by Raven, Jo
“Johnson.” I lean against the desk, and it reminds me of the hotel where I meet with Pax.
Dammit.
“Your blood tests came back,” he says without looking up.
“And?” I try not to tense up more. I’m always careful with clients, but you never know.
He finishes typing whatever the fuck it is he’s typing, takes his time while my heart booms in my chest.
“You’re clean,” he says.
I slump against the desk. “Jesus, man. Couldn’t you just say so from the start? Say, Riot, your blood tests came back clean. Easy. Repeat after me: Riot, your blood—”
“Very funny.”
Yeah, I know. “Anyway, you brought me here for this? Couldn’t you tell me over the phone?”
“There’s something else.” He shuffles some papers on the desk and I resist the urge to roll my eyes, because, really?
“What? Planning on telling me anytime today?”
“Got anger management issues, Riot?”
Fuck, he’s an asshole. My hands curl into fists. Fuck him for being the boss’s nephew and thinking he can do whatever he wants.
“So Mari Oakes asked for you again.”
“No way.” I push off the desk.
“Yes way. You can’t refuse a client, and you know it.”
“Sure I can if she breaks the rules. Told you what happened last time.”
“Afraid of her, Riot?”
“Fuck no. But like I told you then, I don’t do men and they don’t do me. Period.”
“He didn’t do you, though, did he?”
“No, he hit me. I don’t play with men, period. We done?”
“You’re going to take this appointment, or you’re out of job.”
I glare at him. “The fuck you say.”
“Mr. Kayman said so.” The boss. “She’s a friend of his.”
Oh, fuck me sideways.
“Fine.” I turn to go, because I can’t afford to lose this job, not now, and Johnson clears his throat.
“One more thing. Two guys came looking for you.”
“What guys?”
“How would I know? They said they wanted to talk to you.”
I freeze. “Did they…?” I swallow hard, my throat going dry. “Did they have tattoos?”
“Tats? I didn’t notice.” He frowns. “Does it matter?”
More than he’ll ever know.
“Never mind. Let me know if they come by again, will you?”
He huffs and returns to his computer. “I’m not your servant, Riot.”
Jesus, this guy. This day’s turning into a goddamn Monday.
Who could those guys be? I turn this over and over in my head as I walk to the nearby gym. All the Bad Boy Escorts have a discount there. The familiar surroundings relax me somewhat as I enter and head for the locker room.
Fucking Johnson. Goddammit. Fucking Mari Oakes and her games.
I change clothes, pull on the shorts and running shoes I keep permanently at the gym and head out to start with some bike and running on the treadmill. Hope nobody comes to bother me right now, because I itch to throw some punches.
Then again, the guys aren’t always using their brains around here, I swear. I guess they’ve trained their blood to always flow to their dicks. Part of the job.
“Hey, man, whatcha doing? Haven’t seen you in a while.” Gale comes to lounge against the treadmill next to mine, clearly not in any hurry to exercise. He’s blond and bearded, tall and strong with ice-blue eyes. “Ladies keeping you busy?”
“You know it,” I growl, pounding away on the treadmill, sweat rolling down my face, stinging my eyes.
“And here I thought maybe it was something else.”
“What the fuck else could it be?”
Gale chuckles, unruffled, the bastard. “I don’t know, man. A girlfriend?”
“Fuck you.”
“Did you say girlfriend?” Fuck, now Zeke is standing beside Gale, wiping sweat from this face with a towel. “Congrats, Riot.”
“What the hell do you guys want from me?” I stop and scowl at them. “There is no girlfriend. Go fuck yourselves or whatever else it is you do in your free time.”
“Oh, touchy.” Zeke roars with laughter, the fucker.
“Am I amusing you?” I step off the treadmill and advance on him. “Huh?”
“Ah, ah, no fistfight today, sorry to disappoint you.” Zeke lifts his hands. “Got an appointment in one hour.”
“Whatsa matter? Afraid I’ll bang you up? Give you black eyes?”
“In your dreams,” he sneers but he’s still retreating. “Just not today.”
“Fine.” I turn to Gale. “You, then.”
“Need to let off some steam?” He cracks his knuckles, smirking. “Let’s go.”
***
An hour later, dripping with sweat and bruises blooming on my torso and jaw, I stumble into the locker room. I shower, get dressed and head back out. Gale wants me to wait up, to go out with him for drinks, and I’m seriously thinking about it. Getting drunk off my ass sounds like a great idea right now. Could help fix the mess in my head.
Don’t know why I’m so hung up on Pax. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t pay me on the spot, so that I forget sometimes what this really is. If I see the cash on the table, I’ll remember that this is a job.
Still can’t get why she keeps meeting me, a nice, rich girl like her, a psychology major of all things. What she thinks she’ll find in a street-bred guy like me, raised in the sound of bar brawls and motorcycle engines.
Gale joins me and gets ready quickly. We ride our motorcycles to a bar he knows and enter the dimly lit building.
Quincy’s says the flickering neon sign over the entrance.
“How do you know this place?” Lots of young, well-dressed guys and girls. “A student bar?”
He shrugs. “Why not, huh?”
“Who are you meeting?” I give him a suspicious look.
He only laughs and pats my back. It doesn’t matter anyway. Booze is booze, and I need to start working on my goal for the night.
I order whisky at the bar and knock the first glass down before I take another look around. Yeah, student bar all right. It’s a weird feeling, seeing them flitting around the place, seemingly without a care in the world, giggling and dancing and taking group selfies.
They’re practically my age, minus a couple of years. I’m twenty-five and they’re, what, twenty?
It’s like we’re from different planets. Been working my ass off since I was sixteen and my foster mother got sick with cancer. She died two years later, and by then I was already fighting in the underground clubs of Chicago. It was the only job I could get that really paid, and I was damn good at it.
Until I decided to retire, find something else, something less dangerous, and caused Markus’ death.
The rest is history. Because Markus was the son of one of the founders of the club, and the blame is on me. His death is on me. I know it.
It should have been me.
Ever since, I haven’t been welcome at the club. Not that I want back, but still. It was my whole family for a while. I had friends there.
And this isn’t helping me straighten out my thoughts. So I ask for more whisky, and knock that down, too. It burns going down my throat, spreading inside my chest.
Pax. When I’m with her, my mind is quiet. Calm. Filled with the need for her. The need to be inside her. The need to make her smile. To like me. To want me back.
Fuck.
“Hey,” a girl says, sidling up to me and pulling a stool. “You look lonely.”
Yeah. I am, at times.
“Why don’t you buy me a drink?” she goes on, and I take a better look at her. She’s a brunette, short and cute, and totally uninteresting to me.
Because she’s not Pax.
“I was just leaving,” I mutter, pulling out my wallet and throwing some bucks on the bar. “Maybe some other time.”
“Who gave yo
u that shiner?” She puts her purse on the bar and gives me a narrow-eyed look. “Did you get into a fight?”
I shake my head and walk away. As I exit the bar, I text Gale to let him now I’m leaving. He doesn’t reply. Probably busy with some chick.
Gale doesn’t seem to have the doubts and conflicts I have lately. He says he’s happy not to have to deal with the feelings and responsibilities that come with relationships.
He’s never met Pax.
And a good thing, too. I’m the one she kissed, and touched, and told her pain to. He should stay away, because Pax is...
She’s mine. Hell.
All the whisky in the world can’t undo the damage now.
***
Again that itch between my shoulder blades, that feeling of being watched. Again nobody there when I turn.
My mind’s playing fucking tricks on me. More tricks. More doubts. Shit, that’s the last thing I need.
I stow away my bike and climb the stairs to my apartment, in a foul mood. As soon as I open the door, Dex jumps on me and climbs up to my shoulder. He starts purring and I pat his tiny head.
Not sure what I need right now—except the one thing, the one person I can’t have. It’s crazy that I’m so drawn to her. I’ve been with so many women, their faces blurring in my mind, while hers shines like a fucking star stuck in my thoughts.
Why her? Why now?
“It’s just a phase, Dex,” I tell the kitten as I head to the kitchen. “It’ll pass. Change of the seasons and all that shit. She’s hot, all right? And she’s sad, and fuck if I know what I’m doing with her. She’s intriguing, you know?”
Dex meows, and Batman pokes his head around the door, giving me a soulful look, which means he’s hungry. I fill their bowls and let Dexter down so he can have his kitty dinner. I watch them eat.
The boys look content. This is their home. We have each other. It’s a better family than any I’ve ever had. No fights. No backstabbing. No yelling and cursing.
Why isn’t it enough anymore?
It’ll have to be. Just a phase. Just a fucking phase.
I glance at the bottle of scotch on the living room table, decide against it, and opt for a hot shower. Yeah, I know I showered at the gym, but it’s cold. There’s the bite of snow on the air, and my heater isn’t working so well. Might as well warm up and get into bed. Gale gave as good as he got back at the gym, and my solar plexus aches from his punches.
It’s a good ache, though, clean, tugging at tired muscles. Different from the confusion inside my head.
Pax, Pax. Her face flashes in front of me as I undress, as I touch where her hand stroked over me, over my pecs, over my stomach, and lower...Fuck, I’m hard, hard like I was in that hotel room.
With a grunt, my hard-on hampering my movements more than my bruises, I kick off my shoes, socks and pants, push down my briefs and step under the warm spray. A sigh escapes me. I brace my hand on the tiled wall, bow my head under the showerhead, let the water drench me, the warmth seep into my muscles and bones.
Pax tied to the bedpost, her tits bared, her legs spread…
Fuck. I grab the soap and scrub myself angrily. Turn under the spray. Just stop, stop thinking about her. A client. Someone who’s seeing you as some sort of therapy.
Sex therapy.
I’m so fucking hard, goddammit. Why am I fighting it? She never needs to know I jacked off to the thought of her.
Leaning back against the wall, I grab my dick and stroke it. Oh fuck, yeah. I keep fighting it and fighting it, and what good does it do? Need her...Shit, I can picture her on her knees, sucking me off, her soft mouth around my dick, her small hand circling the base.
Shit, so good. Need more. Need to see her, feel her, but I can’t, so I tug harder, faster, my breath catching as the pressure starts to crest. I knew I wouldn’t last, not after fantasizing about her all day today—and the days before. Fuck, since the day I met her.
And tied her to that bed.
Oh shit. I thump my head back on the tiles as my dick jerks and hot cum splashes my chest. Pleasure hits a second later, snaps through me like lightning, wrenching a moan from my throat. Another splash of cum and my strokes slow.
My muscles tremble, turning to jelly. I let the water wash me clean and I slide down the wall to the stall floor. Resting my arms on my bent knees, I let my head fall back and close my eyes.
I’m drowsy, my dick finally limp. I could fall asleep where I’m sitting.
Only problem is, nothing’s clearer. The fact I just came thinking of her is a fucking big clue to the fact that I’m fucked to hell and back.
Chapter Nine
Paxtyn
Can’t stop thinking of him, no matter what I do. It’s been days since I last saw him at the hotel. The feel of his hard muscles under my fingertips, his cock straining under the thin cloth of his briefs, and the outline of the barbells. The taste of his mouth—salty and sweet—and the look in his gray eyes. The way he looked against the dark bed cover. Flushed. Aroused. Handsome. Sexy.
A sexy devil.
Is it normal that my thoughts keep coming back to him? To how good he felt wherever I touched him? Is it a good sign? Does it mean I could date someone again?
Aren’t we way ahead of ourselves here, Pax? a sarcastic voice in my head asks—a voice that sounds too much like Corey’s.
Corey who’s sprawled beside me on the sofa, scowling at the TV. He’s one unhappy boy tonight.
“Hurts when someone else breaks up with you, doesn’t it?” I nudge him in the ribs, because any distraction from my thoughts of Riot is good distraction.
“Shut up.” He props his elbow on his knee and plants his chin in his hand.
Ignoring me.
“It happens to everyone, Corey. You need this experience once in your life.”
“Bastard. How dare he do this to me? Frigging moron.”
“What? Leave you? The thing you were about to do to him?”
He shakes his head. “You’re not helping, you know.”
“Aww.” I reach over and hug him. “You’ll get over him. Seriously, you were going to dump him, so why are you acting like this?”
Like he’s sad.
Crap, from up close his eyes are red-rimmed. Was he crying earlier? Boys don’t cry easily, and I’ve never seen Corey shed a tear. Not even when other boys bullied him at school back when, or when his dad told him to leave home unless he started liking girls ASAP. If it wasn’t for his uncle who took him in, I shudder to think where he’d be right now.
“You’re right,” Corey says and draws away from me, cutting through my thoughts. “I don’t know why. Maybe I’m just not used to it.”
Yeah well. He dumps everyone before they dump him, so of course he isn’t used to it. In fact, it’s as if...as if it’s a preemptive strike. Do it before someone does it to you—like his family did with him.
I knew all this of course. Psychology major, remember? It’s hard to miss. Every time I look at Corey I see a frightened teenager, rejected by his only parent and fighting tooth and nail to survive, to be who he is, be accepted, and all I want is to hug him again and say something meaningful, something comforting.
If only I could help myself, too, use what I’m learning to understand how to get rid of my fears. Corey always said it was a mistake, studying psychology. That the only people who can never understand themselves are psychologists.
I guess he doesn’t like us, much like I don’t like therapists—because they weren’t able to help us, and we blame them for it somehow.
Dammit, how can I help Corey?
“We should go out,” I decide, and he turns to stare at me. “What? You’re moping.”
“You’re moping, too,” he says.
Oops. That obvious, huh? “Not the point.”
“You didn’t see that escort again, did you? What was his name again?”
Great, I managed to distract Corey only to have him focus on me. Who’s going to distract me now?
> “Riot. Forget about him. Like I said, we should go out. Meet people, drink, dance. Have fun. Sitting here, wallowing in our misery, sucks.”
“Know what? You’re right.” Corey juts out his chin and gives me a bright smile. “Let’s go, girlfriend. Let’s go find us some boys and have the time of our lives.”
I seriously doubt that, at least for my case, but I let him haul me to my room and dress me up—he loves doing that—before dragging me out of my apartment.
Can I do it? Let a boy stand close to me, touch me? A boy that’s not Corey?
A boy that’s not Riot?
I guess only a test will tell.
***
The bar Corey chooses is one I’ve visited a few times. Quincy’s. It’s in fashion right now among college students. They like it because the booze is cheap and the music is good—a blend of seventies, eighties and modern funk.
“Come on,” Corey says, dragging me inside. “Frank said they’d be here tonight. Better chances of forgetting our woes if we’re not alone, right?”
Right. I try to remember who Frank is as I follow Corey into the misty, murky depths of the bar. Classmate of his, probably. Corey studies English literature, and his friends tend to use quaint words when they speak.
Then again, mine tend to psychoanalyze everything and blame childhood traumas and sex for everything.
“Pax, this is Frank.” Corey thrusts me toward a dark haired guy with a long beard, and instinctively I press back.
Beards. The guy who hurt me that night had a beard. Shit.
“Welcome, friends, to this reunion of the spirit,” Frank declares and raises his glass. “To the spirit.”
Corey laughs and I smile but my heart isn’t in it.
Bad start.
Even worse is that I wish for Riot to be there. Last time with him I felt so calm– even though I freaked out a little at the end, when my control failed me and I kissed him. I ran away, sure I was about to have a panic attack.
It never came. How many times ever since did I find myself grabbing the phone to call the agency, make another appointment?
Too many. Every time I told myself what a terrible idea that was and put the phone down. You don’t miss an escort. You don’t lust after them. You don’t crush on them.