Paid Companion

by Nia Forrester

  But he wasn’t quite done with her yet. Holding her by the waist, feeling her still trembling uncontrollably in the aftermath of her orgasm, Kevin pulled her down onto him. Her body resisted at first, and he held her while she slowly eased downward, her face set in a grimace.

  “Open your eyes,” he said, when she had sheathed him completely. He was breathless too, now. And having a hard time keeping his own eyes open.

  Lia followed that instruction as well. Her eyes slowly flitting open. And then, just as slowly, she smiled. Not just a smile of pleasure, nor the smile of a woman satiated. It was a smile of collusion; one that said, ‘this is some powerful shit, but we’re in it together.’

  After a few moments of savoring the feeling of being surrounded by warm water, and Lia’s heat, Kevin gave a slow, exploratory thrust, making sure she was comfortable, and ready for him. She was. Lia gripped the edge of the tub and began a slow, rhythmic bounce atop him, biting hard into her lower lip. Kevin watched her until he was sure he couldn’t any longer, not without exploding. So instead he lowered his mouth to her breasts once again, and licked droplets of water from her chest, giving her the freedom to move as she wished. When he felt himself on the brink, Kevin nipped her on the side of her breast and held her hips to still her.

  “Ow!” Lia exclaimed, her bouncing motion ceasing immediately.

  “I thought that might get your attention,” Kevin grinned.

  She looked down at him and laughed, the tremors of that laughter causing a very interesting ripple deep inside her.

  “Let’s get out and get on the bed,” he said.

  “What if I don’t want to?” She asked, playful again. Bending forward, she ran her tongue along his neck then blew a cool breath against it, then kissed him there. Kevin shivered.

  “Stop that,” he grunted. And Lia laughed again.

  “It feels too good to move,” she said, kissing his neck again. “If you make me move, I’ll just … die.”

  Kevin rolled his eyes and grasped her by the waist, lifting her bodily off him, rising to his knees and then standing, pulling Lia up with him. She squealed, in reaction to the cold, or the sudden sensation of no longer having him inside her, he didn’t know. But he didn’t care either. Thanking his personal trainer for all those dead-lifts he had him do, he lifted Lia even higher and slung her over his shoulder. She was still wet, and almost as slippery as an eel, so he had to dig his fingers into the back of her thighs to avoid spilling her onto the floor.

  Kevin carried her over to the bed and dumped her unceremoniously onto the sheets while she laughed, loudly, explosively as though nothing had ever been this funny. Watching her laugh, naked and brown rolling clumsily among the stark white sheets, Kevin felt a strange sensation. It was as if something flew right out of his chest and attached itself to her, this woman who still, he had yet to truly know.

  Later, much later, he would remember this day, and this moment, and he would know then the significance that escaped him right now. Now, the most significant thing, the thing that was at the forefront of his mind was that Lia was naked, wet, in bed and waiting for him. Crawling on hands and knees toward her, he loomed above her, weight on his extended arms, looking down at her. She was still smiling, but this time, her eyes were soft, not amused, but tender.

  “I missed you,” she said simply, and the smile slowly disappeared. She shook her head as if in disbelief. “We scarcely know each other. And still …” She gave a half-shrug. “I missed you.”

  “Stop saying that,” he told her. “That you barely know me.”

  “It’s true.”

  “It’s not true. You know me.” It was she who remained largely a mystery.

  He bent his arms, lowering himself so part of his weight was on her. Kissing her neck and shoulder, small, light kisses across the surface of her skin.

  “You know me,” he repeated over and over again. “You know me.”

  And when, after many kisses given and returned, he arched his pelvis forward and upward, sliding almost frictionless into her, Kevin was so hard, it was difficult to keep from rutting inside her like an animal. Instead, with great effort, he moved slowly, bowing deep into her, and pulling back until Lia clutched his ass, digging her fingers deep into the muscles, begging and urging him to move faster, and push harder. Slowly allowing his weight to rest atop her, Kevin held her torso against his with arms crossing her back and surged forward increasing in pressure and pace until both he and Lia were panting loudly, and he could no longer tell whether they were wet from the Jacuzzi, or from perspiration.

  Kevin opened his eyes to the sight of Lia’s naked back. She was standing at the window, the morning sun streaming in, staring out across the Harbor.

  “G’mornin’,” he said. His voice was hoarse.

  “Hey.” She turned and smiled at him, unbothered by her nakedness.

  Kevin drank her in, marveling at how familiar her body seemed to him now. As if he had never been without it.

  “Even Baltimore is beautiful this early in the morning,” she mused, turning back to the view.

  Reaching for his phone, Kevin opened the camera app and played with it a little, making a few adjustments and then taking the picture. When Lia turned around again, he was still examining the image.

  “Hey! No work. It’s the Sabbath,” she said coming toward him.

  “The Sabbath is technically Saturday,” Kevin said dryly, relinquishing the phone when she grabbed it. “And you got some nerve makin’ religious references after what we were up to last night.”

  But Lia was preoccupied, looking at the picture he’d taken. She said nothing for so long he thought she might be angry that he had taken it, but finally she looked up.

  She handed the phone back to him, her expression unreadable. “I always said I would never date another artist.”

  Kevin tugged her down and back into bed. “I told you. We’re not dating. And to hear you tell it, that asshole out in California was no artist.”

  Lia smiled at that and reached for the phone again, looking at the picture, this time a little more studiously.

  “I want to see your pictures,” she said. “The real ones.”

  Kevin pulled back, pretending to be offended. “What did you say? The real …”

  Lia’s smile grew wider.

  “Gimme that.” He opened the Photos app and handed her the phone again. Propped on one elbow she scrolled through the shots, occasionally pausing to lean in, or magnify one that caught her fancy. With some, she smiled, and others made her pensive. When she was done, she put the phone down between them on the bed.

  “Those are amazing, but I still want you to take me to see them,” she said. “The other ones.”

  He drove with one hand on the wheel and the other on her inner thigh, and for the first few minutes, it felt like she was tense having it there. Then, finally, just south of Laurel, Maryland, and twenty-five minutes into the drive back to DC, she put her hand on top of his, lightly stroking his knuckles. By the time they got to his townhouse, she had woven her fingers between his, and Kevin was reluctant to pull away when he had to maneuver into a close parallel parking spot.

  Lia followed him silently as he unlocked the door and waited in the foyer while he dumped the bags from Saturday’s reggae festival next to the door, and his keys on the entryway table.

  “Want something to drink?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Just want to see the pictures, huh?”

  She nodded.

  He led her to the basement where, leaned against the wall, he had dozens of large framed prints. Enough to fill a gallery, Nicki had once remarked. Kevin watched as Lia walked among them, looking at each one with interest, sometimes glancing back at him after she had, and then smiling. But she didn’t speak, so he watched her face and read it, after a while feeling that words were unnecessary. He could tell, from her eyes, from her posture and from the way her lips moved which she liked, which she loved, was moved by, or
indifferent to.

  From her position crouched on the floor in front of the very last print, Lia looked up at him.

  “Now,” she said. “Now I feel like I know you.”

  ~24~

  “Blake’s coming to town,” Nicki said. “Did Kev tell you?”

  “No. When?” Lia looked up from her plate. “He didn’t. And Blake didn’t call me either.”

  She and Nicki were having lunch at a sushi place in Reston. It had become a ritual for them, to go to a tiny hole-in-the-wall Japanese restaurant that was secreted away in an unimpressive strip-mall, but served some of the best and least-expensive sushi in the area. They had discovered it a long while ago, when they had their first shopping date in Tyson’s Corner after Lia returned to DC.

  Most Sundays, they talked about Gabe, and for Lia it was fun listening to Nicki as she discovered all the new things about relationships that women her age generally had much more experience with. Nicki had a starry-eyed naiveté that made Lia want to be a lot less jaded herself, a lot less cautious than she had been with her own developing bond with Kevin.

  It was kind of a pain-in-the-ass for Nicki to drive all the way from Chevy Chase to Reston, and for Lia to meet her by Metro at the station there, but it had become their thing, and for more than a month now, they hadn’t missed a single Sunday.

  “I think he talked to our father. About …” Nicki looked up. “You know.”

  Lia sat forward. “What makes you think that?”

  “Because of how he sounded on the phone when he called to tell me he’s coming.”

  “How’d he sound?”

  “Tired. A little bit beaten-down. That’s always a dead giveaway that one of us had ‘a talk’ with our Dad.” Nicki made air-quotes at the words ‘a talk.’

  Lia’s heart clenched. She hadn’t spoken to Blake in almost three weeks. They texted occasionally, funny, and glib little messages about what they were up to. But since the Baltimore weekend, her head, her heart, and her life were all full of Kevin. She felt guilty now, knowing she had neglected Blake’s friendship in favor of romance with his brother.

  “When’s he planning to get here?”

  “Tonight, or tomorrow.”

  “He didn’t call me,” Lia said again.

  Nicki reached over and touched her hand. “It doesn’t mean anything. Blake’s always been like that. Impulsive, changeable … He used to drop off the radar for months on end with me. Even when he was living in DC and I was just a few miles away in Chevy Chase.”

  Lia didn’t point out how abnormal that was, nor did she say that in all likelihood, during those periods of silence, Blake had been too entangled in his other secret life to reach out to her. Some things had changed among the Morgans, but she had come to accept that others would take time.

  Kevin still got visibly uncomfortable whenever Lia mentioned his photography, or suggested that he dust off his camera and go out with her to take some real shots; and he and Blake were somewhat estranged, though neither of them would come out and call it that. The underpinning of tension was still there, along with the shadow of a conversation that still needed to be had. And Nicki, because she was who she was, played the bridge between her two brothers, making excuses for each to the other, pretending to herself that each passive-aggressive action and reaction didn’t “mean anything” when clearly it did.

  “I hope he’s okay,” Lia said.

  “He will be,” Nicki said, confidently. “Whatever happens, he’ll be okay.”

  Lia reached for her green tea and took a long swallow to avoid expressing frustration at Nicki’s persistent Pollyanna-ish outlook. It was probably going to be one of the biggest challenges of their new and growing friendship. She didn’t wish Nicki would be more of a pessimist exactly, but an occasional dose of realism wouldn’t hurt.

  After they had eaten, they browsed some of the stores in the nearby Reston Town Center, and went to the Barnes & Noble, one of the very few remaining retail stores for the bookseller in the area. Lia picked up a bargain book on photography for Kevin, and pretended not to notice that Nicki was hovering near the bridal magazines. Then after a quick stop at Starbucks, they had their weekly friendly argument over whether Nicki would drive her all the way back to DC, or drop her off at the Metro. As usual, Lia prevailed, and got on the Blue Line to head back into town.

  Just as the train was pulling out of the station, her phone chimed. It was Blake.

  Speak of the Devil, she responded to his one-word greeting.

  Why? he asked. What’s up?

  Didn’t tell me you were coming.

  Yes. Tonight. In a little after 9. Will stop by your place as soon as.

  ‘Will stop by your place as soon as’ implied that he would be more than willing to tell her what was going on if she asked; so, Lia decided that rather than press him for details, she would wait.

  Lia was stretched out on her sofa, about to dig into a carton of day-old Chinese noodles when the knock came. Since there was only a handful of people who would have the temerity to show up unannounced on a weeknight, she didn’t bother looking through the peephole before opening the door.

  “Blake.”

  She reflexively glanced at the time. It wasn’t yet eight, and she had been expecting him much later. But her musing about the time was quickly replaced when she saw the state he was in. Unshaven, with dark circles under his eyes and wearing only a plain white t-shirt and jeans with Fila slips-ons. He looked like someone who had wandered down the hall from their bedroom to grab a glass of water from the kitchen after spending the entire day in bed; not at all like someone who had hopped a flight to a city where he should have every expectation of being recognized—and maybe even photographed—by strangers.

  Stepping aside and looking out into the hallway, though she didn’t quite know what or who she was looking for—Lia let him in. He walked past her without speaking and she saw that he had a weekend bag over his shoulder.

  “Did you come straight from the airport?” she asked, her confusion betrayed in her tone.

  “I said, I would, didn’t I?” He sounded testy, impatient.

  “Yeah, but after nine you said. It’s not even …”

  “Got an earlier flight.”

  He collapsed on her sofa like a man coming home after a long and trying day at work. Lia shut the front door and stood over him, waiting, but Blake seemed disinclined to say more.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked, indicating her carton of reheated noodles.

  Blake looked at it and then picked it up. After a sniff, he dug in, eating voraciously, like a man who had missed far too many meals. Not wanting to hover, Lia went into the bedroom and pulled on a pair of sweats, then headed into the kitchen to make herself a sandwich when she saw that Blake had emptied the carton and was lying on his side on her sofa, aimlessly flipping channels on cable TV. By the time she had fried herself an egg, toasted two slices of bread, added cheese, and returned to the living room, Blake had fallen asleep.

  It was only minutes later that there was another knock, loud enough for her to hear it from her bedroom. This time she was truly confused about who it might be, and looked through the peephole. Opening the door, she stepped aside and with the sweep of an arm indicated the sleeping form on her sofa.

  Kevin, who had been smiling, and poised to say something else, instead narrowed his eyes and said in a stage-whisper, “What the hell?”

  Shoving him out into the hallway, Lia pulled her apartment door partly-shut.

  “Shh!” she hissed. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “Do I ever call you first?” Kevin asked slowly.

  Lia thought for a moment.

  No. That was true. Not since Baltimore, not unless they had very specific plans to go to dinner when he made reservations someplace nice, or just wanted her to meet him outside because there was no parking. In an astonishingly short time they had become the kind of couple that didn’t need things like ‘forewarning calls’ before stopping by. I
n an astonishingly short period of time, they had become a couple, period.

  “Why’s my brother on your sofa?” Kevin’s voice was measured. But it was the tone a person took when they had already made up their mind to be annoyed about something, but were giving you one gratuitous attempt to talk them out of it.

  “He texted yesterday to say he was flying in.”

  “He didn’t text me. He didn’t text Nicki.”

  “No, he did tell Nicki,” Lia said quickly. “She was the one who told me.”

  She didn’t know why, but it seemed important that Kevin know that Blake hadn’t just told her, but had reached out to someone else first.

  He stared at her, his expression flat.

  “What’s wrong with him now?”

  “Now?” she echoed.

  “It’s always something with Blake.”

  “Something like, I don’t know, he may have come out to his father after hiding it for most of his life?” Lia asked bitingly.

  Kevin’s eyes widened slightly. “He did?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “He didn’t say anything. He just showed up, ate my leftover Chinese and fell asleep on my couch.”

  “Then why did you think …?”

  “Nicki thought that was why he might be coming. To … recover from that, or something.”

  “None of this explains why he’s here. He has an apartment. A much nicer apartment than this one, no offense.”

  Lia shrugged. “Which means he probably needs more than a place to sleep.” She stared at Kevin defiantly.

  “And that means he should come here?”

  “Kevin, what do you want me to say?” she snapped.

  He ran a hand over his head and looked over her shoulder, reaching forward to shove the door slightly more open. Leaning over her, he peered inside.

  “He looks pretty rough,” he said grudgingly.

  Lia nodded.

  “I just don’t get why he came here.”

  “I’m his friend,” she said quietly. And then she shrugged again. “That’s why. I’m his friend.”