Chapter 9
Emee
This is like a fever dream, I think as I shake my head, wandering in an aimless circle around the bed.
Never in a million years would anyone have convinced me I would let a client hold me down and dry fuck me until I came. While calling him My King, no less.
I”m not mad, though, because that was the best orgasm of my life.
As well, I can’t quite shake away the protective sense of comfort he gave me when he mentioned the lack of a peephole and security system.
I have time for a breath at least. I always schedule a break between clients. Sometimes I need to change bedding and swap out pillows, but also, you never know when a client might spill something heartbreaking or enraging.
I also use the time to make notes in client profiles and hydrate.
This is the first time I’ve had to deal with a pair of ruined underwear.
Luckily, my closet is stocked with backup clothes. I can’t meet one client with another’s tears still drying on my shoulder, or occasionally vomit—it happens. Stress is complicated.
Outside of the need for fresh underwear, I also strip down and change everything, grabbing a pair of gray sweats and a fresh white t-shirt, and do a deep breathing exercise to get my focus back.
I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anyone else with his scent on me for the rest of the day.
After I’ve changed, washed my hands, and splashed some cold water on my face, I slip my feet back into my tennis shoes and head out toward my desk to grab my water bottle and get my head straight.
My phone buzzes on my desk as I drop into my chair, releasing a long groan with my fists to the ceiling as I see my brother’s face and phone number on the screen. “Whaaaaaat now?” I say to no one, before popping my finger on the green accept button.
“Hel—” I start, but he’s talking before I get the word out.
“Em, I need help. I’m in trouble…”
“No more money,” I say, pushing sternness into my voice that masks the helplessness I feel when it comes to my brother.
The memory of making pancakes for him on his birthdays while our parents slept off their hangovers weaves through my hazy thoughts. I also remember the drug dealers, thieves and other questionable guests that traipsed through our tiny trailer park living room and, when I got a little older, started looking at me like I was dessert.
And the way he took the beatings from my father that should have been mine.
“Yeah, no, no money,” He says, and my eyes pop wide, a rush of hope that this time, this time, maybe he just needs me to help him find a good suit for a job interview. Maybe take on an alter ego and give him a professional reference. “You don’t have enough money for this, Em… I took the grand you gave me to the casino. I tried to turn it into enough to fix this. But I had a bad run, Em. I’m in deep.” He clears his throat, and all my happy hopes are drowned by the fear in his voice. “Are you still seeing that client today? King Hertzof?”
My cheeks burn as I answer, “Already saw him. Won’t be seeing him again until tomorrow.”
“Good, good.” His voice sounds strangely hopeful. “Look, girls think he’s hot, right? You think he’s hot?”
“What? I’m not answering that… You shouldn’t even know he’s a client! This conversation is over.”
“No! Carrot, listen, King Hertzof has this thing. He has this, like, superstition. No sex during the season. It throws him off his game. Everyone knows it. So, I thought—”
His dick certainly didn’t get that memo, I think, before shaking my head and replying, “I’m not listening. La la la, I can’t hear you.”
“—Emee! Fuck, I’m… I’m serious. They’re going to kill me.” His voice cracks. There’s a choking sound like when someone is trying not to cry.
Benjamin is a lot of things, but he doesn’t cry. Like, ever. It’s something I’ve tried to work on with him, but we’ve both dealt with our childhood in our own ways.
This isn’t a joke.We are all each other has. And he’s made a truckload of bad decisions, but he’s still my brother. I still love him.
I still feel responsible.
“How much do you need? I’ll loan you the money, but you’re paying it back.” I’ve said that so many times in the past I’ve lost count.
“No, it’s more than you have. You need to get him back on the ice. Do whatever and make it happen, but then… I need you to throw King off his game. That way, I can make a big bet and clean up. A little insider info, you know? Give the guys I owe a little tip so they can make some bank and get me off their radar. All you need to do… you know… fuck him.”
“Benjamin! What the hell?” I shout, pressing my knuckles into my eye sockets, stomping my feet.
My brother is not asking me to fuck someone to get him out of debt. No. No, no, no.
“You don’t even have to do anything, just get him started then let it happen. I’d do it myself, but I don’t think I’m his type. Just tempt him, Em. You’ll have him there anyway, in the bed…on the futon, wherever. Just be tempting. So tempting, he can’t resist. He’s still a guy, he’ll crack. Pleeease?”
“Benjamin.” My mom’s face flutters behind my closed lids. The image is her standing in our tiny bathroom with the cracked mirror, putting on her red lipstick, ready to head out the door for the night, giving me one of the many versions of the same speech.
You’re responsible for your brother. I don’t have the time for his shit. And, God forbid your father has to get involved, you know how that goes for him, and you don’t want that, do you?
“A hundred grand,” he says, and the world feels like it stops spinning with a jolt. “Plus interest. A lot of interest. And they want a piece of this. I sort of told them I could help…fix the game, you know? It was the only way to buy some time. I need this. I can’t go back to them now and tell them I can’t do what I said.”
“A hundred grand? Jesus.” I smack my palm to my forehead. “Fix the game? Benjamin!”
“So, you’ll do it?”
“No! I don’t have that kind of money, I have…” I know down to the penny how much I have in my accounts. An angry roar threatens to burst from my chest because that money was for the down-payment on a farmhouse. The farmhouse, if I could swing it. “I’m not doing that. And I’m not discussing this anymore. I have a client. One of us has to make money. I have to go.”
There’s a pause and my heart lurches, knowing this is real. He’s in a kind of trouble I can’t save him from.
He throws out the Hail Mary. “Please. I love you. You’re the only one that’s ever been there for me. You’re the carrot to my peas.”
Nausea replaces the last embers of warmth left by my illicit orgasm with King.
“I have to go.” I end the call, panicked fingers clenching my throat, and turn the phone off. Not to silent, off.
This isn’t happening.
I fix my elbows on the cool glass of my desk, resting my face in my hands.
I knew I shouldn’t have taken on another hockey player. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I push off the edge of my desk to my feet, stretching to the ceiling as my head spins, trying to puzzle out another way to fix Benjamin’s problem.
Tempting King to break some sacred superstitious vow wouldn’t work anyway, right?
Although, the way he pumped that monster hard-on against me earlier suggests otherwise.
There’s a knock, and for the first time since I started taking clients here, I hesitate.
A peephole might not be a bad idea, but for now, I press the button and Mr. Hart swings the door wide, a creepy smile on his face per usual, striding into the office like he owns the place.
The sound of my brother choking up lingers as I plaster a controlled smile on my face, working out where I left off with Mr. Hart’s last session.
He’s certainly not a favorite client. His wife has him coming to me, trying to get him to understand his emotional disconnect, but if he doesn’t stop the passive-aggressive innuendo, and the lack of sincerity in his answers to my questions, this will be his last session.
“Come in,” I say, struggling to focus as the reality of how much my brother owes sinks in.
I need money and fast. Would Milton have more hockey players to send my way?
Even if he did, and they would pay double what I usually charge, it would take time to come up with that money.
Would they really kill him? Does that sort of thing really happen?
“You okay, sweetheart?” Mr. Hart eyes me, as he bends his left arm, pretending to check the time, making sure I see his Rolex like he does every session.
I nod, my game face solidly in place.
This client is a billionaire, and he probably drops a hundred grand in a night at the casino without a twitch. My split-second thought of manipulating him into funding Benjamin’s debt turns my stomach.
Also, in an unexpected twist, after what happened with King, the idea of being with anyone else suddenly feels impossible.
“Let’s get started,” I say, moving to my desk and tapping on my keyboard, taking a breath as I pretend to look over my notes from the last session. “Follow me and we’ll get—”
An ear-piercing screeching explodes from above, cutting me off.
Strobe lights flash as the tortuously screaming alarm disorients me. Loud noises and flashing lights flip my panic switch as I slap my hands over my ears, struggling to catch myself.
“What the fuck?” Mr. Hart yells, looking up and around, then back at me, his face contorting in an angry grimace. “They testing the fire alarm today?”
Before I answer, freezing water rushes out in spirals from the sprinklers embedded in the ceiling, dousing us both as I release a high-pitched yelp and dart around my desk toward the door, my hands still plastered against the sides of my head.
“We need to get out. This isn’t a test!” I scream over the blaring alarm, but Mr. Hart is already at a dead run, swearing and cursing about how the water is going to ruin his suit, trying desperately to put his comb-over straight as he bolts, not looking back.
The alarm rages, vibrating into my chest as the spraying water becomes a deluge. My computer, my desk, my furniture, everything is soaked in seconds.
I shiver and struggle to breathe through the water streaming down my face, although I don’t smell smoke. The chaos of the alarm and the lights has me squeezing my eyes shut, poking my index fingers into my ears, begging for it to stop.
It’s a fire. Emee, you have to move.
What if I can’t make it out?
Everything I’ve worked for is here.
A dark voice inside my head breaks my trance.
Run, Emee. Run.
It’s King’s voice. The why of that will need to be unpacked later as I force movement into my legs and run.
I’m soaked through, my t-shirt and sweats heavy and sticking to my skin as I dash out of the little waiting area, each step squishing on the drenched carpet as I make it into the hall. The alarm and lights and water engulf me as I look for the red letters of an EXIT sign with an arrow.
As I turn, it’s right there. I’ve seen it a thousand times, but panic has me upended.
I clench my teeth, water chilling me down to my bones. I take off, chugging my arms and legs as fast as they’ll go, rounding the corner where another red arrow points the way and—
Bam.I run right into the solid chest and the scent of…King.
“Are you okay, baby?” He sweeps me up before I reply, his eyes darting to my chest where my nipples are making come hither eyes at him. But I don’t care. I realize I’m crying, panic turning to relief as his arms secure me against him. “I’m getting you out of here,” he says, already jogging toward the exit sign, carrying me like a baby.
“Thank you,” I blubber. “You shouldn’t have run into a burning building!”
“I would run through fire and broken glass for you.” The spray of water drips into my eyes as his arms lasso me against him. “I saw that asshole that went in after me running down the hall with you nowhere in sight.”
I bury my face into his shoulder as he barrels through the metal door to the stairway, my body bouncing against him with each rushed step.
Down. Down. Down.
The sound of the alarm muffles and the water isn’t spraying in the stairwell.
I have a fleeting thought that I should have him put me down, but his face is a stone mask of focus. He keeps me cradled against him, descending all nine floors, and he’s not even out of breath.
We burst out of the main floor door into the bright sunlight, making me squint through the droplets of water clinging to my lashes.
The air smells sweeter, even without a hint of smoke inside.
“What the fuck?” I turn toward the voice. It’s Mr. Hart, soaking wet, glaring at the gathering crowd. He turns on another string of curse words as I wiggle out of King’s arms, needing to feel the solid concrete under my feet. I turn to look where Mr. Hart is pointing. “What the hell happened to my car!”
Indented in the roof of a fancy black car parked right alongside the building in a handicapped spots, is one of the enormous potted palm plants that flank the elevator on my floor, in a heavy plaster pot.
Dirt and pieces of thick broken pottery lie scattered on top of the roof and hood, while Mr. Hart’s chin starts to quiver.
King looks bored, and when I look up at my building, I see the hallway window on my floor open. It’s a straight shot to where that hundred-pound pot is now shattered, nine stories down.
There’s no one else on my floor.
“Who fucking did this?” Mr. Hart’s voice cracks as he scans the gathering crowd, his eyes connecting for a second to King’s, but King squares his shoulders, his white t-shirt plastered to the planes of his broad chest, the definition of each valley around his abdominal muscles making me release an inner sigh as Hart falls into a crouch, cradling his head.
“Maybe God did it,” King says, glancing toward the sky scratching casually at the side of his neck.
Sirens blare in the distance as I analyze King’s body language. I’m not sure if I sense anger or satisfaction.
Maybe both.
“Did you do that?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at him, tipping my head toward the sacrificed plant.
King tightens his lips against his teeth. “Karma has a way of working things out.”
“What does that mean?”
“He left you behind. You get what you give.”
There’s a new dangerous energy I hadn’t detected from him before, but he’s a wildcard. That I already know.
Chaotic emotional range with a lack of impulse control.
That was in the notes Milton sent over about King Hertzof. That’s at the root of his suspension, and my trusted colleague’s assessment as well.
That’s what these sessions with me are supposed to help with.
How I’m drawn to a man with that sort of lack of self-control is both fascinating, from a professional point of view, and frightening from a personal one. He is everything I would not look for in a partner.
As true as that is, it doesn’t stop me from admiring the view of what God gave him under the clinging fabric of his sweats.
A shiver vibrates through me as goosebumps rise on my skin, watching the fire engine pull into the parking lot.
“God, I hope there isn’t a real fire.” I cross my arms over my chest, hoping to get my nipples under control. “I don’t even have my purse, my wallet…everything is in there. But, at least I grabbed my phone.” I reach into the side pocket of my drenched sweats and tug it out, breathing a relieved sigh when I tap the screen and it brightens, showing the listing photo of the farmhouse I loaded as my screen saver.
I believe what you focus on, you find, so bringing that house into my day as much as possible makes it feel more attainable.
Or, at least it did.
King shakes his head. “Fire or not, it’s going to take a while. And the water…there will be remediation for weeks.”
“Weeks?” I turn, incredulous. Thoughts of how I’m going to get the money to bail Benjamin out careen around inside my head. “I need to work. This… This can’t be happening right now.”
He shrugs. “Yeah, and there’s no way I can cancel my sessions. I have to get back on the ice, and,” He tongues his teeth, looking me up and down, smirking when I tighten my grip across my chest, “you need to work, like you said. You were doing a bang-up job with me up there. We’ll do the sessions at my place. I’ve got a perfectly good bed.”
He cocks a sexy brow, sunlight glinting from the water on his face, and it takes a thoughtful effort to not give in to my baser instincts.
“Really?” I smirk as he drags a lazy finger over his lips, the blue of his eyes matching the sky behind him. “And how many other women have slept in your bed, King?”
“None.” He looks me up and down, snapping his tongue in his cheek. “You’ll be the only one. But, I don’t imagine we’ll be sleeping, will we, doc?”
Only one.
He’s so infuriatingly attractive. Luckily, a handful of my brain cells line up to save me.
“No. I don’t meet clients in their homes. Occasionally in a neutral place if I have to travel to them for some reason, but never—”
“Great. I’ll get you a hotel room.”
“No…”
He’s already pulled his phone out, his fingers tapping away. “The Lux has a great suite available. It’s just a block down.”
He’s not asking.
”No,” I say again, shaking my head.
A client that A) I just met and B) I broke every rule of the code of conduct with, cannot pay for a hotel room for me. If anyone found out about what just happened upstairs, I’d be ruined.
He nods. “Yes, you can. For me. I can’t miss a session, lots of people counting on you getting my head straight.”
I hesitate.
Girl, you should say no. Say no.
“I’ll be seeing other clients there,” I tell him, my mouth working before my brain can stop me. “Not just you.”
What the hell are you doing, Emee?
He answers with that distracting half-smile that shows off the sexiest chipped tooth I’ve ever seen. “Whatever you say, firecracker.”
My options are limited. Take clients at my apartment? No.
Pay for my own hotel? Yeah, but my purse is upstairs, I can’t get to a credit card or my license to book it…
Call Milton and ask for another favor? Or, my friend Anita? I hate asking for help.
“Hey!” I wave down one of the firefighters that’s standing next to one of the trucks. “Is there a fire? When can I get back in?”
“No evidence of fire yet. If you were on the floor where the alarm sounded, I don’t know, we are still up there seeing what’s what. But, a few days at least. But, if there is a fire, and it takes off, there’s no tellin’.”
I close my eyes, covering my nose and mouth with my shaking hands.
More firefighters rush by, heading for the door. I need my work. I need the money. Benjamin’s current trouble aside, I have bills to pay. Both of ours.
And this handsome hunk of hockey craziness that seems hell-bent on tipping my world on its head is offering me a solution.
“Fine,” I say. “Fine. But, I will be paying you back.”
“Good luck with that,” he says, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his wallet. “Here. You can’t be without money.”
I shake my head, but he shoves a wad of cash my way, along with a black credit card.
When I shake my head, he shoves it into the drenched pocket of my sweatpants.
“You will take it. You can’t be without money, baby.”
“I…” A wicked rush of excitement warms me, seeing the dangerous but protective look in his eyes. “Fine. But I’m keeping track of every penny. I’ll give you an exact accounting with receipts and as soon as I get things sorted out, I’m paying you. Period.”
He tips his head on a sniff, like I’m entertaining him. Water drips down his neck from the waves of hair plastered to his skin.
“I like you thinking you owe me something, baby. But you should know,” He leans in, his lips grazing my cheek, moving toward my ear, “the second you said my name up there, while you creamed in your panties, you agreed to be mine.”
My breath hitches, embarrassment heating my cheeks as his fingers twine with mine and that throbbing starts again between my legs.
“And,” he says, with an irritating smirk, tempting me to kiss him. His hand sneaks its way down my drenched back, radiating warmth. Then he lands a loud, wet smack on my behind. “I take care of my things.”