“I don’t know the name of this song but I really like it. I’m hopeless with song names.”
“’Sexual healing,’ Marvin Gay.” I pull her into my arms as I breathe the words into her throat.
She lets out a tinkling laugh. “How appropriate!”
The thing about Carlene is, she doesn’t try to hide who she is or pretend to be someone she isn’t.
Our bodies move together just as easily on the dance floor as they do in the bedroom. We’re in sync and have real chemistry. I know it’s real with her. I don’t have to think or try. I just do what comes naturally to me.
The song draws to a close and rolls into Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night,” another oldie but a goodie for exactly what I have in mind.
Rod croons about tonight being the night, and how he loves her, how she should let him come inside and nothing is going to stop them now.
Can the same apply to us?
With Carlene in my arms, her head resting lightly on my chest, her breasts pressed firmly to me, I can believe it. It could be us. It can be true
We move together as the song plays out. I can’t resist sliding the hand I have resting on her waist lower to her perfect backside and giving it a long squeeze. I grind my hips into her in case she’s confused about just how much I enjoy having her in my arms.
One of the first things a good escort learns is to be able to turn on and off an erection at will. All that control flew out the window when I met Carlene. She’s broken all the rules for me and devastated all my control. She’s special to me in ways other women will never measure up to.
“Let me know when you’ve had enough dancing,” I whisper into her hair.
“Why? Got something in mind?” She wiggles her hips suggestively into mine. I’ve become way more careful in underwear selection over the last days. I don’t mind in the least giving Carlene a show, but I’m not one to make others uncomfortable, and we are fast approaching that territory.
“I’ve got lots of things in mind. Like striping you naked and making long, slow love to you.”
She shifts in my arms, and her head tilts back. “Long slow love,” she repeats.
Yeah. The words are as foreign to me as they sound from my lips. I meant it, though.
“That’s exactly right, Oz. I want to take you back to the suite and make love to you. Please say yes.”
Fucking is not what I’m feeling at all. It has to be special.
“Yes,” she breaths against my neck, and I can barely contain the excitement racing through me. I want her in a way I can’t remember wanting another woman.
Tonight, will be different. If she won’t listen to the words I want to say, then maybe she’ll feel them. Surely, her body will know the difference?
The song ends, and I strategically angle her in front of me as we make our way from the dance floor. We stop briefly at the table to collect her purse and settle the bill.
At the concierge area of the hotel, I slip the guy at the desk a wad of cash to get us a car in a big hurry. Our hotel is way too far to walk right now, but I don’t want to wait for anything.
With a light, lingering kiss to her lips, I try to hang onto the mood from the club. I want desperately to keep it going. Carlene trails her hand down my chest, and once again, I wish we were in our suite and both naked.
I’m about to lower my head for another kiss, when someone catches my attention off to the side.
“Rome, is that you?”
Fuck!
My biggest fear springs forth and is about to play out— every escort’s worst nightmare.
I’ve run into a previous client while I’m with somebody who means more to me than the job. And knowing the previous client, there’s nowhere for this to go but ugly.
It’s like watching an accident about to happen. My past and my future are about to collide, and it’s going to be a disaster.
The victim is going to be my heart.
Chapter 23
Carlene
He said he wanted to make love to me.
Rome has never mentioned the word love in that context. He always refers to it as “fucking.” Is he trying to tell me something? Once again, I had to stop him earlier.
Tonight—I’ll enjoy him once again, and then I’ll head home and get that distance I need to really understand where my head and emotions are at. Then we’ll see if it’s real.
These are all the thoughts peppering my brain while I walk beside Rome out to a car. I really wish this was our hotel. Rome had been adamant about showing me the best of everything in the time we have. It has been the same since I arrived in America. It’s all about the quality with Rome.
He wants to make love to me?
Round and round those words swirl in my mind.
How will this be different to what we’ve previously experienced together?
Off to the side of the hotel’s concierge area, he pulls me into his arms and starts slowly kissing me.
Right away, I’m lost. The feeling of his lips on mine, his body pressed up to me. It feels so good, so Rome. Like magic, everything else disappears when he touches me.
My blood heats even further at the raw sound of his voice.
His lips are just about on mine once again when his head snaps up, and his attention shifts to someone approaching.
“Rome, is that you?”
I manage to decipher the woman’s words through my Rome-filled haze.
His body goes ramrod straight in an instant, and he drops his hold on me. Suddenly, I feel adrift and cast away. The undeniable connection between us when we were touching is snapped like a brittle twig. His whole body now on the defensive.
He clears his throat. “Good evening, Francesca.”
I guess the woman to be in her late forties, although it’s hard to tell with all the make-up and the cloud of highly sprayed blonde hair. The fake tan is a tad too orange to look natural, and don’t even get me started on the silicone marvels overflowing the red sequin encrusted dress she’s wearing. She is the epitome of “mutton dressed up as lamb,” and I’m not the type to be judgy on peoples’ dress sense.
“Fancy seeing you here. I thought you weren’t working anymore.”
Two things simultaneously dawn on me. I’ve never seen Rome look more uncomfortable, and this woman is surely a client.
Rome’s jaw is locked tight, and instead of the easy air he normally has about him, every muscle looks like it has turned to stone.
“You’re correct. I’ve not been working for some time.”
Why is he lying? I’m a client, just like she’s obviously been.
“But you’re working again now?” She waves her hand at me, and her words came out more as a statement than a question. “I want to book you. Nobody can get me off like you can. I need some Rome magic.”
I’m sure Rome doesn’t miss the over exaggerated eyelash flutter. I add ridiculously oversized eyelashes to my mental inventory of everything unattractive and false about this woman.
She smiles brashly at Rome and gives me a conspiratorial wink, like I know exactly what she was driving at. The problem is, I do, and suddenly, I feel all kinds of cheap. I’m just like her, a woman who pays for a handsome man like Rome to show her a good time in and out of bed.
Is she the sort of woman he usually escorted?
Francesca is awful, outrageous, and desperate.
I hate myself for judging her, but the whole thing just cuts too close to home for me.
Where does this leave me?
Am I just like her only not cognizant of it?
“I’m sorry, Francesca, but you’re mistaken. I’m not working again. Carlene is a very close friend of mine.”
She looks between us, and I feel her suspicion hit overdrive. Why is he lying? He’s said we were friends, but I am most certainly a client as well.
“That’s a damned shame. I was suddenly all kinds of excited.” She drops another wink at me before her over made up face moves into an exaggerated p
out.
I can tell Rome is fast losing patience and is looking to get away from her as quick as possible.
“Call the agency. I’m sure Roxie will be able to set you up with a man to your tastes.” He’s trying to be polite and obviously keep a client. It is business, after all.
“But I have a taste for you, sugar!”
The car Rome ordered fortunately pulls up, and the driver comes around to open the door for us.
Ever the perfect gentleman, Rome speaks up, “If you’ll excuse us, Francesca, we have another engagement to attend.”
He guides me into the back seat of the car and hastily follows me in.
Neither of us say anything as the driver pulls out into the traffic.
Once we’re underway, Rome angles his body to me, and I have no problem reading the apprehension rolling off him in waves.
“Carlene, I’m so sorry. That’s never happened to me before. I can’t believe it. She was so…”
“Brash…crass—honest, perhaps?” I offer in my best bitchy voice. I know logically it isn’t his fault, but that doesn’t help me at all with how I’m feeling now. He’s become more to me than a service I pay for. He’s become a real person, one I suspect I care for deeply and Francesca has brought it all back to reality for me.
Tarnished what we might have.
His jaw falls open, and I read defeat in his eyes. Everything his words of only a few minutes ago promised is gone.
“Carlene, I don’t know what I can say to you. Just that, I only ever saw her once before I stopped escorting, and I vowed never to accept another engagement with her.”
Anger, hurt, and embarrassment are careening through my veins. I believe him. I have no problem recognizing the sort of woman Francesca is, but I just can’t stop myself from lashing out.
“Well, regardless, you must have made quite an impression. She certainly seemed to know exactly how good your skills are.”
He reaches for me, and I pull away. I don’t want his touch right now. Maybe I never will again.
There will be no “making love” tonight.
“I did the job she paid me to do. I didn’t enjoy it, but I did my job. And I vowed never to repeat the experience with her again. In fact, if memory serves me correctly, she was one of my last clients, until…well, you know.”
“Say it, Rome. It’s the truth. Until me, your next client.”
His face becomes a picture of pain. Good, it matches the feeling in my heart.
“What can I say or do to make it up to you?” He’s pleading with me.
What could he do?
The answer is simple.
Nothing.
Escorting women is his job, and I realize now, whatever crazy fantasies I had of Rome and me being together, have just been that—crazy fantasies. While he’s still escorting, it will define or at least influence him and the person he is. I can’t stomach the idea of sharing him with any other woman.
“There’s nothing you can do, Rome. This is your life, who you are. I don’t know what you think is between us, but I can’t do it. I couldn’t cope with the idea of you spending time with other women, particularly when I know exactly what that entails. I’ll just come right out and say it…I’d be a jealous wreck. I couldn’t live with knowing other women were enjoying you intimately.”
His shoulders slump, and he seems to slide down into the seat.
“I’ve lost you,” he murmurs to himself. The pain in his eyes tears at my heart, but truth and common-sense need to prevail. Neither of us are inexperienced kids, playing with first love.
“You never had me, Rome. Let’s remember it as it should be remembered—a beautiful interlude. A couple of weeks out of our lives. Weeks I’ll always treasure and remember fondly.”
“What can I do? Surely, there must be something?” he pleads.
I sigh, and a huge lump forms in my throat. Tears threaten, and I want to be strong to get through this.
Actually, it is more than that.
I need to be strong, because there’s a big part of me that wants to let go and just chase the rainbows Rome has been teasing me with. It would be so easy, nothing at all to stop me.
The practical me wrestles back control. Don’t be stupid, Carlene.
He isn’t the man for you, regardless how you feel or what he says. I acted rash at eighteen. I won’t let myself make that same mistake twice.
I take a deep breath and brace myself for the words I need to say. “Rome, I just can’t…I can’t be with you when you do what you do.” I didn’t say the word escort. It would sound so offensive, and I don’t want to hurt him anymore than I am, by reminding him of the truth.
“There is no future for us, regardless what we both might want or hope for. It’s the way it is. It’s your job, your lifestyle. I’m sorry, but Francesca confirmed what I’ve been trying to tell you. It’s the life you’ve chosen. I can’t make it mine. I’d never cope with the thought of you with other women.”
I watch my words hit him like blows. I don’t want to hurt him. I really don’t, but it’s not fair to lead him on.
“You asked before what you could do.”
Hope flares in his eyes for a moment, and his head raises a fraction—I’m about to crush him again. “Once we get back to the hotel, you can arrange a car for me to the airport. I’ve decided to leave immediately from Vegas rather than LA. I think it will be best on both of us.”
I watch the light go from his eyes, and I feel the kick to my guts. I turn my head and stare out the window, unable to look at Rome suffering the pain I’ve just delivered. My throat is stinging from the tears I refuse to shed. If I turn and look at him, I’ll crack and give in—I have to be strong.
My decision is brutal but for the best—for both of us.
We are done.
My time is up.
I’m going home.
Back to safety, sense, and loneliness.
Chapter 24
Carlene
For about the thousandth time, I mull over my hasty departure from Vegas and Rome as I look out over the Pacific Ocean from my balcony. Did I make the right decision that crazy night? I’ve wondered millions of times as I replay the events of that night, in my head again and again.
All I have left of Rome is the letter he somehow managed to place inside my bag and a heart full of tender, exquisite memories.
I still don’t know how we survived the trip to the hotel in silence. Nor do I know how I managed to form the words, once in the suite, to my travel agent in Australia. Occasionally the time difference does work, and she managed to get me a first-class seat on a plane leaving Vegas a couple of hours later. It meant a stop in San Fran rather than LA, but I didn’t care at that point in time, nor did I care about the exorbitant price.
I remember so vividly how Rome begged and pleaded for me to reconsider—to finish the trip as we had planned. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t look at the pain he was in and prolong it further. I was being cruel to be kind. Well, at least that’s what I told myself as I packed in a flurry and he drove me to the airport.
I would have preferred to have taken a cab and been alone with my feelings. Goodbyes were just too hard, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
He’d driven me, but I wouldn’t let him park and come in. Instead, I insisted he drop me at the curb, and it ran contrary to everything that made Rome the perfect gentleman he was.
The pain was too much—too hard to bare. I had to get out of there.
He took my luggage from the trunk and gave me a hug on the curb. He’d moved to kiss me one last time, and I just couldn’t. Because I knew, one intimate touch and I would have crumbled then and there. My body and heart craved him. My mind remained stoic in rebellion.
Survival kicked in, and I turned my head and instead, I felt his lips brush my ear as I inhaled his unique cologne for the last time.
“I’ll never forget you, Carlene, nor am I giving up,” he whispered into my neck.
A whispered, “thank y
ou,” was the most I managed before I pulled back from him enough to take my final long look into his eyes. Then I turned and made my way into the terminal. His eyes had told me everything he couldn’t express in words.
It pains me even now to remember how my last words to him were so inadequate to describe what our time together had meant to me. I wish I’d said more…maybe.
Since being home, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time doing this, wondering, yearning, and trying to convince myself it was for the best. It seems like a decade ago instead of a month, since he dropped me at the airport.
I’ve made the right decision. I keep telling myself—trying to convince myself.
I had to be strong. It was the smart, sensible thing to do.
Then why do I feel like I have a massive hole in my heart? And why will the slightest thoughts about Rome have my throat closing and getting prickly, as tears leak down my cheeks.
I miss him.
It’s that simple.
I miss having someone to spend time with, to do things with, to share my life with.
Not for the first time, I ask myself if I’ve been a fool.
And yet again, I reach for the letter he left. He must have scribbled it while I was packing and realizing this, warms my heart even more. To know he’d been thinking of me in beauty and affection rather than anger, given the way our night had gone and my decision, speaks of his depth of character.
To torture myself once again, I unfold the letter and read.
Dear Carlene,
I know you said there was nothing I could say or do. (I’m not counting getting you to the airport—which, for the record, I am totally against).
I understand why you didn’t want to hear the words I wanted to say. And even though you haven’t come out and said it, I know you are thinking it. You’re right, the whole “boyfriend experience” can be full on and emotionally confusing, particularly when it’s for the amount of time we’ve spent together.
But if you won’t let me say the words then I need to write them for you to read. I can’t let you go without knowing exactly how I feel.
When With Rome (Perfect Gentlemen Book 1) Page 27