Page 34 of Tangled Kisses
I can’t bring myself to look at him, not at first. But when I do, he’s already staring at me, blue eyes intent, steady as stone.
“I will never lie to you,” he says, low and certain.
The honesty in his voice nearly undoes me. My lips part, my voice a whisper. “Who are you, Griffin?”
He leans closer, close enough that the faint scrape of his stubble grazes my cheek. His warmth wraps around me, his scent all cedar and sun. His lips brush feather-light against my cheek, then again, slower, lower, right at the edge of my jaw.
A shiver races through me, heat pooling low in my belly.
He lingers there, his mouth so close to my ear that his breath tickles across my skin, making every nerve stand at attention.
“Just a man with one goal,” he murmurs, his voice rough velvet. “Making you smile.”
Chapter Nine
Griffin
Ican’t do this anymore.
I stand in front of my closet, staring at the designer clothes purchased by well-intentioned clients. Thousand-dollar cowboy boots sit beneath Armani suits, their gleaming leather and crisp fabrics a costume for a role I never wanted to play.
My clients call them perks of the job, but bondage is a more appropriate term.
I loathe everything about them now, which is secondary only to the disgust I feel for myself.
The worst part is my clients are not bad people, not most of them anyway, and the majority have no real need to hire a man to perform for them.
I suppose I’m lucky in that I’m handsome enough to have my pick of clients. Clients who pay a pretty penny to buy my time and my body.
It’s a job. That’s what I keep telling myself. It’s a way to ensure my sister Pearl has the best of everything—treatment, comfort, a life she deserves. No matter the cost. No matter what it costs me.
But the ranch’s newest arrival has thrown a monkey wrench into my life, albeit in the best possible way. Reese lives in my head now, her petite form and crooked smile haunting my dreams.
In those few precious hours, where my time is entirely my own, I imagine stripping Reese down, peeling away every article of clothing as I glide my tongue along her curves. She’s always sweet, her skin tasting of cinnamon and honey, her body welcoming me home as I bury myself inside her and swear she’s the only woman I’ll ever touch.
But the dream inevitably ends, my reality a mocking reminder of what I’ll never have.
Unless I find a way.
The gears in my head have been spinning wildly over the last few days, desperate for a way out.
I haven’t touched a woman since Reese came to the ranch. Oh, I’ve had clients, but I begged off each one, claiming a well-timed stomach flu, followed by a miserable migraine.
Capri didn’t call me out, but I saw the look on her face when I feigned yet another illness. She doesn’t believe a word of it, especially because I was all too willing to work my ass off around the ranch this last week, completing Capri’s honey-do list.
If only that paid as well as fucking.
But tonight, I have a date with Delilah.
She’s one of my regulars, a divorcee who scored big in the courts and now has made it her personal mission to screw away her husband’s money.
I think the entire situation is petty, but she pays me twenty-five hundred to do the deed, with an extra five hundred if we have dinner together. Her treat, of course.
I’m a piece of meat to these women, a pretty plaything for when they’re bored or lonely or looking for meaning in their lives.
I hate every second of it.
Especially because Delilah has been hounding me to kiss her, even throwing in an offer of more money for the treat.
