No Strings Attached (The Escort #1) (11 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Jagger

Leah Stood Frozen At The End Of The Moving Walkway
. A girl who had to be her daughter stood beside her, and Kari clutched her arm. “Jagger,” she whispered. “We can’t do this here.”

“I’m not sure I’m going to get another chance.” Our eyes locked and everyone else in the airport disappeared. “I need to take this chance, Leah.”

“We’ll wait for you at the terminal.” Kari nudged the girl and they left us alone.

Leah licked her lips. This morning they were bare and still swollen from the weekend. She hadn’t blinked. “I’m sorry, Jagger.”

“No. I told you I never wanted you to apologize to me. I meant it then and I mean it now. But you need to know how I feel about you. I’m not perfect. I make a lot of mistakes. I’ve never let myself feel this way about anyone. But you didn’t give me a choice, Leah. You grabbed my heart and I don’t want you to ever let it go.” I pulled her into me, crushing her in a kiss so no one had any doubt she was mine.

“I have to go.” The last word broke, and a tear escaped from one of those big brown eyes. Fuck. “Thank you. For everything.” She broke away from me, and this time, I couldn’t follow her.

A hollowed out shell of the man who’d arrived in Boston waited for his plane. Praying that Leah would emerge from the fog that suffocated me.

“Sir. Sir!” The attendant shook me from my daze. “Are you on this flight? We’re about to shut the door.”

**

“Book me as much as you want,” I said when Barry called Monday morning. He was a money hungry bastard but he always called to check in after bookings that lasted more than one night. It was almost like he cared.

“I can give you more work if you’re willing to travel.” Barry had to be loving this. He knew he had me by the balls. For real. “Everything go okay this weekend?”

Leah’s face haunted me like it had a million times since I stormed out of the hotel room.

I rubbed my face, hard. Now I was back in Miami and I needed to get my shit straight. Keep working toward the gallery. Something I could be proud of. Something to make other people treat me with respect. “Yeah, it was great.”
Leah walked away from you, asshole. Remember that.
Not her writhing between my legs on the bed while I photographed her. Not her grinding against me on the dance floor. Didn’t work. “Some of the guys want holidays off. I’d rather stay busy.”

“Don’t bitch when your dick is too sore to get up,” Barry scoffed. “Because I’m going to book you solid.”

“Good.” It was going to suck, but it was exactly what I needed to do. “I’ll tell you when I’m ready to stop.”

“You all say that, but you never mean it.” Barry was still laughing when he hung up.

**

Most of the time I didn’t pay attention to my bookings until it was time to get ready for the appointment unless I was traveling, which was one of the reasons I hated to do it. Tonight was one of my regulars. Marianne, a woman I assumed to be around fifty who’d frozen herself in time with plastic surgery. No matter what she was doing she always had the same expression on her face. It was perfect, actually. I didn’t have any emotions when I was doing her, either.

“Hey, sexy,” she purred when she opened the door in her silk robe, tied loosely to give a healthy eyeful of cleavage. Her finger ran down the side of my face. “Long time, no see.”

“Been waiting for your call.” With the same enthusiasm I waited for my STD results every month. “You know how this works.”

“That’s why I call you.” Ridiculously long fingernails hooked into my pants and tugged me in closer to her, and her robe fell open. The claws brushed against my dick. “Come say hi to Harry.”

I hated this appointment. Marianne was happily married to her husband’s money. Harry, her husband, was pushing eighty and couldn’t get it up anymore. Marianne’s silicone body had the same effect on me as an undressed mannequin at a department store, so I knew how he felt. This guy scared the shit out of me. Grizzled and still tough as fucking nails now he was confined to a wheelchair, he’d served in Korea, worked for NASA, and made a fortune in real estate. I wouldn’t mind having a beer with the guy because he was probably fascinating. But that’s not what he paid me for. He paid me to fuck his wife while he watched.

Harry waited for us in the room Marianne always brought me to. It was a bedroom, but not their bedroom. I’d seen Harry’s hospital bed through a door accidently left open, along with all the machines and wires he needed to survive. This room was equipped much differently. A high bed with rose colored satin sheets had been placed under a bay window, and all the toys that Marianne had read about in her erotica novels were in reach. She wasn’t into real kink, thank God, just curious. It would be a medical miracle when Harry stormed over to me on his own power and snapped my neck if I did actually anything hardcore to her.

“Hey, Harry, how are you?” I smiled to him over my shoulder as Marianne unbuttoned my shirt. She’d led me straight to the bed and never wasted a minute of her appointments.

“Good, Jagger.” Harry sputtered out my name before one hell of a cough took over. It had gotten worse since the last time I was here. “Got any plans for Thanksgiving?”

Marianne turned my face back to her. She didn’t like it when I talked to Harry too much.

“I’m going to my sister’s house.” Bullshit. I hadn’t talked to Ruby since my folks had told her about my descent to the dark side. I planned to spend the day working on the images from Leah’s photoshoot. It was going to cause me physical pain to do it, but I planned to get down and dirty with that shit. Roll around in it until I was filthy. Until I couldn’t bear to think of her anymore.

“That will be nice.” More coughing.

I turned back to Harry, I was more concerned with him than Marianne manipulating her giant tits. “Is he okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, he’s fine,” she scoffed. “Don’t worry about him.” She kneaded my crotch to get my attention, used to working for it, and finally my cock started to stir.

I crawled forward, so she leaned back on the sheets. “What do you want me to do to you?” I knew the drill.

Marianne bit her lip. Her robe was totally open underneath me, pale pink everything, but I didn’t touch her. “Hmm.” She pulled me crashing down on her body. “I want you to cuff me to the bed and blindfold me.” I rolled over, reaching into her toy drawer. The pink satin blindfold and matching fuzzy restraints were still on top, where I left them last time. I placed the blindfold over her eyes first and she stretched up so she could whisper in my ear as I fastened the cuff to the headboard. “Get me off with your hand before you fuck me.”

This was Marianne’s favorite scenario, but I had to ask. I had to do whatever she wanted until she hit my hard limits, which she’d never come close to on her best day. Today, I welcomed the routine. I could shut myself down completely and survive the next two hours.

All four limbs spread and restrained, I rubbed some of the oil she liked me to use between my palms and got down to business. I knew every muscle under her skin, how to manipulate them for maximum effect. A fingernail run along the inside of her arm sent her into a fit of giggles every time. Marianne liked her nipples pinched, the rougher the better.

Just like Leah.

Thank God Marianne wanted the blindfold. She couldn’t see that my cock was a soft as the fur on her handcuffs. Her body bucked under my fingers. I concentrated on her hard tits, amazed that she felt anything.

Harry kept coughing. I glanced back at him over my shoulder. He was almost purple, struggling to catch his breath.

“Sure he’s all right?” I asked quietly, even though there’s no way Harry would hear me over the coughing.
Please don’t die while I’m fucking your wife, dude. I’m begging you.

“I told you he’s fine. His COPD’s been acting up lately,” Marianne spit out. “Work my pussy, Jagger. It’s missed you so much.” The last two words came out in baby talk. Ugh.

Spitting on my fingers, I brought my hand down to her slit. Marianne cooed as I thumbed her clit. “That’s so good.” I jammed two fingers inside her, no need to be gentle. She didn’t need any warm up. “Harder,” she panted, rocking back and forth to fuck my fingers.

Three fingers in now, my thumb tapped her clit and my pinky finger rubbed against her asshole. I clutched her like a bowling ball, slamming against her sex. “Put them all in, Jagger,” she begged between strained breaths. “You know I can take it.”

I folded my thumb and pinky down and slid up her wet canal. “Oh!” Her body rolled up. I was all the way up to my wrist. “That’s it, that’s it!” she screamed. “Keep going. Deeper.” Her arousal ran down my arm as her inner walls clamped down around my fist. I watched my hand move against her shaved pubic area. I was a sick fuck.

Marianne was losing control of her body, fighting against her restraints and calling out to saints and dead relatives, all while telling me how good it was. I kept pumping. Unlike my cock, my fist could go forever whether it wanted to or not.

“How do I look, baby?” Marianne called out.

“Gorgeous, sweetheart.” Harry stopped coughing long enough to answer. “Just gorgeous.”

“I’m coming,” she panted. She fought the restraints as her release crashed through her body, her cum running down my arm. I pulled my fist out of her pussy and used it to work my cock, hard. She was going to expect me to fuck her now and I wasn’t ready.

Pretend it’s Leah
, I told myself as I pulled my shaft.
Imagine it’s her coming below you.
Her soft body. Those luscious tits.
Red lipstick everywhere.
My cock stiffened immediately. I rolled on a condom and dove in fast, fucking her hard, falling against her, wishing I was blindfolded, too. It was easier than dealing with what was actually in front of me.

Wrenching one last orgasm out of Marianne, I pulled the blindfold off her. I didn’t last long after that, it broke the spell for both of us. It didn’t matter, we didn’t have that much time left. I always had one eye on the clock during my appointments. Jagger Holiday didn’t work without pay.

“How you doing?” I asked as I rubbed feeling back into her freed limbs.

“Amazing.” I think she smiled at me. “You were great as always, Jagger.”

“Anything for you, Marianne.”

Our appointments always ended the same way. Marianne walked me to the front door, but not before I took Harry’s hand in the one I’d just lodged deep inside his wife. It was the worst part of the whole thing. “Thanks again, Jagger.” I did my best to look him in the eye when he spoke to me. He clapped his other hand over mine. “Have a good Thanksgiving.”

Chapter Twenty

Leah

“
I Have Good News For You
.” Diane caught me as I packed up my bag to leave the office for the holiday weekend. Most of the interns were already on their way home to see their families. I was thankful for the short week. I’d poured myself into a project for a new client that should’ve excited me. I’d been hired to redecorate the lobby of one of the top recording studios in Nashville, but my emotional hangover lingered from the weekend. The dull, ever-present ache convinced me I actually had a broken heart. It had fractured again along the same line of an old injury and there was no telling when it would heal.

At least at home I wouldn’t have to pretend everything was okay anymore.

“What’s that?” Whatever she was going to tell me wasn’t going to be what I wanted to hear.

“This isn’t final, but I’ve talked to my people at the network, and there’s some excitement over your proposal,” she said.

That
was
good news. “Really?” For the first time since Sunday morning, I smiled and meant it. “Did they say what part they were excited about?”

Diane pursed her lips together. She knew better than to be getting my hopes up, but it was pretty obvious I needed something. I’d been such a joyless bitch the last two days she was probably afraid with four days off I’d go play in traffic. “You might get your own show.”

“You’re shitting me!” I jumped up and hugged her.

“Maybe. It’s only been a couple days, and you know it’s got to go through rounds of meetings to get funding and approval.” Diane pulled away from me. “But you better remember who fought for you if you get this show.”

I laughed against her shoulder, since she thought this idea was terrible until someone at the network proved her wrong. But it was a holiday and I wasn’t going to argue with her. “I want to make sure we do this right. If it happens, of course. We have to do the right thing for the communities.”

“Did you hear me? You might be getting your own show. You’re going to have to prove yourself to the network before you start making demands.”

And the sour mood clamped back down in place. “I have proven myself. Two years ago I was selling throw pillows in the suburbs. Now I have my own clientele and the segment on the show. I don’t want to ruin what I’ve worked so hard to build by making bad decisions.”

“Everything should be fine, as long as it’s in the proposal.” Diane dismissed my outburst. Maybe she did fight for me in her own way. “Let’s not worry about putting out fires that haven’t started yet. We should have a decision before Christmas. If they greenlight it, then everything will start falling into place.”

“You’re right,” I said. She was backpedaling, but reality was starting to sink in. Somewhere, someone might be talking about giving me my own TV show. “I’m excited.”

“You should be.” Diane was, too. That was a first. “Now stop working and go enjoy the holiday with your family.”

**

Thanksgiving was one of my holidays with Raven. Rich got her for Christmas, but I always traveled up to Scituate with her because I still had Christmas Eve and I wasn’t giving that up. Christmas Eve was better anyway. The anticipation, the excitement, Christmas was just the wind-down. But Thanksgiving I hadn’t quite figured out on my own yet. It was a day about food and family, and Raven refused to eat anything that didn’t come in a foil wrapper and spent every minute she could behind her bedroom door. Kari had come over the last couple of years and we’d drink too much wine and watch old movies. This year she ditched me, citing plans with the mystery man, Reno.

I didn’t have the scoop on him yet. Kari didn’t do relationships, and normally I’d be dying to know everything about him. But I still couldn’t get out of my own way.

I had no right to bitch about being on my own. I’d done this to myself. One person made it clear they wanted to spend time with me and I made him feel like he wasn’t good enough. We both had it all wrong. I was the one who wasn’t good enough for him.

Well, this was going to be a fun holiday. I cracked open a fresh bottle of wine and looked at what I’d picked up for tomorrow. Not much, since I’d have to eat most of it. A traditional Thanksgiving dinner would just go to waste. I got pork chops with breading and macaroni and cheese because Mama needed comfort food and Raven might consider eating pasta. And brownies.

“Want to help me make brownies?” I poked my head into Raven’s room after knocking on her door. She looked back at her screen and I braced myself for a no. “I’ll let you lick the bowl when we’re done.”

“Sure.” At first I didn’t think I heard her right. It had been so long since she actually wanted to do anything with me. Raven paused whatever she was watching and rolled up off her bed. I squinted to see if there were any snails or other creatures coming out of places they shouldn’t be.

When was I going to stop thinking about him?

“You okay?” Raven asked, knocking me out of dreamland.

“Yeah, now I am.” I smiled at her as I gathered ingredients. “What do you want to put in these bad boys?”

Raven peered over my shoulder, considering her options. “Cookies.” I knew it. She grabbed the package. “I’ll start mashing them. Is Auntie coming over?”

“No, she’s got other plans.” I cracked eggs in the bowl. “I saw you got a bunch of college stuff in the mail this week. What are you thinking?”

“Definitely Emerson and BU. I’m going to apply to a couple other places just in case.” Raven leveled the first blow to the bag of cookies. “They’re all in Boston.” She dipped her head, expecting me to flip out, but kept up the assault on the cookies.

“I’m not surprised.” Silence.

“You’re not mad, are you?”

Rich had brought her to visit a ton of schools in Boston over the summer. I’d had time to get used to the idea of her going back there. They were some of the best schools in the country, which was the most important thing. “Of course not. I want you to go wherever you think is right for you. If that’s Boston, then you need to be there. If it’s Tokyo, then you better start liking sushi, sister.”

“Yeah, right.” She actually shuddered. “I’d just eat candy all the time.”

“You’re not safe there. They make stuff like shrimp donuts.” I raised an eyebrow and waited for her to finish blasting the cookies to bits so we could stir them into the batter. “I know it’s hard for you to be down here, away from your friends, but I couldn’t have done this without you.”

She gave me a shy smile as she pushed the bag over to me. We’d had a couple of cookie disasters and ever since she always let me open the bag when she was done crushing them. “I know.” Raven had no idea how much that meant to me. In the almost two years we’d been here we’d never been able to talk about this without fighting and her stomping off to her room, shutting me out once again.

“You’re not mad at me anymore, are you?” It went without saying that she was at one time.

“No, not anymore.” Her head dropped. “It’s kinda cool here. And I can talk to everybody online whenever I want.”

“Like Jaden?”

She blushed.

“How much of his head did he shave?”

Raven couldn’t even look at me. How she even talked to this boy was beyond me. Maybe he was just as shy and awkward as she was. “He has a mohawk.”

“I think I got the better end of that deal.” I ran my fingers against her bare scalp. A little bit of fuzz had already sprouted. “Can I meet him at Christmas?”

She gasped and I put my hand on her back as I grabbed the brownie pan. No daughter of mine was going to pass out before it was time to lick the bowl. “Maybe.”

“I know, it’s like a whole month away.” Once the pan was full I pushed the bowl to her with the spoon. The kid had earned her keep.

Raven slid the bowl between us, reaching into the drawer, grabbing another spoon, and handing it to me. This made me much happier than it should have.

We scraped in silence for a few minutes, savoring the raw brownie batter goodness. Salmonella be damned. “He’s really handsome,” she said.

“Who?” I licked the back of my spoon. “Jaden?”

“No.” More blushing. “The guy from the airport.”

“Oh.” My turn to blush. “Yeah. He is.”

“What’s his name?”

“Jagger.” I leaned forward to wipe Raven’s face. Her mouth was rimmed in chocolate. She looked like she did when she was a little girl and we’d do this. “You’re a mess.”

“How did you meet him? Was he the guy from the reunion?” Raven shrugged away from me with a smile.

“He was. Auntie introduced us.” It wasn’t a lie, just as much of the truth as she was going to get.

“Are you going to see him again?” She picked up the empty bowl and brought it to the sink.

My heart was pounding. “I don’t know.”

“Why not? You liked him, right?”

It was a damn good question I didn’t have the answer to.