CHAPTER 12
BLAZE
Harley’s laughter was a song I never wanted to end.
Dinner was a hit and by the time I’d brought out the crème brúlée, made hours ago by our staff, we were both well into the second bottle of wine. Alcohol gets a bad rap sometimes. Tonight, it was like a magical elixir that allowed us to let our guard down and just be ourselves.
Turned out, Harley’s real self was intriguing and seductive and sensual. How she’d managed to stay single and not allow herself to get snatched up by some George Clooney type was beyond me. She was the whole package.
Successful, smart, ambitious — with a beauty so striking I found myself memorizing the details of every feature of her face so I could remember what beauty really was later.
More than any of that, she was genuine and down-to-earth. If she’d not told me, I’d never thought she was a movie star. With her bare feet tucked up under her, perched on the couch and peering over at me with such open curiosity and beaming with happiness, she was everything I loved about women.
Every woman I’d ever known possessed some combination of all these amazing qualities. Each one so different and unique, that I could never get enough, always fluttering from woman to woman, because I wanted to experience it all. I didn’t want to give up the ambition I admired to be with a woman that was nurturing and loving. So, I’d enjoy a little of each, finding what I needed in extraordinary individuals with just a few of those traits and then moving on to others, like a butterfly getting little tastes of nectar from all the different flavors of flowers.
But the thing that slayed me about Harley?
She had it all. She was everything — smart, funny, successful, sexy and nurturing — all wrapped up in one very nice looking bow.
Sitting there with her, for the first time, I wasn’t thinking about what a woman was lacking.
I was in awe that I was witnessing a woman that seemed to possess everything I loved.
How was it possible that I’d found her?
She almost didn’t seem real.
I forced myself to reel in my emotions, my head spinning from the intoxication of my little time with her. I told myself to slow down on the drinking, but it wasn’t the wine that was making me crazy. It was her.
Unfortunately, I had to remember that she’s only my client.
She’d hadn’t paid to come here merely to have a good time.
She’d paid to leave with no further attachments. She didn’t need some guy like me trying to make more of the situation than that.
Listen, I wanted more. I wanted it all. I watched her move around the room, laughing, dancing, her long dark waves shimmering in the light from the fire, and I wanted to get closer than I could by just dancing with her.
But I didn’t take off her clothes.
I didn’t lay her down on the bed and make sweet love to her as she surely deserved to be made love to. I didn’t devour her, lose myself in her, and then find myself all over again, like I knew would come so easily in her arms.
No.
I made her dinner.
I helped her escape.
And then, I danced with her. Holding her close by the fire, her head on my shoulder, the music lulling us into a magical, peaceful evening that flew by with few words spoken, and yet so much communicated.
And yes, then I kissed her. I couldn’t resist.
Because there was no way I was going to let this night end without the tiniest taste of her perfection.
Technically, kissing was against the rules, just as much as sex was. But we’re all adults. We all know it's a grey area. We used the rule with the women we didn’t want to kiss.
Breaking it with the ones we did, well — it was a silent, harmless infraction.
Tonight, it turned out to be a mind-altering, life-changing, unimaginable, tremble-inducing, unforgettable infraction.
That’s why I did it again at the end of the night, when our time was up and we said our goodbyes. I wanted to ask to see her again. I wanted so much more.
But all I could offer was that kiss.
She pulled away too soon, pressing her card in my hand.
“Call me, Blaze. If you want,” she smiled, those violet eyes full of a softness that only comes after a night of joy. I’d done my job.
And just like that, she disappeared, leaving me alone in the cabana with an aching, hungry yearning the likes of which I’d never felt before. I inhaled her perfume, still lingering in the air in her absence, memorizing the sweet scent of her, then walked over to the club with a heavy heart.
“You look like you just lost your best friend,” Fox said.
“I think I just might have,” I murmured, wandering towards the dressing room.
“Hey, have you seen Daine?” he asked.
“Nope,” I muttered, turning back. “Hey, how’d the new kid do? Finn?”
“Pretty green, man, to tell you the truth. But the customers didn’t seem to care. I hope you checked his ID.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, nodding and walking down the hall, lost in my thoughts.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out, pausing when I saw it was Tonya, a girl I’d met last week and promptly spent the night. She’d sent me a text.
‘I’m lonely. Come over?’
Attached was a picture of her very shapely boobs, pressed together with her arm, her pink nipples protruding suggestively towards the camera. Before tonight, I’d have replied with a smiley face, left her guessing, then showed up at her door with a pocket full of condoms and a hard dick. Instead, I turned off the phone and slipped into my pocket.
I reached up, touching my smiling lips, the feel of Harley’s kiss still lingering.