Paid Companion

by Nia Forrester

  When they were alone, and he was given the time and space to talk, that was how Kevin talked: with descriptions so precise, he seemed to be painting a picture with his words. Lia wondered whether that was his substitute for the pictures he used to take; whether he was setting up shots in his mind, of pictures he never would take.

  “You have very modest wants,” he said.

  His thigh brushed against hers and Lia felt the coarse hairs against her skin. She wanted to place a hand on his leg, to feel it under her fingers.

  “Actually not. I have very big wants. Too big to even talk about. So, I try to concentrate on the fleeting ones, the things I want only in the moment.”

  Kevin made a small chuckling sound and Lia turned to look at him. He was barely visible in the dim light of the moon. The way the light and shadows hit his face accentuated the lines of his jaw, the smooth plane of his nose, and the masculine thickness of his lips. He smiled when she stared at him.

  “What are your wants?” she asked. “In this moment.”

  “I think you know.”

  Leaning in, he pressed his lips to hers, and after a moment, slowly, carefully, sought entrance with his tongue. And when he did, the kiss quickly intensified, both turning to face the other. Lia felt his hands on her waist, sliding gradually upward, until they were on her ribcage, just beneath her breasts. Her nipples hardened, anticipating his touch, but then he pulled away.

  “Let’s walk,” Kevin said. He stood and reached down to take her hand, helping her up.

  Lia kept the hem of her dress balled in the fist of her free hand but let Kevin retain the other. He led her back to the sand and they headed further down the beach toward a grove.

  “Are there alligators out here?” she asked, only partly joking.

  “Unlikely. They’re not really saltwater creatures.”

  In a small clearing, between a cluster of young palm trees, Lia’s vision adjusted enough for her to see that a blanket had been laid out. And in its center, was an ice-bucket in which a bottle of wine chilled, and two glasses lying on their side.

  Dropping the hem of her dress, Lia turned to face Kevin.

  “You planned all this?”

  “You needed a break. I wanted to give you one. I know it’s not much under the circ…”

  Lia got on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him to shut him up. When she pulled away, he was smiling again.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Wish I had that cheesecake and espresso you want.”

  “No. This is perfect.”

  They sat on the blanket and Lia took the glass of wine Kevin poured and handed to her. It was cold, light, and crisp. She sighed in pleasure at the first swallow.

  “What are your big wants?” Kevin asked.

  “I told you. They’re too big to talk about. And I’ve only known you three days,” she teased.

  “And in three days, you got me to tell you my entire family history, got my brother to come out to you, and probably counseled my sister to stand up for her relationship. So, at this point we’re not exactly strangers.”

  “Whatever you guys told me, it was because you were all dying to tell someone. Anyone.”

  “You’re not just anyone, Lia.” Kevin shook his head.

  “No, that’s true. I’m the girl who signed an NDA.”

  “You think that’s why I told you all that stuff about my mother? And why Blake …”

  “It probably had more than a little bit to do with it.” She took another sip of wine.

  “You’re selling yourself short,” Kevin said. “I told you because you’re … real. You’re genuine. You’re honest.”

  “You don’t know any of that about me, Kevin,” Lia said, shifting uncomfortably.

  The way she had come about this job was neither real, genuine nor honest. And as the days passed, the small detail of her having stolen the listing, and assumed the role of a model, was beginning to seem less small.

  “No, but I can feel it.”

  “Well you know what they say about feelings … they’re not facts.”

  “Hey. Why so testy?” Kevin emptied his wineglass and set it aside, his forefinger on her chin.

  Lia took a breath and shook her head. “This whole … charade, with your family? It just feels so wrong suddenly. And the more I get to know everyone, the more wrong it feels. I know now why Blake thought it was necessary, but that only makes me feel worse. I don’t like contributing to painting him further into a corner. I just … I’m not sure I should be here anymore.”

  Kevin leaned in and kissed her again. He reached for her glass without breaking their connection, setting it aside and pushing her gently onto her back. Lia relinquished all control, and tried to forget her misgivings. With Kevin on top of her, she let her thighs fall apart and sighed against his lips when she felt his hardness between them.

  “Don’t leave,” he said against her cheek.

  “But …”

  “Stay.”

  Lia turned her head so their mouths were joined once again. Within moments, they were moving against each other, their hips undulating. Kevin reached between them, his long fingers finding the edge of Lia’s panties and pushing them aside. She gasped when he touched her, pressing sharply upward toward his hand, which was moving in slow, deliberate circles. Lia felt her release approaching—the slow build of tension low in the pit of her stomach—and heard her breaths, ragged and uneven echoing in her ears.

  “Kev… Kevin, wait … wait …”

  Things were moving too fast, weren’t they? She had only just met this man. If they were dating—and they were not—this would be the equivalent of a third date? Would she sleep with someone on the third date? Her mind was cloudy and unfocused. She couldn’t think with him touching her like that.

  He pulled back a little, his hand slowing, but not stilling. “Wait?” he asked, as though not recognizing the word.

  “Yeah … I …”

  “What? You … what?” Instead of kissing her lips, he had moved to the side of her neck, which didn’t exactly improve matters much.

  When it felt as though he was poised to remove his hand altogether, Lia’s hips arched toward it, almost involuntarily.

  Kevin chuckled quietly. “You want me to stop?” he breathed.

  “No. Don’t stop.”

  Lia gave in, relaxed her thighs again and allowed Kevin to pull her underwear off completely, clumsily peeling one side over her hips and then the other, never removing his mouth from her neck. Once it was partway off, Lia reached down and helped, shimmying them down to her knees and then below, and then kicking them aside altogether.

  With that barrier out of the way, Kevin raised himself on his elbows and looked at her. She could see some of his face, but one half of it was shrouded in darkness. His eyes were heavy-lidded and his lips parted. He licked the lower one.

  “I want to taste you so bad right now,” he said.

  And before Lia could respond, he had shoved her dress even further up her torso, simultaneously moving down her body; and with arms stretched upward, he cupped the underside of her breasts, just as his hot breath bathed her mons.

  “Kevin …”

  “Don’t tell me to stop,” he said, his tone one of pleading.

  Oh, there was no way she was going to tell him to stop. It was too late for that.

  His mouth covered her, and Lia gave a sharp cry, feeling him pull lightly on her clitoris, unhooding, and then beginning to stroke it with his tongue. Hips lifted, she pressed against him, and both her hands reached for the top of his head. Kevin moaned his approval as she writhed against him, and his fingers worked on her hardened nipples.

  Using only his mouth and tongue to part her, Kevin worked with studious slowness, seemingly oblivious to how insane he was driving her. Lia widened her legs even further, lifting her ass off the blanket, and rising onto the tips of her toes, just as the orgasm ripped through her. Kevin stayed with her, never letting up, wa
iting it out until finally she let her hips fall again. She was lying there, panting, trying to catch her breath, and regain her senses when she heard the rustling of clothing. Through her partially open eyes, she saw Kevin shrug out of his shirt, and remove his shorts. Lia didn’t resist when, after he was completely naked, he helped her dress over her head.

  The warm breeze bathed her now damp skin and she shivered a little, closing her eyes again and enjoying the pleasant coolness. She expected to feel Kevin’s warmth cover her, but instead, there was a cold splash of liquid against her chest. Shrieking, Lia sat up, eyes wide. Kevin laughed. He had the wine bottle in his hand.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I should have warned you.”

  “Yes,” she said. “You should have.”

  “Sorry,” he said again. Then he bowed his head, beginning to lick the wine from her chest, taking a nipple in his mouth and teasing it.

  Groaning, Lia let her eyes flutter shut again. Another cold splash, this time on her shoulder, made her jerk forward, but she kept her eyes shut, beginning to like the unpredictability of not knowing where next he might want to lick wine off her.

  “Come ‘ere …” Kevin pulled her forward, and Lia opened her eyes to see that he was on his knees, sitting back on his heels.

  Setting the wine bottle aside, he held her by the hips and calves and tugged. Realizing what he had in mind, Lia stood, preparing to straddle him. But for the moment, she was standing right in front of him, her sex directly in front of his face.

  “Damn,” he said, almost to himself. “I can’t pass that up.”

  Reaching for the wine bottle again, he poured some more against her stomach. It streamed down her thighs and between them. Kevin leaned in, and with gently flicks of his tongue, captured each drop as they were poised to drip from her apex.

  “God … Kevin …”

  He lifted his head momentarily. “Don’t stop saying my name like that,” he said. “I love that shit.”

  Lia tried to smile, but instead grimaced through the pleasure, feeling his hands gripping her ass and pulling her hard against his face.

  “Wait. No …” She wrenched backward. “I want … you … too.”

  Falling to her knees, she faced him and found the wine bottle, giving him the same treatment he had given her— well-placed splashes of wine, followed by her tongue. His skin tasted sweet and salty at the same time, the sweet sharpness of the wine contrasting with his natural taste. And then finally, the pièce de résistance. Lia looked down at Kevin’s turgid solidness, and without warning poured a copious helping of wine over him.

  “Hey, hey!” Kevin jerked forward, laughing. “That doesn’t feel right …”

  “Oh, it will,” Lia said before she lay on her stomach facing him, and bowing to take him in her mouth.

  Still on his knees, Kevin thrust upward, so Lia had to raise herself onto her elbows. Grasping him, she worked her way up and down, hand and mouth moving in a synchronized dance of suction and pressure. Kevin, no longer coherent, grunted and moaned, and she felt him growing even harder on her tongue.

  Lifting her head, she smiled at him. “You can scream if you want,” she teased.

  He grinned back and bit his lower lip.

  “Nah,” he said. “Not till you scream first.”

  Then suddenly he had reached over and with hands under her arms, flipped her onto her back and shifted positions so he was, in the blink of an eye, between her legs. Lia opened her mouth to say she knew not what, but whatever it was, she didn’t get it out before Kevin’s mouth had covered hers again. These kisses were not coaxing and seductive like the ones he’d treated her to earlier, they were hot and hurried, and desperate.

  But Kevin managed some restraint, because he still hadn’t entered her, but rather, was sliding against her, the pressure and coarse hair moving against her, making Lia feel some desperation of her own. Whenever she tried to angle her hips to permit him entry, he pulled away until Lia was moaning in frustration. When she reached down to hold and guide him into her, he grabbed her hands and extended her arms above their heads, gripping both wrists in just one of his large hands.

  “Kevin,” she groaned.

  “What?” he asked, his mouth open, and warm behind her ear.

  “Just … please …”

  “You gon’ scream for me?” he asked, shifting his attention to her shoulder.

  Lia answered with a gasp when, with his free hand, he reached between them and lightly brushed her.

  “Huh?” he insisted. “You gon’ scream?”

  “Yeah,” she breathed.

  “You sure? I want to hear you … like we’re the only two people on this damn island … I want you to scream for me.”

  “I will,” she said. “I’ll do whatever you …” She gasped as he touched her again. “Whatever you … want.”

  “You sure?”

  “Y… yes, I’m sure.” She exhaled hard, more frustrated, excited, and angry than she could remember having been in her life. “Just …”

  “Just what?”

  “Fuck me. Just fuck me.”

  “Wow. You really have a dirty mouth,” Kevin said against her neck.

  And all at once he was kissing her again, his tongue in her mouth at the exact same moment he lifted his hips, pulled back and plunged into her, hard and deep. Clamping her thighs around him, Lia wrenched her hands free so she could dig her fingers deep into the hard muscles of his ass.

  And turning her head to the side, her lips free of his for the moment, she screamed.

  ~15~

  Kingfisher Key, FL, Thursday 9:23 a.m.

  “Scuba today?”

  “Huh?” Kevin looked up.

  “I said, you want to go scuba-diving?” Nicki was finishing a cantaloupe, hollowing it out with her spoon and scooping the last of the peach-colored flesh and raising it to her lips.

  “Yeah, sure.” Kevin yawned.

  “Everyone’s sleeping late today,” his sister observed. “Lia is conked out, Blake, Mom and Daddy …”

  “Yeah, well, there’s been a lot of action around here lately,” Kevin said.

  “I’ll say.” Nicki snorted. “Lia didn’t get in until … I don’t even know when, but when I got up to go to the bathroom around three, she still wasn’t in bed.”

  Kevin met his sister’s inquiring gaze with a flat stare.

  “Did someone say something about scuba?”

  Justin, their cousin came ambling over to their table, stretching his arms above his head.

  “Nicki did,” Kevin said. “I’m into it. You?”

  “Yeah man. ‘Cause it’s boring as hell out here.”

  “Why don’t you go see whether the gear’s good to go? Check the tanks and everything.”

  “Cool.”

  Once Justin had wandered off again, Kevin noted that his cousins, Kim, and Tanya were, a few feet away, suspiciously quiet. Their parents, too, seemed to be sleeping late, as was their younger sister, Felicity. So, with Justin gone, only the four of them remained in the dining area.

  As much as Kevin was curious to hear from Nicki what her plans were with Gabe, he knew she wouldn’t appreciate having that conversation with an audience nearby. And he suspected she was equally inquisitive about him and Lia, but was holding back for the same reasons. That was just as well, because Kevin wasn’t trying to talk about last night with anyone right now. He just wanted to mellow-out with the memory of just how damn … good it had been.

  When he walked Lia back to her cabana, it was almost dawn. They had gone a couple of rounds and then slept for a little, right out there between the palms, Lia’s head on his chest and her leg draped over his. Kevin had opened his eyes to find her standing over him, shrugging her dress back on.

  ‘I was about to wake you,’ she said. ‘We’d probably better …’ She inclined her head in the direction of the cabanas.

  In the horizon, the sky was salmon-pink. Lia looked different to him in that moment; not just cute or pretty any longer
, but beautiful. The change was startling, because it was the inverse of how things tended to go once he’d spent a night with a woman. Usually, the morning after was when all their previously overlooked flaws would become apparent—from the way they looked, to the way they laughed, or even sipped their coffee. And suddenly, Kevin would want nothing more than to create some distance. Sometimes the Morning-After Curse wasn’t as profound, and he would find a woman still … tolerable. But not in recent memory had he found someone more appealing, until now.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, his eyes still cloudy with sleep. ‘We’d better head back.’

  He sat up and yanked the hem of her dress, beckoning for her to lean in, and then he kissed her. Together they had gathered up the evidence of their evening and walked back toward their separate accommodations. At her door, Kevin kissed her one more time.

  ‘Get some rest,’ he whispered.

  Lia rolled her eyes. ‘You blew that all to hell,’ she said before slipping inside.

  “Good morning, pilgrims!”

  Kevin looked up. Blake had joined them. Wearing a white polo shirt and crisp tan linen shorts with canvas docksiders, he looked like a man renewed. Nicki and Kevin exchanged looks and Kevin eyed his brother with suspicion.

  “G’morning,” he said, slowly. “What’s up with you?”

  “Business on the mainland,” Blake said going over to grab himself a plate and heaping it with eggs. “So I’ma break out after I get a little something to eat.”

  “Wow. Everyone seems to have a little business on the mainland lately,” Kim said from across the room. “How mysterious.”

  “No mystery, cuz,” Blake returned evenly. “Maybe it just gets a little difficult to be marooned on an island for a week with y’all evil-asses.”

  Tanya’s mouth fell open. “Excuse you?”

  “You heard me,” Blake said.

  Kim took a delicate sip from her glass of orange juice and returned Blake’s stare. “It’s just a little strange, that’s all,” she continued. “How you would bring an outsider along for a family vacation, and then …”