Late Call (Volume 1) (3 page)

“You did.” Aaron smirks in that dangerously sexy way that does stupid things to my stomach and leans against the wall next to me. “But I’m asking again.”

“I do it for the same reason other people work. I need to pay the bills.”

“Really?”

“Is it that hard to believe? Really?” I turn my face toward him. “When my parents died, I lost everything. I was at college and suddenly lost my home and all my financial support. By the time my fees were paid, there was next to no money left. I couldn’t get a job, so I went to my aunt’s old agent.”

“Monique?”

“She took me on and gave me a job. Aunt Leigh let me move in with her during breaks from school, and by the time I was twenty-one, I had enough money saved to put down the deposit on my own house.”

“Impressive. So you do it for the money?”

“Well I certainly don’t do it for the lack of fucking orgasms.”

“That bad, huh?” His smirk changes to a grin.

“Aaron, there’s no reason in the world anyone would do this job except for the money. Besides, I’m not paid to orgasm. I’m paid to make them. And occasionally, I’m paid to be a date for pretty little rich boys.” I smile back.

“Pretty little rich boys who pay more than necessary in desperation to please their parents with a beautiful girl?”

“Exactly.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re worth every cent, isn’t it?”

I stand up straight, my eyes on his. “That’s what they tell me.”

Aaron’s eyes flash with an emotion that disappears too quickly for me to register it. He holds my gaze for a long moment, seemingly looking right through me and my façade. He takes a step closer to me and holds out his arm.

“Shall we go back inside?”

“Are they likely to send out a search party?”

“I wouldn’t put it past my mother.”

I loop my arm through his, focusing both my mind and my body on the job. Not the past. Ours or otherwise.

“For the record,” he says as we walk through the lobby, “she probably thinks we sneaked off to make out like teenagers.”

“I think your mom is too excited about this totally coincidental meeting.”

“You and me both, Day. That was an impressive story you told earlier, by the way.”

“Thanks.” I reach up and fluff my hair slightly.

“What are you doing?”

“Making it look like we snuck off to make out like a couple of teenagers.” I wink and give myself a final once-over in the elevator mirror. We creep back into the ballroom and I wipe under my lip, removing a bit of imaginary smudged lipstick.

A tantalizing smile teases his lips, his eyes flicking to my mouth. He pauses for a moment and raises his thumb to my mouth, rubbing it over the same spot I just touched.

“Missed a bit,” he breathes, running it across my bottom lip. I hold my breath at the intimate touch and his eyes find mine again. “Got it.”

“Good,” I mutter.

He leads us into an empty corner, his hand firmly placed on the small of my back.

I ignore the pounding of my heart and subsequent heating of my body as he pulls me into him, pressing our sides together. “Do you think anyone noticed we disappeared?”

“Not sure.” He looks around. “But they definitely noticed we came back.”

I follow the direction of his gaze to his parents. Carly is whispering in Aaron’s dad’s ear. Brandon has a smile on his face, a mixture of amusement and pleasure that makes me bite the inside of my cheek in a reaction that is all too genuine.

The teenage dreamer lingering inside me kind of wishes we had snuck out for a make-out session. She remembers all too well the consuming feeling of Aaron’s lips on mine.

I do too. It’s hard to forget something that made you feel so alive.

“Do you think anyone else will bother us?”

Aaron turns his face back to me. “Of course they will.”

Nope. I’m done being bothered tonight. A tiny, crazy part of me wants to savor these moments we have together, because I know reality will intrude once more tomorrow.

I curve my body into his. I slide my hands up his chest, feeling the solid muscle beneath, and curl my fingers around the lapels of his suit. He presses me into him even farther until I’m flush against him and lowers his mouth to my ear.

“What are you doing?” His lips brush over my earlobe as he speaks. The strangely intimate touch ignites a spark of lust in the pit of my belly. It feels foreign and unwelcome, the desire bubbling in my lower stomach stronger than I’ve felt in a long time.

I tilt my face into his, feeling the slight scratch of the stubble coating his jaw against my cheek. “My job title might be escort, but I spend half my life as an actress. If the women in this room want to believe we’re reconnecting romantically, then they can for tonight.”

“I see.” He slides his hand down my back and runs it over the curve of my ass. It settles on my hip as the other snakes upward and into my hair. “Don’t you think this is a little rude?”

“Says the man running his hands over my body and whispering in my ear.”

I feel his smile against the side of my head. “Touché, Miss Black. Touché.”

“Anyway, this is exactly what you’re paying me for. Keeping the vultures away.”

“I’m an idiot for not paying for you all night, the vultures be damned.”

I raise my eyebrows. “If you’d known it was me, would you have?”

His face turns to mine, the tip of his nose brushing across my cheek. “If I’d have known it was you, I would have paid triple for all night.”

A knot forms in my throat and I swallow it down. Where the fuck is Mia when I need her? Oh yeah—the bitch up and left the second she looked into Aaron Stone’s blue eyes.

Even in my job, sometimes pretending is just too much of a stretch.

“Aaron Stone? The guy you met in Paris?”

“Know any other Aarons, Aunt Leigh?”

“Of course I do, Dayton. I know several of every man.” She snorts and sits opposite me. “What you gonna do, girl?”

“Same thing I do every day. My job.”

She snorts again.

“Seriously. I mean it. Running into him was a shock, but it was a one-night job.”

I’m still reeling from that shock. I barely slept last night after leaving the hotel. My mind was full of Paris seven years ago as I remembered the hopes of a naïve seventeen-year-old girl. As I remembered the feeling of falling in love for the first time.

And the memories were full of his piercing blue eyes, looking at me with amusement, tenderness, and heat. They were full of his fingers trailing across my body, touching deep enough that they seeped into my bones despite barely skimming my skin. They were full of promises and believing… And an inevitable goodbye.

“Dayton!” Aunt Leigh snaps.

I drag my gaze from the window back to her. “What?”

“One-night job my ass. You’ve been staring out of my window for the last five minutes chewing on your lip. My rose garden is pretty, but it isn’t that fucking pretty!”

I click my tongue. “I’m… I don’t know. I’m shocked, all right? Jesus, I haven’t seen him for seven years. Then he’s my goddamn client? He doesn’t even live on the West Coast, so what the hell is that about?”

“It’s about life throwing you a curveball. You gotta swing with it, sugar, or it’s gonna hit you in the gut.”

“Because my
client
being the only guy I’ve ever loved isn’t enough of a hit in the gut?”

She shrugs and lights a cigarette. “Dayton, it doesn’t matter if you loved the guy. Shit, honey, it doesn’t matter if you’ve fucked him six ways to Sunday. What matters is he knows your real name. What matters is he knows where to find you.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Oh, you know that. I just don’t think you have a clue what to do about it.”

Goddamn, I hate it when she’s right. But that’s the problem with having an aunt who used to do this exact job. You can’t get anything past her.

I grab my purse and stand. “You know what? I’m going to see Liv.”

“Do what you want, sweetie, but do me a favor.”

“What?” I pause at the front door.

“Just remember—call girls don’t fall in love.”

I stare into the glass in my hand and twist it by the stem. The remaining wine swirls in circles, rising up the sides of the glass and dropping back down with a tiny splash with each full circle. Sitting here in the wine bar Liv works in, I can almost pretend Aaron Stone didn’t explode back into my life, that I’m waiting for my best friend to finish work like any other twenty-four-year-old.

But I’m not any other twenty-four-year-old. I never have been. I never will be. And I’m okay with that.

Becoming a call girl was my choice, and when the time came, I chose to make it a career. I’ve always known the rules, and hell, I watched Aunt Leigh’s marriage break down because of her unwillingness to give it up. She chose escorting over love, and I understand it. I get why.

Being an escort gives you control. Sure, the client plans it from the location to what happens. They pick how they want you to look—girl-next-door, dominatrix, or just plain sexy—and they choose how everything unfolds, but the second the money leaves their hand, the control switches. It’s up to me to give them everything they want. The look, the feel, the whole experience. It’s like porn without a camera.

I relish the control. There’s nothing in this world like having someone at your every command and sometimes at your mercy. It’s invigorating, a rush like nothing else. It’s compelling and addictive. And it’s a constant. It’ll never change—and that’s why I love it.

As long as men need sex, I have a job.

But with love… With love, you surrender control. Love is promising to give someone everything and not expect anything in return.

This is the very reason call girls don’t love. We don’t love, we don’t lust, and we don’t spend our days thinking,
What if?
Being a call girl is taking and giving without really giving any of yourself at all.

I don’t give my name, my age, my likes or dislikes. I don’t give anything except what the client pays for, and there’s only one part of me they’re paying for. They don’t pay for the story of my parents’ deaths, of how I took this life because it was a quick and easy fix for me financially, or of how I dropped out of college and a chance at my dream career because this was so much higher paid.

And isn’t everything about money?

You pay me it to fuck you, and I take it. That money gives me pretty things—a house full of beautiful clothes and shoes—and that money gives you the time of your fucking life. The same money keeps our tryst hidden from prying eyes and silent from oversensitive ears.

It also guarantees that you’ll be back again and again.

Usually that’s a good thing. Usually clients know nothing about you. They don’t know your bra size or how you gasp when lips brush a certain spot on your neck, and they definitely don’t know what it feels like to be truly inside of you, connected in every way.

Usually clients aren’t Aaron Stone.

“Thanks,” I mumble as Liv fills my glass.

“Looks like you’ve had a shitty day.” She sits opposite me with her own drink, her eyes soft and nonjudgmental. Thank fucking god I have a best friend who gets me.

“Apart from my aunt pointing out my latest client knows exactly where to find me followed by reminding me we don’t fall in love, it’s hunky-fucking-dory.”

“Back up. I missed something.”

“I had a late call last night—a function for some guy taking over Daddy’s company. Just a date.”

“And? The big deal is?”

I bury my face in my arms on the table. “The guy was Aaron.”

My best friend says nothing, and I know I’ve truly shocked her. Liv always has ten words where two will do. “As in?”

“Paris Aaron. Summer-fling Aaron. Love-of-my-motherfucking-
life
Aaron!”

“Well, shit.”

“Shit? Shit? That’s all you have? Because I have some words that are several letters stronger than damn shit!”

Her shoe comes into contact with my shin.

“Ouch!” I sit up and glare at her.

“Pull it together, Dayton,” she orders. “You don’t lose your shit over a guy. Ever.”

“This… This shocked the ever-loving life out of me, Liv. I had no idea it was him. He was an anon and he thought he’d hired Mia Lopez. The girl he got was little old me.”

“I can’t see how it’s such a bad thing.”

Jesus Christ. Every brunette might need a blond best friend, but next time I’ll have a switched-on one, please.

“Do I need to spell it out for you?”

She nods.

“One”—I hold up a finger—“personal relationships are off-limits with clients. Pretending to be a girlfriend is different, but you never, ever fall in love with them. Two, Mia Lopez is that for a reason. She separates the pretend from the real, the working from the playing. And three, Aaron Stone knows my name. He knows who I am. There are a handful of people in this city who really know who Mia Lopez is, and he’s now one of them.”

“Okay, but it’s not your fault you have a personal relationship with him. If you’d known it was him when Monique called, you wouldn’t have done it, right?”

“Obviously not. You don’t mix business with pleasure in my life.”

“So you don’t even...” She raises her eyebrows.

“Liv.”

“Sorry. Sorry. I’m just sayin’…”

“No. I don’t. Can we get back to the problem now?”

She shrugs one shoulder and leans back, tilting her glass side to side. “I get everything you said, babe, but I just don’t see the problem. He needed a date for one night and you did it. It’s not like you’re going to see each other again, is it?”

“See you again soon, Mr. Michaels.” I shut the door to the extension and lean against it. God. He’s always a tiring one. There are only so many ways you can have sex with a fifty-year-old man before you’re afraid you’ll break his back—a memo he didn’t get, because he thinks taking Viagra before he gets here will make it nice for us both.

Thank God my fake orgasm would show up a porn star’s.

I leave Monique’s twenty percent in the envelope, and tuck my share into my purse, ready to deposit it in the bank tomorrow. The only thing on my mind right now is a hot shower to scrub old man off me and then sinking into a bubble bath until I turn into a prune.

The water practically burns my skin as I stand beneath the spray, but I definitely feel cleaner when I get out. If I lived anywhere other than Seattle, the water bill would kill me, even with my higher-than-average earnings. As it is, it costs me more to heat the water than it does to use it, and my water tank barely holds enough to wash a freaking bunny rabbit.

This job requires shower after shower after shower to scrub old man and sneaky husband off my body—something that would be slightly more bearable if there was the chance of an orgasm once in a while. But no. No orgasm. Not even a tremble of one.

That’s why I have Mr. Jack Rabbit under my bed.

Yep, that’s me. Dayton Black, high-class escort and responsible for my own orgasm since 2006.

I’m about to dip my toe into my corner tub when my cell shrills. Fuck that. Monique won’t call when she knows I’ve just finished with a client, and anyone else can just wait. I let it go to voicemail, and I’m about to sit down when her voice rings through my house.

“Dayton, get your ass to my house now. We need to talk.”

Aw, shit.

What was that about her not calling?

I throw on some sweatpants, a tank, and Ugg boots and shove my still-wet hair into a ponytail. She wants me now? She takes me as I am now.

The drive across Seattle to her suburban dream is surprisingly stress free, and when I pull up, she’s standing with her hands on her hips in her doorway. Her lips are pursed and her brows furrowed in a look I know too well. It’s a look that says only one thing—my agent is pissed. Incredibly so.

“Inside,” she barks.

I look to the sky and follow her in. Monique in a bad mood is never fun. For anyone.

She sits me at the kitchen table and leans against the side. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you knew him?”

Of course.

“He was an anon. I didn’t even know myself until I got there.”

“An ex-boyfriend? Fuck, Dayton. Why didn’t you get the hell out of there?

“Rule one hundred seventy thousand and ten of being a call girl: you don’t run out on a client once you’re introduced. Ever.” I fold my arms across my chest. “I had a job to do, Mon. He paid, I delivered.”

“No personal relationships!”

“
After
hire!” I argue. “I haven’t seen Aaron Stone for seven years and I never thought I would again.”

Monique’s eyes flit across my face, examining every feature, and she finally relaxes. “Do you still have feelings for him?”

“No.”

“Good. Because he’s your client again.”

I’m sorry. What?

“He called this morning. He’s traveling to his father’s other offices—Vegas, Sydney, Milan, London, and Paris. He needs someone to accompany him for the next six weeks, and you’re the lucky fucking girl.”