That was exactly why I decided against it. I don’t want her agreeing to this under any kind of duress. She has to want to do it, otherwise it won’t work.
I had to come up with a reason for being there.
Coincidentally, Tony Castellano is an important associate of ours, not to mention the fact he’s now Cristiano’s father-in-law, so in a way, I do have a stake in the port.
I had to think fast because whatever story I gave her just now would have to be feasible for when I take her to the retreat.
I leave the port with one clear plan forming as the sun dips low over the water. I’ll ask her properly, on neutral ground, when she isn’t flustered, half-naked, or caught off guard by coincidence. She deserves that much.
Part of me wonders why on earth I’d choose Erin Applebaum to be my fake wife when this job is going to need a hundred percent of my focus. If I’m totally honest with myself, it’s because I’ve made it to fifty-two without being hung, drawn and quartered or drowned in the Hudson (a rarity in this profession), and I deserve a sort-of-vacation with a woman I like to look at.
If she agrees, I’ll just need to set myself some boundaries and keep my hands under control.
But, jeez, knowing how she looks in a wet blouse, short dress and damn showgirl outfit is doing nothing to discourage me from wanting to drag her pants down her thighs and go to town on her pussy.
What the actual fuck?
I haven’t had thoughts like these in a long while.
Regular sessions with hookers tend to keep my dick sated and my mind from wandering into thought paths like this. Maybe I need to schedule an extra session before I enter that bar again, tensed up and ravenous.
No. This arrangement will only work if we keep some professional distance from each other.
Sure, some hand holding and light caresses will lend credibility to our act, but I’ll need to keep a level head, my wits about me, and my senses on high alert. I can’t afford for any of my plans to be compromised by some rogue feelings I might have for a woman.
I make one stop on the way home.
The dry cleaner hands me the blouse neatly wrapped in plastic, pristine once more.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I shake off the thought of how this might slip off her skin, tuck the blouse under one arm and leave the premises.
Erin
I drop my bag in the dingy office behind the bar and hang my coat on a hook on the door. Something heated flares in my belly as I smooth my hands over the dress I chose for this shift.
It’s mine this time—a leatherette pencil dress I bought a decade ago to accompany Gerard to a charity event. He joked at the time that I looked like a noughties high class hooker, but I loved it. Thought I looked cute, so I kept it.
I’m just pleased it still fits.
As the night settles in, memories from the past few days flick through my mind in fragments. The image of the stranger flipping a whole piano, his hot gaze as I stood by the port office door dressed in nothing but a sparkly leotard, the stab of fear as a drunken patron grabbed my waist, the slam of shock when I realized he was across the other side of the bar in a heap, theslow crawl of lust when I saw my stranger’s curled fist and angry glare.
And his words.
I’ll make you come so hard you forget your own name.
My knees buckle just remembering the growl that accompanied them.
If you’re going to be traipsing about in that outfit, Erin, you can keep me as long as you like.
Shamefully, I would gladly survive that outfit if it meant getting to ‘keep’ someone as bad for me and as intoxicating as that man.
I shake my head to rid the thoughts from it. I can’t allow myself to feel anything for the dark, dangerous stranger.
I don’t know anything about him—he could be a total psychopath for all I know.
And even if he does come back and shower me with that hazel hypnosis he carries around in his eye sockets, I can’t go there.
My life is a total mess.
