Tease (2 page)

I inched her legs wider apart and placed my mouth over her, licking her clit, which was still swollen from the elevator. I could tell from how tightly she was gripping onto my hair how sensitive her pussy was.

She shifted her legs so they were resting over my shoulders, with my hands still resting on her hips. She gasped as I massaged her clit with my tongue, her sweet taste almost addictive.

“Whoa, holy fuck…” she mumbled, her body jerking against the movements of my tongue, as though it craved my attention. “Coop, harder,” she urged me, her legs spreading even wider apart. I pushed my tongue deeper inside her pussy, my cock throbbing at the feel of her on my face. Her scent was mesmerizing, and her taste…god she tasted unbelievable. She breathed out loudly, one hand releasing my hair to clutch at the sheets.

“God, oh yeah!” she screamed, her legs almost cutting off my windpipe. I licked her slowly as she cried out for me to stop—her hand still pushing my face into her. I began to kiss her, and with every touch she squealed until she finally pushed me away.

I stood up and wiped my chin, grinning at the sight of Beth curled up, naked on the bed in the fetal position, still mumbling to
herself
.

“You okay there?” I asked, amused. I walked over to the bar, where I’d left my drink. I took a sip as she mumbled an incoherent response. Laughing, I walked back over to her. Kneeling beside the bed, I began to tickle her back, my fingernails trailing up and down her curves.

“I am fucking amazing,” she groaned, rolling over to face me. “Only thing that would make this night better was if I didn’t have to meet my manager for dinner.” She sighed and sat up. “God, I’m still throbbing.”

“What can I say? I have a talent.”

“Get over yourself,” she giggled, adjusting her dress. “Anyone with a tongue could’ve done what you just did.” She threw her arms around me and kissed me on the cheek. “Love you, Coop.”

“Yeah, love you too. Even if you are mean to me,” I grumbled.

She laughed and shook her head.

“Hey I might stay here for a bit if that’s okay?” I asked, straightening up. I stretched out my arms behind my back.

She shrugged. “Stay all night if you like.” She bounced toward the door with way too much energy.
How I missed being nineteen
. “See you,” she said with a wink as she slipped out.

After Beth had gone, I sat down again and switched on the TV, cracking open a can of soda at the same time. When my
appointments ended up at a hotel and the client wasn’t
staying there, I often kicked back after they’d left. It seemed like such a waste to spend several hundred dollars on a room for only a few hours.

Besides, it wasn’t like anyone was waiting for me at home.

My last serious relationship had been in college. We’d married at eighteen and divorced at twenty. Relationships are hard work, and you don’t really understand that when you’re eighteen. You think so long as there’s love, everything else will fall into place. Things are never that simple though. The pressure of studying, working, and trying to maintain a marriage had proven too much for us. It got to the point where we were arguing more than we were talking.

Walking in on her and my best friend, Max, had sent me into one of the darkest times of my life. How do you move past that? When the person you love most in this world betrays you in the most intimate way, how do you deal and move on?

Apparently, twenty-year-old Coop thought copious amounts of alcohol and women were the answer. They didn’t really do much for me, apart from offering a temporary dull from the pain. It always came back stronger and worse than before, requiring
more
women and
more
alcohol.

My ex-wife, Kara, had ended up transferring out of state. With her out of my life, it made things easier. Just the fact that I could grab a coffee or walk around campus and know I wasn’t going to run into her made things much easier. I cut down on the partying and focused on my grades, and pretty soon after that, my life changed.

It’s amazing how quickly your life can change, for the better or worse. That was the thing about life: you never knew what was waiting for you around the corner. Everyone faces obstacles, and it’s how you deal with them that
makes
you the person you are. I treat everything that has happened to me thus far in life as a challenge that is there to help me be a better person.

Then again, I’m a male escort, living alone, lying to my family. Maybe my life isn’t as perfect as I pretend it is.

I left the hotel just after eight.

While walking to my car, I checked my messages. There was one from my sister, Nic, asking me to come by after work. She lived just around the corner with her husband and two kids.

Nic and I had a very close relationship. Losing Dad at such a young age, I’ve always felt like I needed to step up and protect Mom and Nic and be the man of the family. Ten-year-old Coop had taken on a paper route so he could help out with the bills. Getting up at three every Sunday morning had been hell, but it had made me feel like I was doing something positive for the family—even if it was only bringing in an extra twenty dollars a week.

That need was even stronger now, especially with Mom the way she was. There was a big reason why I pushed myself to work so hard, and it had everything to do with that need to provide for my family. Like everyone, I’d had the “what the hell am I doing with my life” moments where I think to myself I’m better than this. The guilt I feel when I think about how my mother raised me and what I’d become gets to me and the worst part of that is that I do what I do
for
my family.

Pulling up outside their house, I got out of the car and walked up to the front door. I rang the bell and listened to the sound of footsteps—too heavy to be either of my nieces—hurrying up the hall. The door swung open and Nic smiled at me.

“Hey you,” she said, kissing my cheek. “The kids are in bed, finally! If you wake them, they’re going home with you,” she joked. “You want some dinner?”

“Sure,” I replied, kicking off my shoes.

I followed her down to the kitchen, passing through the living room on the way. I loved their house. Granted, it was pretty small, especially for a family of four, but it had such a nice feel about it. Toys were scattered everywhere, and every step was a potential deathtrap, but I loved that. It wasn’t about having the newest furniture, or the having the nicest garden; it was all about having a comfortable home where the kids were free to play.

“How are you guys? How’s Jake?”

As if on cue, Jake walked in. He grinned. “Hey, Coop.” He slapped me on the back. “Beer?” He grabbed two of them out of the fridge. I didn’t need to answer. I never turned down a beer and he knew it.

“What’ve you been up to? How’s work?’ he asked, tossing me a can.

I shrugged as I cracked it open. “Not much. The usual: work. More work.” I grinned. “I just knocked off now, actually.”

“Ah, insurance. I don’t know how you do it. Damn boring.” He shook his head and I managed a small smile. “You’re working late for a Monday.”

Yeah. My family thought I sold insurance.

When your sister is as nosy as mine is, you have to cover all bases if you are going to convincingly lie about what you do. I’d taken my ‘insurance’ career pretty far, all things considered. I had business cards, a registered business name, two separate phones—one for personal use and the other for work. I worked hard to keep everything separate. Emails, laptops,
filing
—it was all kept well away from my personal life. I worked hard to ensure the two would never overlap.

I had a post office box where all my work-related mail was sent. Legally, I was registered as an escort. Legally, I did everything by the book, from declaring my income to paying my taxes, but when it came to my family, they’d
never
know what I did for a living.

Even after six years, I’d never gotten around to having the “Hey, I’m an escort!” discussion. Not that I thought Nic and Jake would judge me. It was more that I loved Mom too much to have her think I was in some sort of situation that I wasn’t happy with, and that’s exactly what she would think—not that it would be a far stretch from the truth. If mom
wasn’t
sick would I still be doing this?
Probably not.

I craved her happiness and would do anything to make her proud of me, even if that meant lying about my job. And she
was
proud of the man I’d become.

On the days she could actually remember who I was, anyway.

Mom was only fifty-three, and suffering from advanced stage Alzheimer’s. It had begun very early, at age forty-three, with her forgetting little things, like appointments and dinners. Ten years later it had quickly progressed to significant memory loss, to the point where she needed twenty-four-hour care in a specialized facility.

Losing Dad to cancer, then Mom being diagnosed with this
were
big factors in my decision to study medicine. At sixteen, I’d thought if I could stop even one from family going through the pain we had been through, it would make all those years of study worth it. When I’d realized how much money escorting could make me, I realized my time could be better spent raising the money to get her the care she needed.

Looking at her, she was still my mom, but to not see that little spark of recognition in her eyes when I walked in the room was heartbreaking. Regardless, I had to remain strong for both Mom and for Nic.

I also had to ensure enough money was coming in that she could remain at one of the best facilities in New York, and to keep her in the clinical trial she was enrolled in. Without my job, there was no way in hell I could afford that trial or her accommodation. Not even close. There was no guarantee it would help her at all, but if there was a chance it could reverse or slow the effects of her disease, then I was as sure as fuck going to take it.

The fact that Nic and Jake had never questioned the cost of her involvement in the trial made me wonder how well paying they thought insurance was—Jake was a lawyer, and the cost of this trial was even beyond
his
means.

It had crossed my mind more than once that they had to have known something was up, and maybe it was an informed decision
not
to ask me where the money came from. If you don’t ask then you don’t know, and you can continue to go on oblivious to the situation. But maybe that’s just me being paranoid.

“Yeah, I had a client needing some urgent assistance.
Gotta
be on the ball, always on call,” I grinned. “Not like law, huh? You jokers never work.”

Jake rolled his eyes at me, at least appreciating the joke.

“Oh that reminds me, are you still coming to the cabin this weekend?” Nic asked, setting out a plate for me.

I laughed. “Of course. You know I love that place. And it gives me time to spend with the two little monsters.” The two little monsters were two-year-old
Marlie
and five-year-old Tully. I might be biased, but in my eyes they were the sweetest little girls in the country.

Both girls took after their father. With their blonde hair and blue eyes, they looked nothing like my brown-haired, green-eyed sister—and she hated it.

Not only did they look like Jake, they were stubborn and argumentative, just like Jake. I could honestly say, based on experience, never get into an argument with Tully because no matter how right you are, you’ll admit defeat just to shut her the hell up.

“If they were more like me they wouldn’t be such little monsters,” she grumbled, tightening her ponytail. She glanced at my gray woolen suit jacket. “New?” she asked. I nodded. “Shit, they must pay you well. That’s Armani, isn’t it?” She leaned over and rubbed the fabric between her fingers.

“Yeah. A bonus for signing a big client,” I fibbed. Not that far from the truth. It had been a bonus, but for getting
off
a big client.

Even after paying for Mom’s accommodation, I had more money than I could spend. I was fucking loaded and I couldn’t even share that with my family. Even they weren’t stupid enough to think insurance paid
that
well. I did have trusts set up for both girls. I figured I had a good fifteen years to explain where that cash had come from.

“Yeah, maybe you should take your little sister shopping sometime, hey?” she joked, winking at me.

I laughed, knowing that if anyone could wipe out all my money, it was
her
. That girl had an addiction for anything fashion and could quite easily blow five figures in under an hour. Thank god she had Jake to support her habit, and thank god even more she was hopeless with technology—I dreaded the day she discovered the world of online shopping.

She and Jake had met in college. He had been dating her roommate, but when that turned sour, he and Nic had just sort of clicked. Some people you can just watch together and just know they were meant to be. That was Nic and Jake. They’d found in each other what I knew I’d never find: love. Could I make my life sound any more like a daytime movie? I swear I wasn’t
that
bad. Well, maybe it was, but there were people who were far worse off than me.

At least I had a loving family, that’s what was most important to me.

I watched as Nic piled my plate high with lasagna. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until the smell of the food hit me. Nic, like Mom had been, was a fantastic cook. Those genes hadn’t filtered through to me—I could burn water without even trying.

She pushed it across the counter where I was eagerly waiting, knife and fork already in my hands. It was fucking hot but I didn’t let that deter me from practically tipping it down my throat. Nic shook her head in disgust.

“What the fuck is it with men? He scarfs his food down too.” She jerked her thumb in the direction of Jake. “It’s not going to disappear if you don’t eat it all in five seconds.”

“What?” I shrugged. “I’m hungry. And besides, chewing is overrated.” After I’d polished off the plate, I stood up and stretched. “I better get going.”

“You’ve only been here five minutes,” Nic protested, her mouth dropping open.

“And it’s been great, but I’m fucked. I need sleep.” I kissed her on the forehead and walked to the door before she could respond.

“You only came here to eat, didn’t you?” she accused, a smile on her face.

I winked at her. “It was either that or cold pizza. Take it as a compliment.”

She rolled her eyes as she leaned against the doorframe, watching as I walked to my car.

“Bye,
knobface
,” she called out, using one of her pet names for me. I laughed and waved my hand.

“See you later, twat.”

For me, home was an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I’d explained the cost away by saying I had secured it through work on a lease agreement, and nobody had questioned that. Yet.

I pulled into my parking spot and took the elevator up to the tenth floor.

My apartment was huge. There was no other way to describe it. Three bedrooms and two bathrooms plus a study seemed a little excessive for one person, but what can I say? It was the only available apartment in the building, and I loved the view. I walked over to the drapes that covered the floor to ceiling windows and opened them. The city lights peppered the darkened sky, stretching for miles off into the distance.

Fuck, I loved that place.

I went to my office and checked my schedule for the following week. As usual, I was booked out. I restricted myself to working five days a week—some days with two bookings, depending on who the client was.

If I knew a client was into domination and
her
pleasure, I could safely assume my stamina would be fine for another appointment. Surprisingly, some were more focused on making sure I got off rather than themselves, and hell, that was fine with me.

The next hour I spent checking messages and emails, confirming bookings for the next week, and then organizing the payments I needed to make for Mom’s care. By the time I’d finished all that, I was wrecked and nearly falling asleep at my desk.

Shutting my laptop, I turned off the lights and headed toward the bedroom, stripping out of my clothes along the way. I flicked on the lamp beside the bed and tossed the pillows to check for spiders—something I’d been doing since that night when I was twelve and a massive spider had crawled across my face. Life was never the same, and a new obsession was born.

Once I was sure I was alone, I climbed into bed, asleep before my head even hit the pillow.