Late Call (Volume 1)

Copyright 2014 Emma Hart

Editing:

Mickey Reed

www.mickeyreedediting.com

Photography Copyright:

Conrado

www.shutterstock.com

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN-13: 978-1499145137

ISBN-10: 1499145136

I don’t understand how a woman can leave the house without fixing herself up a little,

if only out of politeness.

And then, you never know, maybe that’s the day she has a date with destiny.

And it’s best to be as pretty as possible for destiny.

This is taking forever.

It doesn’t matter how selective you are, how tight you squeeze, or how fast you go. There’s always one that’ll take longer to come than everyone else you know. It doesn’t happen often and they definitely don’t go on my regular client list. I get paid for this but I sure as shit don’t have the patience to bounce on some guy until he decides he wants to shoot his load.

He grunts and groans beneath me, his lazy thrusts no match for my desperate ones.
Jesus fucking Christ, will you come already?

I steal a look at the clock on the hotel nightstand. Five minutes left. Time to end this. I cringe and creep my hand around his thigh to his backside. God, I hate this part. I squeeze his cock at the same time I slip my finger in his asshole—

“Oh god!”

And there it is.

I give him a saucy wink and get off of him. Finally. I’ve been on top of him so long my legs have forgotten how to work, but he paid for an hour so an hour is all he’s gonna get.

There are four golden rules in this business. Every escort I know abides by them. At all times. They’re non-negotiable. Ironclad. Set in friggin’ stone.

Get the money first.

Don’t go over the time.

Don’t fall for your client.

And no freaking sob stories.

Unfortunately for me, that last rule is one no one bothered to tell this guy. I’d barely tucked the envelope full of his money into my purse before he started telling me about his pregnant wife who isn’t up for sex.

Hey—don’t judge me. This is my job, and if a guy chooses to cheat on his wife with me, then that’s his deal. There’s a reason I don’t ask personal questions, and that’s it. Getting names and shit is what I pay my agent twenty percent for.

I button my coat and leave the hotel room as quickly as I entered it. There’s only one hotel I’ll work in in this city and that’s because I know the concierge. Connor is a darling, and despite my constant refusal to sleep with him, he always covers my back.

“Busy?” I sidle up to his counter and prop my chin up on my elbow.

His glittering blue eyes look down at me. “Busy keeping you off my boss’s radar.”

I grin and slip a fifty-dollar bill into his hand. “You’re a doll, Con.”

“You know you don’t have to do that every time.”

“Just keeping you sweet.”

“There are plenty of ways you can do that, Mia.”

“Oh, sweetie, you know where I stand there. I don’t do personal relationships. They just don’t work when you have my job.” I straighten and touch his arm. “When I stop to settle down with a white picket fence, a chocolate Lab, and two-point-five snotty kids, you’ll be the first person I call.”

“Better be. Until then, I’ll just stand here behind my little desk waiting for you to come to your senses and fall madly in love with my boyish charm.”

I laugh and peck his cheek. “I’m sure you will.”

He grins, that exact boyish charm glinting in his eyes. “Marc has your cab outside.”

“Thanks, hon. I’ll see you soon,” I say. I throw a casual wave over my shoulder as I step outside. Evening is falling across Seattle, the lights from the buildings illuminating the darkening sky and drowning out the stars.

“Ms. Lopez.” Marc tips his hat and opens the cab door for me.

“Marc.” I shoot a dazzling smile his way and get into the car, smoothly passing him a ten-dollar bill as I do so. He returns my smile as the cab pulls away, and I relax back in the chair, breathing deeply.

The ride home is when Mia Lopez becomes Dayton Black, when the call girl becomes the real girl.

Until my cell buzzes in my hand and my agent’s name flashes on the screen. I swallow my sigh.

“Monique.”

“You’re late, Dayton.”

Fuck.

“I had to wait for the cab,” I lie, mouthing, “Sorry,” when the driver glances at me in his mirror. “I’m on my way now.”

“Five minutes.” The line goes dead.

I let out that sigh and lean forward. “Hey, can we go to 2440 Cascade Way in Bellevue instead?”

“Sure thing, lady.”

“Thanks.”

I stare out the window and stay in my state of limbo between the two versions of me. How could I forget to go to Monique’s after Mr. Can’t Come? It’s a Friday, and she takes her share of our earnings every Friday. Her share. Shit. Do I even have that?

I rifle through my purse, barely breathing, until I feel the envelope hidden in the lining. At least I was thinking this morning… Discreetly, I count out her share from today’s earnings and tuck it into the envelope as we pull up outside. Thirty of my hard-earned dollars fall on the driver’s lap with a, “Keep the change,” and I run—as well as someone can run in four-inch heels—up the path to Monique’s idyllic suburban dream house.

You know, the kind usually reserved for families with two-point-five bubbly, screaming kids and a bouncing puppy. Not a woman with a hot tub and an escort agency who mothers a teen with a penchant for crashing his car.

I knock twice and let myself in. I’ve been in this house more times than I can count in the last five years. It’s comfortable here—from the white walls with an accent wall in each room to the endless photographs wherever you walk. The pictures are all of Monique with her girls in various cities around the country, from Vegas to Miami to New York.

“You’re late,” Monique repeats her earlier words, and I sit in the only empty seat around the table. “If you tell me you went over the time, shit’s gonna hit the fucking fan, Dayton.”

“I haven’t gone over the time since you took me on, Mon, and I’m not starting now. The cab was late. I’m here now. Can we get on with this?”

My agent cocks her head to the side, her lips quirked. “Hot date tonight?”

“If you can call my slippers, ice cream, and Liv a hot date, then yeah. Smokin’.”

“Funny. All right, girls. Show me what you got.” She makes a ‘gimme’ motion with her hands, and one by one, brown envelopes rustle out of purses and onto the table.

“One and a half.”

“Seven hundred.”

“Seven fucking hundred? You on your period?” Monique snaps at Lori. “Get a damn implant. I don’t have the time for you to have a week off. Robyn, you better have better than that shit.”

“Three.” Robyn smiles, dropping the envelope on the table.

Monique nods.

“Two.”

“Eighteen hundred.”

“Twenty-six hundred.”

“Another three.”

Monique nods after each amount, finally turning to me. “Dayton?”

I place my fat envelope on the table and look her in the eye. “Six thousand, four hundred fifty.” I slide it along the table to her.

“Four hundred
fifty
? Where the fuck did the fifty come from?”

“You shack me up in a hotel with a guy who takes longer to come than a porn star on Viagra, you pay the concierge to keep it quiet.”

“It’s a good fucking thing I like you, Dayton. If you were anyone else, you’d be on your own with the shit you pull.” Monique opens the envelope and leafs through the amount. “As it is, you just got my kid a new car.”

“Good. Tell him not to crash it this time. I’m not buying him a fourth.” I stand.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Home. I have a hot date, remember?”

“Ooooooh,” my best friend, Liv, coos. “Six gees?”

“Don’t forget the four fifty.”

“Fifty? Oh, concierge.”

It really says something when my best friend gets it and my agent doesn’t.

“What do you do with all the money? If that’s twenty percent, then you took home like thirty thousand fucking dollars this week.”

“Twenty-five. I pay off this place, expand my shoe collection, buy out Agent Provocateur and occasionally La Perla, and save the rest for a rainy day. Oh, and taxes. They kill me.” I stab my spoon into my tub of Phish Food. “And if you remember, I take cheapskates like you on vacation now and then. But this doesn’t happen every week.” I lick the spoon clean. “A couple extra clients dropped in, so voilà”

Liv grins. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m in the wrong industry. Shit, I show my tits all the time and I don’t make half as much as you.”

“That’s ‘cause your tits are for the camera. Mine are for touching.”

“Point made and taken.”

“Anyway, you know we’re selective on my clients. Not selective enough sometimes, but they’re all big payers. What I earn in a month takes most of the other girls a year.”

“You get all the big jobs? Don’t the others get pissed?”

“Probably, but it’s some money or no money. It’s not like I haven’t worked for them. I’m the best in the fucking city at my job and they all know it.”

And it’s the truth. I have the most clients, and they just happen to be the ones who pay the most. Fuck well, get paid well. That’s how my life works.

“Yeah? Fuck anyone lately who can get the girls a good job?” Liv pats her natural double D’s. “Because my agent is shooting more blanks job-wise than he is dick-wise.”

“No, but I have a client in two days who might be willing to have a free hour of my time for a double page spread of you. And cover.”

“And cover?”

“Liv, my hourly rate is more than most people’s daily wage. Yes, the fucking cover too. And to sweeten…” I jump up and tug Liv upstairs and into my lingerie room. What else am I gonna do with a three-bedroom house? I’m a call girl. I live and breathe lingerie.

I grab the dark pink bodice with black lace detail that I ordered last week and show it to her.

“Oh!” She takes the hanger and gives it a once-over. “Yep. This is cover-winning lingerie, Day. Every time.”

“I know.” I smirk. “He has a thing for these, and a nice new one will do the trick.”

“Mm… Is he coming here?”

“Yep.”

She shivers as we head back down. “I don’t know how you can do that in your house.”

“It’s no different than someone who works from home on their computer or something. I just have a bedroom instead of an office. It’s not like it happens in
my
room. I built the extension for a reason.”

I built it two years ago after buying this place when my client load got too big for constant hotel jumping. It’s an extra two rooms—one’s a normal bedroom while the other carries the kinkier stuff. I’m prepared for every situation.

“Okay. You know, we’ve been friends for eight years and I still don’t think I get why you do what you do.”

I smile wistfully. “Yeah, I never imagined I’d drop out of college for the thing I did to get me
through
it in the first place.”

“Hello?”

“I have a job for you.”

I let my groan out and lift my legs out of the water. “It’s my day off.”

“I don’t give a fucking shit if it’s your day off.”
Tell me how you really feel, Monique.
“This is an easy one. Rate and a half.”

“Tell me more.”

“He’s taking over his father’s company and he has a function tonight. His father is expecting him to show with a date. This is where you come in. He’s paying extra for short notice.”

“Okay.” I wrap a towel around me and walk into my room. “So who is it?”

“He’s requested to stay anonymous until you arrive and he’ll introduce himself then. His profile is too high to deal with the stigma of hiring an escort.” The bitterness filters through her tone, and I feel it. Judgmental douche. “So you have to agree to keep that private.”