The Fifth Favor by Shelby Reed Read Free Book Online

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.”
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    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—”
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    Shelby Reed
    “That is my deepest, darkest