Kissed (9 page)

“What happens when David finds out about us?”

I didn’t answer right away; I was still too hung up on the
just like you
statement. When her question finally registered, I shook my head to clear it. “I haven’t told him.”

“Come on, Keegan. You pretended to be him to set up a date with me…twice. And God only knows what your true intent was in doing so. He unknowingly paid for you to sleep with me. You think there’s not a chance he’s going to find out about that?” Her voice was getting louder.

I dug my fingers into her back, pressing hard to get her attention, and I leaned to her ear. “Quiet. You’re making a scene.”

She shook her head in frustration, but when she spoke again, her voice was softer. “Honestly, when you decided to…
test me
, did you even care if he discovered what you’d done?”

I didn’t even bother opening my mouth to respond to that one because whatever I could say or would say would ultimately be either a flat-out lie or the biggest dick statement ever uttered.

“Because I’ve been thinking about this a lot since the last time I saw you, and here’s what I’ve come up with,” she continued. “I don’t think you would have done it if you weren’t fully willing to let him find out—fully
intending
to let him find out. Am I right?”

I clenched my jaw tight, watching her but saying nothing.

“Don’t answer that question. I’m not sure I want to hear you lie to my face.” Her expression was disappointment.

When her already shimmering eyes glossed over completely, I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. “Gabe…” I started to respond, but what the hell could I say to that? Instead, I sighed, looking down at her neck rather than her eyes.

She shook her head angrily. “At what point did you decide not to use that as leverage against him? Hmm? When you came inside me? When you kissed me? When you spoke to me and realized I’m actually a human being regardless of what I do for a living?” Her eyes were still glassy, and she looked mere seconds from crying. “You know, my life may be small compared to his, and I may not have as much to lose, but what I do have is everything to me. At the end of the day, that measly three thousand I get may be nothing to him, but it’s really important to me. So just tell me, are you planning to tell him? Do I have to worry—?”

“No.” I actually meant it when I said it that time, though I’m not sure when the decision had actually been made in my mind. Perhaps in that very moment. I tugged her body closer to me, holding her chest tightly to mine as I lowered my mouth to her ear. “I decided not to tell him when I realized I wanted you more than I wanted leverage against him. I wanted—”

“May I cut in?”

My hands loosened on Gabe instantly, and I stood straight, pulling back from her body. I held my hands up as David stepped in.

“Don’t you know it’s rude to upset a lady when her makeup’s done all nice and pretty like?” David’s tone was mocking, and he eyed me venomously over his shoulder. He didn’t give a shit I’d upset Gabe. He just didn’t like that I was encroaching on the pretty, shiny toy he’d paid so much for.

David turned his back on me, pushing Gabe farther into the crowd of dancing people, and I caught sight of her subtly and swiftly brushing a tear from her cheek. Her eyes met mine for the briefest moment before David said something to her and she smiled up at him. And then he turned her, and I lost sight of her in the crowd. I cursed under my breath as I walked away.

Forty minutes later she was good to her word, and she left early. The relief was instantaneous but misplaced. I shouldn’t be relieved for personal reasons. I should be relieved for completely professional reasons. But I knew exactly where my relief came from, and it was absolutely personal.

I left shortly after she did, but I didn’t return to the condo I’d been living in since arriving in town. Instead, I drove to the Peninsula. I dumped my car off with the valet and ran inside. The woman at the check-in desk batted her eyes at me as I approached, but I ignored it.

“Can you tell me if Connor Gallahan is working tonight?”

She seemed surprised by my question for a moment, but then she picked up the phone. “Let me check, sir.”

I rapped the tips of my fingers against the desk as I waited for her to get off the phone. My throat was tight, and I was tense. Nothing felt normal at the moment, and I didn’t like it. My guts ached, my balls were throbbing, and my heart was hammering too hard. I resorted to gnawing on the inside of my cheek until she finally hung up.

“Connor is working an event upstairs. He’ll be down in a moment.”

I thanked her and wandered away, letting my teeth worry the inside of my cheek again.

“Mr. Lauri. How good to see you again.”

I turned to Connor, smiling kindly. “It’s good to see you as well.” And then I fell silent. What the hell was I doing?

“Is there anything I can help you with?” Connor cocked his head to the side concernedly.

“Uh…yeah. Um…the young lady who I had removed from…” I cleared my throat and shook my head.

“Yes, I remember her,” Connor finished for me since I clearly couldn’t act normal.

“You said a staff chauffeur drove her home.”

“Yes.”

“Do you keep records of the addresses your drivers take people to?” My heart pounded harder, and I could nearly hear it drumming in my ears.

Connor suddenly looked unsure, and he glanced around to make sure we were alone. “Uh…yes. We have logs.”

I nodded, saying nothing for a moment. “Can I get her address?” I held my breath.

Connor’s mouth hung open for a moment, and his eyes scanned the room around us again. “I’ll… Let me see what I can do.” He smiled, but it seemed forced, and when he walked away, I was certain he wouldn’t be providing me anything at all except perhaps an escort out of the hotel.

Five minutes passed, and my anxiety continued to build. I was fidgeting with the money in my pocket, and my hands were sweating as I flipped the folded-up bill over and over and over again in my fingers as I waited.

Connor finally returned and handed me a slip of paper. I handed him the tip I’d been fidgeting with in my pocket, but his smile was far less gracious than it had been a few weeks prior as he eyed the money.

I glanced down at the address. Milwaukee. Huh…

I thanked him quickly, collected my car, and left town. It was late enough that traffic was light, and I made it to Milwaukee in less than two hours. I wasn’t from Chicago, and in the six or so weeks I’d been staying here, I’d not once gone to Milwaukee or even thought about going. I let my navigation system guide me, and when I turned onto the street where her house was located, I started gawking. It was too dark to see much, but the homes were nearly all large and two-story. They looked old, mostly brick from what I could discern.

“Destination on right,” the monotone voice said to me.

I pulled over to the curb and checked the street number posted in large metallic characters on a brick retaining wall. I was in the right place. I climbed out of my car, finally looking up at the two-story house in front of me, and I froze.

The large Greek letters affixed to the front of the house above the wide front porch were impossible to miss.

Holy fucking shit.

I practically tripped over my feet as I started up the sidewalk to the house. The realization of exactly what Gabe was sank in with every footstep, and as it did, my steps became heavier and heavier.

I raised my hand to ring the bell, and then I paused. I could hear women, young women, talking, laughing, hollering and yelling at each other. She was one of them. I pressed the button, and I waited.

The door was pulled open by a blonde bubbly girl whose smile was almost infectious enough to force one from me were I not so panicked.

“Hi?” Why the hell did I put a question mark on it?

“Uh, hi.” When I didn’t say anything further, she smiled some more. “Can I help you?”

“Oh, uh…yeah. Does Gabrielle live here?” I started praying in my head that she’d say no. Surely I had the wrong address because there was no way I’d been carrying on with some barely legal sorority sister for the past three weeks.

“Um…well, which one? We have a Gabby Morrison or a Gabe Kitrick.” She bobbed her head to the side as she smiled once again.

“Oh…I guess it would be the latter.”

“The what? The ladder? I don’t get—”

“Gabe Kitrick.” I stifled the eye roll.

“She’s ups—”

“What are you doing here?” Gabe’s voice interrupted us. I glanced past the blonde girl in front of me to see Gabe coming down the stairs. She rushed past the girl. “I’ve got it, Cinda. Thanks.” She pushed past me too, pulling the door closed behind her.

“Who’s your friend, Gabe?” trailed after us until the door latched, leaving us outside alone on the porch.

“How did you find me?” She turned toward me.

I ignored her question. “How old are you?”

She crossed her arms on her chest, cocking her head to the side. “What? Afraid you slept with an underage girl?”

“Terrified, actually. Please answer the fucking question.”

She took her time. “Twenty-one. Almost twenty-two. I’m just starting my senior year at St. Mary’s.”

“You’re studying to be a nun?” I blurted out stupidly, still too shocked and confused to think straight.

Her brow scrunched. “It’s a Catholic
university
. Not a convent.”

I shook my head, dumbfounded. I stared down at the ground between us for a moment before looking back up to her. She was wearing yoga pants and a fitted V-neck college T-shirt, her hair was wet, and her face was clean without a stitch of makeup. And she absolutely looked twenty-one. How could this be the same woman who’d been dressed to a T, holding her own in a room full of Chicago socialites only hours earlier? She couldn’t be.

“You live here?”

She nodded.

“Can we go to your room?”

Her eyes searched around us as her brow wrinkled. Apparently that was literally the last thing she thought I’d have the nerve to ask.

“I need to talk to you in private, and I don’t think the porch is the place to do it.” When she failed to respond, I continued. “Listen, I know you’re upset with me—”

“Yeah.” She nodded, her lips pursed. “But hey, if you want to walk past a living room full of fifteen girls, all of whom, without doubt, know I have a man on the porch right now and will absolutely make it their business to find out what the hell you’re doing here, so be it.” She opened the door, staring me down as if daring me to cross that threshold.

“I’m willing to take my chances,” I muttered. “I can’t possibly be the first man under this roof.”

“No, but you might be the oldest.”

And that shut me the hell up in one second flat. I wanted to respond. I wasn’t even sure if I was pissed at her for saying it or damn impressed at the speed of her wit. Instead, I rocked on the outside of my shoes and shoved my hands in my pockets like an idiot. “Yeah,” I finally mumbled.

She walked inside, ignoring me, and I followed her. There was a large arched entryway into the living room just off the foyer, and as we passed, every eye, at least thirty of them all together, followed our every move. As I stepped up onto the stairs, the whispering started.

There were pictures lining the wide stairwell, and hers was one of the first I came to. I stopped and looked at it. There was a metal placard at the bottom that said “President.” I touched it, still looking at her smiling image. She was wearing a white button-up dress shirt. It was modest, and every last button was done. Her hair was straight and the sides pulled back neatly. Her makeup was understated, and her lips a very subtle pink.

Gabe walked back down to me, standing at my side as I studied her picture. I was still struggling to absorb the world I was standing in. “President, huh?”

“Hard to imagine, isn’t it?” She glanced at me before looking back at her picture on the wall.

I couldn’t say it was. I’d not once thought of Gabe as unintelligent. Quite the opposite in fact, and there was an innocence to her that made sense given her age, regardless of what she allowed men to do to her. Sex with her had been incredible for that very reason—kissing as well. She didn’t act jaded. She didn’t act like a woman going through the motions. Instead, she reacted. She reacted to everything I’d done to her, everything we’d done together. And it was an incredibly genuine reaction.

“Do they know?”

She looked at me and shook her head. “No.”

She continued up the stairs, and I trailed after.

Her room was small and smelled sweet, like the subtle perfume she wore. The quilt on her bed was a simple white, and the couple throw pillows were mismatched but charming. The gauzy off-white fabric of the bed skirt pooled slightly on the ground like some picture out of a French country décor magazine. Her desk had a few books stacked on it, and I scanned through the titles, largely psychology.

“Are you a good student?”

She sat on her bed, pulling her feet up to sit cross-legged. She shook her head. “Not always.”

“Psychology major, I take it?” I peered back at her over my shoulder as I flipped through the top book on the stack.

“Just like you.”

I nodded as a smile tugged at my lips. “Yeah.”

“A Catholic college in Milwaukee isn’t quite Ivy League I know, but…” She shrugged. “We can’t all be impressive.”

I chuckled as I leaned back against her desk and crossed my arms. “I find you very impressive.”

“In bed?” She smiled with mock sweetness.

“No. That’s not what I—I mean yes. You
were
incredible. That’s just not what I was talking about.”

She chuckled humorlessly. She was definitely primed for another battle.

“Why do you do this?”

The laugh died in her throat. “I thought we already discussed the measly three thousand a month I rely on.”

“I just don’t get it. There are other jobs—”

She took a deep breath and sighed. “I don’t have a valid excuse to justify my choices. I just don’t. You want me to give you some sob story? I don’t have it to give you, and even if I did, I don’t owe you an explanation. It’s just a choice.”