The Decadent Gift: An After Dark Novel Read online

  “Did you ever tell him?” I asked, tensing, hoping again she’d say no.

  She shook her head, then pursed her lips. “No. But I’d intended to. I trusted him, so I’d been planning to let him in and share some of my fantasies with him.” She took a breath, playing with the hair on my chest. Once she steadied herself, she met my gaze. “But I’m glad I kept those to myself. I’m glad I never shared my fantasies with him. I feel like I kept a more important piece of myself than the money I’ve had to pay. Money can be replaced. Fantasies—you don’t want those corrupted.”

  I lay back down next to her, absorbing what she’d just said. “Fantasies are a gift. Letting someone in, sharing with them—that takes an enormous amount of trust. I can understand why you’re glad you didn’t give those up to someone who would never understand how precious they are.”

  A smile tugged at her lips. It was so damn endearing, the way the smile seemed to own her. “They are precious. They’re part of what makes you tick,” she said.

  Stroking her hip, I pressed on. “Why did you tell me?”

  Her grin widened. “You sort of guessed them, Jake.”

  My brow furrowed. “Is that the only reason you told me? Because I took a good guess?”

  She swallowed, her expression shifting to a serious one. “No, that’s not the only reason why I told you.” The way she said it, quiet and from her heart, seemed like a prelude to a confession.

  “Then why?”

  Her gaze drifted away, and she stared at the ceiling, like she was lost in thought. Finally, her focus returned to me. “Because I could tell you didn’t want to trick me. Because you’ve been up-front about your interest.”

  I arched a skeptical brow. “I didn’t make a move on you until you gave me the green light.”

  She chuckled like I’d made a ridiculous claim.

  “Hey,” I protested. “C’mon. I was a gentleman.”

  Another laugh from her, then she collected herself. “That’s true, but you’ve been pretty flirty in our texts—like, for the last few months. And not just in texts. In person too.”

  “Damn. I thought I’d been a good boy, waiting for clues.”

  She tap-danced her fingers up my chest. “Maybe you were, but I had a hunch which way your detective work was headed.”

  I scoffed at myself. “Guess I wasn’t as subtle as I thought.” Then I shrugged because it had all worked out in the end. She was here, nearly naked, and just a few minutes ago, she’d been screaming my name. “But since the cat’s out of the bag, let me just say—I’ve wanted to get you naked for a while now.”

  “And maybe that’s part of why I told you my fantasies and why I haven’t done this with anyone else. But most of all, I told you because I knew I could trust you.”

  That got my attention and then some. “How?”

  “Because Lily trusted you,” she said, her tone intensely serious.

  I ran my hand along her hipbone. “She did. And with good reason.” I took a beat, wanting to ask something important. “Does it bother you knowing what went down?”

  She shot me a grin. “You mean the fact that you’ve been with my best friend? Well, you were the back half of a manwich.”

  I cracked up at the blunt way she put it. That was precisely what I’d done for Lily. The laugh spread through me, settling into my gut, my bones. Kate chuckled deeply too, her shoulders shaking.

  But when we both settled down, I returned to the topic. “Does it bother you?” There was no reason to skirt around the truth. Kate had played a critical role in engineering Lily’s ultimate bedroom fantasy—Lily wanted two men to take her at the same time, both men pleasuring her and only her.

  She and Finn, now her husband, had asked me to do the honors.

  It had indeed been an honor.

  And a hot-as-sin night, taking care of Lily and satisfying her dirty dreams at the same time.

  “No,” Kate answered. Far from awkward, she seemed relieved I’d asked the question. “I like it, actually. It says something about you. It says you’re trustworthy. It says you value the kind of love Lily and Finn have. It says you understand fantasies and desires, and you respect them. It’s far too easy to assume fantasies are just about sex.”

  I scoffed. “Fantasies are about much more. It’s about this.” I tapped her forehead. “It’s about who you are.”

  “Exactly,” she said, alight with energy and animated. “And that’s why I told you what I wanted tonight. That’s why I wanted to try this out with you. Only you.”

  Only you.

  Were there any better words than those?

  Not at this moment.

  Not between a man and a woman in the bedroom.

  Between lovers.

  And for now, Kate was my lover, a role that suited her. That suited me.

  I growled my appreciation for her answer, and the sound radiated deep inside me. “Good. Because I’m going to be totally honest here—ever since what happened with Lily and Finn, I’ve wanted to know what made you tick.”

  Her gaze never left mine. “Why is that?”

  “Because of the way you got involved. How you suggested me and played a part in making that happen for your friend. It made me curious about you.”

  She gave a sweet smile. “Because I’d seemed vanilla to you then?”

  “A little, yeah,” I admitted.

  “And then I suddenly seemed kinky?”

  My fingers found their way to her hair, and I ran them through it, savoring the silky feel of the strands almost as much as I savored this chance to get to know her more. “Yes. And I liked your kink. I liked that you wanted to give her a fantasy. It said you were open to trying new things.”

  She scooted closer, leaning into my hand, my touch, almost as if giving in—to me, to this fantasy, to this aspect of her sexuality—in a whole new way. “And that’s your kink? Trying new things?”

  I shook my head, still playing with her hair. “Not at all. But you’re close.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “Guess,” I said with a grin.

  She surveyed me up and down. “Hmm . . . what is Jake’s kink?” She tapped her chin, her brow still furrowed. Then her eyes twinkled, and she dropped an imaginary mic. “Making a woman scream in pleasure.”

  “Boom.” I moved down her body, pushed up her shirt, and buried my face in the valley of her breasts, sucking on a nipple till she cried out in a long, sexy moan. “Jake.”

  I let go and grinned wickedly up at her. “Making you moan like that is my thing. It’s my kink. It’s what gets me going. It’s what makes my dick hard, and what makes my mind sharp. I find nothing hotter than turning on the woman I find attractive. And you, Ms. Williams, are the woman I’m wildly attracted to.”

  A tremble moved down her body. “You’re the man I’m attracted to,” she whispered.

  “About time you admitted it,” I said.

  She swatted my chest. “Well, since you’re being blunt, I will be too. I wasn’t even attracted to you before your manwich.”

  I groaned, pulling a pillow over my head. “You’re killing me.”

  She tugged the pillow away, propping herself on an elbow and staring hard at me. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “You’re sitting here half-naked, telling me about the time you didn’t find me attractive.”

  Rolling her eyes, she straddled me and pinned my wrists. “I’m saying I saw you in a different light after you did that for Lily and Finn.”

  My dick twitched at her words. “You did? Like you figured I was a sexual giver?”

  She nodded, mischief in her eyes, her lips curving up as she subtly rocked her hips against me. “I didn’t expect that to happen. I didn’t see you that way at first. Empirically, I knew you were handsome, but I didn’t feel it in my body until then. Because what you did took a lot of guts and a lot of confidence.”

  I rolled my hips up against her, letting her know what she was doing to me. “And that aroused you
?”

  Her voice went husky. “Confidence is such a turn-on. And you had so much of it. And then the morning after, at the diner, I saw you in a new light. As this wildly sexual creature.”

  Best. Compliment. Ever. “Please make me a plaque saying that. Jake Hamilton, Wildly Sexual Creature.”

  She seemed emboldened, sounded awestruck. But it was also as if talking had unlocked something inside her. Like she was free to share these thoughts for the first time. “I started to wonder what you’d be like in bed. What you’d say. How you’d handle my fantasies.”

  I liked where this was going. “Do you ever fantasize about me?”

  She nodded. “I do. I have. So many times.”

  A groan worked its way up my chest. My dick was ready to go again and again and again. “That’s so fucking sexy. Tell me more, baby. What did you think about us? What did you picture us doing?”

  She seemed lost in her world, enrapt in sharing as she moved her body back and forth. “I imagined the things we might do. The roles we might play. I wondered if you’d like them. Get into them.”

  Gripping her hips harder, I rocked with her. “And your answer was yes?”

  “The more I thought about you, the more it seemed like a yes.”

  No wonder I’d been fascinated with Kate for the last several months. We’d seen the same thing in each other. “Kate,” I said, gravel in my voice.

  “Yes?”

  “The reason we’ve been flirting? The reason we’ve been trying to figure each other out?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s because we were reading lust and attraction in each other. We were seeing desire and need.”

  She let out a sensual moan. “I think we were. I think we were dancing around it for months until last night.”

  “And now we’re having it.”

  Her gaze locked with mine. “I want to have it again. I do. I really do.”

  “Ask, and you shall receive,” I said, stripping off her blouse, getting her fully naked at last.

  She pushed my shirt off the rest of the way, and it felt like a new level of intimacy.

  I moved from under her to shed my pants and boxers so we were both down to nothing.

  That felt fitting.

  Here I was with this woman who already intrigued me, and she had given me all the more reason to find her compelling. Because she wanted to experiment. Because she wanted a man to trust. A man to give her pleasure.

  And there was nothing—nothing on heaven or earth—I wanted more than to give her that.

  I brought her back on top of me. “You deserve to feel good. You deserve all the pleasure in the world,” I told her.

  “I want it. I want it from you,” she whispered.

  Grazing a hand down her body, I played with the hair on her pubic bone, then spoke low and dirty. “Mr. Hamilton would like to see you on his face right now. Fuck my face till you see stars, and that’ll activate the bonus clause one more time.”

  Her eyes seemed to roll back in her head, then she licked her lips, glided up me, and in seconds, I’d pulled her sweet, hot center to my mouth, groaning the moment I made contact.

  Once she started moving, her mouth did too.

  The words that fell from her lips told me that this was one of her fantasies.

  She fell right back into her role, rattling off Ms. Williams’s thoughts.

  I thought about this while we were signing the deal.

  In the conference room, I was squirming.

  Picturing this as we reviewed the paperwork. Right then and there. Climbing you. Riding you. Oh God, riding you just like this.

  As I licked and sucked her sweetness, her sentences grew choppy, short, and her words became incoherent sounds.

  I was in dirty heaven too, doing my favorite thing in the world—making a woman feel spectacular.

  But not just any woman.

  This woman.

  The one I’d pictured. The one I wanted to know. The one I was getting to know tonight.

  I was learning her secret wishes.

  Learning I was part of them.

  And hell, that made electricity crackle in my veins.

  It made my whole body sizzle with lust as I devoured her pussy, taking her to the edge.

  She detonated, coming hard on my face, tasting like sin and desire.

  She was the woman who knew my mind too, because when she slid down my body, she took me in her mouth and sucked me off till I was nothing but lust and filthy bliss as I came hard, my world spiraling away into a blur of pleasure and release.

  After, I murmured something like “We should go. I should go.”

  She voiced the same thing. “I should go too.” But she curled around me as she said it, and actions spoke louder than words.

  Ours said we were staying.

  That didn’t fly with my plans for this weekend, or hers.

  But we did it anyway.

  13

  Kate

  I woke with a jolt as the sun streamed in.

  “I have to go,” I said, scrambling out of bed to make my meeting.

  “See you tonight, Ms. Williams. I’ll send your assignment later,” Jake said, all raspy and sleepy-sexy.

  I brushed my teeth, and he fell back to sleep quickly. On my way out of the bathroom, I sneaked one last look at him in bed, the sheets sliding low on his hips. When I’d left the bedroom, he must have shifted because they’d slunk down farther, showing off the curve of his ass.

  “More,” I murmured, as if I were devouring a piece of delicious cake.

  Because that was quite possibly the sexiest sight ever—Jake sleeping soundly with his gorgeous carved back and ass on display.

  As I left, I sent him a text.

  Kate: Fine. I’ll admit it. Your ass is spectacular. I snagged a lovely view of it on my way out. It’s hard and firm, and I just wanted to bite it.

  Then I pushed thoughts of him away as I headed home, showered, and made it to my meeting in the nick of time.

  * * *

  I’d done plenty of background interviews as part of my job. But none had ever been with someone this good-looking.

  Or this interesting.

  I found Antony fascinating as I questioned him over coffee about his decision to enter this business.

  His brow pulled, and he hummed thoughtfully. “Was it a hard decision to become an escort?” he asked, repeating my question, then he shook his head. “Not at all. I’ve always enjoyed the company of women. Women are fascinating, sensitive, easy to talk to. Sure, at first I was drawn to it with the endgame in mind.”

  “Your master’s degree?” I confirmed as I took a sip of my English breakfast tea.

  “Yes, and graduate school is not cheap. So I had to make a choice—take out loans or earn enough on my own. But it wasn’t a difficult choice. I meet women from all walks of life, with all sorts of personalities, wishes, aspirations. Every woman I meet, I learn something from—humor, kindness, a new word or phrase, a type of cuisine, an approach to the world. I’m lucky to be able to do this for a living.”

  “You’re like a therapist, lover, friend, and companion,” I said.

  “Indeed. In many ways, I am. I get to wear many hats. And take off many hats,” he said with a wink.

  “You enjoy it.”

  “I do.”

  “It almost sounds like you might want to keep this job after you finish your engineering degree,” I said with a curious smile. “Do you?”

  He shrugged happily. “I might, but that could be challenging. We’ll see.”

  “With an aerospace degree, are you hoping to be an astronaut?”

  He laughed lightly, like that was an impossible dream. “No. But I would like to build rockets. And this helps make it happen.” He flashed a winning smile, the kind of grin that melted panties and made women drop a cool grand for a night with him.

  And that was what the bride had paid for her maid of honor, Sidney, to get lucky. It was an odd realization, sitting across fr
om this GQ-esque man, knowing who he’d slept with the other night.

  I briefly wondered if Sidney got everything she needed from him. I hoped so. You go, girl—more power to you.

  I cleared my throat, preparing to segue into the main reason for this get-together. He’d talked about being an escort, but I needed to understand more of his mindset while on the job.

  “This may be personal,” I said, running my finger along the rim of my mug, “but Trish said you’d be willing to talk about it, and I’d like some insight to plan how to best market the service. Does it feel like work? And how do you make a woman feel special? Or whatever it is she wants you to do?”

  He hummed, like he was considering the question, then leaned forward. “Forgive me if I am too forward. But have you ever been with someone who made you feel spectacular?”

  A blush crept across my cheeks in seconds. I heated up thinking of last night, of the things Jake and I had shared. Not only the otherworldly sex, but the conversation and then the cuddling. Who knew Jake was a cuddler? But he was—the best kind. All warm and snuggly, spooning me perfectly, brushing gentle kisses against my neck.

  But I couldn’t entertain those notions. I had to focus on work, since that was what this weekend was about.

  Everything I was doing was for work.

  Only for work.

  And work included Antony’s piercing question. Had I ever been with someone who made me feel spectacular?

  “Yes, I have,” I answered.

  He smiled. “Good. Everyone should know what it’s like to feel amazing. And that’s what I want to do for the women who are kind enough to hire me.”

  Kind.

  Such an unusual word to use in this field.

  “Why do you want them to feel that way?” I asked.

  His dark eyes were intense, passionate as he answered. “Because when they book me, they believe I can bring them what they want for a night. That I can deliver companionship, pleasure, friendship, a shoulder to lean on.”