Whatever the Cost (4 page)

A few hours later, Liam is parked in the passenger seat beside Jacen, his hands carefully hidden from sight in the pockets of a baggy sweatshirt, just as they have been since he emerged from Amé. His skin glows, looking well-exfoliated and moisturized—touchably soft and smooth—so Jacen assumes he must have had a special kind of facial or something of the sort, along with the hot towel, straight razor shave treatment that the spa is known for. But he doesn’t ask about it.

He does, however, find himself wondering if Liam is hiding his hands because he got colored polish painted onto his nails. Inexplicably, the idea of Liam wearing red, or, even better,
pink
nail polish starts to make Jacen hard. Biting down on his tongue to distract his libido with pain, Jacen forces away a sudden vivid fantasy of Liam, completely naked—all rippling, hard, bronzed muscles—stroking his fat cock with gleaming, pretty pink nails.

Liam murmurs, “Did my package arrive?”

“Um. Yeah. It’s pretty big.”

Accusatory and on-edge, he asks, “You didn’t open it, did you?”

“Like I’m not gonna see it all anyway,” Jacen says, rolling his eyes. “No, I didn’t open it. So touchy.”

“Don’t you have things you need to be doing too?” Liam slumps down lower in the seat.

“Nope. I’m good. Had a shiatsu massage. Got my chest waxed....”

“Yeah, I heard you screaming like a little girl.”

Jacen frowns heavily, and continues, “Did not. And now I’m just hanging out ’til I have to leave. Not like I have much prep to worry about. Claudia’s not really into pegging or anything too kinky.”

“Lucky bastard.”

“Hey, don’t even try to play it like you don’t get off on it. There’s a reason your clients are
yours
and not mine.”

Liam won’t even face him after that comment, staring out the side window, his newly buffed skin flushing.

“Liam, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Jacen sighs. “It’s just that you... prepare... a lot more than I do. I show up, complete the transaction and go. I don’t make it complicated.”

“But I do?”

“Yeah, you kind of do. But there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Whatever.”

“Can you seriously try to pretend that this appointment with Chris isn’t complicated? You see me trying to pull this off?”

Liam softens.

“It could be worse,” Jacen warns. “It could be a
hell
of a lot worse.”

“Yeah, you’re right. It could be Spencer,” Liam says, some of the bottled-up fury from the night before erupting in his words. He’s been trying for months to get Jacen to complain to the higher-ups about Spencer’s treatment of him, but the money is just too good, according to Jacen. And Liam resents the hell out of it.

Jacen swallows thickly, averting his eyes. He doesn’t say another word for the rest of the drive.

Jacen is hovering restlessly in the living room. It’s been four hours since they returned home from the spa. The last text message Jacen sent Liam told him to come downstairs whenever he was ready, that he would be there, waiting. But that was almost an hour ago, and Jacen is starting to wonder if he should go up there and check on things.

It’s five o’clock. Liam’s appointment is at seven. There’s plenty of time. It’s Jacen’s own impatience to see Liam’s transformation that stirs him, though he doesn’t quite realize it. It’s easier to blame his eagerness on the schedule.

Part of their routine, built gradually over the course of their year together, has been for Jacen to assist Liam in creating the personas he uses on his dates. Whether it’s a cowboy, a punk, a biker, a club twink, a perfect gentleman complete with three-piece suit, or something more extreme, something like what he’s going to attempt today, everything has a label. It’s always an act. Liam becomes whatever particular thing it is that the client is looking for—their fantasy come to life. That’s what Liam has deduced his job to be—to provide a service of wish fulfilment. Of course, Jacen has observed that it makes it easier on Liam’s psyche to take himself out of the equation entirely. Liam is never really there when someone is paying him to be there. His character is present, as is his body. But everything else stays buried away, under many hard-coated, protective layers.

When Jacen first met Liam, as bubbly and personable as Jacen is, it took them a while to warm up to each other. At first Liam was all overly-polite smiles, ready with concerned questions and inquiries into how Jacen was, or how his day was going. It had been Liam’s attempt at a ‘friend’ persona. It wasn’t him at all, and Jacen could tell. It had hurt his feelings, that Liam wasn’t being honest or real with him. But they were stuck together. Liam needed a roommate to help cover expenses, and Della had told Jacen discreetly that she also wanted someone else there, someone like Jacen, who was big—at six foot six, Jacen was plenty big—and could hold his own in a fight, to watch Liam’s back when he was alone, to let her know if there was ever anything to be worried about and to maybe try to break through some of Liam’s defenses. Because the longer Liam has been in the business, the further he has receded into himself. It worries Della. She fears for Liam’s sanity.

There were other factors that got them together, too. They both had similarly bizarre schedules and responsibilities, working in the same profession, for the same people. It made sense to be in each other’s lives. Only after months of concerted effort did Jacen work his way past the first few outer layers, deeper into the heart of who Liam really is. And even still, after a whole year, Jacen is still discovering things about his friend. Secret, new facets are slowly revealed. Small, priceless moments sometimes happen between them that make Jacen step back and take in how lucky he is to have gained some of Liam’s trust.

Lost in thoughts and memories, comparisons of the old Liam and the new, Jacen doesn’t at first see the woman lingering in the doorway, leaning against the frame, her fingers curling a little around the trim. Wearing a silk, jewel-green dress that perfectly complements her similarly colored big, beautiful eyes and dainty silver high heels, her long red hair swept in a cascade over her right shoulder, she gazes up at him through long, dark, sweeping eyelashes and bites shyly at her lip, waiting to be noticed.

“Oh
wow
,” Jacen breathes. Heart jumping in his chest, at first he’s too stunned to react, and just stares—taking in all the details; the French manicure, her shapely bare legs and the way the stilettos show them off, the way the delicate edge of her loose skirt skims her thighs, the fullness of her breasts heaving gently with every breath. Most of all though, it’s her lips, the incredible ripeness of them and the way her tangerine-colored lipstick makes them shiny wet, a perfect, plump bow.

A small wordless plea, communicated only with her wide, beseeching eyes, is what gets Jacen to move. He has a job to do here and, so far, he’s not doing it. If this is going to work the right way, there can’t be discussion beforehand. It just has to happen naturally, like Jacen is just another John Doe. If they acknowledged each other first, it would break the spell and it’s always nearly impossible to get Liam back to being comfortable enough to try again.

Before he’s able to realize that he should let her cross to him and practice her walk, Jacen is surging toward her, his larger, towering, broad-shouldered form coming at her. She backs herself up to the doorframe, leaning against it with upturned eyes, breath catching on the inhale as Jacen invades her space. He slips a hand around her small waist, his other cups under her jaw, his thumb stroking the butter-smooth skin of her cheek and
god
but he wants to kiss her, especially when her lips part softly in what seems to be an invitation and her head tilts slightly into his touch.

“Leah?”

“Yeah,” she whispers. It’s barely a sound, a purr, and he has to lean in even closer to hear it.

Then he can’t hold back any longer. Simply reacting to her, her beckoning stare, he leans in and his lips barely skim against the line of her jaw. It’s the lightest of brushes of skin on skin, though it does make her shiver. She tastes faintly of peaches when he sucks the lingering taste of her from his lips, pulling back.

On instinct, he takes her hand and spins her out into the room, making her skirt flare out, her hips twisting as he reins her back into his arms, walking her slowly back to the couch. His eyes are all over her, peeking down the V of her neckline, groping over her hairless arms, knowing instinctively that she’s waxed everywhere. When his hand skims down past her hip to her upper thigh, he feels the muscle bunch, working as she steps backward with his continued advance, trying not to topple over, anticipating the edge of the couch at any moment.

Just before she gets to it, he shifts around behind her, sinking down onto the cushion and caressing her legs as he goes, holding her there, not letting her get away.

Pushing the skirt up a few inches, Jacen gropes her bare thighs and catches a glimpse of the curve of her ass and her black lace thong as he pulls her down onto his lap, straddling his legs, facing away from him. She lands gracefully, legs clenched as she tries to keep her weight on them and not Jacen.

“Relax. It’s okay. I’ve got you,” he hushes. “Just relax.”

He pulls her back even more and she leans against his firm, broad chest, her head falling to the side as his lips drag open-mouthed almost-kisses over her long neck, inhaling more of the scent of her.

“Damn, you smell good enough to eat,” he murmurs, pulling her thighs apart, spreading her wide.

Leah’s breath catches on a soft surprised sound when his big hands drag up her inner thighs, all the way to her crotch, lightly stroking the soft skin there, right beside the edge of her panties. Jacen tugs sharply again at her legs, pulling her ass flush against him, wanting her thighs even more spread, hiking her skirt up further. Watching her expression as she teases her lip between her teeth again, he fondles her breast through the dress. It gets her to push her chest out a little more, pressing into his touch, her back arching as he squeezes.

He is utterly astonished at how much this is turning him on.

Keenly aware that her firm, bare ass is rubbing against his growing hard-on, and wanting
much
more of that, needing it like air, wanting to grope between her legs, Jacen’s hand twitches, ready to palm her crotch, rub and
thrust
.

He comes back to himself all at once, slamming back to reality. It’s like a splash of cold water, waking Jacen right-the-fuck-up.

He takes his hands off of Liam, blushing a deep red and hissing a fervent, “Shit! Sorry. Fuck. Sorry. I don’t—I don’t know why I did that. Jesus.”

Liam gets right up, wrapping his mouth with a hand and facing away from Jacen as he takes a second to compose himself. Smoothing out the dress, especially in back where Jacen had pulled it up to his waist, Liam braces a hand on his hip muttering very quietly to himself, but Jacen can’t make the words out.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” Jacen pleads to break some of the tension. “Can you forgive me? Please? I guess I just slipped into it, you know? I kind of forgot it was you. You’re really,
really
convincing.”

“No problem, that’s the whole idea, right? To sell it,” Liam says, his deep, gravelly voice shocking coming from such a demure-looking figure. “So I guess it was a success.”

Liam is still facing the window, his back to Jacen. Controlling the pitch of his voice to keep his anger and hurt out of it, Liam is blinking and breathless, hating himself both for not putting a halt to the practice exercise earlier—too curious in a detached sort of way to see if he could keep Jacen going—but also mad at himself for getting upset at Jacen’s abrupt halt, change of mood and apologies.

One more deep inhale and Liam is back to normal. He turns to Jacen, finding him still on the couch, but hunched forward (
probably to hide a hard-on
, Liam thinks distractedly) with his elbows braced on his knees, looking embarrassed.

“So what’s the verdict?”

“Awesome? The verdict is awesome. Just generally... wow. Christ....” Jacen groans, putting his hands to his face in mortification. Liam grins, chuckling a little when Jacen tugs his shirt lower, to cover the protrusion in his pants. “Why are you laughing at this?”

“Because it’s hilarious?” His eyes crinkle slightly at the corners as his amusement grows and he absent-mindedly bites at his lip again, tasting some of the peach-flavored lip-gloss he’s wearing. “I still need some detailed feedback. Come on. Don’t hold back.”

“Okay. Well, the uh, lip biting thing is really good, and sexy. So stop it. Please. Because it’s disturbing to be this turned on by you. And the red hair? With your ridiculously green eyes? Awesome.”

“That was Della’s idea. I think she’s living vicariously or something. What else?”

“The whole outfit is perfect. And yeah, I understand why you were at the spa and in the bathroom all day. I hope this guy’s worth it.”

“He is,” Liam smiles. “Top dollar. Any suggestions for improvement?”

“Hmm. Remember to keep your shoulders back and down. Don’t forget, it’s all tits and ass. Stick out the tits, push out the ass, downplay the muscles as much as possible. I guess the minimal speaking was intentional?”

“Yeah, it’s not like there’s much I can do about my voice. So less is more.”