“No, he’s gone. It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll email you my findings on Miss Turner.”
I end the call feeling no better about what I’ve learned about Sage. In essence, my involvement is doing nothing to help her at all, but I have no desire to remove myself from the equation just yet.
Sage-
When Hailey called on Tuesday afternoon to cancel my interview, I was gutted. She’d said that the position had been filled from within, and I’ve had a hard time shaking the disappointment ever since. The only thing that helped was the fact that I had this trip with Jackson to look forward to. I make it to the block the hotel is located on, and thankfully, I’m only a few minutes late. I rush around the corner and spot Mac waiting on the curb. He sees me almost immediately, and I break into a sprint as he opens the car door for me. He grabs my bags as I hurry into the backseat. Meeting a pair of all too familiar hazel eyes, I gasp.
“Sage. Lovely of you to join us.”
“I thought we were meeting you at the airport.”
“I’m sorry, Jackson. I didn’t mean to be late, Jackson,” he says, his voice cold.
“I’m sorry, Jackson. I didn’t mean to be late, Jackson,” I repeat with a little too much sass.
“Why were you late?” he questions as the car pulls away from the curb.
“Train broke down.”
“The train broke down?” He doesn’t even attempt to hide his annoyance.
“Yes. The train broke down.”
“If you had let me pick you up, you wouldn’t have had to deal with that.”
“It’s against the…”
“If you tell me something is against your contract one more time, I might be forced to tie you up and fuck the shit out of you right before I burn the fucking thing.”
“Well, I’m sorry if I like to follow the rules.”
“As am I, Sage. Truly, I do,” he says.
We both sit in silence, each staring out the window until we arrive at the airport. Mac is there to open the door for Jackson and me while a slew of other people deals with retrieving the bags from the trunk. Without a word, Jackson takes my hand and leads me to the awaiting plane. He pulls me up the steps, rushes through the introduction of the flight crew, and deposits me into a chair.
“Sit,” he commands, before heading back to the front of the plane to engage in a conversation with the pilot. I take in my surroundings. The cabin is larger than I anticipated; it can easily seat twelve people. The beige leather seats are plush and luxurious to sit in and there are rich wood grain trim accents everywhere. I spot a kitchen in the back and a closed doorway to what I can only assume is a bedroom.
“This is really nice,” I tell Jackson when he returns, taking the seat across from mine. I’m doing my best to try to break the uncomfortable silence that has befallen us, but he remains distant.
“Put your seatbelt on, Sage. It should be a smooth flight, but it’s against the rules to take off without it.”
I can’t believe that he’s throwing my comment from earlier in my face. I say nothing, just do as he says and buckle my seatbelt, staring out the window as the plane taxis down the runway. This is the side of Jackson that’s hard to take—the silent brooding type, the type to hold a grudge when he doesn’t get his way, the type to say ‘I told you so’ when he thinks you were wrong.
The plane takes off and before long, the overhead light appears, indicating that we’ve reached our cruising altitude and it’s safe to move around the cabin. I close my eyes and decide that maybe taking a nap would be my best option. Avoiding Jackson seems like the best bet right now, but he has other plans.
“Come here,” he calls out to me, breaking into my thoughts.
I open my eyes to find his locked on me. His dark hair is tousled, messier than normal. His clothes are casual for him—black slacks and a gray V-neck sweater. He looks unlike himself, stressed out and maybe even vulnerable.
“I thought you wanted me to stay buckled in.”
“Sage. Come. Here,” he commands, a muscle in his neck ticking in frustration. I undo the seatbelt and push to my feet, letting out a shaky breath before walking over to him. He tilts his head back in order to maintain eye contact. And fuck me, but I can’t help but to think about how beautiful he looks. He reaches out and gently traces a finger up and down my thigh, sending shivers down my spine. Fighting my reaction to him would be futile, it’s a battle I never win.
“On your knees,” he says, his voice husky and full of lust. I look around the cabin, finding no one in sight; we’re alone for now. I place my hands on either side of his armrests, using them to steady me as I lower myself down to the ground, positioning myself between his opened legs.
I lift my eyes to his. His expression is masked, but his eyes are still cold, too cold, and the way they pierce through me is unnerving. “Undo my pants.”
“Jackson,” I sigh, hoping that I can diffuse this situation before it escalates to something ugly. He reaches out and grabs one of my hands from where it rests on his thigh and places it on his growing bulge.
“Undo my pants, Sage.” Again, I look around, noting that no one is around and praying like hell that no one decides to come up the aisle now. I look up at him, pleading with my eyes, but I can tell that he won’t budge. I undo the button and pull down his zipper as quickly as I can, trying to breathe through the mounting panic I’m feeling.
“Good girl. Now pull out my cock and put it in your mouth.”
My eyes go wide with shock. I thought that maybe he’d just ask me to touch it or give him a quick hand job, but to give him a blowjob here where anyone can walk by is not going to happen. I shake my head at him. “We’re out in the open, Jackson. Someone will see us.”
“That’s my problem, not yours. It’s my plane and my staff. If they happen to see something, they won’t care.”
“Jackson, please,” I say, not caring that I’m begging. I don’t even attempt to hide the shakiness of my voice now.
“I gave you an order, Sage.”
I mask the fear on my face and replace it with anger. I know what I’m willing to do, and this isn’t it. I’m not letting him have his way this time. I don’t care how angry he gets. “I’m not comfortable with this,” I tell him, pulling my hands off his legs and placing them on mine.
He nods slowly and moves to button his pants. “Fine, why don’t I contact Victoria and have her sever this arrangement?”
“Jackson,” I sigh, sounding more hurt than I intended to. Ending our contract would mean that I’d have to take on another client. And that is something that I have no desire to do—not now, not ever.
“You have a choice to make, Sage,” he says, his fingers lingering on the still undone button. “I suggest you make it quickly before I make it for you.”
I struggle to keep the wet behind my eyes. I refuse to let him see me cry. I won’t give him the satisfaction. Instead, I try my hardest to mask my emotions and give myself a mental pep talk. It’s just one more thing that I have to do to make sure I can pay my bills. What’s one more degrading act when I’ve already done so many? And he’s right, this is his staff. If they should walk in and see something, that’s his problem to deal with, not mine.
I move my hands, pushing his out of the way and close my fingers around his enlarged cock. I move to free it from his pants just as his hand wraps around my wrist.
“Don’t.”
“What?” I let my eyes roam around the cabin again, unsure of what’s going on, thinking that maybe we’re no longer alone.
“There’s nobody there, Sage,” he tells me while pulling my hand off his member and releasing me. He glares at me for a beat before shedding light on the situation. “I’ve instructed the flight crew to stay out of the main cabin unless we call for them.”
“What?”
“I would never put you in a circumstance where someone could catch us.”
I hate him right now, and if I was smart, I’d proba
bly pull out his cock, bare my teeth and bite the shit out of him, but I don’t.
“Look at me,” he commands on a harsh breath.
“Why would you go out of your way to humiliate me like that? Is this some kind of joke to you? Do you get off on making me feel small?”
He runs a hand through his hair and sighs.
“No. I do not get off on humiliating you. I needed you to see who was in charge here. Don’t throw your contract in my face at every turn, because the truth is that I don’t give a shit about your fucking contract, Sage,” he grits.
I let out a frustrated sigh. It’s all I can do, the only way I can communicate my displeasure to him, but he doesn’t listen. He’s too used to getting his own way, so he refuses.
He tilts my chin up and forces me to look at him, but I pull my head back, carefully averting his gaze. The last thing that I want is for him to see the pain on my face; the fact that he would go to such lengths for a stupid power trip is incomprehensible to me.
“Sage,” he calls to me softly. I swear that I can hear remorse in his tone, but the damage is done.
I push up off the floor and quickly excuse myself, rushing into the bathroom and locking the door behind me. I feel sick to my stomach, and I’m trying to get control of my emotions. I don’t know if I’m angrier at the fact that he actually thought he needed to teach me a fucking lesson, or the fact that he felt like he had to humiliate me in order to do it. Either way, tonight Jackson treated me like exactly what I am. He’s once again reminded me of my place in his world, reminded me of the fact that he’ll never see me as more than just a prostitute, and the thing is…I’m not so sure I’d want him to see me as anything more now.
Jackson-
She gets up and runs into the bathroom looking more hurt than I anticipated she’d be. In fact, that whole encounter didn’t go the way I thought it would at all. I was annoyed with her for being late—for her abiding by the rules of her stupid contract like she was trying to follow The Ten Commandments and her whole life depended on it.
I stand up and fasten the button on my pants, making sure I’m decent before I walk over to the bar and pour myself a drink. I shouldn’t fucking care about hurting this girl’s feelings; she’s nothing more to me than a glorified booty call…an expensive one, at that. Yet the pain on her face made me feel something that I don’t recall feeling with anyone other than her. I actually feel guilty for my actions and that pisses me off. I learned a long time ago that guilt was just another level of weakness, and I have no room in my life for either.
The bathroom door opens and out walks an indignant looking Sage. She attempts to walk by me on her way back to her chair, but I grab her forearm and stop her. She looks up at me, her eyes cold and hard.
“What?” She jerks her arm, trying to yank out of my grasp, but I tighten my grip on her. “Let me go.”
I let out a sigh and silently curse myself because for the second time since I’ve met this girl, I find myself apologizing to her. “I’m sorry, Sage.”
She gives me a slow nod and averts her eyes, focusing on the floor below her rather than on me. “I’m catching a flight back to New York tonight.”
“No, you’re not,” I declare, trying to control the surge of anger that hits me.
She looks up at me again, her shoulders tensing up, her voice barely above a whisper. “Yes, I am.”
She looks almost scared now, which is not my intention. How this night got so fucked-up is beyond me. I let out a sigh and calmly ask, “Okay, then why?”
She pulls her arm again, and I let her go this time, thinking that it will make her feel more comfortable. She takes a step back, a look of vulnerability written on her face. I don’t like it—it hits me in a way that I don’t recognize.
“I can’t keep doing this. I may regret it later, but I can’t keep this up.” She turns briefly, looking around—likely becoming all too aware of surroundings and the people nearby who can potentially hear her. She lowers her voice a notch and asks, “Do you think that I like doing this? You think that I like what I am?”
“I honestly don’t know.” It’s a lie. From what I’ve been able to deduce, this is the last thing that a girl like Sage wants to be doing, yet I’m the asshole who potentially blocked her only doorway out.
“Well, I don’t,” she tells me, throwing out her arm.
“I’ve apologized, Sage. What more do you want?”
“Respect.”
“I do respect you. I’m sure if you spoke to some of your peers, you’d see that many have it much worse than you do. I’ve never hurt you or disrespected you.”
She looks at me as though she’s waiting for a switch to flip in my brain, for a big revelation to happen. “You just did.”
“And once again, I’ve apologized,” I grit through closed teeth. I don’t like being the one on the wrong side of a confrontation. It’s uncharted territory for me.
“Why did you do it?”
“You talk about this contract as if it were written in stone, Sage. It’s not.”
“Yes. I do. I cling to it because it’s all I have to protect me. It’s the only control that I have. Do you get that? I don’t want this life; no one wakes up in the morning and thinks oh hey, I think I’ll become a prostitute today. Is that what you think? That I was so hungry for cash that I thought this would be the easiest way to make a quick buck? I’m doing this because I ran out of options, Jackson. Because I was scarily close to eviction. That is the only reason I’m here right now.”
Her honesty blows me away; it levels me. Knowing what I already know, but then hearing her tell it, makes it that much worse.
“I’d like for you to stay, Sage. I’ve heard what you’ve said, I know how difficult this is for you, but I still want you to stay. I will try to make it easier on you, and I will try to be more thoughtful of your feelings. However, I am who I am, and it’s hard to change that. If I do hurt you, it is not ever something I intend to do.”
“Jackson.”
“I won’t beg you.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“The plane will be landing shortly. Go have a seat, you can tell me what you decide later.”
“Will you pour me a drink?”
I grab the chilled champagne and pour her a glass. Her hand shakes a little when she grabs it, but she smiles at me timidly and takes a sip.
“I’ll stay.”
“I’m glad,” I say. And I am because, whether I understand it or not, I’m not quite ready to let go of her. Everything about this is unfinished, and I can’t stop until it is.
Sage-
When we arrived at the resort last night, things between Jackson and me were still a little strained. We were both tired, and he told me that I could go straight to bed while he worked in the outer area of the suite. I was grateful for the time alone to think and come to terms with everything that had transpired earlier in the evening.
It’s clear that Jackson never meant to hurt me, but he has a skewed view of the world. His sense of what’s right and wrong doesn’t always align with mine, and he feels the need to assert his power over me in hurtful ways. I was surprised that he apologized at all. I don’t think he does it often, and for that reason alone, I knew that he was being sincere.
It would be so much easier for me if I hated him. I want to hate him, but again, those glimpses of the vulnerability reel me in. He slid into bed beside me in the middle of the night, stripped me out of my nightie, and made love to me. I mean, I know that he wasn’t actually making love to me, but it’s the most fitting term for how gentle he was.
Now it’s morning, and I lie in bed naked under the covers. I hear the shower running because Jackson is getting ready for his day. I’m hoping that the awkwardness between us will be gone.
“Good morning.” Jackson strolls out of the bathroom in nothing but a white towel wrapped around his waist, his chest glistening with remnants of water droplets from his shower.
“Good morning,” I
reply, feeling the familiar rush of lust that I get ever so frequently when he’s around. It’s funny how quickly I got over the anger of what happened yesterday. With him, my sexual appetite always seems to win out.
He leans down over me, making the butterflies in my stomach take flight when he gives me a sexy grin and places a chaste kiss on my lips. As if acting out of their own accord, my hands make their way to his hair and grab on. I pull him back to me for a deeper kiss, and he obliges, giving me exactly what I want. One of my hands slips down, and I wrap it around his neck. Using his neck as leverage, I pull him down on the bed, but he puts one hand on either side of me and pushes up, effectively ruining my plans.
“I’m sorry, Sage. I can’t. I have twenty minutes to get dressed and make it downstairs for my breakfast meeting.”
“What about after breakfast?”
“Well, let’s see,” he says, rubbing the back of his hand up and down my cheek. “After breakfast, I have an eleven o’ clock tee time, followed by more meetings.”
“More meetings?” I pout, giving him my best attempt at a sad face.
“Yes. More meetings. I’ll be gone all day. I’ll pick you up this evening for a late dinner.”
“What’ll I do all day?”
“I set you up at the spa downstairs. You can go down any time and have anything you’d like done. Massage, facial, haircut, whatever.”
“You can do all that without scheduling an appointment?”
“There’s a lot I can do without the hassle of an appointment, baby.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Yes, well, and if you finish up at the spa early and you’re bored, Mac is at your disposal to take you out. If you’d like maybe to shop or sightsee, he has my credit card and knows that you have full access.”
“Seriously?”
He lets out a low chuckle. “Yes, seriously.”
I fall back onto my pillow with a giggle and a thud “I feel like I went to sleep and woke up inside Pretty Woman.”
Contractual Page 7