The Mistaken Escort's Pleasure: A Liaison Novel (4 page)

“You never answered my question,” Nina said.

She walked around the kitchen island to the fridge, opened the door and hid behind it for a moment as she stared at a six-pack of beer that she kept for Ben and the bottle of white wine that Nina preferred.

She wasn’t thirsty, but the cab ride home wasn’t nearly enough time to figure out what happened at Liaison between her and Lucian.
 
She loved that her friends waited until she gathered her thoughts.
 
When she was ready to talk about it, she shut the door and turned to face both of them, her hands gripping the counter behind her.

“I told them I would think about it,” she said.

“Them?” Ben asked.

Ellie nodded.
 
Ben was a details man, and of course he would pick up the topic she didn’t want to discuss.
 
She could see that his fists were clenched at his sides, as if the entire subject disturbed him.

“Rebecca, the owner of Liaison, and Lucian, who offered to get to know me and be my date for Tim’s wedding.”

“Lucian?” Nina purred.

 
She pulled herself up on the counter and crossed her legs, reaching for an apple in the bowl to her right.
 
She took a bite, enjoying the sweet tartness on her tongue, and debated for a split second on what to tell them.
 
She went with the entire truth.

“He’s like no one I’ve ever met.
 
He’s over six foot, broad shoulders, sculpted chest, a woman’s dream, but to me, he doesn’t look like an escort.”
 
She shook her head before she continued.
 
“Not that I know what an escort looks like.”

“Why would you tell him you wanted to think about it?” Nina screeched.
 
“You don’t want to go to the wedding alone.”

“He’s…gorgeous.
 
I would feel inadequate next to him.”
 
Ellie shrugged.

Nina stepped out of her killer heels and stepped up to the counter, reaching for Ellie’s arms.

Ellie wasn’t deceived by her friend’s pasted smile.
 
She braced herself and waited for her friend’s true feelings to show.
 
She didn’t have to wait long.

“Are you fucking kidding me?
 
You have breasts that I would die to have, your hair is beautiful, and your eyes are spectacular.
 
You have curves that drive men wild—just ask Ben,” Nina demanded.

Ellie’s eyes widened and she turned to Ben, who leaned casually against the island in front of her, nodding his head in agreement while his eyes raked down her body and back up.
 
She cleared her throat and looked down at her apple, not sure how she should interpret Ben’s perusal.
 
When Lucian had looked at her that way, her body flushed and she wanted to jump in his arms and nibble on his lips.
 
With Ben, she felt nothing.

“What aren’t you telling us?” Nina asked.

“That’s a leading question, counselor,” Ellie responded.

Nina blew out a breath and tilted her head back, not before Ellie saw the huge eye roll.
 
“Stop watching
Law & Order
reruns.”

Ellie laughed and finished her apple, hopping down and stepping on the pedal to open her garbage can, and threw the core away.
 
She returned to her sitting position on the counter, and her mind wandered back to Lucian.
 

How could a man she’d known less than an hour color every thought in her mind?
 

When he kissed her, he encompassed her in his large frame and for the first time in her life, she felt protected.
 
Throughout their encounter, he made sure that she was comfortable, and although heady, his focus was on her.
 
He never looked away from her, even when they reached the ground floor and were interrupted.

She had never known real affection before, not with her parents who treated her as a nuisance, or her casual dates.
 
Even Tim, who had known her since she was a child, never went out of his way to make her feel special.
 
With one look from Lucian, she had the strange sensation of being cherished.

“You’re blushing,” Nina stage-whispered.

Ellie opened her mouth, but the sound that escaped was a squeak.
 
She cleared her throat, and tried again.

“Have you ever met someone and instantly felt a connection that you couldn’t explain?” Ellie asked both of her friends.

Nina shook her head before she crossed her arms and leaned back against the counter.
 
Nina had never been interested in relationships, too busy building her career as a corporate tax lawyer to ever settle down with one man.
 
She had short affairs with men, whom she called distractions.
 
In all the years that she had known her friend, Nina had never had a fling that lasted more than three months.

When Ellie glanced at Ben, his brown eyes flared, and he jerked his head back and forth to her question.

“So you want him?” Nina asked.

“No…yes…hell, it’s more complicated than that.”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get to know him.
 
You’re curious about him, attracted to him, and you’re both adults—why not find out if there’s more to it?” Nina said.

“He kissed me,” Ellie blurted.

Nina’s smile widened.
 
“And did you kiss him back?”

Ellie nodded, unable to find her voice.
 
She replayed the kiss in her mind, and her lips tingled and her body flushed.
 
God help her, but she wanted him to do it again.

Nina took Ellie’s hands in hers.
 
“I’ve never seen you so affected by a man you just met.
 
I think that you’ll regret it if you don’t see where this leads you.”

Ellie thought about it.
 
Her heart lurched at the thought of never getting to know Lucian, even if all that came out of it was a handful of dates and the memory of his kisses.

She lived with caution most of her life, never taking chances in her personal life, and concentrated on her career.
 
She pushed herself to work harder and to put herself in situations where she might not be comfortable, but if it propelled her to the top of her career, she was bold and courageous.
 
The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to take a chance and get to know Lucian.

“You’re right, as always.”
 
Ellie grinned.

“Good.
 
Now that it’s settled, let’s order in and have a movie marathon.
 
I’m going to change,” Nina said.

Ellie felt Ben’s eyes on her as she rifled through the menus they had collected over the years they’d known each other.
 
Whenever one of them had come across a new restaurant, they grabbed a to-go menu and they tried their food the next Friday night, unless one of her friends had a date.
 
She remembered Nina had picked up an Indian menu, and dug through the drawer for it.
 
She smiled at Ben in triumph when she found it, and he seemed to relax.

Ellie ordered a meal fit for an entire family, and went to change after Nina emerged from her room.
 
She pulled on comfortable yoga pants and changed into her favorite pullover, and settled onto the couch.

Instead of concentrating on the movie, or what her friends talked about, her thoughts kept going back to Lucian, replaying their entire meeting.
 
By the end of the night, she felt a little obsessed with him, and chided herself for becoming so enamored by a man she didn’t know.
 
But no matter how many times she admonished herself, though, her thoughts went straight back to Lucian.

She bid her friends a distracted good-bye and when she crawled into bed at a little past two on Saturday morning, she fell into an exhausted sleep and dreamed of him.

Chapter Four

Ellie moaned aloud as the edges of her dream faded away at the sound of light knocking on her front door.
 
She threw an arm over her eyes and ignored whoever wanted her attention so early on a Saturday morning.

She wanted the vivid dream to continue, where Lucian took his time running his hands over her body as he kissed her breathless.
 
Her body felt like a raw nerve exposed as she squirmed on the sheets of her queen-sized bed.
 
She tried to hold onto the images for a while longer.

Another knock came, louder this time, and her dream faded into blackness.
 
Her eyes popped open, and she turned her head to glance at her alarm clock.

She growled and whipped the blankets aside.
 
As she sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, she wondered whether she could ignore the intrusion.
 
But her mind reached for all the possibilities of catastrophe that could have happened last night after her friends headed home, and she rushed to the door, fumbling with the locks.
 
Another knock jolted her as she tried to get her fingers to respond to her brain’s command to open the door.

“Hold on a minute,” she grumbled.

A triumphant smile broke across her face as she unlocked the fourth, and final, lock.
 
As she opened the door, she wondered whether she was still dreaming, because on the other side of her door stood Lucian.

“Holy crap, I’m still dreaming,” she mumbled.

His eyes crinkled in amusement; when he smiled at her, her breath hitched in her throat.
 
She clenched her fists to stop herself from reaching for him and rolled her shoulders instead.
 
Several moments later, she was relaxed and drew a few deep breaths as her eyes wandered over him.

He was dressed in jeans and a sweater; a white collar of a dress shirt peeked up from his neck.
 
Even in casual clothes, he looked extraordinary.

“No, love, not a dream.”

She gazed down as the aroma of coffee assailed her, and smiled when she spotted the handles of the bag in his hand.
 
She opened her mouth to ask him what was in the bag, but a strangled sound came from his throat.
 
She noticed that his eyes widened and traveled down her body, taking his time, but when he realized the front door was wide open for all to see in, his mouth drew into a straight line and his face was a mask of anger.

When he lifted his head and glanced at her, his moss-green eyes flared to life.
 
She could have sworn she heard a growl erupt from deep in his chest.
 
Before she could figure out why, he stalked toward her as she scrambled back into her apartment.
 
She stopped a few feet away from the door, and watched him in surprise as he slammed the door and locked it before he set the bag and coffee on the side table by the door.

“Why are you mad at me?” she asked.

“What are you wearing?” he growled.

She looked down at herself and blushed.
 
When she went to bed the night before, she had on a pair of pajama bottoms along with the white tank top she was wearing.
 
Sometime in the middle of the night, she must have shed the bottoms, because she stood in front of Lucian in a pair of boy shorts and a tank top that left little to the imagination.

Her head jerked up at the sound of his loud steps on her hardwood floor.
 
Her first reaction was to back away from him, but as her mind replayed the conversation with her friends last night, and remembered the vivid dreams that she had awoken from, she tensed her body and waited to see what he would do.
 
When he reached her, his hands cupped her shoulders and squeezed for a moment before he rubbed his hands up and down her arms.

“I won’t hurt you, love.
 
You surprised me when you answered the door wearing practically nothing.”
 
His growl was back.

“I thought something happened to Ben or Nina.
 
No one visits me at seven in the morning on a Saturday,” she shot back.

His hands tightened on her shoulders, and he bent down until their eyes met.
 
“Who the hell is Ben?”

She didn’t know whether he spoke the words in anger or jealousy, but she ignored the question and peeked over his shoulder at the coffee he left near the front door.
 
“Did you bring me breakfast?”

He stood and blinked at her abrupt change in subject.
 
He scanned her face for a couple of seconds before he nodded.
 
“Are you trying to distract me?”

She shook her head and braced her hands on his chest.
 
Her movements were slow as she lifted herself on her tip-toes and kissed his cheek.
 
It was meant to be a simple thank-you, but once she touched him, her brain shut off.

She wound her arms around his solid shoulders as she smelled his faint fragrance of wood and citrus.
 
Her body reacted by moving closer to him, until she could feel his defined muscles pressed against her.
 
She snuggled her face into his neck and shivered when his hands roamed her back.
 
She smiled and kissed a soft spot on his neck, before blowing out a breath and settling in his arms.

“I like your way of distracting me.”

She laughed as he pressed her deeper into his chest, and for a few minutes, neither of them spoke.

When he leaned down and brushed a kiss against her lips, she pulled back and glanced at his face.
 
He was relaxed and a small smile played at the corner of his lips, so she leaned in and gave him a brief kiss before she walked toward the food.
 
Halfway across her large loft-style living room, she remembered what she was wearing and veered toward her bedroom.