“Gabriel.”
“Yeah?”
“Lost you for a minute there, bro.”
I clear my throat. “I’m here.”
“So this escort service features girls… of a particular nature.”
“Will you stop being so goddamn secretive?”
That only makes him chuckle.
I grit my teeth. “Spit it out.”
The light turns green, and I gun it. I watch the needle on the dash go higher and higher, adrenaline courses through me.
“They’re kinky,” he says on a laugh.
My dick gets hard and my mouth goes dry.
“Yeah?” Is it my imagination, or is my voice lower and huskier, like I’m starring in a goddamn porn flick?
He chuckles again. “Yeah.”
“Does that mean… is she…?”
“Far as my records show, she’s never taken a client.”
I’ll be damned if her first client is any man other than me. “Can you see if she’ll make an exception? Maybe if the compensation was particularly generous?”
“For you? I’ll make it happen. I haven’t seen you this excited about a girl—well, ever.”
“Just make the call.”
“Okay, bro. Hold the line.”
I take the left that takes me to Vegas, Baby. Dusk falls over the city, but the lights don’t dim. This is, after all, the city that never sleeps.
I pull into my designated parking space, in the private section reserved for suite and penthouse residents.
She never takes a client?
Shane’s back. “I’ve got someone working on it. Stay on with me and I should be hearing something via text in a second.”
“So she makes her money by taking a cut or something?”
“Yes, but from what I can tell, what she does cut is barely enough to get by.”
That’s terrible business ownership. I frown at the road ahead of me, as if she could sense my disapproval from here.
Shane lets out a whoop. “Just got a text.”
“And?”
“And you’re booked. I had a little word with Sam, Miranda’s secretary, and she’s going to make it happen.”
“How much?”
“Five grand—a donation for a new HVAC unit for their office.”
Done. Pocket change. I would have paid three times that amount to be sure I’m her first client.
“Meet her in the lobby of Vegas, Baby at seven o’clock tomorrow night.”
My pulse races. This is what I want, what I’ve wanted for months now.
Not necessarily on these terms, but… well, I’ll take it.
“I’ll be there.”
He chuckles. “Of course you will. And I’m sure you’ll have an interesting evening.”
I disconnect the phone and scowl at the screen. Sometimes he drives me crazy and I want to wipe that smug look right off his face. Other times…
I shake my head and make my way inside. I go down the private hallway that takes me straight to my suite, away from prying eyes and inquiring minds.
An hour later, my phone rings. A caller from an unknown number. I pick it up.
“Hello?
“Mr. Lord?”
“Speaking.”
“It’s nurse Mary from the hospital.”
“Hello, Mary.”
“Sir, I called to tell you that unfortunately, the woman you asked for tabs on checked herself out of the hospital.”
“She what?”
I can almost hear her wince.
“I tried to get her to stay another hour, sir, but it was no use. She insisted she was fine, and we can’t legally keep an adult like her. In fact, even the call to you is just a courtesy call, and I shouldn’t be violating hospital policy to do so.”
“Thank you for letting me know.” I’m pissed she left before the doctor cleared her. And I’m thrilled I’ll be personally able to lay eyes on her tomorrow night and see for myself that she recovered.
My phone rings again. Damn if this phone won’t stop blowing up. This time, it’s my agent.
“Gabriel! I did it! Got a shoot in Paris next week. You leave in a few days—
“Cancel it.”
“Cancel it?”
“That’s what I said.”
“But you’ve been waiting for this for months! You wanted to mix it up, to take a job back home.”
“Some other time.”
“But there might not be another time!”
I think about the plans I have tomorrow evening with a certain pretty woman and smile softly to myself. There may not be another time for this, either. And if things go well tomorrow, I won’t want to leave the country so soon.
“Thanks for your work, I’ve got to go.”
I feel lighter than I have in… hell, years. When I get a hunch about something, I need to follow that hunch, and this time, I know my instincts are primed, that they’re ready. This is the woman for me.
But you don’t know her.
I shove aside the nagging voice in the back of my head and stalk down the hallway to my apartment.
She’ll freak out when she realizes you’ve been watching her.
It’s a healthy obsession, though. Nothing more.
Right?
God.
I walk around the suite, tension tight in my shoulders, anticipation about tomorrow making electric pulses course through me. I walk into the master bedroom.
Sugar Daddies Escort. Is that… what I think it is?
If a daddy is what she needs, a daddy is what she’ll get. Someone needs to make sure that girl starts taking care of herself. That someone is me.
I have just enough time to get some… tools for tomorrow. I swallow hard, when the sudden vision of her on her knees before me, my rope lashed about her body and her eyes shining with arousal as I’ve brought her to the edge of climax again, and again…
I glance at the clock. Think about what I’d like to do with her.
Less than twenty-four hours to go. I’ll be ready.
Chapter Four
Miranda
At what point do you explain to your client that you’ve never done a bit of this Daddy stuff? That though you’ve done the research, read the books on your kindle, fantasized about being chastised and smacked on the ass, you would never, ever give a man that much control in real life?
I guess you don’t.
I try to focus on the dollar signs and push my even deeper, darker fear away.
Because at some point… somewhere along the way… you do have to tell him that this is your first time being an escort.
First time doing daddy stuff.
And your… first time.
I’m sitting on my bed. It’s six o’clock. I have exactly one hour to be ready and have my ass down the street to the hotel.
I bury my face in my hands.
There’s no way. No way in hell that I’m going to be able to pull this off.
I have to cancel. Yes, it will put a black mark on our business, earn us some negative feedback, but it has to be done.
Because I’m twenty-nine years old. The owner of an Escort service. And I’m a fucking virgin.
Sure, I’ve done all the other stuff. Reached all the bases. Just never made it to home-base.
I grab my phone out from my purse. Pull up my ongoing thread with Sam. I type: