‘Yeah, well waking me up at this ungodly hour needs to come with benefits, so you’d better ring me back with good news.’
‘Give me a while, I need to think about what I’m going to say to him, if I’m in that place too,’ I replied as I bit my lip. What was I going to say to him. ‘Mandy? Mandy? Are you still there?’ I looked down at my phone to see she’d done exactly as she’d said and hung up. I slapped my phone against my forehead a few times. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid girl, Summer,’ I muttered.
I pulled myself up off the floor. It was make or break. I either processed my feelings for him and came clean, or we were done, he’d made that clear. I didn’t want to be forced into saying “I love you” in return though. If I said it, it needed to be when I was ready, when it felt right. Saying “I love you” to someone was a big deal and people just threw it away, like an empty McDonalds wrapper, there were thousands of those lying discarded. My love wasn’t a piece of worthless trash, my love was precious, something that shouldn’t be given lightly, and when it was, it needed to be cherished. I took the opportunity to strip and quickly hop in the shower to clean up and get changed. I took a deep breath, I had two choices to make. One was whether I was ready to give away my heart and say those three words, the other was how I should tell him the outcome, by text, email, phone or in person if I grabbed a taxi and went back to see him.
Client Evaluation
Logan
I woke up and could feel my cheeks aching from over smile. She may not have told me that she loved me, we may not have had the official talk, the one where she told me that she was mine, that we were a couple officially, but she’d not fled after I’d shown her the type of sex I liked to have from time to time. That had been the moment I’d been dreading. Having her run from me again, of being myself with her and having her reject me. My ego, when it came to Summer, was so fragile. Not that I’d ever admit that to her. It was bad enough that I was in love. Lucas Logan Steel in love! I never imagined I’d see the day, then again, I think I fell in love with her the moment I first kissed her, but I’d been too scared to admit it to myself. Now though I didn’t care, I’d even be prepared to sing it from the damn rooftops. Dan was going to have a field day with this news, as were my parents. They were all going to fall in love with her as well, I was sure of it. Who was I kidding, everyone loved her. What was not to love? I frowned, as I realised the thing I had my arm around wasn’t Summer. I opened my eyes to find I was hugging a pillow. I could smell her all over it. I buried my face in it and breathed deeply. I figured she was in the en-suite or had gone to get herself a drink, but the smell on my pillow put her right here with me. I needed to get it bottled, Eau de Summer, to spray on my sheets every time she was away.
I blew out a deep breath. This was a pretty momentous day in my life. Was this really it? The morning after sex and I had no client evaluation to do? I may have met her as a client, but I’d never think of her as one, I never had. She was too pure, too beautiful a soul. Us being together was fate, I was sure of it. I’d never been so sure of anything in my life. She was the woman I was going to marry and have a family with one day. Maybe three kids. They’d be cute as hell, great looking with both of our genes, of course. Yes three sounded good, but definitely two at minimum. The thought of owning her, possessing her from here on out, had all the blood flow to my cock. Where the hell was she? If she thought she was spending anytime out of my bed today, she’d need to change her plans. I quickly lay back on my side of the bed, propped up against my pillows, with my hands behind my head, striking a far more manly pose, one befitting of the macho Lucas Steel, than the one who sniffed his girlfriend’s pillow and had girly romantic thoughts. I smiled to myself at the term. Girlfriend. It had been six and a bit years since I’d used the phrase. I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed normal things. Holding hands in daylight, watching TV together, going on dates in public, dates that didn’t involve the planning of sex, not having to leave or kick them out the next morning. I could be spontaneous again. Use my romantic and sexual skills that I’d learned over the years, to make sure she never lacked for anything. Sexual skills I’d very much like to put to use now. Where the hell was she?
‘Summer?’ I called. I frowned as I didn’t get a response, flung the duvet back and went to knock on the bathroom door. ‘Angel, you’d better let me know now if you’re on the toilet, as I know that’s not the sort of thing you’d want me to see, but I’m worried about you, so I’m going to be coming in.’ I waited a while before poking my head around the door, but she wasn’t there. I grabbed a towel and tucked it around my waist, my erect cock making it a hell of a lot shorter than it was supposed to be. I started growing more anxious when I didn’t find her in my large open plan kitchen, lounge and dining area. ‘Summer?’ I yelled, as my muscles started to tense. Where the fuck was she? I checked that the door to the balcony overhanging the canal was locked, breathing a sigh of relief to find it was. At least that ruled out some freak accident, though I couldn’t seem to rid myself of this nagging feeling that something was horribly wrong.
I cocked my head to see if I could hear the washing machine going, maybe she was doing her knickers, I had made them rather damp last night. When she wasn’t to be found in the utility, I flung the door to my spare room open, the one we’d spent most of the night in. My heart sank to see that her shoes, bra and knickers were gone. I raced back to the lounge to look for her coat, which she’d thrown on the sofa at the beginning of the night, but that was gone too.
I sank down onto the sofa in disbelief, as a sharp pain invaded my chest. She’d left me? She’d really left without saying a damn word? I’d just told her I loved her for God’s sake. I’d never said those words to anyone, well not since I was a child to my mother, and she’d run from me? I pinched the top of my nose, salt stinging my eyes. This couldn’t be happening. She may not love me yet, but she cared for me, I knew she did. Right now Logan Steele would have a tantrum, thrown his rattle out of the pram, or done something stupid to make himself feel better, to get over his shattered ego and wounded pride. But I was Lucas Steel now. I’d changed. She’d changed me. There had to be a reasonable explanation and I was going to get it. I’d break down her fucking door to get it if I had to, no way was I giving up on us, not after everything we’d been through. I wiped my eyes and strode back to my bedroom with determination, checking the pillows, the bed and the bedside tables to see if she’d left a note, disappointed to find there wasn’t one.
I quickly dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, grabbing my leather jacket as I headed to double check the kitchen island in case she’d left one there. Nothing. And my note, flower and velvet box containing the key to my apartment, so she could come as go as she wanted, were still sitting there untouched, ready to go on the breakfast tray when I woke her up. I ran my hand over the box containing the key and sighed. I’d even cleared out space in my wardrobe for her to leave some clothes, a drawer in my bedroom too. That’s what couples did when they got serious, they made room in each other’s lives for the other, but she’d run from me. And it hurt like hell.
I pocketed my car keys and looked around for my phone. It was where I left it last night, on the lamp table next to my armchair, where I’d sat watching her stripping off her coat. I closed my eyes and shook my head to get rid of the visual. I was used to playing roles, well today I was Lucas Steel, Private Investigator. A real life James Bond. I had a mission, to find out why she’d fled and nothing was going to stop me getting to the bottom of it. If she thought I’d let her get away from me that easily, she had another think coming. I picked up my phone and saw that I had an iMessage. I felt my heart rate spike. If it was her, if she was messaging me to say it was over, that would kill me. To not even say it to my face? Something like that should be said in person. Surely I deserved that much? I tapped on it with a shaking finger, swallowing hard as I saw it was from her.
Lucas, please don’t be mad with me, it’s not what it looks like. I panicked. You to
ld me that you loved me and I panicked and ran. I’m so scared of you breaking my heart. I hurt so badly that time we were apart for a week and we barely knew each other then. We’re further down the line and you’re confessing your love for me, how would I feel if we took this further and you broke my heart now? I don’t think I could handle that, so I ran. I need to talk to you when you wake up, as long as you’re not going to punish me. I’m feeling emotional and vulnerable, so I don’t want to be punished today. I know I may deserve it for doing this to you, but I really need to talk to you. Not by phone. There are things that should only be said face to face and I’m sorry I didn’t have the courage to try to be honest with you before I ran out on you. I contemplated coming to you, but in case you wouldn’t hear me out, I couldn’t face the humiliation of another journey home with David, while I was in floods of tears again. I’m at home and I’ll be on tenterhooks waiting to hear from you. Don’t make me run out of oxygen this time Lucas Steel. Summer x
I read the message a few times, my heart cantering in my chest. What was she trying to say? I couldn’t work out if she was telling me that she needed to see me to break up with me, even though technically we weren’t an item yet, or if she was telling me, without saying the actual words, that she was in love with me and terrified of it. When I’d asked her out she’d had a panic attack and had told me that she needed time to think it over. That time it had been me that told her not to make me run out of oxygen, as I waited for her answer. Was that what this was? She was having a panic attack again and just needed some space to work it through? There was a link at the bottom of the message to a song, which I clicked. I played it once and had to sit down in my armchair as my legs gave way, my hands trembled and my mouth went dry. I sat in a stupefied daze for a while, thinking about what I’d just heard and relating it to us, as my heart beat like a bass drum against my rib cage.
I played the track again, just to be one-hundred per cent sure I’d not misunderstood her message. The song had been edited, so I could only hear a part of it.
Yours ~ Ella Henderson
https://youtu.be/Op7ju5l2uAs
My heart didn’t just shatter into a billion tiny pieces, it disintegrated, into fine molecules of dust that I’d never be able to reassemble. I didn’t have a heart anymore, she’d completely desiccated it without even saying the actual words that I’d longed to hear, with just a promise of them being on the tip of her tongue, via a love song. And I didn’t have a single issue with that, I didn’t need my heart anymore anyway, if I didn’t have her I’d have no further use for it. She’d owned it from that first kiss, whether she’d wanted it or not, but I was overjoyed to think that it seemed that she was giving me hers in exchange. I blinked a few times as my eyes stung with emotion. She was right, those three words needed to be said in person, even if it wasn’t today, I could wait. For her I’d wait forever. For now, she was mine regardless.
‘Keep breathing, angel, because I’m coming for you,’ I uttered, as I pocketed my phone and stood up with a smile on my face, the smile to end all smiles.
Yes, today was definitely a whole new start for Lucas Steel.
Actor for the Night
A familiar face from Logan Steele’s past returns to wreak havoc, threatening his very future, and leaving him in turmoil. He has to step up to fulfil his most challenging role to date, but the question is whether he’s a good enough actor to pull it off. Will Logan get his happy ever after? Or will his past bite him, or the ones he loves, so hard, that it turns his life into a disaster movie?
The Final Prologue
My name is Lucas Steel. I’m thirty years old, devilishly handsome, seriously ripped, well hung, charismatic and highly sexed. Women just can’t resist me, but for the last couple of years, I’ve only have eyes for one.
Summer Beresford.
By day I’m a private personal fitness trainer, to high profile clients of means. But I have a skeleton in my closet. By night I used to be “Logan Steele” high class escort.
I didn’t have to advertise my sexual services, I had a long client list that came to me through word of mouth. I was that good, I was booked months in advance. Scores of women paid me extortionately high fees to fulfil their fantasies.
That’s how I met Summer, a sweet, innocent, naïve virgin, who paid me to help her overcome her fear of losing her virginity, after she was almost raped as a teenager. She also wanted to shed her inhibitions and become more knowledgeable about sex, for an erotic romance film she’d landed the lead role in. I’m pretty sure, looking back, that it was love at first sight for me. But I was stubborn and unwilling to pursue her at first, positive a woman like that would never want a man like me, not given that she knew my rather sordid history. The next time we met, I’d broken several of my escorting rules:
Don’t get emotionally attached.
No contact after the event unless it’s for a new booking and the largest rule break ever,
Full payment up front, no exceptions.
I’d given into my need for her by surprising her at her movie premiere, prompted into action by my fears that she was about to start dating her co-star Daron Beck. That evening with Summer was sensational. We’d both confessed that we had feelings for each other, but I’d been pig headed and stubborn, ruining my chances by refusing to give up my escorting until I knew if we could work as a couple.
I’d finally come to my senses fourteen months ago, but she’d insisted we try being friends first, to give her time to make up her mind about whether she could trust me. I knew she still had fears about my past coming back to bite her in the arse as well, it could tarnish her career. However, last night she’d finally given in, we’d had an incredible night of sex and as she fell asleep in my arms, I’d confessed that I loved her.
I woke up this morning and she was gone.
In all my years as Lucas, or even Logan, a woman had never left me. And I wasn’t about to let the one I really wanted slip through my fingers.
And So It Begins
I gripped the steering wheel tightly as I made my way across London to her penthouse. Surely this was it? Surely we were finally getting somewhere? Three nights, that was all we’d spent together sexually, my brunette angel and I, three damn nights and I’d already fallen in love.
Madly, deeply, can’t bear to be apart from her, love.
I wasn’t totally irrational, I hadn’t completely lost my mind and lurched from man whore to love sick Romeo in the space of three nights though. We’d met in her virgin for the night fantasy nearly two years ago, then didn’t see each other again for another nine months, when I’d pursued her, knowing I wanted more. She’d made me work for it, fourteen long months, the longest of my life, but she’d been worth the wait when she finally gave in. I fought against closing my eyes and giving in to the rerun of our night together, last night, instead focussing on the damn traffic up ahead of me. My eyes may have been open, but it didn’t stop me picturing the visuals and hearing surround sound of her heated cries as I had her shackled to my St. Andrew’s cross, running ice across her soft skin, pouring hot wax onto her peaked nipples, kissing her, biting her and finally getting to fuck her again as I restrained her on my bed. I would say I’d wait another fourteen months for a night like that one, but to hell with that. I didn’t want to wait another fucking minute.
I blew out a deep calming breath as my car painfully inched its way towards the traffic lights that were the cause for my additional tension. After that perfect night, a night when she’d laid wrapped in my arms on the verge of sleep, when I confessed my love to her, unsure if she’d heard me, I’d woken this morning to find her gone. I flexed my neck as the memory of the panic I’d felt, when I’d searched my apartment looking for her, came back to taunt me. The first time I’d told a woman I was in love with her and she’d run. I’d felt like I’d been eviscerated, my heart had crumbled to dust and been blown away by the howling gale in the void I was straddling between life and death. Dramatic I know, but that’s
exactly how I’d felt. That was how much I was in love with Summer Beresford. The pain had been marginally eased by a message from her on my iPhone, apologising for running and not having the courage to tell me how she really felt, but that she needed to do it in person, not over the phone. At that moment I’d been completely unsure whether it was a Dear John message that I’d just received. A link to Ella Henderson’s track, Yours, eased my pain immediately. She told me with a song what she was unable to vocalise.
I had to keep reminding myself that, at twenty-four, she was six years younger than me and this was her first relationship, sexual or emotional. She was scared of being hurt, no doubt her fears were escalated by her neighbour attempting to rape her when she was fifteen years old. I pinched the top of my nose and huffed out another deep breath at the thought of someone trying to hurt my angel. Thank God Antony had died in a car crash, or I might just have killed the bastard myself. Anyway, after listening to that song I did feel better, but I wouldn’t be one-hundred percent until I was holding her in my arms again. Until I heard her say that we were a couple, until I told her how I really felt about her while she was awake and responsive. This time I wouldn’t let her run. This time I’d be more romantic about it.
I finally pulled up in one of her parking spaces in the private underground garage, to which I had the code from when I’d helped her move in a few weeks ago. Instead of still living in a rough area of London with her parents, her first movie release had catapulted her to stardom. It had been a massive hit, and the earnings she’d made off it so far, had given her enough money to purchase her own three bedroom penthouse, as well as a new terraced town house in Chelsea for her parents. She was close to finishing the final film in the Broken Promises Trilogy and was busy fielding offers for her next role. Fingers crossed it wouldn’t be with Hollywood’s leading male star, Daron fucking Beck again. He had designs on my woman and I’d had to warn him to back off, by threatening him with publication of his domestic abuse and sordid internet search history, none of which was public knowledge. I owed my intel to my friend Ian Smith, computer hacker extraordinaire, who did all my background checks for me and went above and beyond what would be considered the norm. I locked up my BMW i8 and headed up the stairs into the lobby of her building and over to the reception desk, which was manned by a security team.
For the Night - Complete Box Set Page 48