1

 

Lost in Loveless

Demi

 

Three and a half years later…

 

 

“Can I help you?” He’s dripping wet, straight from the shower with a towel draped low on his waist, and I gasp because he has the face of a god, the body of a demon, and the eyes of the bluest sky. He’s built like a linebacker, and he’s way too young to ever fit into the stereotypical johns I’m forever hearing Eva complain about.

His lips twitch. His eyes give an amused smile as if confirming the fact he knows exactly how wickedly gorgeous he is. My body ignites like a flare. My neck heats, brightening with color the way it does when I’m having a visceral response.

“The door was unlocked, so I let myself in.” My voice wobbles, and I cringe. My fingers shake as I clutch at the oversized feather duster in my hand. I’m not used to feeling out of control. I’m usually abhorrent to anything that makes me feel that way, but something in me refuses to hate him over something so petty.

I snatch the edge of my skirt and give a little curtsey in the ridiculous French maid costume I’ve donned. It isn’t the cheap kind that reeks of polyester and Halloween. It’s the real deal with a corset that shows off my assets, a thick, layered tulle skirt that stands erect like cardboard just past my hips. If anything, this getup makes its naughty intentions crystal clear. Reeva, my so-called boss, provides nothing but the best—her clients expect nothing less.

My legs shake so hard I lean against the bedframe in an effort to anchor myself from jittering across the room. It’s not every day my nerves are shot to hell. Then again it’s not every day I’m turning tricks for a dollar.

He gives a wry smile. My insides pinch at how alarmingly attractive he is. I’m not one to chase after gorgeous men. I’m more the get drunk, fuck ‘em, and leave ‘em type before I ever really get a good idea of what they look like. How they look is never all that important. It’s the end game that counts—the part where they make me feel alive if just for a second. But that was before, when I was still giving it away for free. This is different. Tonight I cross a line that I can never recover from.

“It’s pretty bad out there. I’m glad you’re inside.” His cut features make it hard to look away. Something about those hypnotic, glowing eyes magnetize me, and I’m sure every other woman, to him. “But you don’t look too prepared for what’s being billed as the snowstorm of the century.” He leans in, inspecting me from head to toe and his sizzling gaze feels as if it’s tearing a fire line up my body. He’s not the type of man I’m usually paired with, but then, this is the first time I’m advancing to a bodily exchange for cash. Up until today, Reeva kept me as a “casual” which entailed little more than putting on a nice dress and showing up for charity functions with wealthy perverts. It wasn’t big bucks, but it was enough to keep a roof over my head at Reeva’s house of depravity, at least it was up until now. She made it clear there was no more room at the inn for casual girls. If I wanted to maintain a toasty home for the winter, I needed to pull my weight, and somewhere between my desperation and her smooth talk, I agreed to sell my body and soul to the devil herself.

“Look”—he nods past me, and his jaw tightens making him that much more alarmingly attractive—“I’ve got a pair of jeans and a T-shirt lying on the bed. If you want to toss them over, I’d more than appreciate it.”

I eye them as if they were snakes. What the hell does he want his clothes for?

I spot my bag lying right over them, wrinkling them into oblivion. They’re probably expensive couture jeans that, if sold on eBay, could feed an entire starving village in some third world country. If that’s the case I’ve just demoted Hot Towel Guy to douchebag. Personally, I’m allergic to wealthy assholes even though my own father had enough billions to stack to the moon. My father was a saint—too bad he didn’t raise one.

My fingers shake as I get straight to the task of folding them but note they’re just Levis, dirty at that. His T-shirt reads, Jackson Lumber, We hack it and stack it.

“You don’t need to do that.” He steps forward, and, instinctually, I pull my shoulders back. My stomach quivers until it feels as if I’m going to be sick. Truthfully, if he weren’t half as handsome, if he didn’t have that gentle look in his eyes, if this were some fifty-year-old sleazebag waiting to ravage me with his greasy intent, I would have vomited minutes ago. The worse thing I ever did was agree to advance my standing in Reeva’s twisted harem. I should have said no. I should have happily frozen to death in my Honda rather than die of some self-imposed STD. Although Reeva swears up and down her clients are clean, yet somehow I’m still disbelieving. God knows anything that comes from Reeva’s mouth is far from gospel. Not that this one looks disease-riddled. In fact, he looks anything but.

“Did Ace put you up to this?” He picks up his shirt and slips it on. The fabric catches on his serrated muscles, and he kneads it down with his hands. His voice is smooth and mellow as a butter cream sky. I could fall asleep just from the sound. It reminds me of my father’s, and my heart warms at the idea. My dad didn’t have a care in the world. But that was back when we had each other, and now, all he has is a casket, and I have a hole in my heart the size of my daddy.

“Is Ace coming, too?” It wouldn’t surprise me too much if this turns into some frat house spectacle. God, I’m going to kill Eva for saying hello to me in that greasy diner all those years ago—but something about her charmed me, and she’s been my best friend ever since.

“Somehow I doubt that.” He shakes his head with a laugh buried in his chest. “Ace likes to pull one over on me every now and again. And I’m long overdue, so I’m not too surprised. I’m just sorry you got dragged into this.”

Perfect. This is nothing more than a prank, and I’m the butt of the joke. Figures. A guy like this probably has them lined up around the block. The only thing he ever has to pay for is dinner.

“I don’t know anything about Ace. All I know is Reeva said this was the place to be.”

He arches his brow while taking back his jeans, and my insides tighten because he’s so gorgeous that I’m about to beg him to have me regardless. Those abs, those pecs, those full lips—my mouth is already demanding a taste. I don’t see why not. Reeva always takes payment from the clients upfront, so someone out there might as well get their money’s worth.

What am I saying? I should grab my things and run like hell. I’m about to demote myself from part time slut to fulltime prostitute. I bet my father is looking down and thanking God he’s cold in a grave so he doesn’t have to hear of this. But, then again, his death is the reason I’m here to begin with.

I glance out the window as the snow continues to pile up on the road like bolts of cotton batting. Chains or no chains, there’s no way my twenty-three-year-old Honda Civic will ever make it down that hill. I’ll probably have to sleep in the car tonight. Looks like the universe hasn’t taken freezing to death off the table just yet.

“I don’t know what the hell Ace is thinking.” He makes his way into the bathroom and leaves the door open. I try not to look, but as soon as I hear the soft thud of his towel hit the floor, I peer over and catch him jumping into his jeans, pulling them up over his perfect bare ass, and my adrenaline skyrockets because I’m fairly certain I’ve just seen far more than he was willing to show.

I glance around at the tiny cabin. It’s smaller than a thumbtack. Reeva said it was a boathouse, so I fully expected a stack of canoes or at least a rusted out aluminum vessel. For the entire drive up the mountain, I envisioned myself being paddled with the fat end of an oar. I’m not jaded. I don’t expect any one of Reeva’s triple X clients to make love to me, which would be a joke to begin with because true love is for fairytales, and, for damn sure, I don’t live in one of those. Hooker, prostitute, call it what you want—at the end of the day I’m shaping up to be quite the whore. My stepbrother, Josh, was right, he nailed it just like he nailed me for the hell of it. Our parents married when we were teenagers, and as much as I protested the idea of him sneaking into my bed, in a sick way, I wanted it. Josh had every girl in a fifty-mile radius panting. I thought it was a dream, the quarterback from school, with his dark hair and deep dimples—interested in me, of all people. He quickly made it a habit to slip into my room at night, and one disaster led to designer boots—to purses that cost more than my entire wardrobe, to scarves imported from Paris, and I thought that’s what love was. That it could be bought and sold as a commodity. I took his gifts because I thought I was his girlfriend, but he set me straight pretty quick. I was stupid then, just like I’m being now.

The Towel God emerges with his caramel hair combed neatly back, his skin still ruddy from the shower and motions for me to have a seat on the bed while he pulls out a chair for himself at the tiny table, hardly big enough for two.

I’m his for the night if he wants me, but something tells me he won’t. This is just one of those cruel tricks life plays. I can practically hear Josh laughing. See what you can’t have, Demi? You can never have a man like this. It’s nothing but a joke to think he’d ever want you in his bed.

I take a seat on the edge of the mattress, slightly pissed because now all I want to do is run into the blizzard that’s reeking havoc outside the door.

“What’s your name?” His voice is tender. His features soften as if he’s sorry for me, and it only seems to enrage me. I like the rage, the way it warms me from the inside. Oddly, it’s been the rage in my life that feels most stable since I lost my father.

“De—” Crap. I almost broke Reeva’s number one rule, no real names. But something in me doesn’t want to lie to him. Instead, I want to fall to my knees and sob out my entire life story and hope he’ll somehow make things better—bring my father back from the dead and reverse the nightmare that caused my world to unravel. I smirk at the idea of myself as a damsel in distress. The thought disgusts me. I hate how weak he’s rendered me without even trying. I gave up on people and relationships right after I left Winter Haven for good. The world is full of people like Nora and Josh, and I, for sure, want nothing to do with them. Except for Eva—for whatever reason I gave her a pass. “It’s Emmy,” I say with a renewed confidence. “My name is Emmy.”

“Gavin.” He leans forward and offers his hand. His fingers are thick and rough as if they’ve seen more of Mother Earth than they have the monetary exchange. His hand clasps mine, strong and tight—powerful, the way I imagine it feels closing your fingers over an exposed electrical wire. I couldn’t let go if I wanted.

“Did you say, Gavin?” Something in me rattles. “You mean Warren?”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s Gavin.”

Shit. I pull the feather duster to my chest in an effort to hide my overexposed cleavage.

“Sorry, I must have gotten lost.” God, it all makes sense now. “I was supposed to meet someone else.” I jump to my feet and riffle for my keys.

“Warren McCarthy?”

“Yes.” My body jolts as if I were mildly electrocuted. Crap. Rule number two: Never tell anyone your client’s name. But then I was never big on rules. “Is this his boathouse?”

His features harden. The warm smile he held a minute ago dims. “It’s the next one over.” He runs those clear summer sky eyes over my body, up and down, judging me as if the pieces had come together, and now he understands that I wasn’t impersonating some wayward hussy. I was the real deal.

“I guess I’d better get going.” I cinch my bag in one hand, my feathered friend in the other. “And to think, I almost dusted the wrong chandelier.” He doesn’t laugh at my lame attempt to add levity to the situation. I stride past him as if I were in a hurry, but it takes every ounce of willpower for me to open that door. The hard bite of winter blasts its way in and licks me in places that winter and its icy tongue should never venture.

Gavin springs up between me and the barbaric weather conditions, effectively blocking the wind from having its way with me.

He glances down at the feather duster in my hand. “You won’t find a chandelier next door, Emmy,” he says it far more somber than it ever is sarcastic. His eyes plead with mine in a strange way that I’ve never seen before, as if I’ve intentionally hurt him, as if he’s hurting for me as much as it is I’m hurting on the inside. “But something tells me you’re not going to get a lot of cleaning done.”

And there it is—his judgment falling over me like an anvil.

The last thing my stepmother said to me the morning I left was you’re the worst of all sinners, a whore who seduces innocent young men and leads them astray. That red painted mouth of yours is nothing but an open grave. You look cheap, Demi. Those didn’t even make the shortlist of hurtful things my stepmother has told me over the years but that last one stuck out. What I really heard was you’re cheap, Demi. And I used it as a battle cry the last three years to justify all of my piss-poor decisions. Desperation only gets you so far. You need a catalyst to ride before you demote yourself to becoming something less than human, and, for me, that came on the coattails of years of listening to Josh and my stepmother, Nora. After all, I was the reason my father was no longer living. I think I died right along with him in that car—at least I wish I did.

Gavin pumps a dry smile and steps over to the tiny kitchenette before returning with a sponge and dishtowel.

“You might need this.” He bears into me with those intense mournful eyes because, for whatever reason, he’s decided to play along. “I have a broom you could borrow. It could double as a weapon.” His brow arches, slightly amused, but there’s a layer of sadness just beneath. “Knowing Warren, you’ll need it.”

A car barrels down the street, and I step onto the frozen porch to see a gleaming, black Mercedes take the turn before it disappears just past the evergreens and out of sight for good.

“Warren Senior?” Gavin steps in behind me, and the heat radiates from his body, warming me. The scent of fresh soap and spice emanates from him, and it takes all of my willpower not to lean in.

“If he’s older than fifty, he meets the profile.” I touch my hand to my forehead and cringe at the things Reeva is going to do when she finds out I screwed this one up. She made it a point to let me know she pawned me off as a virgin—that he paid twice as much as he did the last time he used the service. And now I’ve put a dent in her reputation. The last girl that dinged her questionable social standing was Lenora Woods. She went out on a call one night, and we never saw her again. I asked Reeva about her, but she simply shrugged and said girls take off all the time. It was the furthest thing from the truth, and we both knew it, but I played along, and now here I am on the verge of some black hole that Reeva arranges for girls to get sucked into. These were dangerous people, and this was a dangerous game.

A spurt of desperation bursts from me. “I have to get in touch with him.” I turn and land my arms over his chest, stealing the warmth from his body. “Can you tell me where he went?” My voice quivers, my body shakes, and it has nothing to do with the fact I’m subjecting myself to subzero temperatures in this ridiculous state of undress.

“Whoa.” He gently pulls the curtain of hair from my eyes and hitches it behind my ear. Something about that tender act endears me to him even more than before. “There’s a big Christmas party tonight, sort of a community-wide event. He’ll be there.” His cheek rises, but Gavin is slow with his sad smile. “I’ll take you under one condition.”

“Anything.”

“You’ll be my date.”