Kinky thinking, p.2
Kinky Thinking, page 2
She’d nodded at Mr Grayling as a response and he’d seemed satisfied with that—hadn’t pressed her for more.
“We’re here,” the driver said, twisting to look at her. He was of the older generation, a father-type figure with greying hair at his temples and never looked down his nose at her or made her feel he was doing his job to get close to younger women. “You take care now. I’ll be out back in the car park. Appointment’s for two hours, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “Thanks.”
“I’ll have a little nap.” He winked.
Suzie laughed. “I won’t tell if you won’t.” She pulled back the handle and opened the door.
Outside The Libra, she took a deep breath and steadied her nerves. Glancing at her watch, unable to stall any longer, she pushed the door open and stepped inside. The male receptionist who always winked in a leering manner spotted her and gave her a lecherous grin accompanied by a knowing nod. She thought about whether management knew their rooms were being used by people like her and decided she didn’t care.
She nodded back and made for the stairs, forgetting to let him know who she was here to visit. She came often enough that he could probably guess.
“Mr Grayling?” the deskman called.
She raised her hand as an answer and headed for room seventy-two. As usual.
She knocked on the door and took another deep breath. Would he bombard her with questions like last time and the time before? He’d seemed overly inquisitive then, genuinely interested in her life, but instinct had warned her to be vague. He’d been testy after she hadn’t given him a vast amount of information, but not enough to have made her feel uncomfortable. His smile and return to his usual self had seen to that.
The door swung open on silent hinges, and Mr Grayling filled the doorway, all slicked-back hair, his muscled physique hidden by a white bathrobe. He beamed at her and lifted one arm out to the side in a gesture that she should enter. She stepped in and he closed the door then came up behind her to gently squeeze her upper arms.
She held back a shiver. I can’t do this for much longer.
“Right on time,” he said, his warm breath caressing her ear and neck. He raised a hand and slid it around to cup her throat. “I love your slender neck.” He applied a little pressure, whispered, “So easy to snap if you don’t do as you’re told.”
She froze. What had he just said?
“Get off me,” she said, remaining still in case he squeezed harder.
He chuckled softly. “I’m joking, Suzie.” He laughed again, throatier this time. “Honest to God, I’m joking!”
She gave a wobbly smile and turned her head slightly so she could see his face. He appeared the same as usual, certainly not a man who was into violence. She relaxed a little but told herself to remain on guard. He dropped his hand from her throat and walked around to stand in front of her, planting his hands on her shoulders.
“Would you like a drink, Suzie? Something to loosen you up? You seem tense.”
Of course I seem tense after that!
She shook her head, trying to read what was in his dark blue eyes. They didn’t look right, as though he’d imbibed quite a bit himself or he was on something harder. His pupils were dilated, and he breathed heavily. He didn’t usually get excited so fast.
“You sure?” He pressed his fingertips into the top of her back, his nails biting.
“I’m sure.”
He released her with a small push, another laugh, and she stumbled back a little. What was wrong with him tonight? Uncomfortable, she wanted to bolt, to turn around and wrench the door open wide, streak over the threshold and disappear down the hall.
“Come on,” he said, smiling and walking to the bed. He sat on the cream comforter and patted the space beside him.
She hesitated, knowing if she fled now he wouldn’t catch her in time. It would take him a few seconds to get off the bed and onto his feet.
“Aww, come on, Suzie. I swear to you I was only joking.”
He smiled so sweetly she went to him, nudging her thoughts on his weirdness aside. This was Mr Grayling, for God’s sake. He’d never hurt her, had always been so nice. Maybe what he’d said had been a slip of the tongue, his fantasies spilling through. Him feeling her out, seeing if she’d go for what he wanted. A bit of extra kink. Would she?
I don’t know. A hand to the throat like that is going a bit too far for me. I don’t get paid enough for that. What if it went wrong?
“What have you been up to since we last met?” he asked, leaning onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow, his cheek in his hand.
His usual pose. His voice didn’t sound like he was anything but the normal Mr Grayling, and she wondered if she’d imagined him being different just then. Maybe she felt on edge because she’d been thinking of her past, had almost told Jack all about it. Maybe she’d taken what he’d said out of context and he’d just been wanting to play a game.
Do you really believe that?
She swivelled to look at him. “Nothing much. The usual.”
“Busy with clients?” He ran a fingertip along her leg, looking at her with hooded eyes that seemed sinister somehow.
One minute he seems okay, the next…
“Something like that.” Why was he asking such a thing, about other clients? He knew what she did, that she saw different people each night. She got the strong sense he didn’t like that but was unable to pinpoint why.
“I wish you wouldn’t see them,” he said. “It isn’t good for your future.”
She wanted to ask what he’d meant. If she did the conversation might take a turn down a road she didn’t much fancy travelling. If he was like the man one of the other girls had encountered the other night, where he’d confessed wanting to take her away from it all so she could be his personal escort, setting her up in an apartment and paying all her bills…
God, don’t let him come out with something like that.
“It’s a job, nothing more,” she said. There. That would do.
“A job you shouldn’t be doing, not with your qualifications.”
She tensed, wished he’d stop touching her leg. Had she told him about her qualifications before? She didn’t think so. Had he been checking up on her? Had Novaline given him information they shouldn’t have? Surely they wouldn’t do that. Madeline was a total bitch, but stooping so low?
Money talks, you know that.
“Well, needs must.” She smiled, going for the nonchalant look while she figured out how to get the fuck away from him—away from this room. Her internal alarms blared now, a violent storm of sound that muddied her mind and made her chest tight.
“Wouldn’t a job in a lab be better?” He gripped her thigh—hard. Dug his fingertips into her flesh.
How the fuck did he know about that? She opened her mouth to ask him, but he shot up and was over her in a second, forcing her back so she was pinned beneath him. She maintained a calm outward appearance, yet inside she was crying, longing to kick and punch him, fight for her freedom. He held her still.
“I need to leave,” she said, voice level. “I’ll ask the agency to send someone else. I’m not comfortable with this.”
“No need, Suzie. It’s you I want. Doesn’t matter if you’re not comfortable.”
“The contract states if I don’t want to—”
“I’ve read the contract. I know what it states.” He held her chin between his finger and thumb.
It hurt.
“Let me up,” she said.
He stared down at her. “I’ll let something up, Suzie, but it isn’t you.”
* * * *
On her back, Suzie drew her red dress down, listening to Mr Grayling’s ragged breathing. He was beside her on the bed, dressing gown partially open, belt coming loose from its knot. She’d expected something like this, had to in her profession, but never with Mr Grayling, and with an agency like Novaline, she’d thought she’d have been safer.
She let out a laugh that sounded more like a sob and sat up. Saw herself in the mirror opposite, next to the door. Her short hair was every which way where he’d pulled it. Her mascara had run, her kohl smudged so she looked black-eyed and ill. Lipstick had smeared across her cheek where she’d tried to turn her head when he’d expected her to—
She stood, smoothing her dress out, sliding her foot into a shoe that had fallen off.
“You don’t want to tell anyone about this, Suzie.”
She ignored him. Couldn’t bring herself to speak.
“Theo told me to do it, that you’d be up for it.”
At the mention of that name she went cold. She had the urge to spin around, to face him and demand answers. To pummel him with her fists for making her feel so dirty and used. So under Theo’s control.
Still.
“He’s known where you’ve been all this time, you know. Left you for a bit, let you think you were safe. You never should have come to this city.”
Oh, God…
“He contacted me about you. Asked if I’d do him a favour.”
A favour? Is that what they’re calling it these days?
“Yeah,” he said, as though answering her. “It’s not usually my thing, fucking prossers, but hell, I’ll try anything once. And if I like it, more than once.” He chuckled. “I know Theo from the local club around here. You heard about that, right? I know you have because he said you hated the thought of him going to a place like that. Funny, considering what you do for a living now, eh?”
I don’t care about that fucking club. I want to go home.
“You can leave at any time, Suzie, now I’m done.”
She walked away from the bed on unsteady legs.
“You ought to go back to him before this gets worse.”
She grasped the doorknob.
“Before he comes for you himself.”
She twisted the knob. Opened the door.
“Mouth shut, Suzie, understand?”
Suzie walked out. Along the hallway. Down the stairs. Through the lobby. Out the front doors. She couldn’t face the kindly driver. Couldn’t let him see her like this. He’d guess in a second what had happened, and if he smiled at her in his lovely way she’d be undone. She reached down to take off her shoes. Hanging them over her crooked fingers, not caring if people stared, she wandered down the street, ignoring the cold and blinded by hot tears.
Chapter Three
Madeline’s frosty tones jarred Jack from a light doze. He bolted upright, blinking to rid himself of the fog that made him feel like shit. He rose and headed for reception, popping a breath mint into his mouth. At the desk he glanced at the form Madeline pushed abruptly towards him and signed on the dotted line. He stifled a sigh—some woman wanted fucking, what a surprise—and left the building.
Outside on the street, he shook his head at the car and driver waiting to take him to the client—a sleek black machine he reckoned could do nought to one hundred within seconds. Everything was so ordered, so ‘in place’. He understood the need for it, was glad Novaline had their employees’ welfare at the top of their list, but shit, it made him feel like a prostitute.
And he was. Stupid to have illusions he wasn’t.
Giving himself a mental shake, he threw off the melancholic feelings that had taunted him all night and told himself to just get on with it. If his life had turned to shit since he’d met Anna that was his fault. He’d allowed himself to dream, to fall into the ‘what if’ trap. No one had forced him there.
Inside the car on the back seat, he belted up and stared out of the window at the passing scenery. City life. The lights of downtown twinkled or blared, brilliance shining from windows, streetlamps and gaudy pink or green neon signs. People laughed as they walked along, women clutching men’s arms. Couples and families ate in restaurants, shadowy figures against the backdrop of candlelit interiors. It was all so…normal.
The driver pulled the car to a stop outside The Libra, a swanky but small hotel he’d worked in several times before. He’d been booked for the whole night—something rare. He got out, steeling himself to perform more than once like the puppet he was.
The air was crisp, bringing him fully alert, and he shivered as a wisp of cruel wind snaked between his shirt collar and his neck. Rounding his shoulders, he hiked in a deep breath and pushed open the hotel door. In the lobby—a non-ostentatious area that put him immediately at ease with its wing-back chairs and low coffee tables—he strode to the chest-height pine desk.
The male receptionist, suited up, his brown hair oiled into a style much like Suzie’s, offered him a polite smile and cocked his head in query. Like he needed to do that.
“I’m here to have dinner with Mrs Hayden,” Jack said, briefly entertaining what he imagined she’d look like. Long black hair, perhaps wavy on the ends. Shell-pink lips, the blusher on her cheeks of the same hue. Slender, well dressed—weren’t they always?—with black high heels to match a tight-fitting little black dress. They were all the same, give or take a few changes.
“Oh yes,” the receptionist said, studying Jack with narrowed eyes, as though he wondered what a woman like Mrs Hayden could want with a man like him. As though he was playing the part of suspecting why Jack was there but pretending he didn’t know for sure.
He knows exactly why I’m here.
The man eyed Jack up and down, turning his nose up. Jack wondered how he was being perceived. Jack was muscled, his body lean, maybe too toned for some women’s tastes. He worked out—had to in this line of work—and in his suit he appeared suave and sophisticated but felt he couldn’t quite pull the whole package off. Suzie had told him once he looked rugged, more than a bit of rough, and he could see how she’d arrived at that conclusion. Still, the clients seemed to like him. He’d had revisits several times in the past.
“The dining room is through that door on the left,” the man said, pointing in that direction. “She’s sitting at table thirty-two, far right corner.”
Jack knew the hotel’s layout but didn’t want to cut the man off as he gave directions. A bit rude, that. And if he wanted to play a game, making out he hadn’t given Jack those same directions a few times before, who was he to stop him?
“Thank you.” Jack nodded and walked away, ignoring the dining room door and heading instead to the rest rooms.
After checking his appearance and swilling his face with cold water, he felt sufficiently refreshed to join Mrs Hayden. He prepared himself for the long night ahead, knowing his patter by heart, the things he would do during dinner if she seemed the sort who wanted attention lavished upon her. In short, he’d simper, smile at all the right moments and laugh when required. He was an actor, an adept one, and even though he didn’t feel like being in the spotlight tonight, the damn show must go on.
He stood inside the dining room doorway and scanned the room. Mostly couples sat eating, the men in suits, the women in fine dresses. This place might be small, but it catered to high-classed citizens. Mrs Hayden would have paid a pretty penny for them to stay here the night, not to mention the exorbitant fee she’d have paid the agency. Still, that wasn’t his concern.
Jack stared over at table thirty-two. A woman sat facing away from the room, her long tresses disappearing behind the chair back. She was slender, as he’d guessed she’d be, but a blonde hadn’t figured in his prediction. Blondes reminded him of Anna, and he tended to breathe a sigh of relief when his clients were brunettes or redheads. But that seemed a little off, didn’t it? If they were blonde he’d stand a better chance of imagining they were her, making them easier to fuck.
He refused to analyse it further.
Taking another deep breath, he plastered on his game face and walked towards Mrs Hayden’s table. She reached for a wineglass of water, bending her dainty arm at the elbow as she brought the drink to her mouth and out of his view. From the rear she looked quite pleasant, and he wondered whether her front would be the same. He drew closer, stopping just behind her to attach a smile to his face and straighten his tie. She sensed him there and turned her head slightly, putting her glass down beside a silver condiment tray. A swathe of her hair obscured her features, all but the tip of her nose. He rested his hand on the back of her chair and swallowed.
“Good evening, Mrs Hayden. I’m Jack.”
She swept her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear and looked up at him.
His knees weakened and his stomach muscles bunched.
Anna?
It was a good job Jack was holding the back of her chair. If he wasn’t, he’d have had trouble remaining upright. He swallowed again, widening his eyes at the sight of Anna gazing up at him. Judging by her expression she was nervous, shy almost, and he acknowledged she must be after what they’d done last time they’d met. He’d fucked her ass and afterwards watched her and Kline shower while Jack jerked his own cock. It wasn’t something easily forgotten, not by him and, it seemed, not by her.
Her cheeks coloured, a deep pink flush. He wanted to put her at ease, but he wasn’t feeling too in control himself and wasn’t sure he could pull off his usual working attitude.
“Sit down?” she whispered, lowering her gaze to the table.
Her words being a question made him think she was unsure whether he’d stay, and he felt sorry for her. It was clear she wasn’t the kind of woman to do this on a regular basis, not without her husband being present—Kline the one who called the shots. Jack glanced over the rest of the room, his heart hammering too hard, and fully expected to spot Kline at a nearby table, watching with that predatory gaze of his to ensure Jack didn’t step out of line.
The man wasn’t there.
Jack sat opposite Anna, conscious of his appearance, hoping he was still attractive to her. Had he ever been? He guessed the answer was yes. She’d let him touch her, fuck her—or was she like him, able to shut off what a person looked like and just enjoy the ride? He settled on his chair—far from bloody settled inside—and folded his hands on his lap. The tablecloth was suddenly too interesting.
