by Sybil Bartel
“Learn to pace yourself,” Vega lectured.
I went back out on the balcony without any coffee because I knew what the fuck was in that envelope. “I did pace myself, for eight hours straight through a damn hurricane.” I drank for hours after we’d gotten back to my condo. The fucking noise was like goddamn Afghanistan all over again, but that wasn’t even close to the worst of it. Red was fucking with my head.
He didn’t comment. “I’m sending you my schedule and contact list. Don’t wait to make contact with all of the clients. Confirm the dates and let them know you’re—”
Oh hell fucking no. I didn’t let him even finish that sentence. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, bro. I got my own clients.” He’d already fucked me with Red. I didn’t need any more bullshit, and I especially didn’t need to be fucking fixating on a woman who’d walked out on me last night but still fucking paid.
“Now you have twenty more. They all pay bank, so weed your shit out.”
If I were smart, I would’ve been fucking ecstatic, but I wasn’t. I was staring at my paid-for view, watching the ocean churn from the outer bands of the storm and my gut twisted at the memory of Red’s face as she threw money at me last night. I didn’t want to fuck for money forever. I didn’t even give a shit about the money. Or this goddamn view. I wanted peace of mind, but that was about as rare as the innocence on Red’s face last night. I knew that. Vega fucking knew that.
“Jared?”
“Are you fucking serious?” I shook my head like he could fucking see me. “You’re throwing your shit away for what? Love?” Like some goddamn fairy tale? I didn’t wait for him to answer. “You think that shit’s gonna last? Two weeks, tops, and the honeymoon’s over.” What the hell did he think was going to happen? That a woman like his arm candy last night or like Red was going to fall in love with a male prostitute?
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Shut the fuck up.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about.” He may have fucking blinders on, but I didn’t. “If you pulled your head out of your ass, you would too. Take a week, fuck, take two, ride the fucking wave, but don’t drown in it.”
His anger took direct aim. “I’m not you. Two weeks is nothing.”
Bitter and pissed the fuck off, I snorted. He knew damn well why I didn’t do relationships. “Doesn’t mean the piece of ass in your bed gives a fuck about you long-term.” I hung up, then dialed the other person Vega had dragged into the business.
Dane Marek picked up on the first ring, but he didn’t say shit. He never said shit unless you spoke to him first. “Where are you?”
His deep voice made him sound like a serial killer. “Babysitting.”
What the fuck? “You got kids?”
“No.” He didn’t elaborate.
“Then who?” I’d served with Vega and Marek, they were both my brothers, but unlike Vega, I only knew two things about Dane. He was unhinged, and even though we’d walked away from the Marines, he’d never put his riffle down.
Silence.
I sighed. “This isn’t fucking twenty questions and I’m not interrogating you, asshole. Make fucking conversation or hang the fuck up.” We had an unspoken understanding. I didn’t question him about his side jobs, and he pretended like I didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.
“You called me.”
Jesus Christ. “Keep your fucking secrets.”
“Client.”
I half laughed, half snorted. “It’s daytime.” Just like Vega, he didn’t entertain clients in the daylight hours.
“I know.”
“You sound pissed.” Not that he sounded any different, you had to gage context with Dane, but this was fucking priceless. “Why’d you let her stay?” His place was his sanctuary.
“I didn’t. She was here when I got home last night.”
“You let some chick into your house when you weren’t there?” Now I was curious as hell. “What, does she fuck like a porn star?”
“Don’t know.”
I busted out laughing. “You haven’t even fucked her and she’s staying in your house? You’re a bigger pussy than Vega.”
“She was his client,” he admitted.
I sobered. “Damn. You too? He fucking saddled me with his castoffs, the whipped motherfucker.” Red’s smile flashed in my mind, and I rubbed a hand over my eyes.
“I have to go.”
I dropped into one of the chairs on my balcony and put my feet up on the railing. “Why? She hot?”
“Russian” was all he said.
This was fucking funnier by the second. “That means one of two things. Rich, old and body by vodka, or a model. Fess up.” God, I hoped it was the first one.
“The latter.”
“Then why the hell are you talking to me? Hang up and go fuck her.”
“Not happening.”
“You have principals now? You too good for sloppy seconds?” As soon as I said it, Red’s innocent reaction to my kiss popped into my head and I wondered if Vega had ever kissed her. He’d lectured me about his rules, number one being never kiss a client. Fucker better have stuck to his rules.
“No.” Dane hung up.
I scrolled through my history to the texts I didn’t delete yesterday. Every second I’d gotten to spend with Red and her yellow dress was haunting me. I wanted to see her. The money as my excuse, it took me four tries to type out a fucking text.
How did u get home?
When I saw the three dots appear, it was like a punch in the gut. The memory of our kiss hit me and my dick got hard.
Who is this?
She fucking knew it was me.
You know who this is. Where are u?
The dots appeared then disappeared but she didn’t reply. I struggled through another text.
U left last night before we could talk
Christ, I sounded like a pussy. She replied almost instantly.
I paid.
I got the fucking money. Money I didn’t earn. I fucked up two responses before saying the words out loud as I typed.
Yeah, we’re gonna talk about that. And other shit. Where are u?
That kiss, the look on her face when she’d come, they were both burned in my memory. And no matter how hard I tried to ignore them, they were eating at me.
I have to go.
Shit. I couldn’t type anymore.
Pick up
I sent the text then called her. Two rings and her sweet voice filled my head like a fucking cure for every hangover, ever.
“You shouldn’t be calling me.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“This isn’t appropriate. I’m at work and Alex never called—”
I cut her off right there. “Do I sound like Alex?” Anger burned in my veins like I was a jealous fucking lover being hung out to dry. “Did I touch you like Alex? Did you for one second mistake me for him?” I didn’t know what the fuck just happened, but I was hair’s breadth away from going fucking postal, and that should’ve been my cue to hang up. “Because I’m not him, and you’re done thinking about Alex fucking Vega.”
Silence.
I sucked in a breath and forced my voice to a marginally more civil tone. “You hear me?”
She cleared her throat. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was only with him once.”
Vivid and so fucking consuming that there was no mistaking it this time, jealousy warped my brain. “You’re done with him, Red.” Guttural and unforgiving, I bit the words out.
Her voice went quiet. “I have a name.”
I knew her name. It’d been on a loop for eight fucking hours as a hurricane pounded my condo while I pounded alcohol. I knew her name like she’d crawled in my head and decided to haunt the fuck out of me. I knew her name like she was the one woman who could make my house of cards come crashing down. I knew it and I’d never said it. Because when I first saw her twelve hours ago, I knew she was fucking trouble.
The kind of trouble I never should�
��ve touched. The kind of trouble that made me call for backup the second she’d tried to take control of our train wreck. The kind of trouble no other woman could touch.
Sienna Montclair.
In a sea of fucking palm trees and sand, she was the forest.
And I was about to get lost.
“I know your name, Sienna.”
Raw and dirty, my name rolled off his tongue like the sweetest kind of temptation I never wanted to hear.
I shouldn’t have answered his text, and I definitely shouldn’t have picked up the phone or said what I said next. “I hope you and your client survived the hurricane.” I was being jealous and petty, but worse, I was hurt. By an escort.
The snort was as deep and rough as his voice. “That was all you, Red.”
His words were an insult, but the touch of sinister in his tone made gooseflesh race across my skin. I didn’t even know why I was talking to him, except that I hadn’t slept a wink all night. I hated what I’d done last night, but I hated the fact that I was jealous even more. I shook my head and reached for my work voice because I was done letting men get the best of me.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Brandt. I won’t be needing your services anymore.” I started to hang up.
“You never had my services because I wasn’t going to give them to you.” He bit off the word “services” and delivered the rest of the sentence with an angry tone.
I should’ve hung up, but just like last night, I couldn’t get myself to ignore him. I’d known the second I’d laid eyes on him, he was more than I could handle. “Let’s keep it that way.” I’d had to practice polite curtness so often for work, it was almost second nature.
“Tell you what. Answer one question for me, and if your answer is no, then I’ll lose your number.”
I bit my lip. The lip he’d dragged between his teeth last night right after he’d given me the best kiss of my life.
“Red?”
My eyebrows drew together. “I don’t like being called that.” I couldn’t help my red hair any more than I could the swell of my hips or upturn of my nose.
“Sienna.” He didn’t speak my name, he let loose with a low growl that made my toes curl. “Any man ever kiss you like I did last night?”
I sucked in a breath. His voice was so rough and consuming, my core still ached for him. No one had ever kissed me like that. And no one had ever made me orgasm like that. But I was nothing more than a client to him.
“I heard that.”
My fingers went to my lips. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. I heard your intake of breath, and I bet you’re touching yourself right now.”
I dropped my hand. “I am not.”
“Right.”
I hated his overinflated confidence. “Do you think every woman just wants to touch herself when you speak to them?” I couldn’t believe I was talking to him like this, let alone doing it from work.
“One, you’re not every woman.”
“Not that that sort of thing matters to you,” I interrupted.
“You trying to say something, princess?”
I stiffened at the nickname my father used to call me. “I’m not a princess.” I sounded like a twelve-year-old.
“You’re acting like one. You want to insult me? Take your best shot. But remember this. You walked out last night, not me.”
I lost my composure. “You called another client!”
“You told me to!” he roared back. “I may have texted her, but you made that call. You set that in motion.”
“And if I hadn’t?” Who was he kidding? “You would’ve just called someone else later anyway.”
“There wouldn’t have been a later, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation because you’d still be in my bed.”
“For how long? Until my money ran out?” It was petty and mean because he’d told me he wasn’t taking my money, but I said it anyway.
“You’re pissing me off, Red.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
“There wouldn’t have been another client,” he ground out.
“I’m not stupid enough to believe that.” Was I? And if so, for how long? He’d never answered that.
“Who’s calling who?” he challenged.
He was infuriating, and all at once everything and nothing like all the players I dealt with at work. I told myself I could handle this. I straightened my shoulders and stood proud in my pink suit. “Just because I paid for services in the bedroom does not give you or anyone else the right to judge me or treat me without respect.” There, I’d said it.
“You’re right.”
Surprised, I paused, but I didn’t let myself fall for it. I had to get off the phone before I convinced myself I needed to see him again. “Why, exactly, are you calling?”
“Because we have unfinished business.”
“No, we don’t.” But every second I listened to his sexy voice and pushy dominance, I fell a little deeper. I wanted us to have unfinished business, which was only asking for trouble, but so help me, he was all I could think about. I’d made myself sick last night with regret over telling him to call that client. Every bone in my body wanted to take that back. But I couldn’t. And even if I didn’t run out of the restaurant and hop in a cab, I had no guarantee that anything would have turned out differently.
“Meet me at Allero’s on the patio in fifteen minutes.” It wasn’t a request, it was a command.
My equilibrium shot, I struggled for a response. “I’m not meeting you at a restaurant.”
He didn’t even hesitate. “Yes you are.”
“And what makes you think I would do that?” I sounded exactly like I looked. Prim and proper and nothing like a woman who’d paid a male escort five thousand dollars for a kiss and an orgasm.
“Because, gorgeous, I’m fucking hungry and I want to see you.” He hung up.
I stared at my phone.
Then I did the one thing I shouldn’t. I picked up my purse.
My office door swung open. “Where you going, Miss Sienna?”
I glanced up at Terence Joyner, aka TJ. His muscles bulged out of every article of clothing like he couldn’t be contained. His dark eyes stared me down, but I knew underneath all that intimidating bulk he was a teddy bear. “I have to run an errand.”
The six-foot-five defensive end dropped into one of my guest chairs. “But you said you would talk to DeMarco. He didn’t get no call, Red.”
With everything that’d happened in the last twenty-four hours, I’d forgotten about Terence’s little escapade a few days ago. Sitting down on the edge of my seat, I put my hands on my lap and schooled my features. “Terence, you can’t keep doing this. You need to stop before you get suspended, or worse, in real trouble.”
He threw his massive hands up. “I wasn’t even drinking.”
I couldn’t help it, my judgy face popped out. “You do know the pictures are all over the Internet? You can’t have sex with one of the cheerleaders while driving with the top down.”
He dropped his hands. “She wasn’t taking no for an answer, Red. You know how those girls get.”
My jaw clenched because I knew exactly how they got. “She was naked, Terence, and you pulled over on the Seven Mile Bridge and stopped traffic in the middle of the day. What did you think you would happen?”
He hung his head like a child. “I didn’t want to wreck my ride, Red. It’s the nicest car I’ve ever had.” He looked at me without lifting his head. “Come on, girl, just talk to Coach. He listens to you.”
Despite Coach being my uncle, he didn’t listen to me any more than he listened to TJ. I didn’t even call him uncle, because he didn’t want anyone at work to know I was his niece. I’d never even shared a meal outside of work with him. He ate, slept and breathed football. I’d asked him over to dinner a few times but gave up years ago when he’d declined every invitation. Now I kept it strictly professional between us. I handled his scheduling and paperw
ork and ran interference when the players got out of line, and Coach did what he did best, he trained the defensive players.
I sighed and stood. “Fine, I’ll say something to Coach when I see him.” I walked around my desk.
TJ jumped up with the speed and agility he was known for on the field. “Where you going? I can drive you.”
My cheeks heated at the thought of Jared. “No, you can’t.”
TJ stepped into my path. “Aw, come on, Red. When you gonna let me take you out?”
Seriously? After his latest sexual exploit was plastered all over the news? My expression must’ve given me away.
He spread his hands out wide. “You know I won’t need none of them girls if I got you.” The back of his giant fingers brushed against my arm. “You’re classy, Red. You could keep me honest.” His brilliant smile sparkled like it did for the cameras.
This was the exact reason I’d hired an escort. I didn’t want to keep someone honest. And I definitely didn’t need to play house with a defensive linebacker while he cheated on me with every pretty girl who smiled at him.
I straightened my shoulders. “You know the rules, Terence. No fraternization.” Not that I’d paid any attention to the rules when Dan had asked me out.
He winked. “Then quit.”
“And who would run interference for you with Coach? Besides, I need my job, thank you very much.”
“You don’t need no money if you’re with me, Red. I make all the money.”
For a few more years or until he got injured, then his seven-figure salary would be gone as fast as his fans. I pointed a finger at his chest and gave him the best advice he’d ever get. “Save your money, Terence Joyner.” Not that he’d listen. I’d seen it too many times. “Now, let me by. I have somewhere to be, and you need to hit the weights.”
His hand moved to his chest as if I’d wounded him, but he grinned. “Always turning me down, Miss Sienna.”