No Strings Attached (The Escort #1) (15 page)

“No, it’s not. And I hate that you think that way.” She sat up again, mashing her lips together.

“I’m sorry.” Maybe if I could spend the day with Leah I’d feel differently about Christmas. But this year, I was booked and I couldn’t give up everything for this woman yet. As much as we both wanted that. We barely knew each other. It seemed crazy. I could hardly remember my life without her.

“We’ll celebrate. Even if it’s not that day. I’m going to change your mind on this.” Her eyes were glassy, but she shook her head and grabbed my cock. That was the last thing I expect her to do. Her fingers moved slowly up my shaft, circling the tip. “But since I have to wait, you’re going to have to make it up to me.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Leah

“
You’re Really Not Going Home For Christmas?”
I finally had a chance to catch up with Kari after the reunion. Between my production schedule, the announcement of my new show, shooting promos in New York, and being completely wrapped up in Jagger, I barely had a minute to myself. I’d been a terrible friend lately. Thankfully, Kari hardly noticed.

“Nope. And it’s liberating as hell,” Kari dug into her curry. She’d mixed it up tonight and picked up Indian food. “Now that mom and dad moved to the cult in Phoenix,” that’s what she called the retirement community they lived in, “they don’t care if they see me or not. I’m lucky when they return my phone calls. So I’m staying here with Reno.”

“Things are going good with him?” I ripped off a huge piece of naan. I loved this stuff so much. “Are you his client or his girlfriend?”

Kari rolled her eyes. “No, he’s not an escort. I can’t believe you haven’t met him yet! I thought we’d hang out at the reunion.”

“Sorry.” Not really. “I still feel like shit for ditching you.”

“Bullshit. I’m surprised you even noticed I was there with that hot piece of ass all over you.” She laughed. “There’s a little Italian place that opened near the office. I started going there a lot when I worked late because I could bring my laptop and get some work done while I ate, then I’d head back to work. The food, Leah. I never knew the difference between fresh pasta and the crap from the box. It’s like I’ve died and gone to heaven. So I asked to meet the chef. I had to see the angel that created these masterpieces.”

“And it was Reno.”

“Yes.” Kari couldn’t contain her smile behind her wine glass. “He’s perfect. You guys will hit it off. He was a personal chef for a senator for years, until he got run out of town for some dumb bullshit. He opened his own place and it’s packed all the time. He’s doing catering and looking at franchising. And he’s talked to a couple of those competition shows on the food channel. He’s going to rip them a new asshole. I can’t wait.”

Holy shit. Kari had met her match. “When does he have time to take his clothes off?”

“Let me tell you.” Kari lowered her voice and leaned forward. It was just a thing we did when the conversation turned saucy. Raven control. “Reno uses his time very wisely. And he does nothing without reason.”

“How long has this been going on? And it’s serious enough to bring him to the reunion?” Kari always went after what she wanted, but this was fast even for her. She couldn’t even commit to a handbag. She rented them.

“I met him around the same time you started seeing Jagger.” My whole body tingled at the mention of his name. I craved him and there was absolutely nothing else that would satisfy the emptiness. “He’s got family in Providence, so it wasn’t as serious as it looked. He wanted to get up there and see his family before he got crazy with holiday parties.”

“You’re not going ditch me to spend your Christmas at a restaurant, are you? That sounds awful.” Everyone I cared about was going to have a shitty holiday.

“No, he’s got that day off, but that’s it. I’ll make sure we don’t get out of bed that day.” Kari raised an eyebrow. “So you called Jagger.”

“Yeah.” The weekend felt more of a hazy dream than a memory. “Everything is really good, as long as he’s here.”

“I know this is hard for you, Lee. The two of you together.” She shook her head, having trouble finding the right words. I knew exactly how she felt. “It’s like he completes a part of you I didn’t even know was missing. You were an entirely different person at the reunion. And not because you were putting on an act. Because Jagger drew it out of you.”

I ripped the last of the bread and put half of it on her plate. “I’m surprised you remember the reunion.”

“I wasn’t drunk
all
the time.” She tried to contain her laughter. “Just a high percentage of it.”

“You and me might be married in a couple of states.” Kari raised an eyebrow. “You don’t remember feeling me up?”

“No!”

“Then never mind.” No need to rehash that I’d gone commando to my twenty-year reunion. “He’s working over Christmas. I’m having a really hard time dealing with it. I don’t want to share, Kari.”

Kari got up, taking our plates away, and then put her hands on my shoulders. I leaned back to look up at her. She frowned. All my life I’d always felt like Kari had all the answers, but they worked for her. Not for me. “If I was a good friend, I’d tell you to run.”

“I can’t.” I’d needed to talk about this so badly, and there was only so much I could say to Jagger. He’d been forthcoming with me, and as much as it hurt, I needed him to tell me everything. We’d made each other no promises. We were truly living in the moment. I didn’t have any claim on his future, as much as I wanted it. “But when I think of him touching another woman, I practically go insane with jealousy. If I saw it happen, I don’t know what I’d do, Kari. It’s a good thing my best friend is one of the top lawyers in the country because it won’t be pretty. But it’s his job. And I knew that going in.”

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself.” She pulled out the chair next to me and sat, playing with my hair. It soothed me but reminded me of Jagger. Like everything else in this house did. “He’s able to separate the two things, but you can’t do it. That will ruin everything you have that’s good.”

“He’s got no one, Kari. His family won’t talk to him and he’s shut himself down so completely that he practically cracks open when he talks about it.”

“Does he think of you as his mother or his lover?”

“Yuck!” I whacked Kari as she laughed. “No, definitely not his mother.”

“You do like to take care of people.” Kari wasn’t convinced. “Is he taking advantage of that?”

“That’s not it at all. It’s me. I’ve spent what, a week with him? I can’t ask him to drop his entire life. But I don’t know what the solution is.”

“Can’t he do something else?”

“He’s an amazing photographer, but it wouldn’t support him. You’ve been out with a bunch of these guys, what would you do if you were me?”

Kari stared into space, looking for an answer that wasn’t there. “I’ll be here to pick up the pieces when they fall. Because they will fall. But until then, take it as far as you can. If he cares about you, he’ll find a way to make it work. Not just for him but for you.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Leah

“
This Is Nuts
,” Shannon, my intern said to me when I came back to the office. “We’re getting hundreds of emails about places that people want us to make over. I’m never going to get through these before we go on break.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I came over to her desk to see what she had up on the screen. A broken down building in the middle of a city block that might’ve been a bank or a pharmacy. Letters had been carved into the stone, like whoever built the place expected it to last forever. Even though it had been ignored and left to rot, the building had retained its dignity. “I’ll go through them over the next couple weeks. I want to read the emails, anyway.”

“How are you ever going to choose?” Shannon looked back at me. She’d been the first one to warm to this project. I’d thought she’d been too young to really appreciate it. “I’m dividing them by region. We’re getting a lot from Detroit—my hometown—so I gave it its own folder. I could help you out if you pick something there.”

That’s why she was into it. “Let me know if there’s anything close to your heart.” Her face lit up before she went back to work, clicking out of the email and holy crap, she wasn’t kidding. The inbox was overflowing. It didn’t quite hit home until she started to scroll through the messages. Each one of them wanted something better.

“You got a package,” she said, pointing to my desk. A flat cardboard box waited for me and I knew it was from Jagger. He’d asked for the office address, wanting to make sure I got it, but he asked me to wait until I got home to open it.

At least I had plenty to keep me busy for the rest of the day. Shannon was right, I had no idea how I was ever going to narrow down all of these potential properties to a handful for people to vote on.

I called Jagger. “I need your help,” I said when he picked up. “We’re getting so many amazing emails for the rehab project and I have no idea how to pick.”

“Are you going to do a house or a commercial property?”

“I think a commercial property. We’d be able to do the most good for people, maybe create some jobs. But I pitched it as a house, so the producers may keep me to that.”

“Narrow it down and send some over to me,” he said. “I’ll let you know what I think.”

“Thanks.” He’d see a million things that I wouldn’t. “I got your package today.”

“Have you opened it yet?” His voice dropped an octave. Gifts had a funny way of doing that to people.

It gave me butterflies. “No. I’m still at the office.”

“You follow instructions so well.” His words vibrated through my body and I squirmed in my chair. “When you get home, pour yourself a glass of wine and bring it upstairs. To bed. Call me when you’re done.”

“This sounds saucy.” I lowered my voice and looked over my shoulder. It was just me and Shannon left in the office. Everyone else had already headed wherever they were going for the holiday. But my intern didn’t need to hear me veering toward phone sex. “Your gift should be arriving anytime now.”

“I can’t wait to see it.” Shopping for Jagger was harder than I thought it was going to be. There was nothing photography related I could buy him that would be better than he already had. And any time I tried to ask him about things outside of his photography he shut me down. So I decided to make him a care package. I got him a hat, scarf, and gloves, since he was coming back up here in January and he looked ridiculous in my stuff; I baked him brownies, and since he needed something to unwrap when he came to visit me, I put a new lingerie set in there, too.

“Are you still booked this week?” I asked him every day. Things could change. A girl could dream.

“Yes,” he groaned, but then laughed. “I’ll be thinking of you every second.”

Emotion burned my eyes, threatening to run down my cheeks. “I’ve got to get back to work,” I whispered, not trusting my voice. “I’ll call you tonight.”

**

Jagger liked it when I followed instructions, so I did exactly as I was told. Poured a glass of wine then headed upstairs. During my shopping trip for his present, I found some other lacy little things I thought he might appreciate, so I put one of those on too. Then I called him. If it wasn’t for the face chat thing this long distance relationship would’ve sucked.

He didn’t answer. I took a long sip of wine, considering if I wanted to give him a few minutes or dive into the package. More wine helped keep my mind from straying to what he might be doing.

I’d been cheated on before. This wasn’t exactly the same feeling. With Rich, the shock of being absolutely blindsided with the reality of the situation was the worst part of it. That he didn’t love me. With Jagger, it was dreading the inevitable. Not being able to stop it. Mixed in with the way we felt about each other, it was the perfect storm.

There was a piece of him with me now. I put the wine glass down and opened the box. I slid a leather book out, a photo album. My heart raced because I had a pretty good feeling what was inside.

A note laid on top of the first page.

When I have stars in my eyes, I know you’re with me.

-J

I read it over and over, bringing it close to my face, hoping that the paper smelled like him, but it didn’t. I almost forgot there was more, but when my eyes fell back to the book I gasped, met with my own image staring back at me from the page.

Jagger had changed the images to black and white, and the first photo was taken from above me. I lay on my back, looking up at the camera in a haze of lust and desire. The angle of the picture was just right to catch the line of my body curving along with the sheets.

Each picture was a variation of the same theme. It was like we were back at the hotel, Jagger standing over me with his camera. I writhed on the bed, feeling his gaze on me even though I was alone. He always focused on my eyes, even when all I wore was makeup. I never imagined that I could look like this. A confident, sensual woman who was in complete control of her sexuality. He’d written a love letter to me with his camera. Now I knew exactly how he saw me, and it was like seeing myself for the very first time.

My phone buzzed, and I thought my heart was going to explode. “I opened your present.” Looking at myself in black and white on the pages, he was here with me. Something tangible of the way he made me feel.

The only thing more beautiful than this photo album was his face. The way his eyes sparkled when he looked at me, his expression softened, it was just as much of a gift as what I held in my hands.

“What do you think?” His eyes fell, nervous.

“You’re amazing.”

Jagger laughed. “That’s exactly what I was trying to tell you.”

“We can both be amazing.” There was no use arguing. I’d let him think he was right, but I knew I really was. “Seriously, I love it. I never thought I could look like this.”

He shook his head. “That’s what you look like every day.” He squinted. “What’s that you have on?”

“This old thing?” I teased, leaning back, so he could take in the ensemble. “A preview of your gift. And I only look like that when you’re around.”

“I’m looking forward to this gift.” He smirked, but then his eyes flicked back up to mine. This thing would need to go in the wash. How could he have that effect on me from a tiny screen? “We’ll have to figure out how to get you to look like that more often. Just for me.”

“Call in sick,” I pouted. It had become our joke about Christmas. Laughing about it was the only way I was going to get through this.

“I wish.” He looked so sad. There was only so long he could keep up this
it’s just another day to me
bullshit. “Tell me about Christmas at Leah’s house.”

Settling in, I lay on my stomach before I continued. Jagger’s eyes grew wide when I adjusted the phone. All he could see was my cleavage. I almost kept it that way, but I wanted him to actually listen to what I had to say. This was the most interested he’d been in my holiday plans, and I considered it a breakthrough. “Christmas Eve has always been my family’s night, and Rich gets Raven on Christmas. My parents and I hang out with my aunts and cousins on Christmas Day. But on Christmas Eve we’ve done the same thing for years. My mom makes a huge pot of soup, it’s got tortellini in it but we call it toodlings. No one outside of that area knows what I’m talking about, but it’s so good. I’ll make it for you next time you come up. We have it with garlic bread, which of course has to be dipped into the broth. I can’t wait. My dad makes those magic cookie bars, you know those brownies that have everything in them?”

He nodded. “I love those.”

Too bad I didn’t know that before I sent his care package. He’d be here in January, and I’d been planning to give him a belated Christmas celebration. “Ever since me and Lisa were kids, we’d put on new pajamas after dinner and make a pile of blankets in front of the Christmas tree and watch movies. Of course we got Raven in on the action. And in case you were wondering about my parenting skills, I have Raven hooked on eighties teen movies. We’ve already decided we’re watching Ferris Bueller and Better Off Dead this year.”

Jagger closed his eyes for a long blink, a dreamy looking smile spreading across his face. “That sounds perfect.”

“What are you going to be doing? Any idea?” I hated to break the spell.

“No.” The magic dissipated between us, and his eyes darkened. “I know I’m staying with the same person for a couple of days and I travel Christmas Eve.”

That must be so scary, to have no idea who he was going to meet. The agency screened their clients, but there was no way to catch all the crazies. “To where?”

“Hartford.” He looked off screen.

“You’re going to be so close to me.” What a tease. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Leah, we might not be able to spend the day together, but believe me when I tell you, you’ll be there with me.”