Kissed (3 page)

I’ll see you at 8.

* * * *

I barely made the four-thirty bus for Chicago, and I stared out the window the entire two-hours it took. I hated this trip. It wasn’t as though I made it daily; hell, there were plenty of weeks I didn’t make it to Chicago even once, but this bus always took me somewhere I didn’t truly want to go.

It amazed me sometimes the things I was capable of ignoring, and how much I hated this trip and what awaited me on the other end of it was one of those things. It was strangely like sociopathy, as though there was a switch in my mind that could simply be flipped that turned off my ability to care about what I was doing. But every switch turned off could, and would, eventually be turned back on.

I took a cab the two miles from Union Station to The Peninsula. I was almost nervous to walk in, seeing as I’d been very politely escorted out the last time I’d been here. But I was dressed nicely in a red wrap dress that tied at the side of my waist, and as I walked toward the reception desk, not one person looked at me as though I was anything more than the typical guest checking in. They never did.

The Service always reserved a room at the hotel of the man’s choosing under a false name, Gabrielle Smith. Gabrielle was, in fact, my real first name; Smith, however, was not my last name. But it protected my true identity, and I suspected made it easier for The Service to disassociate themselves from me as well. I never went to a man’s home for security reasons, and I was required to send a text message to The Service once I left the hotel. The hotels were always nice, and I could safely say I’d been to more five-star hotels in my relatively short life than most people visited in a lifetime.

When the sweet young woman asked for my identification and credit card, I produced both easily. Both were mine, but I was never asked why the last names didn’t match. Women’s last names changed; it was just a part of life. And while I always provided my personal credit card, which matched the credit card number The Service used to reserve the room, I also always checked out in person and paid cash at the end of my stay with money the men were required to provide during their time with me for just such a purpose. It wasn’t foolproof, and my credit card information was, without doubt, stored in myriad hotel databases around town, but it was as secure as I could be.

Discretion was the name of the game, and there were very few men I dated who didn’t go to great lengths to hide what they were doing with me—from a girlfriend, a wife, a family, an employer, the world in general. Most of them, including David for that matter, couldn’t run the risk of being seen entering a hotel with me. That meant they needed to be able to walk straight into a hotel to the elevator, bypassing the check-in counter along the way and up to the room The Service told them I’d be waiting in. As such, men avoided requesting hotel rooms that required a key card to access the right floor because the cloak-and-dagger rigmarole that would have to ensue was simply not worth it. Fortunately, there were plenty of nice hotels that only required key card floor access to their penthouses.

Events were a different thing altogether, and David was really the only man who used me for those. Of course, he was very likely the only client of mine who didn’t have a wife waiting for him at home, so taking me to one charity gala or another, hell even out to dinner at some swanky restaurant, before fucking me was apparently an acceptable use of my time for him. But even he wouldn’t check into a hotel room with me after one of these dinners, fundraisers, etcetera for fear of being seen. I mean, why would a well-known man who lived in Chicago check into a hotel with a young woman unless the woman happened to be someone he probably wasn’t supposed to be sticking his cock in?

I’m pretty sure all the aforementioned bullshit had led me to hating men at this point. Of course I might hate myself just as much.

I entered room 511, flipping the security bar out and letting the door rest, slightly cracked, against it as I waited for David. I liked the Peninsula. David liked nice things, nice cars, nice clothes; he even fucked like a gentlemen, all nice and neat like.

I untied the dress and hung it on a hanger in the closet. I carried my small cosmetic pouch to the bathroom with me, and I stopped at the bathroom counter, staring at myself in the mirror. It was hard to play sociopath when faced with my image staring back at me. It was harder still as my eyes took in the skimpy, white low-rise underwear and matching demi-bra.

David liked white. Maybe it was the innocence of it, maybe not. He also liked red. I knew this about him—odd, it might be the only thing I knew about him. But I didn’t really care to know more. I pulled the dark red lipstick from my pouch and started to touch up my lips, using my fingertip to wipe it away from my cupid’s bow. This color always felt overdone to me. It was too bold for my taste. But this wasn’t about my taste. It rarely was.

My phone rang from beside me on the bathroom countertop. Jessa’s image, complete with her tongue sticking out, stared up at me, and I glanced at myself in the mirror as though worried she might see me and my garish red lips. My eyes shifted down to the countertop as I hit the speaker button, and then I returned to wiping the excess crimson from around my mouth, still refusing to make eye contact with myself.

“You swear we’re going to a movie tomorrow?” She rarely bothered with a “hello” or even a “hi.” We were casual that way.

“I swear.”

“You owe me, Gabe. I’m not kidding. You know I could be out doing all sorts of inappropriate things for a seventeen-year-old.”

“But you won’t,” I said dryly as I looked back up to my eyes in the mirror again—finally convinced she couldn’t see me. Or was I finally just able to tolerate seeing myself?

“Of course I won’t. Not with a responsible conservator like you as a sister.”

Responsible. What a joke. I looked back down at the countertop, avoiding the sight of myself again, and I listened as the door in the main suite opened. It was time.

“Listen, I have to go. Tomorrow. I promise.”

“Scout’s honor?”

“My honor,” I replied quietly. “Bye, kiddo.”

“Bye, Gabe.”

I hit the End button. I stared at myself in the mirror for another moment and brushed a few loose wisps of hair away from my eyes, and when I was finally ready to flip that switch and turn it all off for a while, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I could hear the approaching footsteps, and I forced my lips into a smile as I waited for David to peek his head in.

“Gabrielle.” Keegan’s deep voice was droll and warm as he stepped into the doorway. “Or is it Gabe?” He cocked his head to the side as his arms crossed on his chest.

That switch in my mind failed to extinguish anything, and as I took in the sight of him, I panicked. I gasped, and that sudden intake of breath turned to all-out panting as I watched him in the mirror. I could see my mouth hanging open in my periphery, but my focus was glued to him.

He smirked as his eyes locked on mine, and then he sauntered easily and casually toward me, closing the space between us and bringing his body up behind mine. He was close. He was too close, and when he reached out, placing his fingertips on the counter on either side of me, I gasped again. He leaned in closer, bringing his head next to mine and never once breaking eye contact as he watched me in the mirror.

“You know, things just ended so abruptly the other night without you ever really giving me your assurance that you wouldn’t see David again.” His voice was taunting, and his expression was easy. “So, I decided to test you—see if you would heed my good advice.” He harrumphed as he shook his head. “Well, I would call this an absolute
fucking
failure, wouldn’t you?”

His attention traveled down my body in the mirror, and my skin prickled everywhere his eyes touched. I couldn’t quite figure out where the prickle came from. He smelled good, he looked good, and he studied my eyes with the same intensity he had when he’d spoken with me at the bar. But that had been an act—all of it—and I’d still failed to wrap my head around why he’d done it.

When the crisp white of his dress shirt brushed the bare skin of my shoulder blades, I jerked as though his body had sent a jolt of heat through me. I inadvertently reached down with both hands, clasping at the countertop, but I didn’t touch the hard granite surface. Instead, my hands touched his. My hands trembled as I started to pull them away, but he fumbled with my fingers, wrapping his hands around mine and pinning them to the countertop.

“I should go,” I managed to get out.

The side of his lip pulled up slightly as he looked over my shoulder, and his eyes slowly moved over my body again, the smirk falling from his mouth slowly the more he studied.

Chapter 3

Keegan

“DON’T
you want me to kiss it? Make it feel better?” I asked her.

She paused as though dumbfounded. “Make what feel better?”

I studied her eyes. “All those feelings I hurt the other night.”

She pulled her hands away from my hold on them, turning and gently pushing me farther away from her. She finally appeared to be coping with the shock of seeing me.

“You didn’t hurt my feelings,” she said defensively as she reached for the terry cloth robe folded neatly on the nearby shelf.

“Yes, I did. I intended to. But it doesn’t mean I enjoyed it.”

She stopped for a moment as she considered that, but after a few seconds, she shook her head and then proceeded to pull the robe on rather brusquely, tying the sash at her waist as though she intended to cut off the circulation to the lower half of her body.

I watched, making no attempt to stop her. I was standing between her and the door, and while I would never try to keep her there against her will, I wasn’t going to kowtow to her irritation by moving from my position.

“I want you for the night.” I said it simply, plainly, and as I did, I started unbuttoning my shirt. “And if I’m not mistaken, you’re being compensated for the evening.”

“And what do you think the chairman would think of that?” She crossed her arms, her tongue pushing into her cheek as though she thought perhaps that comment might just bring me up short.

“I’m pretty sure he’d be pissed as hell that I’m fucking you on his dime. But I’m also pretty sure I explained to you already that I don’t answer to him.” I pulled the bottom of my dress shirt from my slacks before I started unbuttoning the cuffs. “Using the pussy he seems so attached to right now for my own pleasure would do nothing but make a statement—one I’ve been trying to make with my big-boy words for a while now. I’m starting to understand he’s a stubborn bitch of a man who’s going to require”—I bobbled my head as I finally stripped my shirt off my shoulders—“a bit more persuasion than most.”

She leaned against the counter behind her, her arms still crossed, but her attention shifted to my pecs for a moment before she swallowed harshly over a lump. Her eyes returned defiantly to mine then, as though she could hide just how off kilter she was. “So this is just a calculated business strategy for you. Use me to make your point with him, even if it costs me my job.” She was offended.

I hung my shirt on the bathroom hook beside the door I was still blocking, but I didn’t respond right away. “No,” I lied as I turned back to her. I closed the space between us and leaned down to her eye level as I placed my hands on the countertop at her hips. “You think I’m going to torture him with the details of what we do together. Is that it?” I smirked.

“Am I wrong?”

She was absolutely not wrong.

“You’re the one who said it would make a statement,” she continued.

“It
would
make a statement. And I am ruthless enough to want to make that statement.” I paused, studying her eyes for a moment. “But I’m willing to forgo the statement.” Another lie. “The truth is
this
is very simply what I want, what I’ve wanted since the fundraiser, and what I’ve not been able to stop thinking about since then.” And that was likely the first thing I said to her that didn’t require a lie, and frankly, it felt incredibly good to say it out loud to her.

She said nothing, and I reached for her face, curling my fingers behind her jawline and running my thumb across her lower lip. I wanted to kiss those damn lips so much. I wanted to taste them, bite them, suck them, fuck them. Her lips were incredible, and I studied the way my thumb pulled at that puffy skin, smearing some of the red. I felt a huff of breath escape her mouth and touch the pad of my thumb, and when I used my other hand to tug at the sash of her robe, she didn’t stop me. But her chest rose and fell deeply. I slipped my hand past her robe, running my palm over her stomach and back to clasp at her hip, but when I leaned to her mouth, desperate to touch her lips with mine, she angled her head to the side, refusing to let me kiss her.

I paused, my mouth nearly touching her cheek, and then I stepped back from her, pulling my hands with me as I moved. I crossed an arm across my body, resting my other elbow on my forearm and worrying my lip with my middle finger.

She was staring at the floor between us, her robe now wide open. It wasn’t what I’d expected. I don’t know why I had it in my mind that she would be in some garish lingerie with a satin corset and G-string, but I was almost shocked at just how…normal she looked.

She had small breasts and the low cut of her white lace bra nearly showed her nipples. Her underwear, while a matching lace to her bra, even covered her bottom—I’d noticed that the moment I’d walked into the bathroom. They were low cut across her hips, showing the subtle jut of her hipbones. It all just looked so normal, as if she was any other woman in the world standing at a bathroom counter. Her eyes were a dark chocolate brown that matched the deep auburn of her hair, and her skin was pale and pristine.

She was incredible, and my cock was hard and pulsing with need. This might well be as calculated as she suggested, but it didn’t mean I didn’t want it.

I took a deep breath and tried to be something other than a dick. “I meant it when I said I didn’t enjoy what I did to you the other night.”