Stranger Read online

  Jack buried his face into my neck. His thumb pressed my clit and my hips moved, pushing my cunt against his hand. I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of our mingled breathing.

  I know women who’ve fucked more men than I have, but who would think I’m a slut for paying what they give away for free. There are a lot of differences between their choices and mine, but one thing I feel certain is the same. There’s always something unexpected about the first time you go to bed with someone new.

  With Jack it was how readily and well he took on a different persona. How convincing he made his performance. How he picked up on my subtle cues and went with them—and how much faster and better he was at it when he was pretending to be someone else than the first time we’d met.

  “Jack.” I opened my eyes. The ceiling swam into focus, then the edges of his profile. He’d been kissing my shoulder.

  He looked at me and murmured. I touched his hair, falling over one eye. “I don’t feel like playing this game anymore.”

  When I was in high school, slap bracelets had been all the rage. Stiff, thin strips of flexible metal covered by fabric. The trick had been to slap them when they were straight onto your wrist, where they’d curl. Straightening them made them stiff and flat again.

  Jack went rigid like a slap bracelet. Tension infused his arms, his legs, even his belly. He pushed up on his arms and tossed the hair from his eyes.

  “Okay,” he said, not moving. I gave him a moment, after which he said, “Why?”

  I shifted a little. “Because I decided I don’t really want to teach you how to fuck. I want to see if you know how to do it already.”

  And fuck, that smile again, this time made even brighter by the laugh accompanying it.

  My entire body went awash with heat. Jack rolled onto his side, one hand still on my belly.

  “You’re sure?”

  I got on my side, too, facing him. His hand slid to my hip. I slid my thigh between his.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay.” He paused again, brow furrowed as if he was thinking. “But…I didn’t guess wrong, did I?”

  About the fantasy, I understood him to mean, and it pleased me how he’d taken my advice to heart. “No. Definitely not.”

  “Good.” He flashed a dimmer version of the thousand-watt grin. His hand slid back between my legs. “So I don’t have to pretend I’ve never done this before?”

  “Not today.”

  He pressed gently, in just the right spot. “Okay.”

  We didn’t say anything for a minute. We didn’t move. Jack’s eyes were the color of an August sky without clouds, but thick black lashes cast shadows in them when he blinked.

  He kissed me again, soft and sweet and slow. His fingers moved in small circles on my clit. When I sighed, he smiled.

  He knew what he was doing, there was no question of that. He paid attention. He didn’t rush. Was patient, even though it was taking me a long time. And what I liked best was that he didn’t use my slow response as an excuse to trot out every sexual position or act in an attempt to get me off sooner. Jack kissed me and rubbed my clit in small, gentle circles without cease until I finally gripped his arm, my body tense, and whispered, “Now.”

  He moved faster, then, to slide on the condom and get between my legs. But slow again when he slid inside me. Slow, too, when he began to move. The few seconds’ reprieve had faded my urgency, though not by much. Our bodies worked and moved together, each push and pull an experiment in timing.

  Tension coiled, tighter and tighter. I made a wordless noise. He picked up the pace. My hands slid along the smoothness of his back, to the sharp curve of his shoulder blades and the shallow groove of his spine.

  I came, finally, making no sound as my body tightened around him. Jack shuddered and lifted his head to look at me with heavy-lidded eyes. He closed them, hard, face tensing, and thrust once more with a low groan. He rolled off me after a minute.

  I looked over at him as he sat on the edge of the bed, facing away. His shoulders had hunched as he took care of the condom. I yawned and stretched, letting the glow wash over me, but after another moment I sat up, too.

  I got out of bed and used the bathroom, not hurrying. When I came out, Jack had pulled his jeans back on. Cool currents of air swirled in the room and I thought I smelled the faintest odor of smoke.

  “Hey,” Jack said with a small smile.

  “Hey.” I smiled, too, and gathered my clothes. I stepped into my panties and hooked my bra, well aware of Jack’s gaze on me, but not turning again to look at him until I sat on the motel’s rickety chair to pull on my socks and boots.

  I hadn’t felt awkward until it looked as if he might. I took an envelope from my purse and went to the bed and sat next to him. He looked at the envelope, then at me.

  “This is for you.” I pressed it into his hand.

  He took it, staring down at the plain white paper. I’d sealed it. He turned it over and over in his fingers.

  “It’s a tip.” I hadn’t thought I needed to explain.

  His brow furrowed for a second before he looked up at me again. “Okay.”

  “Don’t your other ladies give you tips?”

  His mouth quirked. “Not like this.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “How do they do it?”

  He shrugged. “They usually just give me a twenty or something.”

  I had no idea how much training Mrs. Smith gave her gentlemen, only that each was an independent contractor. They set their own rates and negotiated their own dates, and gave Mrs.

  Smith a cut of the fees for the privilege of providing the scheduling and clients. Both times I’d called the service to arrange for Jack’s company, I’d had to list exactly what I’d wanted for the date with the understanding that anything additional would be taken care of in cash between the two of us. That was the way it worked.

  “Huh,” I said. “Well…far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, Jack, but…”

  He groaned and fell back on the bed, arms flopping out. “Wrong again?”

  I laughed and rubbed his denim-clad thigh. “It’s not wrong if it works for you.”

  He looked up at me through the fall of his hair. “This job didn’t come with an employee manual, okay?”

  “I guess not.”

  He groaned again, then sat up and tried to put the envelope back in my hand. “You don’t have to give me this.”

  “Yes, I do!”

  Laughing, we tussled for a minute until the envelope landed on the floor. We both looked at it. I nudged it with my toe.

  “Don’t you even want to know how much is in there?” I asked.

  Jack shook his head. Then nodded. Then shook it. We laughed again. He was still half-naked and the warmth of his shoulder against mine felt good. I kissed it, tasting the clean salt flavor of sex-earned sweat, and got up. I picked up the envelope and put it in my pocket.

  “Stand up.”

  He did, obedient.

  “Okay,” I said. “You read my file.”

  He grinned. “Yes.”

  “What sorts of things do I like to do, Jack?”

  He thought for a spare second. “Movies. Dancing.”

  “What else?”

  “You like to play games?” he said, less certain. “Role-play. Like what I tried to do with you tonight.”

  “Yes. I like to play games. So we’re going to play the game right now, and it’s called making a date.”

  Jack raised both brows. “Okay.”

  “I’m calling you.” I demonstrated. “Hello, is this Jack?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jack, I’d like to see you for a date. I’d like to go to the movies and then dinner.”

  “Okay.”

  We were both trying hard not to laugh. “And if things work out, I’d like to spend some time with you after the date.”

  “Okay!” Jack gave me a thumbs-up. “Awesome.”

  “Don’t say awesome,” I said.

&nb