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 f**k 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.
Chapter Three
“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 f**king 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 f**ked 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 p**n 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.