My Gigolo (18 page)

“Apparently, you
can
make less sense.”

“Look, man. I just want to make her happy—”

“But she’s
not
happy.” Phil’s expression darkened. “Did you see her in there? Are you looking at her now? She’s not happy. So I repeat, do you know what you’re doing to her?”

Stilling, he did indeed look across the street. She fidgeted and looked longingly at his Envoy, obviously uncomfortable as Doug cheerfully interrogated her. Would she be so uncomfortable if her friend were questioning her about anything else but her gigolo?

His tone more gentle, Phil continued. “I’m sure you’re a peach of a guy, Jack, but you
are
a male prostitute, even if you’ve quit. That’s something she’ll have to live with if she ever does come around to you. Are you sure you want to put that on her? Do you really want her to feel like this every time some stranger recognizes you and asks about that thing you do with your hips?”

He’d never thought about it. How likely was it that anyone in Joplin would know him for what he was? And yet, someone had. Someone close to her, though obviously not terribly well-liked. It could happen any time.

“If you love her, man, maybe you ought to just let her be.”

He swallowed hard. “I can’t.”

“Your choice. But don’t expect me to like you for it.”

Phil strode back across the street without another word, leaving Jack floundering in painful thought. Was Phil right? Would his past haunt them forever? Did quitting and finding another job and hopefully finishing his degree change what he’d been, or just make it sad?

Could he ever let her go now?

She looked at him then, her eyes pleading, and he went to her. He stared down into those dark, dark eyes and tried to convince himself to leave her, to let her live her life without him as a blemish on it. He could do it. If he could up and quit a job he used to love for her, he could surely do this one thing to make her life better.

“Can we go home now?”

All his fine reasoning shattered at his feet, and he put an arm around her. “Sure. I’ll get the door.”

He seemed to feel Phil’s eyes burning into his back all the way home.

No more denying the obvious. She hated self-delusion like nothing else. She would no longer be guilty of it.

She’d stood up to her friends, whose good opinions she cherished, for him. She’d let loose her rare vicious streak on a woman who’d tried to wound him. Telling herself she only wanted him for sex was pure stupidity.

Her heart was officially engaged. Damn it.

He pulled into her driveway and keyed off the engine, but they both just sat, neither moving to get out. She stared down at her hands. He seemed to be staring at her house.

Finally, he stirred. “I can just go.”

“No. Please come in.”

“Okay.”

After another quiet moment, she reached for the door latch. He followed her to the house and stood close at her back while she unlocked the door. She put down her keys on the handy end table and locked the door behind them.

He took her gently by the upper arm, turned her to him, and kissed her lightly. Relief flowed through her as surely as warmth, and she pressed against him. He slid his arms around her and hugged her tight, his mouth slow and thorough on her own. She let herself forget who and what he was and simply kissed back.

With gentle pressures, he guided her to the staircase and started her up them backwards. His lips never left hers, his height putting her on the same level as him for the first time as she stood a step or two higher. His hands slid under her shirt and splayed across her back, their strength and weight comforting. She’d never know how she made it up the spiral without falling, but he guided her without misstep until she backed up against her bed.

And still he kissed her, making no move to tear off her clothes or tug at his own. He simply stroked her back, held her close. His lips caressed hers, his tongue gentle and patient. He seemed content to taste her slowly.

For the first time, she didn’t try to rush him.

Her fingers slid over the cool silk of his shirt, the material a fascinating contrast to the hard muscle underneath. Grinning into his kiss, she dropped her hands lower and stroked the leather over his butt. He chuckled against her lips, and she gave him a good squeeze, reveling in the perfectly rounded muscle in her grip.

“Honey Butt?”

His lips tickled hers as they moved, and she wrinkled her nose, too content to be embarrassed about the stupid endearment.

“I thought a cutesy nickname necessary at the time, and you do have a sweet ass.”

He brushed the tip of his nose against hers, and she opened her eyes to look into his. The green had darkened to nearly black, and her breath caught in her throat.

“I’ll have to think of a silly name for you now.”

His eyelashes were so long. They framed the dark emerald of his eyes with black velvet and made them darker still. Her eyelashes wouldn’t do that without a heavy coat of mascara, and even then, her eyes would be plain old brown. He was so beautiful, almost exotic.

She sighed. “Can I do something for you?”

He pulled away a fraction of an inch. “You’ve already done something for me tonight. I’ll never forget it.”

She shook her head, one of the annoying tendrils over her forehead catching on the tip of his nose. “I didn’t do anything right tonight. Let me do this one thing.”

His eyebrows pulled together, but she shushed him with a soft kiss on his lower lip and reached down to the fly of his leather pants. His stomach flexed at the touch, and she couldn’t help pressing her hands flat against the tight muscle there. She kissed his chin, his Adam’s apple, the hollow of his throat.

Her fingers twisted in silk and tugged upward, untucking his shirt and letting it pool over her wrists. She ran her hands up the washboard of his stomach to his chest and back down to the waist of his pants. His body tightened, his hands stilling on her back. She unfastened the button and pulled the zipper, and he sucked in a quiet breath.

“Gabe—”

“Hush.”

He was hard as a rock in her hand, straining against his silk boxers. She smiled softly and flicked her tongue against his throat. He usually wore boxer briefs. Maybe they didn’t work so well with skintight leather.

“You don’t have to—”

“Hush.”

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple jerking against her lips and nose. She slid her fingers into his boxers’ waistband and pushed, stripping him of both leather and silk in one movement. He shuddered, then lifted his hands from her back to jerk off his shirt without bothering to unbutton it. She used the distraction to spin them both around and push him down to the bed.

He looked up at her, his chest already heaving, his arousal standing at full attention between his legs. She stared, seeing him as if for the first time. He was beautiful, yes, but he was also
here
. He could have left. He could have picked any of his other girls to get away from his life. But he was here, with her, and the heat in his eyes assured her that he needed her.

Her.

She drew off her shirt and stepped out of her skirt, then knelt to take off his boots and finish stripping him. His body put off waves of heat that she felt even from inches away. It distracted her, made her fingers fumble with his bootlaces, and it took her longer to finish the job than she’d wanted. By the time she tossed the second boot aside and threw his leather and silk over her shoulder, he was smiling down at her instead of lusting.

So much for being smooth.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

He smiled wider. “Like what?”

“Like I’m adorable.”

“You are.” He touched her jaw, tilting her face up to his. “You are utterly adorable.”

Pouting, she lowered her face and looked up at him through her eyelashes, much as he’d done when he first showed up on her porch. “I was going for sexy.”

Leaning down, he flicked his tongue at her lower lip, then kissed it softly. “Adorable
is
sexy. Anyone who says different has never had you kneeling between his legs.”

Her pout twisted into a lopsided grin. She reached up and stroked her fingers down his length, her grin widening when his eyes rolled back and he let out a shaky breath. She took him fully in hand and stroked from base to tip. He trembled, so she did it again, running her thumb over the tip for good measure.

“God, Gabe…”

Smug, she bent low and whispered, making sure to breathe on his bare erection as much as possible. “I am
not
adorable.”

And she took him into her mouth, as far as he would go.

He’d received blow jobs before, of course—damn good ones, pitifully amateurish ones and everything in between. However, nothing had ever felt like this. This was
Gabe
, and she tasted him like a lover would, like she’d never done before.

Her tongue zigzagged up the underside of his throbbing, aching arousal, tracing the vein there, and he very nearly came right then. She deep-throated him again, the move easier this time with a good layer of saliva to help her mouth slide, and he groaned and fell back on his elbows, his toes curling. She sucked hard all the way back up, the tip of her tongue stroking him from root to head. Pure sexual heat rolled up his spine, and his eyes squeezed shut. God, she could almost be a professional.

Pressing her thumbs against the strangely ticklish points of his hips, she bent to take him in again, her mouth hot and tight around him. His hips bucked against her of their own volition, and she swallowed hard, the accidental suction dragging another groan from his throat. He had to be careful not to thrust. He didn’t want to hurt her.

And then her mouth pulled up again, sucking all the way until he fell free, the cool air almost painful after the heat of her mouth, and her teeth closed gently on his head. His breath caught in his throat as the pressure increased just enough to send a shiver up his spine. Her hands clenched his hips, and she carefully dragged her teeth up to the tip and released him, chuckling as he trembled in her grasp.

“Gabe—”

He cut himself off, though. Nothing on earth would make him protest this treatment. He knew she wouldn’t hurt him. Drive him insane with lust, maybe, but never hurt him.

She lowered her face to his groin and sniffed, drawing the tip of her nose along the crease of his thigh. It tickled and felt absolutely wonderful at the same time. She nosed along his balls, pausing to flick her tongue at the ridiculously sensitive skin there. He flinched, his whole body tightening, and she chuckled, the low vibration doing amazing things to the erection already thrumming in her face.

“How do you always smell good, no matter what you’ve been doing?”

Her voice was lower than usual, almost husky, and he trembled. She sniffed up the line of his arousal and sighed on the tip, sending another tremor up his spine. Her lips brushed him almost as softly as her breath had, and he let out a gasp of air he hadn’t known he was holding. Absolute torture. He wanted more. Wordlessly, she complied.

The heat of her throat replaced the cool air, and he strained against the urge to thrust. She swallowed around him and sucked hard, her fingers digging into his hips as if she sensed his need to move. She pulled away to breathe, then took him to the base again.

Too much.

Rumbling deep in his chest, he sat up and caught her by the upper arms. She pulled away from his erection with a chuckle that throbbed deep in his spine, stripped off her panties and climbed obligingly into his lap. She knelt above him, straddling his thighs, and stared down at him, almost daring him. He should prepare her a little, stretch her before taking her, but he didn’t have that kind of time.

So he settled his hands on her hips, lifted her just so and thrust inside until she cried out and balled her fists in his hair.

“Jack!”

He buried his face in the cleavage pushed up by her bra and lifted her again, letting her drop herself onto him as hard as she wished. She took the hint and rode him fast, her breath sobbing out of her with every buck of her hips. His hands slid around to the smooth, flexing curve of her ass and squeezed, speeding her rhythm.

“Gabe, hurry—”

He wouldn’t last long at this rate, and he didn’t want to come alone. His head falling back from her warm vanilla scent, he shifted his feet wider apart, let go of her with one hand to brace behind him on the bed, and thrust up as hard as she came down on him, twisting with each pass until she cried out and clenched around him.

Orgasm crashed through him like gravity, and he roared up at the ceiling with the force of it. And still she bucked over him, her body jerking, her short fingernails digging into his shoulders, her head thrown back. He thrust until she finally slumped, her forehead dropping to the crook of his neck, her hands releasing him to flop to the bed. She shuddered, her body flexing and releasing, and he slid the hand still on her butt up her back to hold her close.

His bracing arm gave out, and they tumbled back onto the bed, the movement shifting him inside her and bringing groans from them both. Her burning cheek rested against his chest, her breath fanning the sweat there. Slowly, their breathing steadied. Their heartbeats returned to normal. Their bodies cooled.

She shifted her hips more comfortably against his without letting him pull out, and he abruptly realized he’d forgotten to use a condom. Wincing, he wondered if he should risk disturbing the mood by bringing it up. But the thought was cowardly and he shook it off, disgusted with himself for even thinking about keeping something like that from her.

“Gabe?”

“Mm-hm?”

He grinned. She sounded sleepy and satisfied, content to just lie on his chest and drift away. He hoped she wouldn’t freak out because he, too, was content to lie this way forever.

“I…sort of forgot a condom.”

He braced for her reaction, but she only shrugged.

“’S okay. I’m on the pill.” She yawned, then cuddled back against his chest. “And I trust you.”

He blinked, his eyebrows drawing together.