Page 33 of Greedy Grizzly
“Honestly though, I thought it was a brilliant idea to make a lot of money in a short amount of time, until one of them roughed her up.”
“Your sister was a hooker?” Toby asked.
“Yes, but she preferred to be calledescort.” I popped my shoulders, then went on with my story. “Times were tough back then. But one night, I found her bruised and battered after being out with my friends. The stubborn mule refused to go to the hospital to make sure nothing was broken. She just kept at it, but the confidence she radiated at the beginning slowly diminished.”
“Damn, that sounds really hard, sweetheart.” He put his hand on my knee and gave it a gentle squeeze.”
“It was hard,” I told him honestly. “A month later, I was propositioned by one of her clients, a businessman from Iowa. He came to Cleveland twice a month and was bored with my sister. He told me he wanted more than sex. A little romance, a flirty build-up to the act, and would pay me five hundred dollars for the night. I almost passed out, feeling like Julia Roberts, from my favorite movie,Pretty Woman.”
“You’re prettier than Julia.”
“You’re such a charmer and so wasBryan Callahan.Bryanwas attractive, clean cut, and he obviously had a lot of money. I couldn’t believe he wanted to be with me, an inexperienced, unrefined nineteen-year-old.”
“Nineteen? How old was he?”
“Thirty-two.” But Bryan had a baby face and looked much younger. He was also a health food junky and worked out religiously.
“Fuck, Lib.”
“Let me finish, please.”
“Continue.” He waved his hand in front of me and got comfortable on the bed.
I took the spot next to him and resumed my story. “So, of course, I said yes. I wasn’t so young and dumb to reject his offer. We desperately needed the money.”
“I get it. Desperation makes us do things we wouldn’t normally do.”
“Mhm. Exactly.” I nodded, but if Bryan had been an old, smelly man, I wouldn’t have agreed. “Bryan wined and dined me. He treated me better than any guy I’d ever gone out with, and the sex had beenah-mazing.”
Toby growled in his throat but remained, mostly silent.
“Bryan taught me to actively participate, instead of being still on the bed while he fucked me. I also learned to give him mind-numbing blowjobs, those were his words.”
“Sounds like a real swell guy,” he muttered sarcastically.
I ignored him and went on. “He also gave me my first orgasm, which had taken a lot of effort on his part and patience. I couldn’t relax easily, but once I did, I could orgasm without him, just by imagining the things he did to me. It was like a whole new world had opened up to me!” Phew! I was glad to get all that off my chest.
“He sounds ah-mazing.” He mocked me but I knew his attitude was born out of jealousy. He never liked me being with multiple men. There was a little possessiveness in him but he never once tried to control me.
It was my life, my choices. So, I didn’t let him bother me. “I’d known better than to brag to Bridget that Bryan preferred me over her. She had no idea I was with him when he came to Cleveland on business.”
For three months, I’d kept our encounters a secret. But I knew she’d eventually find out. It just came sooner than I’d hoped. I felt myself being transported back to that day, the day my relationship with my sister had changed forever…
“Where did you get this?” Bridget asked in a tart tone.
I turned away from the kitchen sink, where I’d been scrubbing the grimy dishes for the past half an hour, to see what my sister was asking about. One look at the gorgeous red dress Bryan had bought me months ago, for our second date, and I knew hell was about to break loose.
“You were in my closet?” Deflect, deflect, deflect. “If you needed something, you could’ve asked instead of helping yourself.”
Bridget raised an annoyed brow. “Where did you get this? It’s expensive and we can’t afford it.”
“It was a gift.” I knew we couldn’t afford such luxuries. Again, I wasn’t stupid but maybe I was for keeping it in my closet. I could’ve hid it better, like in a suitcase, but I didn’t want it to get ruined. It was made of silk and paying for dry cleaning wasn’t in the budget.
“From who?”
Why did I say it was a gift?
Of course she would ask who gave it to me. Face palm.
