Page 58 of Resist

I glare at him again, although his eyes are back on the room, and I grit my teeth at his attempt to put me in my place. “Pardon me—I wasn’t aware I was being paid to sit here with my mouth shut.”

“And don’t forget the ‘look pretty’ part.” His condescending chuckle fills the space as my hands grip the edge of my chair, never more aware of my position in this arrangement we have than now. “It seems to me you walked in here with a chip on your shoulder tonight, Vaughn . . . or is it Vee?” There’s a smug smirk that plays on his lips and taunts me just like his words do. “If you’re going to have a business that caters to wealthy men, then I think you need to come to terms with what pays to butter your bread.”

Fuck you.

The words are on my tongue, but I bite them back, cognizant that we are pushing each other’s buttons in a game I’m not sure of the point to.

I stand up from my chair abruptly, temper on fire and pride front and center. “I take their money, but I sure as hell don’t cater to them,” I lie.

“To me, you will.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ryker

Temper wars across that gorgeous face of hers, and a sneer mars her lips.

“Is there a reason you glare at every man who looks this way and then get pissy with me as if I invited their attention?” she asks.

“No.” I say the word but know she’s right. Know that every time a man looks too long her way, I wonder if he’s hired her before. She may be the madam now, but she had to start somewhere, didn’t she?

“Ryker?”

I look back her way after staring at Darrin and Pete—both men I know who frequent the escort realm—and catch the slight lift of her eyebrow. But there must be something about the look on my face that gives away my thoughts, because sure as shit, I can see the shift in her expression as she makes the realization.

She laughs but there’s sarcasm lacing it. “Let’s get one thing straight. I didn’t show up here tonight so you could spend the whole time wondering who else in this room I might have slept with. One, it’s none of your business if I have or if I haven’t. And two,” she says, jabbing her finger against the expensive linen tablecloth, “if you want everyone to know I’m yours, then start treating me like I am . . . because right now you’re so far off the mark I might as well spend the time I’m forced to be here looking for new clients.”

“That’s not what I was—”

“Yes, it was,” she asserts as she takes a step back before giving a long survey of the room around me much as I was doing. Just the idea of her going home with any one of those fuckers irritates the hell out of me. When her gaze returns to mine, she gives me a quirk of her eyebrow and the snark in her smile I’ve come to expect, eyes challenging me. “Bernard’s slow. I need a drink.”

Her words knock the fight momentarily out of me to the point that by the time I have my footing beneath me, Vaughn is striding across the room to the bar. Her hips are swaying and her hair is swinging and fuck if my gaze isn’t following her like everyone else’s in here is.

Shit. I blow out a breath and down the remainder of my drink. The burn is there but not as potent as the taste of regret.

She’s right. Damn right, and I know why my thoughts veered to who she’s been with, and fuck if it’s not because of Senator Carter Preston.

When he strode into my office earlier today with that stick planted squarely up his ass, my first thought was Vaughn. Vaughn and their strange interaction at Apropos along with the nagging feeling that he’s hired her in the past.

That she’s slept with him.

To say the idea didn’t sit well with me was an understatement. Still is as I watch her walk and know how many guys in this joint would kill to have someone as gorgeous as Vaughn beneath them.

Hell, I’ve used escorts before. One here and there over time, but after Roxanne . . . after Roxanne I was reminded of the crazy that can come with women and the webs they want to tangle you in—as if having my mom for a mother wasn’t enough of a lesson—that I figured I wanted the emotion removed from the necessity and curse of most men: sex. I wanted the sex but the hope for more to be nonexistent.

So I was referred to Wicked Ways.

I was good with my decision to use Wicked Ways. The professionalism of Vee. The promises she made that were to my liking. The reputation that had been talked about in some of my circles: the high-boothed whiskey bars where men say they need to go to unwind after a long day’s work. The need to have some uncomplicated sex while the whole taste of Rox was washed from my mouth.

But fuck if I know why I’m pushing so hard for Vaughn. For her smart mouth and sweet body. And since when do I care who she’s been with so long as her tests are clean and when she’s with me, she’s mine?

She’s a constant contradiction. She looks like she fits in this scene, and yet disdain drips off her. She is sex personified with her gorgeous curves and flawless skin, but I’m not allowed to touch her. I’m paying for her time, yet it seems she wants nothing to do with me.

Maybe because you blackmailed her, you asshole. Threatened to out her to her girls unless she followed through with seeing you.

If you want everyone to know I’m yours, then start treating me like I am . . .

Her words ghost through my mind just as Leland St. Germain strides up to her at the bar.