No Strings Attached (The Escort #1) (10 page)

“Fine.” She pushed her hand against my chest but lay back down. Her curls tickled my neck. “That was the best photoshoot I’ve ever done.”

“Me too.”

Leah picked her head back up. “Liar. I’ve seen your stuff.”

I kissed the top of her head. “And it’s the best photoshoot I’ve ever done.”

She sighed. “So I’ve made a decision. I’m definitely not wearing panties to any more photoshoots, effective now.”

I chuckled. “I’m on board with that idea.” Another kiss. “As long as I can be your official photographer.”

“Deal.”

If only. I looked over to the clock. Midnight. Fuck. Tomorrow was here and there was nothing I could do to stop it from stealing Leah away from me.

Chapter Seventeen

Jagger

Fucking Alarm Clock
. I wanted to throw my phone across the room, but instead I made the annoying sound go away and Leah stretched her naked body against my chest.

Way better wake up call. My cock saluted her from under the sheet, and she wrapped her hand around it, smiling, her eyelids still heavy with sleep. “Morning.”

“Hey.” I focused on her fingers moving up and down my shaft. Stroking, squeezing, running her fingernails over the tip. She was minutes away from getting fucked. Seconds, maybe.

“What time’s your flight?” she asked, not breaking the rhythm. I lost a little bit at the mention of the plane. I’d rather jump out of it than leave Leah.

“Eight something.” I squeezed my eyes closed and concentrated on the good, ignoring the bad. Always worked for me before. Right.

“Mine’s at nine thirty.” She picked her head up from my chest. “Shit, we’ve got to get going.”

“It’s five thirty,” I groaned. “We have time.”

“Not as much as you think. Logan sucks to get into, even on a Sunday morning. It’s going to be a bitch to drop of the rental cars and all that. It’s like a badge of honor around here to make travel as difficult as possible. And I’ve got to meet up with Kari and pick up Raven.” She sat up, raking her hand hard through her tangled curls. “Do you want to shower first, or should I?”

I sat up, ignoring the protests of my dick and pulled Leah in for a kiss. She gasped under my lips, but I wasn’t letting her go. This was the only way I had of making time stop.

“Jagger.” Leah pulled away from me and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “We have to go,” she whispered, looking up at me. She needed to convince herself just as much as she did me.

I nuzzled her neck. It was a race against time, but I wasn’t giving up. “We can shower together.”

She exhaled. “It won’t be faster.”

“I know.” I licked the throbbing artery on the side of her throat and bit her earlobe. “But I can’t leave without saying goodbye.”

Leah nodded and followed me into the bathroom. I set the spray, held my hand out to her, and she stepped inside with me. I pressed her close to me as the water ran down our bodies, washing the weekend away.

She broke away first. I didn’t give a damn about the flight. I didn’t need be back to Miami until Tuesday night’s client. My head was already spinning, wondering how the hell I was going to take another woman out when I couldn’t get the one in front of me off my mind.

I’d fake it. Like I’d always done before. Until Leah.

Leah didn’t meet my eyes as she slowly dragged the soapy washcloth across my chest, making sure she didn’t miss a spot. Her touch was different this morning. Not as sensual. Nurturing. Loving. The cloth ran down my arms and she washed my hands, massaging each finger and pressing into the pad of my palm.

My cock bumped against her stomach as she worked, but she didn’t let it distract her. Instead she made it wait its turn, which distracted me. Once she let go of my hands I held myself steady and closed my eyes, willing her to pay some attention to it.

It worked. Leah dropped to her knees in front of me and took my dick in her mouth, sucking the tip of it as she ran her hand along the shaft. This was different, too. Softer, slower. Shit, she was saying goodbye.

She gasped when I pulled her to her feet. “I wasn’t done,” she said, still settling under my hands.

I pushed her against the wet wall, kissing her hard enough that she had to know that I wasn’t done either. My wet hair sprayed out over her chest when I sunk down to take a nipple in my mouth, rolling it over my tongue. It puckered under my rough touch. Leah struggled to catch her breath as I parted her thighs and entered her.

She dug her fingernails in my back when I picked her up off the ground, pinning her to the wall. Soap and water stung the fresh wounds and she ran her hands down my back. If she thought it would make me ease up on her, she was wrong. I thrust harder, the sound of my body slamming against hers echoed in the wet stall.

Shit. I completely forgot about a condom. I pulled out quickly, guiding Leah back down to the floor and finished myself off. I slammed my fist against the wall.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“I’m clean.” I looked at her over my shoulder. “I get tested once a month, and I always use condoms.” Like she was going to believe that. “Unless I’m taking a shower with the most beautiful woman in the world.”

I thought that would make her laugh, but her brown eyes darkened. “No wonder it felt so good.” She attempted a smile. “I’m clean, too. Mostly because of the embarrassing lack of action up until this weekend.”

“Come here.” I pulled her wet body against mine, attempting to memorize every curve. I squirted shampoo in my hand and lathered up.

Leah purred when I started to massage her scalp. “I love it when people play with my hair.” I dipped down to kiss her sudsy face. “It feels so good.”

I would’ve stayed in there all day if I could, but she had to get back to her life. And I had to get back to mine too. Whatever it was. After I rinsed her off, I wrapped her in a towel. A cloud of steam rolled between us. “I’ll never forget you, Jagger.” Her voice broke on my name.

Fuck.

Just go for it.
“I want to see you again.”

She shook her head, her eyes cast downward. “I can’t afford to keep paying you.”

Tugging on the towel, I pulled her in toward me. “You don’t have to,” I murmured in her ear. She shivered. “I want to see you, Leah.”

“I…can’t.”

What?
After the weekend we just spent together, she didn’t want more? I didn’t misread this. She’d let me in, and I didn’t understand how she could shut that part of herself off so easily.

“You can’t or you won’t?” She wouldn’t even look at me, let alone give me an answer. I didn’t mind the silence. It gave me the chance to listen to my own heart break. I did this to myself. “Fuck.”

“There’s no way we can make this work.” I could barely hear her. “We live a thousand miles away from each other and I don’t think either of us is willing to give up our lives for one another.”

I tipped her face up to mine. She shrugged away from my touch. “How do you know that?”

“You’re already making a promise you can’t keep to me. You’re asking me to give you more than you can possibly give me.”

“That’s not true.”

“You can’t be faithful.” Finally, Leah made eye contact, and I wished she didn’t. “It’s your job.”

I shouldn’t have left her alone in the bathroom. Her sobs echoed off the walls as I shoved myself into clothes and zipped up my suitcase. I needed to get the hell out of here. A real man would’ve fought for Leah and proven her wrong. But I couldn’t. Because she was right.

Almost to the door, I realized my camera was still sitting on the nightstand. Putting it back in its carrying case, I was ready to go. The bathroom door cracked open and Leah shuffled out in the towel. I stopped dead in my tracks. She looked like a ghost of the woman I’d spent the weekend with.

I did that to her. All of it.

“You weren’t going to say goodbye?” Her words were raw with spent emotion.

“What else is there to say?”
Crash and burn, you asshole. Just like you always do. Let her see the real you. She’ll thank God she said no to you.

“Please don’t let it end like this, Jagger,” she pleaded, taking a step toward me. I didn’t move. “This was seriously the best weekend of my life. But we have to be realistic about what it was. And what waits for us on the other side of that door.”

I barely nodded. Reaching into my wallet, I put something in her hand. She looked down at it in disgust. She’d probably rip it to shreds as soon as I walked out the door.

“You’re giving me your business card?” she asked, incredulous.

“If my photography is the only thing that draws you to me,” I put my hand on the doorknob and looked back at her, “maybe it will be enough to make you change your mind.”

Chapter Eighteen

Leah

For My Sister Lisa’s Sake
, I’d always hoped there was life after death. Something else that gave all the monotonous shit we did every day some meaning. A reward for all the nonsense. But as I shuffled down the hallway of Scituate Bay Hotel like a zombie during my walk of shame, guts still all over the floor of Jagger’s hotel room, I knew there was nothing but death after death.

“Holy shit.” Kari looked up from her laptop when I returned to my room. She was ready for the day in a black fleece jacket and ballcap to hide last night’s hair. “What the hell happened to you? I thought you left without me. I was just trying to get a car to bring me to the airport.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” My voice was like the rest of me. Empty. Flat. “I’ll be ready in a couple minutes.”

“Like hell you’re not going to talk about it. I know you’re not ready, but whatever it is, it’s going to eat you alive until you get it out of your system.” Kari sat on the bed and watched me get dressed. “I know you liked him, Lee. It was obvious to anyone in a fifteen-mile radius that the two of you had insane chemistry. But that’s his job, honey. He does that every weekend.”

“He wants to see me again.” I pushed the pile of ruined clothes down in my suitcase, the stench of sex slapping me in the face, and zipped it up. Shit, I forgot the crap in my bathroom. I ripped the zipper back open.

“They all say that,” Kari chuckled and I glared at her. “That’s how they build up a clientele.”

“Not as a client.” I let her stew on that one while I retrieved my toiletries. My brush roll was still out from last night when Jagger had watched me put on my makeup. It was one of the most intimate parts of the weekend; he’d been so lost in my transformation, drawn into every line and stroke. I got my makeup done professionally all the time, but I’d never felt as glamorous as I did when he watched me do it.

And that photoshoot. Dear God. I’d been possessed by lust and an insatiable craving to have Jagger crawl inside me. Nothing could possibly replace that feeling.

I raked some goo through my hair. On top of everything else, I didn’t need to spend the day looking like roadkill. Kari’s mouth was still hanging open when I came back into the room.

“Really?” she asked, and I nodded. “Then why do you look like someone just died?”

“Because I told him no.” The look on his face when I said it almost ruined me. His eyes closed, his mouth opened, and I thought he was going to collapse. I could fucking hear his heart break. The impact still echoed in my brain.

“Why?”

“Because he’s a fucking hooker!” I yelled, clapping my hand over my mouth, trying to push that awful word back in, along with the tears that were going to follow. “I know it’s harsh, but it’s true. He gets paid to have sex with women. I can’t change that. But I fucking wish I could because he’s the most amazing man I’ve ever met.”

I collapsed on the foot of the bed and Kari held me while I cried. The second man who’d made me cry like this in less than twenty-four hours. She stroked my damp hair until I had no emotion left. “Do you have any way to get in touch with him?”

Jagger’s business card was sitting on the dresser, next to my purse. I nodded.

“Okay.” Kari ran her hand under my eyes and smoothed my hair. This was the most motherly she’d ever been. Did I ever need it. “Don’t make any snap decisions. Take some time and think about it. If he makes you happy, Leah, don’t completely rule it out. Give him a chance. He may surprise you.”

**

Kari drove the rental to the airport. I’d either kill us or someone else on the way to Logan. I slumped against the passenger’s side window, too numb to watch my hometown pass me by. I should’ve never come back here.

Raven looked like she wanted to do anything but get in the car with us. My baby girl didn’t want to go back to DC, she wanted to stay here with her friends. I knew that. But we all had to do things we didn’t want to. For our own good. Or something like that. I straightened up when she got in the car and tried to act like someone’s mother.

My eyes almost fell out of their sockets. “What the hell?” Raven had shaved half of her head. “You look like you got scalped by someone with astigmatism.”

She ran her hand over her exposed scalp and groaned. “You said I should express myself.”

That was exactly what I’d said when I let her dye her hair purple because I figured it would keep her from doing anything worse behind my back. Raven picked the right weekend to do something ridiculous because I had no fight left in me. I slumped back in my seat. “Don’t cry to me when you try to grow that out.”

“Dad said you were making out with some guy at the reunion.” Unbelievable. If I were petty, I’d tell her everything else her father said at the reunion. But I wanted her to actually still like the bastard, so didn’t answer her.

Kari looked back at Raven in the rearview mirror. “Sweetie, we’ve already discussed this. You know better than to believe everything your father says.”

“Did you?” she asked, and I turned to meet her eyes. Anger. I wondered if this was how she treated her father when she stayed with him and his new wife. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t wanted to stay with them this weekend, either.

Funny time to start setting an example, but I didn’t want her sneaking around behind my back. “Yes, I did.” Horns blared as Kari veered into the middle lane. “But don’t worry, it won’t be happening again.”

Raven turned to the window, muttering something incoherent. Mostly likely about me ruining her street cred in a town she didn’t live in anymore. Mine was in the gutter too, kiddo. At least we left them with something to talk about until we came back for Christmas.

Thick silence was a backseat driver the rest of the way to the airport. Now that I was starting to calm down, I needed to talk to Kari. I might have been upfront with Raven about some of what I’d done, but I certainly wasn’t coming clean with her about the whole weekend. Instead I was left with my thoughts festering inside my own brain.

The airport was hectic this morning, the beginning of the holiday rush. A snowstorm somewhere in the Midwest put a wrench in everyone’s plans. I was a pretty experienced traveler now and my entourage expected me to lead the way. Delays were starting to pile up and the overall mood at the airport was piss poor. At least I fit right in.

Thank God no one recognized me. This morning I was a ghost of the person they saw on TV.

“What did you do this weekend?” I asked Raven as we headed to our gate. We’d passed security and I could relax.

A flush rose in her cheeks. “Some people came over to Kenzie’s house and we watched movies.” So I was getting half a story, too.

“Anyone else shave their head?” I turned around so I could see her on the people mover.

Her face was almost the same color as her hair. “Jaden.” She tucked her head down to conceal a smile.

Adorable. And I was so glad I was bringing her five hundred miles from here while she still had half a head of hair left. I was still smiling as I turned back around, about to ask Kari a question, when I got caught in the crosshairs of the eyes that would haunt me for the rest of my life traveling the other way on the people mover.

Of course Jagger would be flying out of the same terminal. I’d used my frequent flyer miles to pay for his trip. Blood thundered in my ears and I had to stop myself from reaching out for him. If I could just touch him one more time…No. But I couldn’t turn away. Every emotion that had been roiling through my body since I said those two awful words—
I can’t
—was reflected on his face.

“Ma! You have to start walking now.” Raven broke the spell by grabbing my arm before I fell flat on my ass in the middle of the airport. It would’ve been so poetic.

“Oh.” I shook my head and turned back for one last glimpse of Jagger once I was on solid ground. He’d turned away.

Gone. Forever. “Who was that?” Raven asked.

Oh, just everything I ever wanted and can never have.
“Who?”

“That guy. He was staring at you.”

“He must’ve thought I was someone else.” Did he ever. He thought I was someone worthy of trying to make a future with. But Rich had been right. I was just a selfish slut. “Maybe he recognized me from the show.”

“He’s coming this way.”