by Claire Kent
Finally Ander aimed the final envelope. When it landed, bursting open and spilling out money, he arched his eyebrows at Lori with obvious significance.
“But,” Lori croaked, her eyes blurring and her heart exploding with feeling. “But... how many?”
“All of them. From the very beginning.”
“But... You didn’t...” Her hands were shaking, and she couldn’t catch her breath.
“I didn’t fall in love with you that first time, no. But something about the money made me uncomfortable. So I didn’t spend it. Just stuck it in the drawer. And then I stuck the others there too. I can’t tell you how much I hated them. Sometimes I would sit and glare at them. When you decided to date Rothe, I came so close to burning the envelopes in my fireplace. But you emailed me for a new engagement just in time. And I started to hope. I never wanted this money, Lori. The sex was never about the money. Not with you.”
“Oh.”
Ander had been speaking with admirable composure, but now his mouth twisted in discomfort. “I bare my heart and all you say is ‘oh’?”
Lori swallowed hard. “I’m glad.”
His mouth twitched.
And, for the moment, everything was all right.
She stretched out her arms to him. “Can you please kiss me now?”
With a guttural exclamation, Ander moved quickly over to the floor beside her. He gathered her in his arms, and their lips found each other’s with passion, tenderness, and need.
At first the kiss was more about an overflow of feeling than anything else. But eventually it became deeper, Ander stroking his tongue into her mouth and Lori rubbing her breasts against his chest eagerly.
And before she knew it she was lying on her back on the floor, the hardwood thankfully softened by the Asian rug and scattered envelopes and piles of cash all around her.
Ander was on top of her, pushing against her groin with the bulge of his growing erection. His mouth played along her neck while his hands fondled her body with shameless entitlement.
Lori moaned as an arousal built inside her, quicker than she would have expected after her flood of emotions earlier. But it had been two weeks since she’d made love to Ander and her body craved his touch.
His face moved down to her neckline. He nipped around her cleavage, giving one erect nipple a tweak with his finger and thumb through the thin fabric of her dress.
She gasped and shifted restlessly at the jolt of pleasure. Then he did it again, and she whimpered. Then he took her breast in his mouth and fluttered his tongue around her sensitized nipple, dampening the fabric and making her mew helplessly.
While he teased her breasts, she stroked his smooth scalp, knowing how much it turned him on.
“Fuck, Lori, I love you,” Ander mumbled against her breast, sliding his hands up to stroke the line of her bare arms. “So beautiful. So sweet. I always want you so much.”
“Me too,” she panted, already too far gone for extended conversation. Her body squirmed beneath his, desperate for friction, for release. “Ander, me too.”
“Are you ready for me, baby?” he asked, slipping his hand beneath her skirt and between her legs. He found her hot, swollen entrance easily enough.
She wasn’t wearing panties.
“Oh fuck,” he bit out, his eyes igniting with heated possessiveness. He penetrated her with two fingers, spilling her collected moisture and rubbing deliciously against her inner walls.
Lori stretched like a cat and moaned again, half shutting her eyes as the sensations spun out from his massage.
She mewed with disappointment when he withdrew his fingers.
“Sorry. It’s been a while, and I’m not sure how long I can last.”
Smiling at him with sensual affection, Lori sat up and reached over to feel his crotch. She rubbed the hard bulge until Ander let his head fall back and groaned.
Delighted with this reaction, Lori would have continued. But Ander recovered enough to take her by the shoulders, ease her back down to the floor, and gently turn her over onto her stomach.
She knew he loved this position, and she was rather fond of it too.
Gazing at him with both love and desire from over her shoulder, she watched as he unfastened his trousers and freed his cock. “Feeling like a caveman tonight? Or do you still insist you’re immune to such primitive impulses?”
He shot her a warm, amused look, despite the tension on his face. Then he straddled her legs, pushed up her skirt to bare her bottom, and lifted her hips until her entrance was exposed.
Lori braced herself with her arms and let out a wet sigh as he pushed his erection into her wet, pliant channel.
Ander exhaled too, his almost gravelly as they adjusted to the penetration. Then he leaned over and said against her ear, “Me big strong man. Me take woman from behind.”
Caught by surprise, Lori broke into rippling laughter, her body shaking beneath his and the vibrations spreading deliciously through her body. “I knew there was a caveman in there somewhere.”
Because she was looking back as she laughed, she saw his gaze take on a new intensity, a depth that took her breath away.
“I love you, Ander,” she whispered, stretching her neck back for a kiss.
His lips found hers, and they kissed deeply as he started to thrust.
So they made love on a floor strewn with discarded envelopes and thousands of dollars of cash.
They kissed for a long time, Ander’s hips moving with short, rhythmic pumps. But soon the stimulation and the emotions coalesced with deep power, and it felt so good she had to tear her mouth away.
“Oh God,” she panted. “Oh, Ander.” Her body began to shudder as an orgasm built up quickly.
His rhythm intensified as if in response to her coiling pleasure. He bumped his pelvis against her bottom with accelerating speed, his cock sliding slickly in her tight, heated clasp. “Fuck, Lori. I love you. Come for me, baby.”
She made soft, sobbing sounds as she worked up toward climax. She was washed with alternating waves of heat and cold as her vision started to blur.
Each of his tight strokes connected with her G-spot, and he’d started to grunt as he unleashed his own need.
He ducked his head down again and nuzzled her hair away from her neck. Then he bit down on the hollow between her shoulder and throat.
“Ander!” she choked, her body clenching up brutally before it all released in waves of sensation. She eagerly rode out her climax around his cock, extending the duration of the spasms.
As soon as she clamped down around him, Ander made a gruff burst of sound. His motions became jerky, clumsy, uncontrolled as he thrust hard and fast.
She found the energy to turn her head back to watch him again, loving the sight of his barely reined passion, his face twisted with effort, his fiery, tender eyes. His obvious love and need for her affected her so much that another climax swelled up without warning.
She shook helplessly as Ander froze for a moment inside her. Then he came in a series of twitches and twists, muttering a long, thick exhalation of, “Love you, love you, love you, love you, love you.”
Lori came too on the words. Her body convulsed with another round of spasms, and this time she cried out from the pleasure of it.
They rocked together until they finally came down. And then they collapsed together onto the floor.
Ander’s weight was hot and heavy on top of her, and Lori’s belly was pressed against the rug, a few hundred-dollar bills sticking to her damp skin. But she didn’t really want to move.
He pressed kisses into the spot he’d bitten, occasionally murmuring out gruff endearments.
Her body was relaxing deliciously, and she could feel Ander’s softening too. And finally the discomfort caught up to her.
She shifted beneath him until he rolled off. But instead of getting up he just rolled them both over on their sides so he could spoon up behind her.
“You all right, baby?” he asked softly, inhaling against he
r hair, like he was smelling it.
“Yeah.” She knew what he was talking about. “We haven’t worked through all our issues. But we’re doing good.”
Absently stroking her belly over the fabric of her dress, he said, “I think so too.”
“Sorry about the meltdown earlier.”
“Don’t be.”
“At least it led to the discovery of all this money you had socked away.” Lori giggled, feeling absurdly giddy. “What should we do with it all?”
“Spend it, I guess.” He kissed her hair a few times. Then added, almost diffidently, “Maybe we should use it to buy an engagement ring.”
Lori sucked in a little breath but managed not to stiffen. Her heart beating wildly, she drawled, “Do you have any idea how much money there is here? If we spend it all on a ring, I wouldn’t be able to lift my hand.”
Ander chuckled. “Then an engagement ring, wedding rings, a wedding ceremony, and a honeymoon.”
Trying to contain her smile, Lori said, “That would probably cover it.”
His hand grew still on her belly. “Lori?”
“Yes.”
“It might have been indirect, but that was a proposal.”
“Was it?” She still tried to keep her tone light, but her smile burst out in a blaze of joy.
“Yes,” he said, sounding grumpy. “It was.”
Laughter rippled out as she rolled over to face him. “Yes, I’ll marry you, silly.”
“Oh.” Ander blinked. “Good.”
She hugged him, and it only took a few seconds before he was hugging her back. Then they lay for a long time, half-dressed and tangled up on the floor, in the throes of embarrassing bliss neither would admit to even an hour later.
Lori had just done her little, irresistible tapping-the-shoulder routine—feeling now was an appropriate time—and Ander had laughed with delicious warmth, when she heard herself murmuring foolishly, “I love how you laugh.”
Ander’s blue-gray eyes were softer than she would have believed possible when she’d first met him in that coffee shop and thought him to be the coolest man she’d even seen, burdened with the weight of experience. “You should. You taught me how.”
Feeling overwhelmingly sentimental, Lori tried to temper it with an ironic drawl. “Did I? Well, I’ve got you beat. You taught me how to have sex, how to have an orgasm, how to use my trusty vibrator, how to get myself off, how to use dozens of sexual positions, how to give a blow job, and how to ice-skate.”
Ander shook his head, his lips twitching a little. “Lori, are you serious? You taught me how to be with someone genuinely, how to enjoy sex, how to express emotion, how to value myself, how to feel, how to love, how to trust. How to live. You’re never going to win this game.”
Her mouth parted as she stared at his face, just a few inches away. When she could finally get past the lump in her throat, she whispered, “Well, maybe we taught each other.”
“Maybe so.”
They kissed again until Lori started to feel sleepy. Then she snuggled up against him and stroked the back of his head. “Now we get to teach each other how to be married.”
It was a clear sign that she’d suffered an overload of sap when she didn’t even think that sounded stupid.
“Hmm,” Ander agreed, nuzzling her hair. “And then later on maybe we can teach each other how to be parents.”
“Yeah,” she murmured. “All kinds of stuff to learn. I’m looking forward to it.”
Then she processed exactly what Ander had just said.
Lori gulped. “I think.”
IF YOU ENJOYED ESCORTED, you might also enjoy Breaking, which is a short follow-up novella to the story. You can check out an excerpt on the following pages.
When I first got this book ready for publication, I needed to think of a penname to use it to publish it, so I spontaneously chose Lori’s original penname and used it for mine, thinking it was meta and funny. As a lot of people took the gesture as my writing myself into the book, I’ve changed it in the latest edit. The book was written long before I chose my own penname, but I figured it was better to write myself out of it to avoid possible misunderstandings.
Excerpt from Breaking
ANDER SAT ON THE EDGE of the bed for more than a minute, watching Lori sleep.
He’d just gotten back in town, and she wasn’t expecting him for another week. He’d left the archeological dig in Santorini early.
He could usually lose himself in work. At times he stayed so long at the university—completely wrapped up in reading, research, or writing—that Lori had to come find him and drag him home. He’d been looking forward to this trip for a long time since it was grant-funded research that was necessary to write his dissertation.
But work hadn’t been enough this time. Every moment he’d spent of the last two days had been brutal. Painful. Torture. So finally he’d just given up and flown back to Seattle.
Back to Lori.
It was after one in the morning, and she was sound asleep.
She didn’t like to sleep in pitch darkness, so a sliver of light from the bathroom illuminated the bedroom enough for him to see.
Her dark hair spread out messily on the pillow around her face. Her eyelashes were dark too—thick against her smooth skin. Her lips were slightly parted, the sensual curve matching the line of her neck as her head turned to the side.
She must have gotten warm because the covers were pushed down low. A strip of bare skin was visible between her white tank top and her lavender cotton pajama pants.
His eyes rested on the soft swell of her breasts, clearly visible through the thin fabric. He could see the outline of her nipples. He wanted to touch them.
He wanted her. In so many ways.
He needed her. Tonight more than ever.
He loved her. But didn’t always know how.
For so many years, he’d turned himself into nothing but a body, hiding his real self away from the world. He’d put on an attractive persona like a mask. He’d flattered and enticed and seduced until women were putty in his hands. Then he’d touched and kissed and fucked them until they felt more pleasure than they’d known was possible.
No one else had made their bodies feel as good as he had.
He’d given them what they wanted because he could never get what he wanted.
Lori was sound asleep, completely unconscious of him. Completely vulnerable. He could do anything he wanted to her.
He would never hurt her, and he would decimate anyone who tried. But he needed something tonight that he couldn’t wrap his mind around yet.
He’d always been damaged, and love could only do so much.
He’d been damaged again two days ago, and he was barely holding himself together.
Right now he was on the verge of breaking completely, and he couldn’t let that happen.
So he’d come home. Come to their bedroom, come to their bed, to find whatever power and solace he could in Lori.
He reached out to gently brush his fingers over her warm cheek. Then her forehead, her lips, her jawline. He pushed a few strands of hair back from her face.
Then he noticed the bare skin between her tank top and pajama pants. Couldn’t resist it. Reached out to caress her smooth belly. Felt it rise and fall with her steady breathing.
His hand never stopped moving and somehow slid up to the full curve of her breasts. He fondled one delicately until the nipple peaked and Lori released a low groan in her sleep.
When he realized what he was doing, he pulled his hand away immediately.
One strap of her tank top had slipped down over her shoulder, and he had an overwhelming urge to rip the strap apart at the seam.
He wanted her to feel him, to know him, to be completely surrounded by his force, his power, his love.
He wanted to not be broken anymore.
Lori stirred and finally opened her eyes.
Blinking a few times, she said hoarsely, “Hey, sweetie. What are you doing there?”<
br />
Her first response must have been instinctive, because then the situation processed in her mind. She sat up straight in bed and hurled herself at him in a hug. “Ander! What are you doing here?”
“I came back early,” he murmured, wrapping both arms around her.
He’d never been hugged in his life until Lori, and now he had to resist the urge to pull away. Emotion shuddered in his chest and his throat at her naked affection for him, threatening to tear him apart.
She drew back before it did.
She beamed as she studied his face, but she must have seen something of his mood there because her smile faded. “What’s the matter?”
About the Author
CLAIRE HAS BEEN WRITING romance novels since she was twelve years old. She writes contemporary romance and women’s fiction with hot sex and real emotion.
She also writes romance novels under the penname Noelle Adams (noelle-adams.com). If you would like to contact Claire, please check out her website (clairekent.com) or email her at [email protected].