Tramp (Hush Book 1)

by Mary Elizabeth

  I press my lips to his neck where his pulse soars underneath, smearing lipstick on his skin. My nipples brush against his chest, adding to the mass of sensation I can’t process. This is too much. This is more than I’ve ever had. More than I’ve ever allowed.

  He turns the full force of his gray eyes on me, translating concern his body doesn’t feel as he slams into me again and again.

  Is this okay, they ask.

  “Harder,” I answer.

  Talent Ridge is pure, unadulterated masculinity.

  He is control.

  He is power.

  He is strength.

  I pierce my nails into his back and bite his sharp jawline between my teeth. I lick the heat on his cheeks and run my fingers through his hair, pulling it at the nape of his neck.

  “Harder,” I command.

  I come undone when he thrusts into me and pushes, and pushes, and pushes to the hilt, stroking my clit, filling me fully. If he didn’t have me pinned to his desk with his cock, I’d fly.

  I’d float away, never to be seen again.

  Once I’m so high and can’t imagine it getting better than this, Talent wraps my hair around his fist and pulls my head back. His soft lips sweep along the top of my shoulder and up my throat before stopping at my ear.

  “Good girl,” he whispers as my body dissolves under his touch.

  I hold him through his climax, rolling my hips, meeting him thrust for thrust until we’re sated and out of breath. He braces himself above me on his forearms, pressing lazy kisses on my heated skin. I close my eyes, falling victim to the temporary bliss after sex that good, and slowly run my fingers up and down his back.

  Reality is a gradual descent, struggling to break through unfamiliar ease. It starts by slowly blinking against the haze, until my eyes are wide open and looking around the office. The sky is dark now, and the city glows with artificial light. My arms and legs feel boneless, and my back screams in protest against the hardwood under me.

  Talent’s still inside of me, in no hurry to end our arrangement. The working girl in me knows the hour isn’t up, and the typical twenty-something-year-old girl I am wants to devour this moment—as unfamiliar as after-sex affection is. But weightlessness becomes heavier and denser, and my heart rate accelerates, and panic seizes my lungs.

  What happened?

  What have I just done?

  “Up,” I say, smacking Talent’s arms. “Please. Let me up.”

  Talent backs away, pulling up his pants. He doesn’t refasten his belt or button his shirt. He offers me a hand to sit up, but I’m off the desk before I take it into consideration. Standing on my own two feet doesn’t relieve the creeping claustrophobia darkening the edges of my vision. My dress is bunched around my waist and twisted, and I can’t find my bra.

  “It’s right here,” Talent says. He politely looks the other way after handing me my bra.

  “Thanks,” I mumble, fumbling to refasten it in the back.

  “Look, Cara,” he starts. His jaw tenses, and he slips his hands into his pockets. “I need to apologize.”

  I scoff, stretching my dress down my thighs. “Don’t bother.”

  He takes a step toward me but halts when I take a step back. Talent rakes his fingers through his hair and exhales a large breath. His cheeks are still tinted red, and his eyes have that freshly fucked look in them. His pants sit low on his hips, and my lipstick is smeared against his skin.

  “I need this to stay between us,” he says, lowering his stare to the floor. He shakes his head before meeting my eyes, breaking my heart with the regret reflected back at me. “It’s not because I didn’t enjoy you … enjoy this. But my family—”

  Smoothing my hands over my hair, I box up disappointment and guilt sitting at the bottom of my stomach and force myself back into my role as Cara Smith. It’s a feeble attempt at indifference, when all I want to do is double over and cry. The constraint on my emotion is hardly passable, but Talent doesn’t recognize it.

  “I know all about your family, Talent. You don’t have to worry about me saying anything to harm your reputation. Discretion is part of my job.”

  “You don’t know a thing about my family.” Talent becomes very, very still. He narrows his eyes at me and asks, “What are you talking about? Your job?”

  “You know what,” I say. I hold a hand up to him. “This one’s on me.”

  “What exactly is on you?” he quizzes. The color of his eyes darkens, and his hands form fists at his sides.

  I press my lips together to keep from laughing at how badly this turned out. This exact situation is why I don’t break my own rules, and it won’t happen again. “Earlier you wanted to say you don’t usually sleep with escorts—”

  Talent furrows his eyebrows and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I was going to say I don’t usually fuck potential clients in my office. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re lying.” My blood runs cold.

  He points at me. “You’re an escort? I didn’t hire an escort. I’ve never seen you a day in my damned life.”

  My purse is on the floor between us, open from its fall. I step forward to retrieve it, and Talent retreats, as if I’m something to be frightened of.

  “I’m not sure what you’re playing at,” I say, plucking my purse from the floor. I head to the door. “But you don’t have to worry about me saying anything. Your secret is safe with me.”

  “I didn’t hire you,” he says, seething.

  “Someone did.” I raise my voice. “Someone from this office arranged the date. I apologize for the confusion, but you didn’t seem too confused when you were fucking me on your desk.”

  “Get out.”

  “Gladly,” I say, storming away.

  My driver is nowhere to be seen.

  He’s supposed to be right where I left him.

  Right. Here.

  Control spirals farther and farther out of reach, and my world flips upside down with it. I press my lips together in an effort to keep fury trapped in my throat. Tenacity is the only thing preventing me from lashing out, and with my driver performing a disappearing act, I need to find my way home. A meltdown will only prolong this misery.

  Suck it up, Lydia, I think to myself. You’ve gotten yourself out of bigger messes than this.

  Stepping to the curb, I look from right to left, down the street illuminated by signal lights and passing headlights. The idea of Talent watching this pathetic display from his window gives me the muscle to raise my hand and hail a cab.

  It takes mere seconds before a car stops to pick me up. I immediately open the passenger side door and get in, reciting my address. The cab driver stares at me through the rearview mirror, taking in my haphazard attire and ruined lipstick. Her attention flicks to the Ridge building, and we both know what she’s thinking.

  Whore.

  Passing her a hundred-dollar bill, I say, “I’m in a hurry.”

  The cabbie merges into traffic, a hundred dollars richer. I’m thankful for her discretion. She can’t bring herself to speak to the prostitute in her back seat, and I can’t stomach a lie quick enough to appease her anyway.

  What happened in Talent’s office is my worst-case scenario. He has the power to destroy my carefully crafted façade and the illusion of peace I’ve built in Grand Haven. How long will it take for him to find out who I am? The Ridge & Sons name is too important to get the authorities involved, but will he run me out of town? Do I have the strength to start over again in another city? Reinventing myself after my mom died was nearly impossible. What if I’m not tough enough to do it again?

  Anxiety rocks me from the inside out. My knees, hands, and vision tremble. I hold on to the sticky fake-leather seat and bite the inside of my cheek as memories from my life before Inez and Hush course through my head. I know how temporary contentment is. When I was a young girl, contentment was a warm meal in my stomach and a roof over my head. Which became less of a sure thing after any sense of mater
nal coherence left Cricket. Once I matured to realize that sleeping in a car in a drugstore parking lot or my mother’s physical and mental deterioration wasn’t normal, I committed to never becoming her. But moments like this remind me that I’m not far removed from that life.

  “We’ve arrived.” The cabbie stops the meter.

  Leaving more cash on the seat, I hurry from the cab and run from this night and my past. The moment I make it through my front door, tears spill from my eyes and I bend over to cry out for some relief. I lock the deadbolt to keep the nightmares from breaking in and flip on every single light to keep them from hiding in dark corners.

  I undress on my way to my bedroom, dropping the dress to my feet and leaving it in the hallway. Flashes of myself fucking truckers in dirty bathrooms coincide with Talent kissing my throat, pushing himself inside of me … making me come. The first girl was dirty, desperate, and frantic. The girl with Talent was eager and ignorant. How easily the two became one.

  This is why I don’t break my own fucking rules.

  I drop to my knees in front of the toilet and vomit as fear and loneliness sneak up on me. The memory of strange men touching my bare skin, whispering to me with alcoholic breath—the price for a ride to the next town or a bite to eat. Then, the warmth that poured over me when I stepped into Talent’s office, like that level of comfortableness could ever exist as far as I’m concerned. His electrified touch was the price of serenity. A too expensive reality check.

  Once my stomach’s empty, I crawl into the shower and hug my knees to my chest while scorching water rains down on me. I sob. It’s overdue and weakness I’ve kept pent up for too long. Despite my better judgment, I allowed Inez to guilt me into a job I knew to avoid. Men like Talent have too much to lose and resources deeming them untouchable. How thoughtless it was for him to fuck me on his desk, only to deny hiring me in the first place. He was safe at the top of his empire, and I was reduced to being judged by a cab driver.

  I predict he’s cozy in his lavish home, secure in his airtight significance, where I’m fading to nothing more than an afterthought. And here I am, crying like a chump under cooling water, faced with the certainty of how quickly everything I’ve worked for can disappear.

  I’m the fatherless daughter of a stripper, without a formal education, left to fend for herself at sixteen years old. My existence is lonely, but it’s more than I ever imagined for myself. That’s what upset me the most about tonight. For a fleeting moment, I forgot where I came from and allowed myself to be swept away by Talent’s easy smile and warm caress. The temporary reprieve made reality hard to swallow when it rushed back in rejection.

  Fuck Talent Ridge.

  An heir with a silver spoon in his mouth doesn’t get to judge me because I was damned with a shitty stack of cards at birth.

  Ending this pity party, I turn the shower off and pull my silk rope from the hook on the back of the door. After the emotional exorcism I’ve experienced, I don’t have the energy to dry myself off first. It clings to my skin, becoming heavy as the thin material soaks up beads of water from my hair. My eyes are swollen, oxygen enters my lungs in quick gasps, and my limbs are heavy. Instead of falling into bed, I shuffle to the kitchen and open the freezer where a bottle of vodka vows a dreamless sleep.

  There’s no need for a glass. I drink it straight from the bottle, staring at my clutch and keys sprawled across the counter. Vodka delivers on its promise right away, lifting my burdens from my shoulders and luring me to sleep. Screwing the top back on the glass bottle, I decide to send Inez a text before I pass out. She doesn’t need to know the grueling details right away, but I’m surprised she hasn’t called for an update yet.

  That’s when I realize my phone isn’t in my clutch and I remember when it fell to the floor in Talent’s office.

  I didn’t pick it up in my haste to get out.

  It’s still there.

  “Fuck.”

  Camilla’s behind the reception desk at Hush, like she’s never left, like she stuck a stake into the ground and claimed the spot as her own. She rises in greeting, inhaling as if she’ll say something to me this time. I don’t give her the opportunity, walking past her post without a second glance. Inez’s office door opens as I’m reaching for the handle. We come face-to-face, flustered and taken off guard.

  Inez exhales audibly, dropping her purse from her shoulder to her hand. I harden my expression and push past her into the office.

  “Where have you been?” Inez asks. “I was on my way to your apartment. I’ve been—”

  “The next time you think about asking me to do you a favor, don’t.” I pour myself a stiff drink from the liquor bar. Last night’s vodka turned on me this morning, splitting my head in half. “The money I bring in on a regular basis is sufficient. I shouldn’t have to do your bidding.”

  Inez closes the door and joins me at the bar, pouring herself twice the amount I have. “Did he hit you?”

  “That might have hurt less,” I answer before tossing the shot back and pressing the cool glass to my forehead. Hush escorts fall victim to physical abuse from time to time, but my clients wouldn’t dare touch me in such a way. But the men who’ve paid me for sex in the past have abused me. It’s an unfortunate side effect for girls behaving like women on the streets.

  “Sit, dear,” Inez orders, pushing me toward the chair in front of her desk. “You look like hell. Let me pour you another drink while you tell me the story.”

  Ice clinks against the inside of my glass as she hands it over. She scoots beside me, resting a gentle hand on my knee. Looking from the liquor to her, I choose liquor and sip. Talent is a dick, but Inez took advantage of me after I told her I didn’t want the Ridge job. My wrath belongs to her just as much as it does him.

  “I’m sorry to report that Ridge & Sons won’t be regular clients of mine—or yours,” I say, licking vanilla and oak bourbon from my lips. It’s when I notice my nail polish is chipped and my left shoe is untied. When’s the last time I left the house in ripped jeans and a hoodie like I have today? Yet, here I am, completely disheveled and a stranger to myself.

  Inez scoffs, waving me away. “I don’t believe he wasn’t satisfied with you. It’s impossible.”

  Wishing away the memory of Talent’s cock sliding up the inside of my thigh before impaling me in a single thrust, I adjust in my chair and note, “He was completely satisfied with the entertainment. The issue was afterward when he claimed not to have hired me in the first place.”

  “That’s absurd.” Inez stands to her feet, taking her rightful place on the throne behind the desk. Gone is the concerned mother-type worried about her brood, making way for the ruthless pimp instead. Her merciless glow straightens my own spine, and I find myself wishing I wore better shoes. “What did he say? Word for word?”

  “He said,” I repeat myself, “he didn’t hire me.”

  I don’t feel the need to explain the emotional unraveling I suffered after leaving Talent’s building, the binge drinking that ensued once my tears ran dry, or the fact that I rescheduled today’s clients to be here and therefore won’t have a day off for a week. No, Inez gets the bare minimum to stew over and face the same lack of control I feel.

  How very daughter-like of me.

  “Is it because he didn’t want to pay?” she muses. Inez picks up her phone and dials.

  Returning her icy stare over the rim of my glass, I take another drink and wonder the same thing as warming liquid coats my tongue and warms my belly. Men with millions of dollars in their bank accounts, domestic and offshore alike, come with an aura of entitlement. They’re so used to their yes-men and yes-women bowing to their every command, that when it’s time to pay for their nut, they’re offended. How dare the Masters of the Universe pay for sex, even though they knowingly arranged a date with an escort, when they’re more powerful than some slut?

  Inez never allows that to slide and collects what’s owed to her from everyone. But entitlement wasn’t the vibe I got fro
m Talent. He looked genuinely confused.

  “Naomi, we need to talk.” Inez’s expression hardens with her tone of voice, leaving zero room for argument. “Don’t make me wait.”

  Every sip of bourbon is a welcome reprieve from stress, and I find myself relaxing as Inez’s stress level increases. I’m not much of a drinker, but as my limbs grow heavy and my lips tingle, it’s enticing. How easy it is to drown one’s sorrows in a bottle of liquor when only a couple of mouthfuls make everything feel less detrimental.

  Oh, I might be run out of town? No big deal.

  I rescheduled my clients’ appointments for the first time ever? Whatever. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.

  Is this why my mom was always fucked-up? She never talked about our lifestyle with me—I never had a say in what she did and where she took us. But maybe the only way she could live with herself as she loaded her four-year-old daughter into the back of an old Buick, without heat in the middle of winter and drove to clubs at all hours of the night, was drunk.

  Alcohol softens the edges of reality. Reaction time is slower, inhibition is nonexistent, and the headache that plagued me this morning softens to a thud behind my eyes. Catastrophe is doable with a glass of good bourbon. But when Inez hangs up the phone and tells me that Naomi is on her way in, I still care enough to set the glass down and sit straight.

  “Can I go?” I ask. A tiny voice inside myself points out that I’m over-enunciating my words. “I did my part. It didn’t work out, and I’d like to return to my regularly scheduled program.”

  “Something isn’t adding up,” Inez responds, ignoring my request to leave. “There’s no way I send my best girl in and he’s not happy.”

  Rolling my eyes, I choose to ignore the way she speaks about me like I’m a trained dog. I push myself halfway out of my seat, deciding I’ll call a car once I’m outside.