Page 30 of Forbidden Desires

I shook my head, my chest growing tight as I recalled all the horrifying details I’d been faced with. “My mother was in a coma for about a day. My father died about two hours after arriving at the hospital from internal injuries. I didn’t…I didn’t get to say goodbye to them. They were already dead by the time I was able to get back home.”

“I’m very sorry,” he said in a soft, understanding tone. “So you lost your parents. But mine aren’t dead.”

“But they’re not the same as they were,” I countered. I resituated myself on the bed, moving up onto the mattress and sitting cross legged in front of him. “I know what it’s like to lose parents, but I know what it’s like to lose them swiftly, in an instant. I don’t know what it’s like to watch them diminish in front of me, not knowing what I might come back to when I see them again, but I can imagine that’s an equally painful way to lose a parent.”

He nodded, and a beat of silence followed before he asked, “So, because your parents died, that’s how you started doing this?”

This, being an escort. “It’s how I started camming,” I corrected, giving him a faint smile. “I was so lost after they died, so overcome with grief and anger that whoever slammed into the side of their car and drove them off the road and into a ravine was never found or held accountable. I didn’t know what to do after they were gone. Didn’t have the support that I would have had. Emotionally. Financially. Neither of my parents had life insurance policies, and they didn’t have a lot of money in general.”

Swallowing hard as the terrible memories swamped me, I absently reached out, brushing my fingers through Eric’s hair, which was so soft and damp. “My life…it felt like a train wreck and at some point I needed to find a way to support myself. But the places that did hire me quickly realized I was shit at the job because I was so out of sorts and distracted and trying to process my grief over my parents andhowthey’d died, and they fired me just as fast.”

“Assholes,” he muttered, his lips tight with anger on my behalf.

“It was difficult at the time, but I get it now. They had a business to run and I was more a liability than a productive employee.” I shrugged and continued on. “When I dropped out of college, I only had a few weeks before I had to move out of the dorm and find a new place to live. My parents didn’t own our house. They rented the same place for years and always made payments on time, but the landlord didn’t care that I was now homeless. He’d had a steady stream of income for years, and now he didn’t. It didn’t matter to him that I was going through one of the worst things a teenager could ever experience in their life.”

Another inarticulate, irate sound from Eric, but he said nothing, letting me finish without interrupting.

I exhaled a breath, my fingers now picking at non-existent lint on the comforter between us. “So…I started looking around for a way to make quick money while I crashed on a high school friend’s couch. They’d stayed in the area, hadn’t gone off to college, and lived with four other people in a small apartment. They sold weed and did gaming livestreams. I’m not exactly great at video games, but Tamara made the joke about doing something a little less PG. And down the rabbit hole I went,” I said wryly.

“Did you actually like camming?” Eric asked carefully.

It was as though this was the first time that he seemed to consider that I might not be doing this line of work because it was something that I enjoyed, because now he knew the extent of the negative context to it all. That he cared enough to ask, to even have this discussion when we’d never really ventured into this realm of my life before, felt as though it was changing the dynamic betweenusonce again.

“Did I like it? Not initially,” I replied honestly, giving him even more of a deep dive into my past. “At first, it was just a temporary thing so I could get on my feet and not have to alwayscrash on someone else’s couch,” I said, opening up even more. “It probably didn’t help that I didn’t feel much of anything right after my parents’ deaths. I was completely numb, so I didn’t feel shame. I didn’t feel apprehension. I’d locked down my emotions, because if I tried to feel, I’d have to feel their loss, too. And some days, considering the person that had killed them had gotten off scot-free, it was just too much for me to bear.”

Eric nodded, and now it was him that reached out to touch me, his fingers gently stroking along my leg. Not in a sexual way, but warm and comforting. “Have you gotten to the point where you’ve accepted what’s happened to your parents?”

I hesitated before responding but didn’t look away from him.

When it came to clients, I’d learned it was best to tell them what they wanted to hear. The answer that would make them feel good in the moment because my problems weren’t really theirs to worry about or be burdened with. But Eric was no longer a typical client, and this was not a typical situation. I had never been with a person who had brought me this far into their personal life, let me see behind the layers of bravado that were often put up by the kind of wealthy, pretentious men that bought my time.

He deserved more than just what Escort Jasmine would say to ease that crease that had settled into his brow, and that’s what allowed me to be even more open and honest with him. “No, not completely,” I said. “The anger and grief of losing them, andhowI lost them, comes and goes. It’s rarely ever there all the time like it used to be, and mostly it’s just a little thing in the back of my mind. There are still good days, and bad days, but I think at some point the good starts to outweigh the bad. It’s not always easy, that’s for sure. The good thing for you is even if your parents aren’t who they used to be, you still have time to make moments with them, even if they aren’t the moments that you would have expected to have, you know?”

“Yes…and thank you for the reminder to cherish the time I do still have left with them,” he said, his voice a little gruff. “I forget to appreciate days like today because of my own guilt.”

I smiled at him. “You’re welcome.”

I laid down beside Eric on the bed and dared to scoot a little closer to him. I tucked myself into his side, cuddling against him, and when he anchored an arm around me and pulled me closer, I sighed contentedly. I didn’t push for anything more, and neither did he, even with the touch of skin against bare skin with how little we were wearing.

All I wanted in that moment, all I needed, was to feel like I mattered to someone—something that had been lacking in my life for so long. And with the way Eric stroked his hand along my back and just held me without any expectations, I felt cared for, protected, secure.

There didn’t need to be anything more.

“You wanna order in again instead of going out to eat?” I asked after a while had passed, lifting my head to look into his beautiful blue eyes. “We could carb load and get really fat on garlic bread and pasta and soda. It’s early still, but it’s been a long day, you know?”

Eric considered my suggestion for a moment, an indulgent grin gradually forming on his lips. “Yeah. I would like that.”

CHAPTER 13

Jasmine

Light filtered into the hotel room through the parted drapes the following morning, and I burrowed closer to the man beside me beneath the covers, reluctant to wake up because Eric was an incredible person to snuggle against. His body temperature always seemed to be at a comfortable toasty warm. Not so much that my body pressed to his made me overheated, and not so little that it was more like hugging a block of ice than a hunk of man.

I didn’t want to move even as I began to stir. There was something about the way that Eric’s chest rose and fell softly with small snores that kept me lulled beneath a veneer of restfulness, and I had no desire to pull myself out of it anytime soon.

His arm was cradled around my waist, keeping me close to him. Foolishly, I felt almost like it was an intentional thing, and not something that just happened because, well, you snuggledaccidentally while you slept. I wanted to believe that he held me that close because even subconsciously, he wanted methatnear him.

It was a too fanciful notion, and I pushed the thought away as quickly as I had allowed it to enter my mind. I knew what Eric and I were to each other. Possibly more friends than just client and escort, but I knew better than to start entertaining more romantic notions about us, or even our future together.

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