Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WYATT
I didn’t have the energy to deal with Margo. “Why are you here so early?”
“It’s Monday. We go to the gym together, remember? And what was he doing here? There’s no one on your schedule.” Margo pulled her phone out.
“Margo, don’t start,” I said, walking to the coffee bar.
“Don’t start? You had a man here overnight without Jackson. Do you have any idea what could’ve happened?”
“Jackson was here.” I dropped the pod in. Sort of. He stayed the first half hour after Julian arrived and came back for the last half hour before he left.
“Not all night. I saw Jackson come in. No one had any idea you were here alone with him.”
“Margo, enough.” I slammed down the lid on the coffeemaker. “You really think Julian Silver wants his name connected to a dead hooker in a hotel room?”
“It hasn’t stopped others. What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you do that?”
“Why would I do what, my job?” I leaned against the counter. “And Julian isn’t like others.”
“Oh, you’re a Julian Silver expert?”
“Yes, after almost twenty years of being a prostitute, I know a thing or two about men.” I knew the signs now, the subtle little things men did that were a warning for something bigger.
“Men, maybe, but not Julian Silver.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “He has made a name for himself on the ice. He plays rough hockey and has a short temper. Some teams won’t touch him. He knocked a guy out once.”
“He walked up to some random guy and knocked him out?”
“No, during a game. But his outbursts are well documented. He got drunk at some charity thing this summer and tried to beat the shit out of another player.”
I didn’t see that with Julian. He didn’t fit the rough sex type of client.
Those men wore their dominance for the world to see.
They couldn’t get off unless they were hurting another.
Julian wanted to please. He wanted to do everything right.
“And how many women has he beaten up? Better yet, how many escorts in hotels has he beat up?”
“Fine, you don’t want to take my word for it? What about his wife? She has made some serious accusations.”
“You want me to take the word of a woman who’s fucking someone else?
A woman who didn’t even want to be married to him?
I should trust her?” You couldn’t search Julian’s name without hers popping up too.
She was pretty enough—long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, a huge smile.
She worked as a fitness model and yoga instructor.
She had the look of a hockey player’s wife.
Cute. Soft. Their wedding had been massive, full of famous faces and glossy coverage.
It looked like a fairy tale. Julian, the prince. Her, the perfect match.
And then something changed. Suddenly, he wasn’t the hero anymore. He was the villain.
“Seriously?” Margo rolled her eyes. “You make Jackson wait outside when you’re with Maverick. Maverick, the man whose house you live in. Maverick, who has access to this room at any time. To you at any time.”
“No, Maverick makes Jackson wait outside,” I corrected her.
“Will you listen to yourself?”
“I am, and I trust Julian.”
“Just like in LA?”
“Julian Silver isn’t some rich fucker who thinks he’s above the law.
He’s a hockey player who when he’s on the ice does what is expected of him.
Just like when I am in this room, I do what is expected of me.
Which is what I did last night.” Margo and I had a tricky relationship.
She really wasn’t my friend, but she was the closest thing I had to one.
She knew everything about me. How much money I made, how many men I’d slept with. What I looked like when I cried.
“You’ve never done this for Richard, or even Victor.”
“Do what? Fuck them?” I tried to play off that she was partially right.
I had limited the time I could spend with either of them to four hours.
“Richard told me I was old and had saggy tits. And Victor wants to be home before his ‘show starts.’” They both got what they paid for, four hours to do with as they pleased.
“No. Let them spend the night without Jackson or give them a huge discount because they make you come. Buy a fucking vibrator, but don’t put your life at risk over a pretty face and a hard cock.”
“Okay, we are not having this conversation. What I do with my business is for me to decide. And for you to keep your fucking nose out of. I don’t really feel like going to the gym today. So you can leave.” I started to the bedroom.
“Tell me there isn’t more to this. That you’re not putting your life at risk because you think something else is going to happen,” she called after me. “This isn’t like you. You don’t do this.”
“What do you know about me?” I turned on her.
“You see a whore in an overpriced penthouse. A whore who has spent the last sixteen years playing into every fantasy of every man who has walked through that door. Sixteen years I have put their needs before mine. Ignored the smell and sagging skin. The limp pricks and wrinkly ball sacks. For too long, I have put my wants last. So if I want to have sex with a man who looks really good naked, that has a great cock and knows how to use it, why the fuck do you care?” I yelled.
Margo stepped closer. “Because it’s not the whore I’m worried about. She knows her place. It’s the woman I worry about. One who has spent so much time alone that when some man shows her a little attention, she gets attached.”
Her words felt like a slap. “I made that mistake once. I will never make it again. Is there anything else?”
Margo took a deep breath. Her face softened a bit. “No one wants to see you get hurt, Wyatt. Especially not me.”
“Your concern is misplaced. Julian is a client. A client with odd hours. I will see him when it works best for him…” I held up my hand when she started to protest. “Because I want to. I am still a person. I’m not some coin-operated hole for you and Maverick to manage.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to shower.
You know the way out.” I closed the bedroom and then locked myself in the bathroom.
When I first got into this profession, I thought a hard cock meant something more. I saw sex as the first step to love. I thought when clients kept coming back that was because they had feelings for me. That maybe if I tried hard enough, they would love me. Rescue me.
Then I grew up and realized a hard cock was only about sex. That was all Julian and I were. Two people that had a need.
And that need was sex.