Naked Love

by Jones, Lisa Renee

  “You make it sound like a terminal illness. And bullshit. I’m not pushing her away. I’m…” Fucking crazy about her. But he knew me better than I knew myself. I was terrified. I was trying to move forward with her. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. “I’m not taking on clients of my own. At first it was because I wanted to get the guys established. But I think it makes sense if I run the business and let the guys go out.”

  Jagger sat up with a grunt. “Is Shannon still helping you with the site? I’ve got a couple of headshots to take. I’ll schedule with Brandon today.”

  “Yeah. She’s almost done. It looks fucking incredible. I’m hoping to launch this week.”

  “That’s great. Send me the link, and I’ll check it out. Is this Brandon?” Jag nodded toward the door.

  Brandon grinned as he approached. “Hey. You must be Jagger. I’m Brandon. I’ve heard nothing but good things about you.”

  “Likewise.” Jagger shook his hand. “Let me know if you have any questions about the business. This guy can be a tough ass.” He bumped me, grinning, like we hadn’t had it out. Jag was the master of illusion. He could seamlessly step into any role asked of him.

  “So far so good. I can’t believe I get paid for this. I’ve got a funny for both of you. My daughter’s four, and she came home from preschool asking what I did for work. Thank God for those massage classes. I told her I was a masseuse. She thought that was the funniest word, and she told everyone in her class I was Dr. Seuss’ mother.”

  “Masseur,” I corrected, but it was still funny.

  “Those massage skills come in handy when you least expect it.” Jag laughed. “While I’m thinking of it—when can you do your headshot? Zach’s anxious to get you up on the site.”

  Brandon shrugged. “Once school starts next week, I’m free.”

  “Sure. I get it.” Of course he did. Jag was a parenting expert now.

  I’d let the two of them bond over their kids, but laughing and nodding was gonna get old fast. The gym had been my sanctuary for years, and I refused to feel like the one who didn’t belong. “I’ve got to get back to work,” I said.

  Brandon wrinkled his nose. “You haven’t worked out.” He didn’t have to add again. I bailed on him last time, too. I must’ve looked like I had a shitty work ethic. That wasn’t it at all. I ran away from my problems, which was also a great business tactic.

  “Just remembered some stuff,” I muttered, shoving my gloves in my bag. Jag raised an eyebrow, calling me on my bullshit, but I ignored him. Yeah, he was right. Things changed, and I didn’t like it. “I’ll catch up with you both later,” I said.

  What are you doing tonight? I texted Shannon as soon as I got back to my bike. I needed her. Since the wedding, she’d been the only thing that made sense. Even if I acted like a selfish, jealous asshole, she understood the root cause of it—the empty ache of being the only one without a family. I always thought it was something I could choose, but the concept was held together by a frayed thread, a bunch of fucking misfits with nowhere else to go. Until they found their place, and once again, I was alone.

  Not sure. What am I doing? I didn’t mind those smiley faces so much anymore. And maybe I wasn’t so alone. Shannon chose me. Not because she didn’t have any other options. She wanted me.

  I’m picking you up, and we’re hanging out. I had no idea what we’d do yet, but it didn’t matter. She made everything else fade away, and I forgot why I was so pissed at Jagger.

  Can’t wait. Heart emoji. I was gonna surprise you with this later, but surprise! The site is live. She included the link. Work was the language we were most comfortable with, and she knew when I needed to hide behind it.

  I didn’t answer her before clicking the link. That gorgeous keyhole came up, and I clicked on it. Sleek, discreet, and totally amazing on my phone. Most of our clients would find us this way. A safe place, where people couldn’t track their activity. I was so proud of her for putting this together, but for the first time in a long time, I was proud of myself, too. I thought about going back into the gym and showing off the site to the guys, but fuck them. They were busy bonding over diaper changes and whatnot. I’d unveil it Shannon style, with an event. For once, they could celebrate me.

  It’s gorgeous, I texted back to her before I headed home. Just like her. I was geeking out over the site, and all I wanted to do was stare at it, like it would somehow bring in more business. Fuck. We’re building a business, not launching a get rich quick scheme, she said the first night we talked about it. We built it. Now we needed for the clients to come.

  No one would know to look up The Collins Agency. This was a soft launch, and we’d soon be reaching out to our old clients, who might have been scared away by the scandal and would need a delicate touch to convince them to try again. They needed confirmation that their secrets were safe with us. We shattered their trust once, and I’d do whatever I could to get it back.

  I’d asked Claire to reach out to everyone she was still in touch with and invite them to our launch party.

  Shannon said she loaded the site with keywords and SEO, a bunch of shit I had no idea how it worked, but I trusted that it did. Because it always did. For shits and giggles, I put Escort Miami into the search bar, to see if she got the site to come up on the first page of results.

  Of course Jagger clogged up my results page with his baggage. A bunch of garbage that didn’t matter anymore, but it could scare away any potential client with cold feet. I scrolled down, looking for any mention of The Collins Agency, reminding myself that the site was too new for the search engines to grab it. Yet. I scrolled down, keeping my hopes up, and stopped on True Confessions: I Hired an Escort. It was from Insight magazine, so it was probably fake as shit, but I clicked anyway. It would be good for a laugh, to see who they thought my target client was. On the off-chance it was real, I could get inside the head of a potential client. I didn’t have my hopes up for that, though.

  Episode One: The Proposal

  I’m helping a friend of a friend start his escort business. I’ve got the skills he needs—I can build a website and help him with marketing. It’s easy stuff to me, but his face lights up when I suggest a quick fix. He gets excited. It makes me want more. I have what he needs, but the same can be said for him. I don’t want his money in return for my work. I’ve asked for him to pay me in sin. Sex.

  He seemed surprised by my offer. Maybe I insulted him, but it’s merely a trade of expertise. I grow his business, and he shows me how to push the limits of my body and mind.

  At first, he walked away from the proposal, and I can’t lie. It hurt. But this isn’t about feelings. It’s a straight-up business transaction.

  Tonight, he accepted. But to go forward, I have to tell him what I want.

  It’s simple, really. I want to be the center of someone’s universe, if only for a four-hour appointment. The hard part is giving him instructions on how to make me feel that way.

  Fuck.

  I read it again, to make sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me. This was my story, told through Shannon’s eyes. She’d insulted me, all right. A trade of expertise? Fuck that. She played me from the very start. She made me come up with a bullshit mission statement based on trust, and worse, she made me trust her. When I was kicked down and she was the only light I could see, she promised she wouldn’t betray me. Her kisses were laced with lies, and they were as deadly as poison.

  I couldn’t fucking trust her.

  22

  Shannon

  We needed to celebrate. The Collins Agency was a living, breathing thing, and I was more excited about it than I’d been about any other project I worked on, including Great Start Today. This was personal. It wasn’t a business succeeding; it was Zach’s dream coming true.

  Not to toot my own horn, but the site looked amazing. I was proud of what I’d come up with, and I thought it fit Zach’s vision to a tee. He had been adamant about building trust, and a website couldn’t do that on it
s own, but it looked sophisticated. Like it belonged to someone perfectly capable of not only keeping a secret, but also turning it into a fantasy. I loved the flourish pattern that flanked the top corner next to the logo. Jagger sent me the headshots he took, and they looked like works of art, not the cheesy glamour shots left over from the last site.

  The Collins Agency catered to women who knew what they wanted. If Zach hadn’t come up with a mission statement, that would be the perfect sentiment. I loved what that said about the site, the company, and about me for creating it.

  I had no idea what Zach wanted to do tonight. He hadn’t been himself since the wedding, which was why I shared the site with him. I hadn’t planned the official launch until later in the week, but he needed some good news. Whatever his plans were, a little celebration wouldn’t get in the way.

  “Can you help me pick out decent champagne? My budget is something that tastes slightly better than apple cider vinegar.” Leah brought me home from work most nights, and I’d asked her to stop at the store.

  “I miss sangria so much.” She groaned, slipping a not-so-subtle side-eye at me as she considered the bottles. “Are you sure you don’t want that instead? For me?”

  “Nope. Champagne it is. It’s a special night.” I spent a fortune going down to the Keys, and there were a few days to go before payday. I sent the Insight money to Grandma as soon as I got it. She needed it in January, after she’d gone all out, sending all the kids a little something for Christmas. Did they realize it meant she went without little somethings like lunch, to make up for the cost?

  “What are we celebrating?” Leah was still high off wedding fumes, twisting her ring around her finger as often as she put her hand on her belly. And her hormones were in overdrive. If I ever ran out of ideas of what to do with Zach, I only had to look as far as her for all the filthy suggestions.

  Not that I was in danger of that happening. We had yet to scratch the surface.

  “Zach’s site went live.” I picked up a fifteen-dollar bottle and shrugged. She nodded, and I put it in my basket.

  “You should get some strawberries, if you’re looking to make it a sexy celebration.”

  “Always. Cheese and crackers too, because I’m starving.”

  Leah led me over to the fancy cheese section. “So, he’s open for business. Does that mean he’s taking business?”

  We hadn’t discussed that the way we should have. I liked to think he’d tell me if he was taking clients again, but he might have assumed I knew what he was doing. Or not. I did put his headshot on the site along with the rest of them. After I’d taken it down a half-dozen times. “I’m not sure.”

  “You need to be, and you have to prepare yourself that you might not like the answer. So you can decide what you’re going to do about it,” she said, loud enough that everyone in the store could hear her as we got into line. Too many heads turned our way. Or it was my imagination. There was no way they could know what we were talking about.

  Getting involved with Zach was a bad idea. That didn’t change, no matter how much I cared for him. I wasn’t ready for a relationship, but when I said that to Leah, she reminded me none of us were ever ready. It was the escorting thing. That’s what Zach did, and I couldn’t ask him to give it up for me. I’d been asked to choose my job or a relationship once, and I ended up single.

  “Tonight, we celebrate. Then we can deal with the hard stuff.” I wished I could pop open the champagne while we waited to pay. Or that I had the money for another bottle.

  Leah waved me off when I pulled out my wallet. “Think of it as my present to both of you.”

  I needed all the help I could get, so I didn’t argue. I had a way to go tonight before Zach came over, and I was contractually obligated to write a new blog for Insight. The best time to do it was while I was hungry, waiting for him. While the emotions were fresh and I didn’t have too much time to think about it.

  Episode Five: Showtime

  The website is up and running, which means the escort service is open for business. I bought everything we needed to celebrate, but I’m not sure I’m in the mood. The problem is we never discussed whether or not this means he’s going back to work. Our arrangement was never supposed to be a relationship. And I was a fool to think he wasn’t taking clients when he took me as a client. We have to make a decision—see if we can separate business from pleasure. The terms of our agreement are no longer valid.

  I didn’t want to do this anymore. The blog started as my passion project, but now that I had to bare my soul for money, it felt icky. It was never supposed to be like this. Was this how Zach felt when he walked away from a client with a pocket full of cash? Was it possible to ever keep his heart out of it?

  I sure as hell couldn’t do it.

  I snapped the laptop closed when he knocked on the door, not sure if I saved the blog post. Didn’t matter. Whatever I wrote would be invalid by the time I got back to it.

  I opened the door and pressed my lips against Zach’s, waiting for some sort of reaction. But it was like he was made of stone.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked as I pulled him into the apartment and closed the door behind him. I almost locked it. “Is it the site? I can make changes if you found something you don’t like.”

  There was nothing friendly about his laugh, and I jumped when it rolled against me. He dug into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and slapped something on the table hard enough the strawberries and crackers jumped. “I think this should settle it.”

  It was a check for five thousand dollars. I didn’t have to ask what it was for. I knew. I thought I prepared myself for the way it would make me feel—like I sold myself. But it was much worse than that. The check rendered me worthless. “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “Isn’t it enough? I can give you more.” His words were clipped, and they might as well have icicles hanging from them.

  “I don’t want your fucking money, Zach.” He was blurry through my unshed tears. It wasn’t the first time I noticed how his broad shoulders filled the room, but it was the first time he made me feel claustrophobic.

  He stepped closer, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Remember the mission statement you made me come up with? I thought it was ridiculous—it’s just an escort business. But it was the best thing I ever did. Because like you said, every decision I make about my business goes back to that mission statement. Do you remember what I said it was?”

  I’d taped it to the top of my laptop screen as I worked on the site, and I knew it by heart. “The Collins Agency builds trust with their clients and fulfills needs that can’t be met anywhere else.”

  Zach nodded. “Very good. So you understand why I can’t have employees who can’t follow those simple principles, Shannon.”

  Usually, I loved the deep rumble of my name coming from his lips, but now he made it sound obscene. As dirty as that slip of paper on the table behind me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “You’re a terrible liar.” He dug his phone out of his pocket. “I couldn’t stop looking at the site when you sent me the link. It’s fucking amazing. Much better than anyone else would’ve made for me, because you understood what I needed on a more intimate level. You understood how important it was to make someone feel like they were the entire world, even if it was only for four hours. But you said something else that stuck with me that first night, besides the mission statement. We’re building a business. You and me.”

  “You’re building a business. I’m helping you do it.”

  “Oh no. This was me and you. The reason I liked working with you so much was because I thought you gave a shit about what happened with the company. With me.” He slid his finger across the phone screen. “But the problem was no one knew who the fuck I was. How were they going to find this beautiful website you built for me? I tried to search for it, and I found this.”

  He handed me the phone, and I almost dropped it when Escort Lessons—It’s n
ot sin; it’s survival glowed back at me from the screen.

  I steeled myself and handed the phone back to him. “Why are you showing me this?”

  “Don’t make it worse. Your name isn’t anywhere on it, but it doesn’t have to be. You can’t tell me there’s another woman out there who traded marketing services for sex.” He had me there. “I read all of it, and it’s like a play by play of every time we saw each other, except your real intentions never came through when we were together. This isn’t one of those times you can tell me you don’t want to talk. I’m not giving you the luxury of that option anymore. I paid you for a service, and I expect answers. Why did you do this?”

  “Do what?” His revelation had me rattled. He narrowed his eyebrow at me. “Your website?”

  Fall in love with you?

  “No. The blog. But I won’t lie, I’m questioning everything now.”

  “I needed the money.” And I never thought you’d matter to me. Maybe I should’ve said that out loud, but I didn’t. “I send money to my grandma to help her out. She doesn’t get enough to make it through the month.”

  “I would’ve given you every single thing you wanted. All you had to do was ask.”

  “I don’t want your money.” I had half a mind to rip the check up and toss it in the air, but I’d insulted him enough.

  “Why? Would it make you feel like a whore?” He spat out the last word. “I was more than willing to pay you for your work. The trade was your idea.”

  “Because I wanted you.” It came louder than I expected. I tried to meet his gaze, but he wouldn’t give me what I wanted. I had to get my emotions under control, or I’d lose everything. “I wanted you. And I knew you’d never consider being with me like that unless I had something you wanted.”

  He shook his head and scoffed. “You had everything I wanted. But—”

  “There it is.” I jabbed his chest with my finger, right over his heart. An electric shock rocketed through my body on contact. It was almost powerful enough to erase what he said. You had everything I wanted. “The but. But I’m Leah’s employee. I’m too young. Not sophisticated enough.”