The Fifth Favor (5 page)

“It means this hour is on me. No charge.”

Billie sat in surprised silence before she spoke. “Azure said you’d never meet me on your day off.”

“Azure was wrong.” A smile tugged at his mouth. “I enjoyed talking to you at Avalon, Ms. Cort, but things could have gone more smoothly if I’d understood how uncomfortable you were there.”

“I wasn’t uncomfortable there.”

Adrian’s smile widened. He didn’t need to point out the screaming falsity of that declaration.

She shifted on her chair and murmured thanks to the busboy as he leaned to refresh their glasses with water. When they were alone again, she reached into her purse and withdrew a small notebook and pen. A strange tension constricted her throat, a mixture of dread and anticipation of the conversation to follow.

Lying awake last night, envisioning this new exchange, she’d decided to come straight out and ask him the juicy stuff. He couldn’t twist the sexual tension between them and put her on the spot this time, not in such a public place. All he had were words, and Billie could deflect anything in the hustle-and-bustle, brightly lit environment of the café.

“So how’s business?” she began, flipping open the notebook.

“Lucrative.” He leaned back in his chair, propped his elbows on the armrests and laced his fingers across his stomach. “How about you?”

Humor quirked Billie’s mouth. “Definitely stimulating.”

Adrian smiled, genuinely this time. Something about him seemed different. More relaxed and casual, although he was flawlessly attired.

25

Shelby Reed

“Is your shirt custom-tailored?” she asked, noticing how it stretched across his broad shoulders and accentuated the bronzed tone of his complexion. “It looks quite expensive.”

“Is that question part of the interview?”

“People want to know what a man like you wears on his day off.”

“The shirt was a gift,” he said. “The Levi’s I purchased myself at Lord & Taylor.

Want to check the label in my shorts, too?”

Heat burned Billie’s cheeks, but she jotted down the information as though she hadn’t heard that last part. She was delaying the inevitable, just as she’d promised herself she wouldn’t, and the humor in his features told her he knew it.

Straightening her shoulders, she met his gaze squarely. “I’m just going to ask you this flat out. There’s no painless way to word it.”

“I’m not easily offended, Ms. Cort. Especially by the kinds of questions I know you want to ask me. Fire away.”

She nodded, took a sip of water and carefully arranged her flatware. Fork on the left, knife and spoon on the right.
Fire away
.

“Are you a sexual addict, Adrian? Is that why you’re in this business?”

To her surprise, he seemed to consider the question, his dark brows furrowed. Then he sat forward and said, “The business swarms with sexual addicts, to be sure. For some of the companions at Avalon, the answer to your question would be a resounding yes. As for me, I simply enjoy sex, enjoy giving pleasure, especially when the woman appears to have known so little in her life.” His black gaze dropped to her lips. “The sound of her cry at climax, the astonishment, the shatter of every pretense at that instant of ecstasy…it’s nearly as satisfying to me as the experience of orgasm itself.” He waited, attention unwavering on her face.

Billie scribbled a couple of words in the notebook, nothing that made any sense because an uninvited image was dancing across her mind’s eye, one of herself arched beneath him, every muscle straining as she crested that elusive peak. Oh, to make love with this man, to know the touch of his graceful hands on her flesh, the soft brush of his hair against her throat as he kissed her breasts…

She took another sip of water to hide her illicit thoughts, then inquired, “Who taught you the art of lovemaking?”

Adrian squinted, as though the answer was not easily retrieved.

“I’m guessing it wasn’t Mary Jo Johnson in the back of your dad’s station wagon,”

she added dryly.

“No.” His smile, usually so practiced and smooth, crept across his mouth unbidden.

“I was an athlete in high school, didn’t have much time for dating. There were a couple of girlfriends in college. But overall I think sexual prowess is innate. A matter of knowing what the woman wants, and when you don’t, being unafraid to ask.”

26

The Fifth Favor

His gaze drifted back to her face. “A skilled lover is also a skilled listener, Ms. Cort.

Despite the fact that I pride myself on sensing a woman’s needs, the occasion does arise when I have to stop and simply…ask.”

No one had ever asked Billie what she wanted in bed. Not even Ted, the man she once thought to spend the rest of her life with. Throat suddenly dry, she scribbled a few disjointed words across the page. “How do you perform so tirelessly when you have multiple clients in one night?”

As soon as the question was out of her mouth, the waiter appeared with pad in hand. Adrian’s attention never left Billie’s face as they ordered their lunches, nor did the mild smile on his lips falter. He regarded her with what appeared to be enjoyment.

She hadn’t perceived herself as particularly amusing before now. Laughter didn’t come easily to her. Ted often had alluded to the fact that she was too solemn.

She bit her lip and waited until the waiter disappeared again before she met Adrian’s eyes. “Maybe I should paraphrase that with, how many times do you have sex in a night?”

“It varies,” he said with a shrug. “Sometimes once. Sometimes several times.

Sometimes I don’t keep count.”

Her brows shot up. “How is that possible? I mean, men can’t…how can you—”

“Think, Ms. Cort.”

Unbidden pictures flitted through her mind and sent warmth creeping up her neck.

“I could see being able to control your own response once or twice, but more than that?

I don’t believe it.”

“Is that a challenge?” he asked softly. Before she could stumble through a response, he continued. “Haven’t you ever had a man withhold his orgasm for your pleasure, Billie? It’s a privilege to me. A test of strength and generosity and self-control. It offers its own kind of pleasure. The pleasure of giving.”

“It sounds supremely difficult,” she said huskily.

He sat back. “It is. But as with everything at Avalon, the level of challenge depends on the client. Some are more enticing than others. For example, if you were the client—”

“Don’t use me as an example,” she said quickly, cheeks flaming. “Remember what happened last time?”

His gaze wandered over her hair and settled on her lips. “Tell me, Billie. What happened last time?”

She closed her eyes briefly, drew a breath for strength. “Please, Adrian. I want to get through this interview without feeling mortified.”

“Talking about sex mortifies you?”

“With you it does. When it concerns my own experience.”

“And why is that?”

27

Shelby Reed

“Because this interview isn’t about me,” she declared. “It’s about you. I’m not here as your client.”

He sat watching her, as though he knew the presence of unspoken truths that clamored for release within her.

She straightened and took a sip of water, determined to reclaim her decorum.

“How many women do you think you’ve been with?”

“Don’t change the subject just yet,” he said gently. “Would you like to know why I think addressing your own sexuality is hard for you?”

The answer was a firm no, because he obviously already knew the real reason; it was stamped in the onyx depths of his eyes even before he spoke. This man’s talents were only partially comprised of sexual skill. Somehow he could read a woman’s turmoil,
Billie’s
turmoil, her innermost insecurities, as though they were printed across her forehead. He would strip her to the bone if she allowed it.

“It’s because you haven’t explored sexual boundaries of any sort, Billie,” he went on. “I’d venture to say you’re virginal in every aspect except the physical. Pleasure could become so familiar to you, so certain and reaffirming, if you felt safe and loved and sure about what you were doing. But you don’t feel safe when you’re giving yourself to a man, do you? It terrifies you.”

“Oh, so they teach you psychology at Avalon, too?” Her response came bitterly, blatant evidence of her exposure at his hands. “If you keep redirecting this interview toward me, Adrian, I’ll walk out of here right now, the article be damned.”

He merely waited, expression placid, while she sucked in angry breaths and squelched the inexplicable indignation he’d stirred with his probing.

In a moment, emotions once again reined, she clicked her pen and said, “So let me get this straight. You go all night withholding your own release—”

“Not all night.” He leaned closer, lashes concealing the obsidian heat in his eyes.

“Sometimes at the end, with the very last client, when I’m tired and hard and aching, I let myself go. And that kind of climax is worth every moment of pent-up frustration, all night long.”

Billie’s lips parted, but no words would come. All she could do was stare at him while the sultry picture wove around her. How was it possible to go from sheer indignation to shivering arousal within the course of a few sentences? He wielded his words like weapons and sex toys. He was some kind of sorcerer. And dangerous to a woman like her, because he’d pinpointed vulnerabilities she didn’t even know she had.

He glanced down, fingered the handle of the spoon beside his plate. “But it takes a special kind of client to push me over that edge.”

“What kind?” she asked foggily, while molten heat collected low in her belly, between her thighs.

His attention drifted to the low-buttoned collar of her blouse. “Someone soft.

Someone tender and real.” He paused. “She doesn’t come along very often.”

28

The Fifth Favor

Billie cleared her throat. “Anyone lately?”

Adrian sat in silence for so long, she wondered if he’d heard her. Then he said, “No client presently fits that bill.”

Their food arrived, effectively shattering the tension.

Eventually they talked on, with Billie shooting questions at him and Adrian answering them in his unruffled, restrained manner. No personal details, of course, beyond the explicit ones he provided her, without blinking, of what a woman could expect in a companion’s bed at Avalon. Fantasies fulfilled, every wayward desire granted, everything short of inflicted pain, and even some of that if the client desired it.

As he spoke, Billie’s gaze wandered over the fine lines of his features, the aristocratic arch of his brow, the stubborn chin and sensual lips. He was so contained, so controlled and decorous. What did he become in the heat of passion, when primal need stripped away all civility and nothing remained but the drive to possess and take and spill oneself, over and over? Did his smooth voice become terse, guttural, desperate? Did he cry out at climax, muscles tightened, skin slick from exertion, hair fallen over his furrowed brow and dripping with perspiration? Did he ever abandon his mind and all sense of politesse in trade for rapture?

The women’s club cloaked him in some sort of armor. Not once in the conversation did she ever catch a glimpse of his heart, of vulnerability, of the true person who dwelled beneath the trappings of the polished icon he presented.

All too soon the time slipped away, fruitless, frustrating moments lost with the truth just out of reach. When the waiter brought out a discreet leather folder and handed it to Adrian, he took it and waved away Billie’s insistence that she pay for her own meal.

“Please,” he said, slipping a credit card inside the folder. “Allow me this one genuine pleasure.”

Such a simple one for a man who had seen pleasure in its most excruciating and exalted forms.

They emerged into the thick humidity of the summer afternoon and paused in front of the restaurant. Adrian didn’t depart right away; he stood and waited while Billie withdrew car keys from her purse and slung the strap over her shoulder.

“You’ve given me a great deal of information,” she said, “but Adrian, what I have is not enough to write a well-rounded article.”

He slid a pair of expensive sunglasses over his eyes and effectively cloaked his expression. “What do you want?”

“I don’t know, but this isn’t it.” Too snappy. Layers of frustration piled one upon the other, all there for his examination.

They stared at each other in silence. Then he sighed. “What more could I tell you?”

She weighed her response, knowing she tread in a precarious place. “You could tell me something about the man you are. Not your deepest, darkest secrets, of course—”

29

Shelby Reed

“That
is
my deepest, darkest secret.”

“But with the material I have, I can only describe a robotic, two-dimensional figure.” Her words quickened, pushed forth by some nameless urgency. “You need to tell me something personal about yourself. Something about your past, or…or what’s in your heart. What do you love? What do you hate? Are you an insomniac? Do you like ice cream? Ever had your heart broken? Republican or Democrat? Boxers or briefs?

Something besides just…the shadowy figure that these notes create.”

The reporter in her had drifted away, and God, how gauche the woman sounded who pleaded with him in her place. Certainly now he would wave her off and depart, and she’d never see him again.

Adrian, who’d been listening with a frown of mild confusion, shifted his weight and folded his arms across his chest. “I’ll have to think it through,” he said, all traces of humor gone from his lips. “What I want to tell you, how I want to say it. I’m private, Billie. My privacy is my most valued possession.”

She nodded, face hot with relief and anticipation. “I wouldn’t strip you of it, no matter what kind of reputation reporters carry. As someone who…who has come to like what I know of you, I wouldn’t twist your truths or try to expose you.”

He watched her, emotions hidden behind the dark lenses. Then, simply, “I believe you.”

“Good.” Her breath drained from her, taking a modicum of tension with it. “When can I meet with you again?”