GOOD FUCKING POINT. Why was I still here? Because I should have walked out the moment I’d recognised her.
Yet I hadn’t.
I’d wanted to know exactly what the fuck she thought she was doing, turning up here as a glorified escort, without all the necessary rules and regulations that made the interaction as safe as it was possible to get for both parties. Why she was fully prepared to get naked in front of a stranger and do everything he told her just for some spare cash.
Little idiot.
I’d nearly given myself away, asking her all those questions, but shit, she had to understand what stupid risks she was taking. I could have been anyone, some creepy asshole who got off on pain or fear. Or some bastard who liked humiliation.
Christ, she’d said she’d do anything, no limits. Did she even know what that meant?
I was very tempted to tell her exactly who she was talking to, as it was clear she hadn’t recognised my voice, but that would lead to some very awkward questions—including why I’d barely answered all the emails, texts and voicemails I’d received from her over the past few years. Not to mention why I’d cut her from my life the way I’d cut everyone all those years ago—except Traj.
And I did not want to talk to her about that.
I never wanted to talk to anyone about that.
Besides, Traj would have fifty fucking fits if he knew she was here. He used Strangers too, so thank God she hadn’t turned up as a replacement for one of his encounters, because that would have been awkward.
God, it was awkward now. What the hell was I supposed to do with her?
That’s not the right question. The right question is, why haven’t you walked away?
I could have. I should have. I should have walked out without a word and left her sitting here. She would still have been paid, no harm, no foul.
No tip, though. That was for women who stayed. And, if she’d heard about the tips, then she’d probably heard about the other aspect of my reputation, the part where every woman who spent the night with me got off, and got off hard.
Did she know about that? Had she heard?
Why are you even thinking about that? She’s little Vee. The kid sister you never had. The only person other than Traj who ever just liked you for you and not for what you could do for her.
Yeah, shit, it was true.
Bright little Vee. Who’d hero-worshipped me, who had no idea what had happened to me, because the only person who did was Traj. I’d kept the fire and its aftermath from everyone else, wanting to put the life I’d had behind me for good, never to think of it again.
I was different now. A different man, with a different life, and it was only these nights once a week where I reconnected with my old self.
Not that I wanted to be him again. He’d been an idiot, a fucking fool who’d let other people define who he was, while I didn’t let anyone define me.
I defined myself.
And, right here in this room, I could be whoever the fuck I wanted.
Not if she finds out who you are, you won’t be. You’ll be him again. Her hero...
My jaw ached as I stared at her, the thought winding through my brain.
She’d always been a bright spot in my previous life. Her parents had no time for her, and Traj was too busy trying to make his old man proud, so she’d been forgotten. It hadn’t taken much to make her happy. A smile and a bit of conversation and she’d glowed like a lightbulb being switched on. I’d liked making her glow, because it’d seemed everyone else in my goddamn life required me to do so much more...
Shit, no, I didn’t want to think of that.
I wanted to end this, and quickly, before either of us discovered the truth.
‘I’m still here, because I want you to promise that you won’t pull this stunt with anyone else,’ I said, because it was probably something Vee would do.
She’d always been stubborn that way.
‘What are you, my brother?’ She was derisive. ‘What do you care what I do?’
Since when had she become so snarky and sharp? She’d been a shy, sensitive kid, empathetic too, always wearing her heart on her sleeve. I hadn’t seen a lot of her after I’d got a football scholarship to Stanford, but the times I’d visited with Traj she’d seemed the same as she always was.
Not quite the same. She had a crush on you, remember?
Oh, yeah, I remembered that. Around sixteen, she’d got all shy, blushing furiously whenever I talked to her. I’d found it cute and, because she was so much younger, she’d been like a sister to me.
She’s not a kid now. And you’re definitely not her brother.
I didn’t know where that thought came from and I didn’t want it. But it sat there in my brain, glowing like a neon sign, and I found my gaze dropping to where the star necklace glittered at her throat and her pulse beat fast. Then further down, to the inked stars and petals on her body that disappeared under her dress. The silky fabric had pulled tight over the curve of her right breast, outlining the shape. Small, round and perfect, a hard nipple pressing against the fabric...
Electricity rippled down my spine, my suit pants suddenly feeling a little tight.
Ah, fuck.
I cleared my throat, ignoring the feeling. ‘I care because you’re a young woman who hasn’t thought through the consequence of her actions, and who’s put herself at risk, not to mention her friend’s job.’ I didn’t bother to sugar-coat it. ‘And if you do it again with someone else, someone who doesn’t care either about you or your friend, things might go very differently. So, if I were you, I’d take the money you’ll get for the night and leave.’
Her head cocked slightly, the light from the spotlight above her glossing her black hair and making the blue tips of it glow. The colour was almost an exact match with her silky-looking dress.
‘No,’ she said.
‘What do you mean, no?’
‘You heard me.’ Her pointed chin lifted at a stubborn angle. ‘I’m not leaving.’
I remembered that chin. I remembered that stubbornness too. She had dyslexia, which her father had refused to acknowledge, and she’d subsequently tried to overcome it with the sheer force of her will. She used to sit at her desk in her bedroom upstairs, her jaw set, tears running down her face as she’d painstakingly forced herself to write out a report. It had taken her hours, even with my help, and it used to break my heart. I’d tried on and off to convince her father to get her some help, but he wouldn’t listen to me. Yet she’d never given up. She’d pushed and pushed and pushed.
Seemed as if she was still pushing.
Once, I’d had patience to deal with that, but I didn’t now. That had vanished along with my ability to throw a ball or run or basically do anything that I’d once found so easy.
‘Too fucking bad.’ I wasn’t polite these days and I didn’t bother to hide it. ‘Promise me you won’t pull this stunt again, then get out of here.’
But she didn’t seem at all bothered by my tone and she didn’t move. Her skin was getting all goosebumpy and I couldn’t help noticing that her nipples had tightened beneath the silk of her dress.
Pretty.
No, shit, I didn’t want to think that. I didn’t want that goddamned thought anywhere near my brain, but it was there all the same. Because she was. Not beautiful, but definitely pretty. A different kind of prettiness from all the cheerleaders and other women who used to fall into my bed. One that wasn’t immediately obvious, that took time to uncover. A mysterious sort of beauty, rewarding to whoever discovered it...
Jesus, why the hell was I thinking about whether she was pretty or not? All I should be thinking of was getting rid of her. I’d cut her out of my life for very good reasons and I didn’t want her coming back into it.
Her chin lifted higher. ‘If I don’t go, will you hurt me?’
‘I don’t hurt women,’ I growled, annoyed that she would even think it, before realising that of course she might very well think it. She had no idea who I was.
‘Good to know.’ She tilted her head again, this time at a different angle, as if trying to see through her blindfold. ‘So what are you trying to protect me from, ace? Something kinky?’
‘Kinky is relative. And that’s not a question you get to ask me.’
‘Why not?’
Yeah, she was pushing it. Perhaps she needed to be told explicitly why this was a very bad idea.
‘Do you want to know what I want from the women I hire for the night, little girl?’ I asked, ignoring her question.
Her nose wrinkled, reminding me once again—as if I needed it—of the kid sister I’d once thought of her as. ‘Not sure I like the “little girl” thing. Not sexy, dude.’
‘Then leave.’
She made an irritated sound and very pointedly settled in the chair, smoothing out the blue silk of her dress.
Yeah, all of this would have been fine if she’d just done what she was told.
The past few years fronting the business had made me hard, and people generally responded to that by doing exactly what I told them to do. Rarely did they challenge me.
But I couldn’t deny the way she was pushing back right now, though fucking annoying, was also...erotic. And it was getting me off.
Bad idea.
Oh, it wasn’t just a bad idea—it was a fucking terrible idea.
Me getting hot for Vee wasn’t going to happen.
‘Tell me, then,’ she said after a second. ‘Tell me what you want from the women you hire for a night.’
‘Their complete obedience. Doing everything I say with no argument and no hesitation.’
The blindfold shifted as she frowned. ‘That’s it? Do everything you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘And do they do it?’
‘Yes.’ And they enjoyed every goddamned second of it.
‘Wow.’ Vesta bit her lip and my attention zeroed in on it. She really had a lovely mouth, plush and so soft-looking. How had I never noticed? ‘What do they get out of it, then?’
‘Money. And as many orgasms as I choose to give them. Which you’d know if you’d read my profile.’
She coloured. Which was...interesting. Was this pushy, challenging, stubborn woman she’d grown into embarrassed by the word orgasm?
Clearly she knew she’d given herself away, because she gave a forced-sounding laugh and said with a fair attempt at bravado, ‘Hey, that doesn’t sound bad. In fact, it sounds pretty good to me. So what kinds of things do you get them to do?’
The conversation was obviously making her uncomfortable, yet she was trying to pretend that she wasn’t. Another sign that she shouldn’t be here. Because, if she found an overtly sexual conversation with a stranger discomforting, then she wasn’t going to enjoy the actual sex part, was she?
What? Are you actually considering using her for tonight?
No. Fuck, no. All I wanted to do was put her off.
‘An example, then,’ I said. ‘I might order you to take off your clothes. To face the window. To spread your legs. To put your hands on your pussy and make yourself come.’ I paused, noting the colour that deepened in her cheeks as I spoke. ‘While I watch.’
She was shocked. I could see by the way her mouth opened, then closed very quickly. Strange that, for all her spiky, blue-tipped hair and her tattoos and confronting attitude, she should find this shocking.
Maybe it was because she was still the same little girl inside, shy and awkward, sweet and sensitive.
Which means you shouldn’t be talking to her like that.
Yeah, I probably shouldn’t. Then again, she wasn’t a little girl any more, no matter that I kept calling her one, and if I wanted to frighten her off I needed to be hard-nosed about it.
‘Oh...uh... I see.’ She turned her head towards the window, white teeth working at the plushness of her soft bottom lip. ‘And...um...they do that? When you ask?’
The huskiness in her voice had become pronounced, the way a woman’s did when she was starting to get aroused. And I could see it all of a sudden—her naked in that chair with her thighs spread, still wearing those sandals with the sexy ties wrapped around her slender calves. Her skin would be flushed and her hand would be down between...
Holy shit. Where the hell had that thought come from?
My suit pants had got even tighter, my cock deciding it wanted in on that action, and I had to concentrate hard to shove it aside. The whole point of this was to get her to leave, not to start thinking of what would happen if she stayed.
But ignoring my physical discomfort was something I’d had a lot of practice with the past ten years, and if you could ignore agonising pain then ignoring one inappropriate hard-on was a relatively simple matter.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They do.’
‘And you get off on that?’
‘If you want to stay, you’re going the wrong way about it.’ I tried to make my voice cold. ‘You’re supposed to do what I tell you, not ask me questions.’
‘I could do that, you know,’ she said suddenly. ‘I could take my clothes off and do...what you want.’
Christ, if she couldn’t even say it...
‘If you want the money that badly, I’ll pay you right now.’ I had the cash in my wallet, as the women I hired liked cash, and I had a lot of it. And in fact, now I thought of it, why hadn’t I just done that? If money was why she was doing this, then the simplest way to solve the problem was to pay her. I could afford it. I wasn’t the poor boy from the projects looking to make good, hoping to drag his family out of poverty. Not any more.
I’d buried that boy. He was dead and gone.
I was the selfish billionaire now, with a thriving business and money to burn, and if I wanted to pay Vee a lot of money so she didn’t go offering herself around to any other guy then I would.
Or you could keep her safe by letting her stay.
The thought streaked across my brain like a rocket trailing sparks and lighting up the night, and for a second I couldn’t move, transfixed by it.
Then reality asserted itself. Yeah, that wasn’t happening. No fucking way.
‘What?’ She did that head tilt again. ‘You mean, not just the rate for the night?’
‘No. Tips as well.’ I scowled at her, though she couldn’t see me. ‘In fact, just tell me how much you need for your business and I’ll give it to you.’
She’d gone very still except for a slight quiver, like a little cat sensing a bird. ‘So you’d pay me all of that for...what? Doing nothing?’
‘No,’ I growled. ‘I’m not paying you to do nothing. Firstly, I’m paying you to get the fuck out of this room, and secondly, so you don’t pull this stupid stunt with any other Strangers client. Because no one wants their special evening ruined by some kid turning up out of the blue when they were expecting to have the woman of their choice.’
As soon as the words had left my mouth, I knew I’d said the wrong thing.
I could almost see the outrage swelling in her, because she got more and more still, the quiver becoming pronounced. I’d hit a nerve and, now that I thought about it, of course I’d hit a nerve. She’d basically been rejected all of her life, and now here I was, rejecting her.
Then again, I’d been doing that for years now already, hadn’t I? While part of me regretted and felt guilty about it, the rest of me didn’t. And, as I’d let the soft, compassionate part of me die in a hospital bed years ago, it was the rest of me that was in control. The rest of me that had hardened, that was as unfeeling as the scar tissue that covered most of my torso and upper thighs. The part that had been through the flames—literally—and had come out the other side, stronger, tempered like a fucking sword. That didn’t give a shit about other people and their feelings, and never would.
‘A kid?’ she demanded, outraged. ‘Why would you think that? I’m not a kid. I’m twenty-five.’
‘That’s still—’
‘And what do you mean by expecting to have a woman of their choice? I am a woman. Are you saying there’s something wrong with me?’
She was angry. Good. I wanted her angry. I wanted her enraged enough that she’d get up off that chair and storm out.
But she didn’t.
‘Right,’ she said flatly. ‘That’s it. I’m not leaving. You’re stuck with me now. And I’m going to show you exactly what a ruined evening looks like.’