2
I lean against the counter of the coffee shop, barely propping myself upright. My fourth customer of the day places her order, glaring down her nose at me when I need to ask her to repeat which kind of artificial sweetener she’d like in her latte. I scribble it onto the cup, pass that down the line to Diana, and stifle a yawn as I accept the customer’s cash.
Fucking hell. I can’t keep burning the candle at both ends. It was bad enough that I didn’t make it home from the motel until nearly 2 in the morning, but then it was impossible to sleep, remembering Giovanni’s dark gaze and his sculpted body, his hot hands on my skin.
I masturbated twice just remembering the way he commanded me, but it wasn’t the same. It was just the usual quick stinging orgasm, not a full-body, all-encompassing one like he gave me.
I need to see him again. I need that feeling back. And, more than that, I need him to fuck me. Hard.
A sharp elbow juts into my side, and I startle, jumping away from the counter. But it’s just Diana, smirking at me. “What’s got you so deep in thought, huh?”
Diana is my best friend–my only saving grace right now. Not only did she find me this part-time coffee shop gig just two days after I got fired, but she also offered her couch to me, letting me crash with her while I sublet the room in my old apartment, the one I could no longer afford.
My stomach clenches at the memory of that day. The day I fucked up everything. The day I ruined my own life and everyone’s around me.
“Nothing,” I tell her. It’s not exactly my most convincing lie.
Diana rolls her eyes. “You’re the worst liar on the planet, you know. Are you daydreaming about whatever sexy hunk of a man you were out all night with?” She wiggles her eyebrows, smirking, and I feel a sudden rush of heat flood my face.
Shit.
I don’t want to explain this to her–there’s no way I’m going to go into the whole story. Diana might be my bestie, but there are some secrets even besties don’t share. Like the desperate depths to which they’ll sink when they owe their stepfather an insane amount of money.
“I wasn’t with a guy,” I protest, but she’s already cackling.
“See! Worst liar ever. How hot is he? Do you have a photo? What does he do for a living?”
Extremely; no, because I met him through an escort site; and actually, no idea, we just fucked for an hour.I shake my head and push her away. The shop door tinkles with the arrival of another customer, thank god, and I speed to the register to take his order.
In the background, Diana twirls a coffee stirrer and eyes me suspiciously. “Fine, don’t spill about your secret boyfriend, then. I’ll just have to beat the truth out of you later,” she warns with a laughing smirk.
Even that makes me blush, because while I know she’s joking, beating the truth out of me reminds me of Giovanni’s hands on my body, coaxing my real name from me, fingering me until I told him anything and everything he wanted to know.
Fuck. Everything reminds me of him.
I am so screwed.
* * *
After an exhausting, agonizing nine-hour shift, which started at an ungodly hour this morning, I dump out the till and start to count the cash. The tip jar is lower than ever today, as if my customers were able to see right through me somehow. Don’t tip her; she’s making plenty of money selling her body already.
I wonder if it’s branded on me somehow, invisibly, yet detectable to all the goodie-two-shoes coming into this shop.
$5.22 in tips. For a full shift.
I grimace and slide it into my pocket. At this point, every penny counts, I guess. But all I can think about is how much more money I’d be making at my other job. Not to mention how much more fun…
My mind strays, as it’s been doing all damn day, straight back to Giovanni. I’m daydreaming about his abs, running my hands over them, unbuckling his belt, dropping to my knees to finally taste him, when the bell above the shop door tinkles again.
“We’re closed,” I call out, still counting the register.
“I know,” comes the reply, and that’s when I look up, startled, disbelieving.
Impossible.
Yet there he stands, in the doorway of the coffee shop, looking every inch as tanned, muscular and sexy as ever, arms crossed as he watches me, smirking. For a second, I blink just to make sure I’m not daydreaming. After all, I’m pretty exhausted, and I was just thinking about him. Now here he is, as if he stepped straight from my imagination.
There’s a crash and a clatter as Diana stomps out of the back room with a stack full of trays. She glances past me at him, not noticing the look we’re exchanging, thank god. “Sorry, we just closed,” she’s saying, but I break in.
“I can make a coffee real quick, if you don’t want anything fancy.” I’m not sure why I say it. Just to keep him around, I guess. Or to figure out what the hell he’s doing here; how he found me.
“I don’t do fancy,” he replies, smirking slightly. “Black is fine.”
Now Diana seems to notice something, glancing back and forth between us, but I avoid her gaze and slip around her to pour the coffee from a carafe.
“What’s your name?” he asks, when I return to the register and pass him the cup.
I narrow my eyes in a warning glare as I hand him the coffee. “Corbella.”
“Corbella. Beautiful name. Kind of unusual, too. Does it have a meaning?”
“Did you stop for a coffee or just to flirt?” I ask.
There’s a deafening crash as Diana drops one of the blenders she’s cleaning into the sink. Probably in shock because I’m never this forward.
But Giovanni is grinning at me, and I can’t think about anything else. Like normalcy. Or sane responses to your escort client showing up at your day job after probably stalking you.
“I just wanted a coffee,” he replies. Then he steps closer to the counter, lowers his voice so that Diana won’t be able to hear him over the running water in the sink. “But now I want so much more,” he whispers.
I glance past him, at Diana. She’s watching us out of the corner of her eye, trying to pretend she’s not. Yet I can tell she’s curious about this handsome, sexy stranger in our closed coffee shop. She’s probably wondering why I’m not telling him to go stuff himself like I usually do when guys hit on me at work.
“I can’t,” I whisper. “Not like this. Not now.”
His gaze drops to my chest, heaving beneath my tight work shirt. When his eyes flash back to mine, there’s a hunger in them so physical that I swear I can feel it. “Fifteen minutes. Parking lot across the street. I need to have you.” With that, he slaps a bill on the counter and scoops up his coffee, sweeping out of the shop before I can muster a response.
And before I can gape at the money he left behind. A Franklin. Right. Like that’s inconspicuous.
I stand there gaping after him for long enough that Diana steps up beside me, a concerned look on her face.
“Creeper?” she asks, tilting her head worriedly. “I can go slash his tires if you want.”
I laugh, then shake my head, snapping myself out of it, sliding the $100 bill off the counter and cupping it in my palm, hiding it from her. “Nah. Not creepy. Just too damn hot.”
She smirks. “I’ll say. Did you get his number?”
I laugh again, louder. “Sadly, no.” I haven’t, actually. The only communication we have is through the website we met on. I don’t even know his last name, and he doesn’t know mine.
But he had a point about my first name. We live in a relatively small town–it probably wasn’t hard to find the Facebook profile of the only Corbella who lives here, and then look at her employment section to see where she worked.
Maybe I should try searching Giovanni sometime…
“Here,” I add, passing Diana the tip jar. Inside is $2.61 in change, along with the $100 bill Giovanni just left me. By the time she notices the latter, I’ll be out of here. Hopefully she’ll just chalk it up to some random person having way too big a heart today, like in those feel-good Facebook posts. “Your share of our tips for the day. God bless our generous clientele.”
She rolls her eyes and accepts the tip jar without looking inside. “Cheap bastards. You’d think none of them ever had to work for a living or something.”
I should be annoyed by Giovanni. Maybe even a little unnerved. He came here looking for me, after all. Which means he looked into where I work, and tried on purpose to find me. What does that mean?
He’s been thinking about me, too.
And however insane or idiotic it might be to get turned on by that idea–especially when it comes to a client, someone I’m supposed to be keeping a business relationship with–I can’t help it. I love that he couldn’t get me out of his head either. So much so that he needed to come and see me again, way sooner than we’d planned.
This is crazy. Part of me knows that. It’s not how clients and escorts should act. But nothing about the orgasms he gave me last night was normal either. And the growing ache between my legs is in control now, not my brain.
The lines are blurring so fast with Giovanni…
“Earth to Corbella,” Diana is saying. I zone back in to find her watching me, eyebrow cocked, one hand on her hip.
“Huh?”
“I said, we’re done. Do you want to head out? I’ll finish the last dishes.” She’s grinning, a little sly and teasing. “You look like you’ve got somewhere you want to be.”
My face flushes again. Parking lot. Fifteen minutes. “I can stay,” I protest, not wanting to give myself away.
But Diana has known me way too long to fall for that. She rolls her eyes. “Go on. Go enjoy your date with your new mystery boyfriend.”
I groan. “There’s no mystery boyfriend!” But I pick up my bag anyway, shrugging it onto my shoulder. Because if she’s giving me this out, then I’ll definitely take it.
“Whatever. Have fun!” She throws me a wink and a wave, then heads into the back to finish the last closing tasks. I linger in the doorway for a moment, feeling vaguely guilty–after everything Diana has done for me, should I really let her take on all the closing work alone?
But my raging libido gets the better of me. I mentally promise to pick up an extra shift for her next week, and head out of the café. I don’t walk directly across the street, just in case someone’s watching. I zig-zag across the road, my eyes locked on the parking lot the whole while. There are only a few cars but Giovanni’s is easy to pick out. It’s bright red, a Ferrari I realize when I walk a little closer, and it’s every inch as sexy as him.
I could turn around. I could go home now. I don’t need to see him today–I don’t need to see him ever again if I don’t want to. His $3,000 payment showed up in my bank account first thing this morning, just like he promised, payment to keep me for himself, to reserve me from any other clients. But he can’t actually stop me from seeing anyone else. He can’t make me meet him now, either. We didn’t agree on it; there’s nothing he could do if I just walked away.
But I don’t want to do that.
I open the passenger side door and slide in next to him. The moment his dark eyes latch onto mine, a little curl of tension in my stomach unfurls, like getting a knot in your back kneaded out during a good massage. All nervousness floods out of me, replaced instead by pure lust. The car smells amazing, a combination of leather seats and his pine-scented cologne, and him underneath it all, the scent I can’t get out of my memory, ever since last night when I felt wrapped in it.
I want him.
Neither of us move for a second, both watching one another, waiting, appraising. And then something clicks in my brain.
Fuck it.
I lean across the gearshift and kiss him. Soft, tentative. Just enough to feel his lips meld to mine, his stubble brush my cheek, his hot breath skittering over my skin as he lets out a faint surprised huff.
Then I pull away, lean back in my seat, and catch his gaze once more. His eyebrows have drawn together across his forehead, confused, though not offended. More just surprised. As if he’s thinking the same thing that I am right now.
What have I just gotten myself into?