While my date used my shower to wash up after our amusements, I cleaned up the dishes we had eaten off of and put them back on the room service tray. This one had been exceptionally generous, buying dinner and drinks—not that I drank alcohol while working, that was a dangerous precedent to set—but the strawberries and chocolate we’d indulged ourselves with had been greatly appreciated. Even if I did now feel a little fat and bloated.

I glanced at the clock, but there was still time before my next booking. Although if this one took much longer getting out, I’d have to find some way to move him along. I still needed to shower, the room needed to be refreshed, the sheets changed, and the pheromone emitter in the air exchange needed to be refilled. I’d had to set it higher today to get myself to the appropriate level of desperate neediness that was the hallmark of sleeping with a shifter in heat.

Which I supposed meant that I had, at most, another day of this extra earning before I was back to my regular price structure and normal schedule.

Ah, well. It had been good while it lasted.

Finally, my client walked out of the bathroom, freshly washed. I waited for him by the door to the room with a smile on my face and my hands hidden behind my back, as if I had to keep myself from reaching for him. Yeah, definitely replacing the cartridge in the emitter before the next one.

“Come back again sometime soon,” I told him in a breathy voice.

“Next time I’m in town,” he promised, but I could tell he was itching to get going, now that his itch had been scratched. That was okay by me, but it wasn’t professional to let the clients know that. I let him out the door and hit the appropriate buttons on the room’s maintenance panel to call floor staff before I’d even closed it again.

While I waited, I ran quickly into the shower and scrubbed as if my life depended on it. Through the sound of the water, I heard someone knock, then Barnaby’s distinctive low whistle as he poked his head in the door to make sure it was safe to come in.

By the time I’d made it out of the shower, he’d already stripped the sheets and gathered up the used towels to pile them next to the door, then dragged a chair over underneath the air intake and climbed up on it to pull the grate off so he could dig the canister of alpha pheromones out of the dispenser.

“Thanks, Barn. I’ve been working it pretty hard.”

“Sure. Figured you’d be getting close to empty. Last time that one was refilled was almost a week ago.” He reset the grate and climbed down from the chair. “You got many more tonight?”

I shook my head. “Next one’s the last one until tomorrow morning, but he’s booked for four hours, so you’re catching a break here.”

“You’re not,” he joked.

“All part of the job.” I handed him the towels I’d used and helped myself to a bottle of water from his cart. “It’s been a good week.” I made myself drink the entire bottle while I dressed again and chucked the empty in the bin on Barnaby’s cart just as he finished cleaning the bathroom.

“Okay, you’re ready to go,” he told me as he stuffed the used linens in the bottom of his cart and started shoving it and the one from room service out the door. “Good earnings to you,” were his last words to me, and then he was gone.

I checked my hair in the mirror, straightened my clothing and took a deep breath before opening the door myself to head down the hallway to the upstairs lounge, where my next booking should be waiting for me.