“Sure.”
I had a good idea what she was going to say.
“Do you have sex with your clients?”
“Of course not,” I said, with a smile. “Because I’m paid by the hour and that would be illegal.”
She gazed at me appraisingly for a second, then snagged a passing waiter and claimed two more glasses of champagne.
“Here’s to breaking the law,” she said, as she passed me one of the glasses along with a small tablet stamped with a picture of a butterfly.
I hesitated for a moment.
“Yeah, I’d better not, Sophie. I’m working tonight. If I get hammered, my client will cancel my fee.”
She pulled a face. “I didn’t think an escort would be such a good boy.”
“Only when he needs the money,” I said, sharply.
There was a brief pause. “Sorry,” she said.
“Apology accepted. But only because you’re sexy as hell,” I teased her.
She pushed my shoulder. “Too bloody right! Do you know how many hours I have to spend in the friggin’ gym to get an arse this tight?”
“I don’t know. Let me check,” I said, pretending to examine it.
She laughed again, then her expression changed.
“Is your date wearing a lime-green halter neck dress that’s as ugly as her shoes?”
“Sounds about right,” I admitted.
“Well, she’s coming this way.”
I sighed. “Better get back to work. Nice talking to you, Sophie.”
She smiled serenely. “I have a feeling we’ll be seeing each other again.”
Which was why, ten days later, I was tying my bow tie in front of a mirror in the Dorchester Hotel, London, in a suite that she’d reserved for us.
Sophie paid for me to attend the premiere of some movie that her sister had a minor part in. And she had a very specific scene that she wanted me to play out. It gave me an insight into what it must be like when you were always being measured against your richer, more famous sibling.
There was something to be said for being an only child after all.
I pushed my way through the crowds around Leicester Square where the UK premiere was taking place. Yep, I even got to walk the red carpet after I showed my invitation to the security guys and they let me through. Once that would have felt like something special, but these days it was just business. Cameras were flashing and I guess people thought I was an actor. The paps took a load of pics which amused me, because no one knew who the hell I was, but it all worked as part of Sophie’s plan.
Inside the movie theater I picked up a glass of sparkling wine that was masquerading as champagne but was really second rate, and chatted casually with some of people who were involved in the production. I couldn’t help playing it up and doing the whole, ‘Hi, how are you? Haven’t seen you for a while? What script are you working on?’ Not one person questioned if I should have been there.
I saw Sophie arrive with her sister. Well, maybe ‘with’ is too strong a word. The crowd went crazy as Karen K made her entrance, waving and smiling and blowing kisses to the fans. Sophie was largely ignored, although a couple of shots were taken of the two sisters together.
I’ve got to say, Sophie was a knockout. She was wearing a backless, strapless, floor-length silver dress, and her hair fell straight as silk over her shoulders. This was going to be an easy nine grand. I wouldn’t have anything against fucking her.
She stayed close to her sister, and I made sure I was in their eye line as much as possible. I saw Karen watching me, giving me a lingering appraisal. Sophie had told me what she was like, so I wasn’t surprised. I just lifted my glass in acknowledgement and smiled at her.
Shortly after that, we were ushered into the theater to watch the seriously lame movie about a geeky superhero. The action was lacking and the laughs were forced. Not that I cared, I was enjoying the whole London vibe and even ended up with half a dozen business cards from people who assumed I was an actor. I didn’t think they’d be impressed with my movie résumé so far, but you never know. More than one A-list actor has a shady past.
The after-party was held at the Groucho Club in Soho. It was the kickback place of choice for British celebs in a seen-it-all, done-it-all, yawn-it-all kinda way.
I shared a cab with three girls who’d worked on the movie, and got invited to hang-out with them, too. It sounded … ah, hell … it sounded like work. God, this job was screwing with my social life. I was getting to the point where I’d rather watch cooking shows on TV than have casual sex during my night off. I hated cooking shows.
It took me a few minutes to find Sophie. The club was in an old Georgian building and the rooms were spread like warrens across several floors. As she promised, she was with her sister again. I strolled over, my smile practiced.
“Hello again, ladies.”
Karen smiled coolly, but Sophie hid hers.
“How did you enjoy the movie?”
“Do I know you?” asked Karen.
“Do you want to?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Let me know when you are.” Then I turned my back on her and focused on Sophie. “Hello, beautiful.”
Karen’s eyes sparked with anger. I could almost feel her boring holes into my head with her death glare. This wasn’t a game she was used to, but that was part of the plan. I gave all my attention to Sophie, bringing my best game to flirting with her, complimenting her and generally acting like I’d found a slice of heaven on earth.
Karen, so used to being the center of her universe, was becoming more and more furious as I continued to ignore her. I lost any sympathy I might have had when she started trying to belittle her sister, making cutting comments about her weight, her makeup, her hair, her clothes. I’d met some needy actresses and singers in my time, but Karen’s determination to be the one in the spotlight bordered on pathological. I could see why any guy who showed an interest in Sophie would be steamrollered by the older sister. It was sad—for both of them.
My verbal flirting progressed to light touches: her arm, her hip, her hair, her collarbone. It was driving Karen nuts and I could tell she didn’t know whether to storm off or to fight a losing battle.
When I moved Sophie’s hair from her neck to place a small kiss on her shoulder, Karen lost it, marching away with a snarl on her face.
I grinned down at Sophie, but she seemed unsettled by her sister’s reaction.
“I’ll pay for this later,” she muttered.
“Why?” I asked, genuinely surprised. “Do you think you deserve to be treated as second rate? Isn’t that what you told me, that she sucks up all the attention? You’re a beautiful woman, Sophie; you don’t have to be second best to anyone.”
“I wish it were that simple,” she sighed.
I didn’t reply because who was I to argue that life was simple. We all make choices. You do what you’ve got to do, right?
“Forget about her for one evening—let me make tonight about you.”
She was all woman and didn’t need to be in anyone’s shadow. But some things you’ve got to learn for yourself.
“You’re good, Hallen,” she said, cupping one hand around my cheek. “Very good.”
I was used to that sort of comment, but it didn’t mean I liked it. Sometimes I needed the fantasy, too.
I moved to kiss her lips, feeling her body fold against mine, her breasts pressing into my chest. She gripped my shoulders as I wound my arms around her waist.
“The bathrooms are down the hall,” she said, her tongue sliding against mine.
She’d planned the whole evening like military maneuvers—the when, the where, the how … and, of course, the who. And now I could understand the why, too.
As she pulled away, breathless, her eyes glittered with desire. I wrapped my fingers around her hand and she led me toward the bathrooms, stopping only to grab another glass of champagne.
“Wait, I need ice!”
I felt my cock star
t to thicken as she said that, because I knew exactly what she had in mind. Suddenly, I was totally into this scene and as eager for it as she was.
I think maybe, yeah, that’s what makes me good at being an escort. I can get into pretty much any scene; find something attractive and sexy in any woman. Sometimes it’s physical: her hair, her eyes, her lips, even her scent. Sometimes it’s the way she talks, a cadence in her voice, or what she talks about. I can usually find something. With Sophie, it wasn’t hard at all: she was beautiful and sexy, and there was this air of sassiness that broke the desperation that masked her most of the time.
I watched her drop a couple of ice cubes into her glass, not caring that champagne slopped over her hand. Her tongue snaked out of her mouth as she lapped around the glass. Damn, that was hot. The ice princess was melting in front of my eyes.
She grabbed my sleeve and dragged me along the hallway. I could hear the ice clinking in the glass and I hoped, hoped like hell that I was right about what she was going to do with it.
There were two small bathrooms, and both were empty. We fell in through the door, laughing, giddy at what we were going to do. And I was right there with her—in the scene—hot for whatever she was going to give me, what I was going to give her.
She set the glass of champagne down on the hand basin and looked at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were red with alcohol and lust, her lips swollen from our heated kisses. But her hair was too smooth, too styled, so I wrapped it around my wrist and pulled her toward me, forcing my lips down on hers.
“You’ve been teasing me since we met,” I said.
“You’re being paid,” she said.
I felt anger bubble up.
“You’re going to suck me off for that,” I replied.
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
She smiled, and I knew it was what she wanted.
She used her fingers to hook out one of the ice cubes in the glass of champagne and sucked it into her mouth. I was getting hotter and harder, watching her full lips slide around. She smiled again. She knew what she was doing.
She put her small hand over the front of my pants, stroking, testing, tracing the outline. I breathed deeply, my eyes on her, her tongue sucking on that damn cube of ice, her cheeks hollow.
I watched, unmoving, as she knelt down and unzipped me. I had to grab onto the basin to stop my knees from buckling. Her fingers were cold against the heated blood in my cock. I took in a breath and held it as her cool lips swirled around me. I closed my eyes, my breathing erratic, wincing as the ice cube rubbed against me, instantly soothed by the warmer touch of her tongue and lips.
She was hot and cold and ice and fire and fuck, I wanted her. Perks of the job. I wanted her. She wanted me, but she was the one paying.
The ice cube melted and I grew harder and hotter as her tongue and mouth and lips got warmer.
She released me with a pop.
“Are you going to come?”
I shook my head slowly and smiled at her.
“I’m saving myself.”
She laughed. “Me, too.” Then she looked at herself in the mirror. “I borrowed this dress.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. You can borrow anything: designer clothes, expensive jewelry, cars—whatever you want—when your sister has had three number one hits, back to back. Of course, they’re all hoping that she’ll be the one wearing it, but even referred fame is worth something. I’m worth something.”
“You are,” I said, and I wasn’t lying.
“So I need to take the dress off,” she said, “because you’re making me wet. I can’t return a borrowed dress with a wet patch. Or maybe I can. I’ll have to ask Karen.” And she laughed again, but this time it was uneven.
There was one tiny zipper at the side of her dress. I undid it slowly and watched in the mirror as her dress pooled on the floor. She grabbed onto my shoulder as she stepped out of it, then held her hand up like a police officer as I started to bend down toward her.
“The dress,” she said.
I picked it up dutifully and hung it over the hook on the door.
“Better,” she smiled.
She wasn’t wearing underwear—not even a thong.
“Easy access,” she smiled, and winked at me. “Do you want to see my party trick?”
I nodded, staring down at her bare pussy and long, scarlet nails.
She dipped her fingers into the glass of champagne and rubbed them over herself, dipping in between her legs. She held out her hand to me, and I sucked her fingers. Sweet. With bubbles.
I pulled out a condom out of my pocket. “Smooth or ribbed?”
“Do you have chocolate flavor?”
I laughed. “No, I should probably look into that.”
“Not very good research,” she said, with an admonishing look. “Women like chocolate. Didn’t you know?”
“Hmm, I may have heard that.”
“Do you know what else they like?”
“Tell me what you like.”
She smiled, a cool and heated sphinx smile. Then she hooked the last ice cube out of her glass and pushed it up between her legs, laughing at the look on my face.
“That’s different,” I said.
“You haven’t done this before?”
“Baby, I’ve done a lot of things, but this is a new one for me.”
She smiled in triumph.
“Good. Now fuck me—it’s starting to melt.”
I kissed her hard, like I meant it, because I did. Because she was sassy and broken and sad, and I wanted to make her feel needed. And because I was a horny bastard and sometimes I really, really loved this job.
I pushed into her in one smooth stroke as she wrapped her leg around my hip. I held her full, peach ass and felt the hot-cold slide deep inside her. It was compelling—cool and burning flesh, icy wet and deep heat. I couldn’t help groaning with the strange pleasure and her eyes flared.
She said, “Fuck me until it’s all melted.” Said, but it was an order.
I took control, sliding in and out slowly, building the speed, building the pressure, taking her at my pace, making her give it up to me.
“Look at me,” I said.
“I can’t!”
“Then look in the mirror. Look at me fucking you. You, Sophie. It’s you I’m with. You think you’re an ice princess but you’re not; you’re hot and full of fire and I’m going to get burned tonight. God, what you do to me!”
It was a line. It was always a line.
The tip of my cock was chilled from the ice, but pulsing with heat, too, and every time I thrust into her, it melted a little more, the icy water running down the length of my dick, down her thighs, and puddling onto the floor. She tried to laugh, but she was breathless. Her eyes widened suddenly.
“I’m going to come!” she said, sounding surprised.
“I know, baby. Let it happen.”
I scooped up her other leg so she was completely wrapped around me. She threw her head back and screamed out. Really screamed.
I heard voices outside, listening, laughing, and then they moved away. I was gritting my teeth, holding off, wondering if I could make her come again. Yeah, I thought I could. I pulled out and her legs wobbled, so I turned her around and leaned her over the basin. She shuddered as the cold porcelain hit her stomach.
I grabbed her hair. “Look in the mirror, Sophie. Look at your face as you come again!”
She was wide eyed and panting, surprise painted in the blush on her cheeks and the shine of her blue-gray eyes.
“I can’t come twice,” she said.
I almost laughed. She really believed that.
But she did. Even louder, although I had to get her there using my hand. Then I let go too, relief flooding through me.
I leaned against the door and tied off the condom before I tossed it away, tucking myself back into my pants. But even splashing water on my face wasn’t going to disguise that just-fucked look. Not that I cared.
r /> Not that she cared.
It was all part of her plan.
Her cheeks were flushed, her hair hanging in damp tangles around her bare shoulders, her whole body suffused with a rosy glow and a light sheen of sweat breaking through the professionally applied foundation that she wore.
“Bloody hell,” she said, after a moment. And then again, “Bloody, bloody hell. My legs have gone to jelly.”
I laughed quietly. “Is that a good thing?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I feel like every bone in my body has turned soft.” Then she smirked at me. “Has your bone turned soft?”
“For now.”
She shook her head disbelievingly, smiling at herself in the mirror.
“Let’s go and find my sister.”
I helped her to dress, and she dragged a comb through her hair, then we opened the bathroom door.
A group of three women and two men were waiting outside. They gave a ribald cheer as we walked out. Sophie blushed even redder and I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed it.
And then we saw Karen, a frown creasing her forehead. Beside me, Sophie tensed, her hand gripping my fingers tightly.
And then Karen smiled at us and gave a small wave, blowing a kiss to her sister, her expression amused and loving.
I glanced down at Sophie. She looked like she was going to cry, but then she smiled and squeezed my hand gently.
Mary Rose was a woman I’d never forget. I met her the summer I turned 23. I’d probably slept with more than 100 women since becoming an escort. It wasn’t a number I was particularly proud of but it didn’t bother me either, and to be honest, I’d stopped counting.
She was older … like most of my clients, although actually I never knew her age. Unless a client offered to tell me, I didn’t ask. She was from the Philippines and had one of those smooth, unlined faces that could have been anything from thirty to fifty.
Eloise told me that Mary Rose had family business in California and that I would be her tour guide—her Escort Plus service, I guess.
We arranged to meet in the lobby of London West Hollywood on San Vicente Boulevard. It had a cool, Art Deco feel to it, and I was staring up at the detailing in the architrave when I became aware that I was being watched.