“He fucked you?”
“Well . . . yes.”
Lucian titled his head. “What’s the ‘well’ about? He either fucked you or he didn’t. It’s a yes-or-no question.”
“Um, first we talked for a while. His time eventually ran out, but he put more money on the table and asked me to stay until morning.”
“And did you?”
“Yes.”
“What did you talk about?”
“He was, um . . . inexperienced I guess you could say.” Lucian chuckled and she paled. “Are you going to turn me in?”
“No. My issue is with him, not you. Tell me more.”
She licked her lips and sat back. “Well, he said he didn’t have a lot of experience and he wanted to know how to . . . please a woman.”
“He was a virgin?”
“Not exactly. He wanted to learn how to . . . make love. He said his experience was only with, well, quickies, I guess.”
Lucian growled. “Go on.”
“We started with kissing and he asked a lot of questions, what I liked, what I didn’t like. Then we moved on to other things. He was very insistent that I not, um, you know . . . fake it.”
“I bet he was,” Lucian mumbled, shaking his head. “Continue.”
“Well, we slept together that night, and then he asked me to come back every two weeks. He said he would hire me more if I kept our arrangement between us and left the agency out of it. I’m not supposed to do that, but I sort of, um, liked him.” She shrugged, a gesture Lucian imagined some men found cute.
“So he could pay you less, no doubt.”
“Well, yeah, but that wasn’t what it was about. At the agency’s rate he would only be able to afford to see me every few weeks. If I cut them out, I took home everything I got. So, since he was nice, I . . .” she suddenly looked upset. A tear fell from her eye and she batted it away. “I came to see him every week, sometimes twice a week.”
Lucian watched her critically through narrow eyes. Then it dawned. “You liked him.”
“I’m a call girl. Emotion doesn’t play into it.”
“But it did for you, didn’t it, Sherry?”
She sniffled and wiped her eyes again. Her frustration with her emotions was evident in the way she kept readjusting her posture, searching for ways to hide her upset. Giving up, she confessed, “He was just so nice. He made me feel special. It wasn’t just about the fuck for him. It was about the touch, the kisses, the looks. Clients don’t usually look at me the way he did. I swore he was falling for me, but then . . . then he sent me here and I don’t understand why. I assumed you were friends.”
“Certainly not friends.” He sat back and crossed his ankles. “He was learning how to seduce a woman and practicing on you.”
The statement stung her, he saw. She shrugged, pretending indifference and failing at it. “I guess.”
“Will you go back to him?”
She didn’t answer for a long time. Quietly she whispered. “I think I’m in love with him.”
This woman was sent to fuck him, physically and metaphorically, yet he pitied her. She was caught up in a game she didn’t understand. Parker used her to up his game when it came time to seduce Evelyn. All other thoughts got interrupted by the king of all thoughts. “Was he a good lover?”
She met his gaze. “He wasn’t when I met him. I was the first person he ever . . . took his time with. Once he learned how to savor it, it became incredible, for both of us. He was the first person I ever made love with, so yes, I think he’s a good lover.”
He drew in a slow breath that shook inside his ribs. “Did he bring you to orgasm often?”
She blushed. “Every time.”
His back teeth clenched. “What did he expect to gain from you coming here?”
“I don’t know. He told me not to call him. Said he would call me. He said he wanted me to remember everything we did, every way you touched me, how you looked at me, then he said he would invite me over one day and I was supposed to report on what we did when he asked, no matter who was present, but I wasn’t to admit that I’d been paid.”
“Son of a bitch,” he hissed. That shit wanted it to get back to Evelyn that he’d been unfaithful during their time apart. Fuck that. He needed to think. Here was a woman under the misconception that she loved Parker, yet she knew nothing about him. He’d used her to get closer to another woman.
“I want to tell you something, Sherry. You’ve been honest with me and I want to be honest with you. Parker Hughes is not in love with you.”