Luscious slaps the guy on the back of the head. “Don’t be an ass. Just tell her what you told me.”
He glares at her. “Watch it, bitch.”
Luscious raises her hand to hit him again, but I quickly pull two twenties out of my bra and wave them in his face. “Forty bucks if you just tell me what the woman looked like.” I’m not even sure if it’ll matter. I probably haven’t ever seen the woman before.
He stares at the money for a second then snatches it out of my hands. “Yeah, okay.” He stuffs the money into his pocket. “She looked like you.” He starts to walk off, but I snag him by the arm.
“Don’t be an asshole,” I snap. “I gave you forty bucks; now tell me what she looked like.”
He looks back at me then down at my hand on his arm. “Hands off, bitch.”
“Not until you tell me.”
“I already told you that she looked like you. Tall, nice tits and ass, same eyes, and your faces looked pretty much the same. She was a little older maybe, but still hella fine.” He winks at me and makes this disgusting pucker with his lips.
“Oh, yeah.” Luscious slams her hand against her forehead. “I saw her, too, but I thought she was you. Except she was dressed in all leather, which didn’t seem like something you would wear.”
Leather? What the hell?
“I wasn’t here this morning.”
Luscious shrugs. “Well, I thought it was you. Sure as hell looked like you.”
“Nah, I got up close to her,” the guy says. “She looked older and a little bit different. Bigger breasts, too.”
My heart misses a beat as I stand frozen in time, lips parted, shocked to my very core.
“Older, like someone who could be my mother?”
“Mother, older sister—whatever.” He jerks his arm out of my hold. “We’re done here. I gotta get back to work.”
I let him walk off. It doesn’t matter if he stays or not. I’m completely speechless. Someone who looked like me. Someone like a mother or a sister. Problem is, I don’t have a sister. And my mother’s dead.
So, who the hell is she?
Chapter 4
Lola
I’m falling apart. After almost two years of suppressing my emotions, now they’re all manifesting in the form of anxiety.
The thing that really sucks is I only had an hour from when I was at The Dusky Inn until I have to meet my client for the night.
I think about calling Aunt Glady, seeing if maybe she knows any of my relatives who look like me and perhaps have a leather fetish. There’s a ton I’ve never met before, so who the hell knows? Maybe my father has one of my aunts or cousins out looking for me. Though I don’t know why the hell he’d have them give me strange notes.
It doesn’t make any sense, and I really don’t want to get Aunt Glady involved in this. It’s why I cut ties with her almost two years ago.
Instead, I do what I need to do and get cleaned up for work, making sure my gun is still tucked in my boot.
I pretty much check over my shoulder every five seconds, knowing someone out there, in the street, in the restaurant—anywhere—is probably watching me.
Thankfully, I’m a pro at turning myself off when I need to. And despite my rattled nerves, the night goes smoothly. I have dinner with my client, Tenner; a tall, larger guy in his early thirties, who smells like cheap cologne and can’t seem to take his eyes off my cleavage. I make sure to drink a lot of scotch because it makes almost anything okay, including sex with a guy I’m in no way attracted to. Then we go up to the room where I strip everything off except my bra, underwear, and boots so my gun will stay hidden.
He’s nervous, and it’s my job to make him relax.
I sit him down on the bed and straddle him. “Relax, baby,” I tell him as he grips my hips.
For a moment, I wince at his touch, but then I smile, pretending he’s Layton. I always picture Layton when I do this, which is probably fucked up in so many ways, but so am I.
“I am relaxed,” Tenner promises then leans in to kiss me, his eyes closing, his lips puckered.
I put my hand over his mouth and slant backward, shaking my head but keeping my charming smile on. “No kissing on the mouth. Remember?”
The no kissing rule started with something my mother had told me, but honestly, after Layton died, I made a silent promise to myself never to kiss a guy. He stole a few kisses the night we had sex in the bathroom stall and after he dropped me off back home. I want those to be the last kisses I ever have.
I lower my hand as his eyes open, and then I wander toward his cock, turning everything inside off until I feel so numb I swear I’ve died. I’ve done it a hundred times, and it’s starting to get somewhat alarming how easily I can shut down in the snap of a finger. Sometimes, I wonder if, one day, I won’t be able to turn it back on again.
As my hand brushes his hardness, Tenner reaches down and grabs my wrist roughly, apparently shaking all of his nerves in a second flat. “I was told I could do whatever I want.”
This isn’t the first time a guy’s gotten a little rough with me. I know the best thing to do is keep calm.
“Well, whoever told you that was wrong. There are some girls you can do more with, but you didn’t order one of them.”
He tightens his hold, his fingernails biting my skin. “I want what I was told I would get. I paid good money for you.”
“It’s just a kiss,” I tell him calmly. “No big deal. I have a lot of other talents.” I reach for his cock again, though it’s not as easy as the first time, my irritation getting to me.
He swats my hand away. Then I’m suddenly flipped over onto my belly. He pushes down on me, pressing my face into the mattress.
“It’s just a kiss for now, but the next thing I know, you’ll steal my wallet and take off before I even get laid.”
I don’t squirm, don’t scream, and I barely breathe. I’m not afraid. Not yet, anyway.
“You didn’t pay to get laid, and you should know that. We have rules at The Dusky Inn, and you should’ve been told those rules.”
He shoves me harder, his hand on my back, his weight hovering over me. Then he leans down and breathes into my ear, “I wasn’t told any rules. What I was told is that I could do whatever I want. And I want you to scream.” I feel his weight come down on me as he hits the back of my head. It feels like my skull cracks, and my ears begin to ring.
“Motherfucker,” I curse, blinking my vision back into focus.
That went downhill really fast.
I try to slam my head back against him, but he dodges. Fighting against his weight, I then wiggle my arm out from under me and lean to the side, reaching down to my boot. I can feel the tip of his hard-on pressing against me while he grabs my hair with one hand, the other pushing me down. At any moment, I know he’s going to slip inside me. But I won’t go down without a fight.
Mustering up every ounce of strength I have, I push upward, forcing his weight off me. I slide my hand into my boot, and as I roll over, I withdraw my gun.
He’s about to lunge at me but catches sight of the gun and stops in his tracks. He kneels on the edge of the bed near my legs and puts his hands up.
“What the hell is this shit? This wasn’t part of the deal.”
Sitting up, I keep the gun a
imed at him, hating that my hand is unsteady. “What deal?”
His eyes are wide and full of alarm. “My deal with Reagan. He said, if I paid an extra five hundred, I could get rough with you. He’s done it for me before.”
Fucking Reagan. His morals have always been questionable at best, and I’m starting to wonder if maybe this is why Nyjah pushed so hard for me to stop escorting. Perhaps he knew this shit was coming. Maybe that’s where the date offer came from. He possibly knew this is what I’d be facing tonight.
“Well, Reagan never told me this, nor did I get any extra money to let some fucking pervert live out his rape fantasy.” With the gun still out, I move off the bed and reach for my dress.
Tenner starts to move for me again, but I shove the gun against his chest.
“You touch me, and you’re fucking dead.”
He backs away, looking angry yet terrified at the same time. “Stupid cunt.”
I tell him to sit down on the bed then hurriedly get dressed, keeping the gun pointed at him, getting more and more irritated by the second. I should just leave, but the bad part of me seeks revenge. I want to teach him a lesson.
I move toward him. “Hand me your wallet.”
He shakes his head. “No way. I’m not getting ripped off more.”
Rolling my eyes, I bend down and pick up his pants, searching his pockets until I find his wallet. I open it up and find a picture of his family. No shocker there.
“A wife and two kids, huh?” I ask, taking a thin stack of tens and twenties out and tucking them into my bra.
He narrows his eyes. “You’re going to pay for this, you bitch.”
“No, I’m not,” I start to say, but then he’s springing from the bed and running at me.
I move to shoot, but choke up. The image of the tattooed guy I killed flashes through my head.
Kill him.
Protect yourself.
I can’t.
I start to run for the door, but he tackles me from behind and wrestles the gun from my hand. I open my mouth to scream, hating that this is what he wants, that it’s probably turning him on. My scream is cut short as I’m clocked over the head with the handle of the gun.