coordinating the squeezing with the sucking. She fumbled around
for a minute before she let his cock slip from her mouth.

Her eyes met Ander’s.
She sensed rather than saw a tension coiled tightly beneath the surface of his
expression, of his body. But he’d been as good as his word. He hadn’t moved at
all.

“Aren’t you
going to help me?” she asked thickly. Only then did she realize that she was
aroused as well. Her nipples were tight beneath the red lace of her chemise and
she was already wet between her legs.

“Of course,” he
murmured, his voice unusually low and textured. He moved one hand to the back
of her head. “But you were doing great.”

She wrapped her
hand more firmly around the base of his erection and lowered her mouth again,
taking as much of him in as she comfortably could. She started to suck again,
and this time Ander applied gentle pressure, guiding the bobbing of her head
and helping to create a pleasing rhythm.

His hand curved
around the back of her skull, his fingers tangled in her hair, and the pressure
felt reassuring rather than bossy. She hollowed out her cheeks to the tempo of
his soft urging, and her motion became more confident as she progressed.

With her free
hand, she caressed up his thigh and then dipped it below her face so she could
find his balls. She cupped him, feeling him gently. Then she applied a little
pressure.

Ander grunted
and his pelvis twitched up just a little. It startled her momentarily but she
managed not to fall out of rhythm.

She trusted Ander.
He was skillful and considerate. He knew this was her first time, and he’d
never let her down before. He wasn’t going to try to fuck her throat.

She shifted her
hips restlessly, more aroused now than ever as she processed Ander’s reactions
to her ministrations. She intensified her rhythm and felt his body tighten even
more.