Call Me Saffron (Greenpoint Pleasures) (2 page)

Twenty minutes early. I should go to a coffee shop and wait, but the idea of waiting made me want to crawl out of my skin with anticipation mixed with fear in a heady, combustible stew.
 

I gave the security guy at the front desk my name. Well, Jeanine’s name, or, rather, her work pseudonym. If Dylan Krause called me Saffron in the middle of an orgasm, would I know who he meant?
 

My mind skittered on the thought. That was what I was doing, going upstairs right now to give a guy an orgasm. Or two.
 

When I asked Jeanine a few months back if she enjoyed sex with her clients, she’d laughed and told me she almost always climaxed. She’d said there was something overpoweringly thrilling about being with someone that into what you’re offering. And earlier tonight, as I was getting ready, she’d told me,
“Think of this as the best kind of one-night stand. Both of you know exactly what you’re there for. Loosen up and have fun.”
 

The elevator had mirrored walls, so I got to see myself in quadruplicate. Four-sided me, with cherry-red lips and loosely upswept hair, the dark wisps falling around my face. Jeanine had lined my eyes with a heavy stroke so I looked exotic, almost Egyptian. My peacoat hid my outfit: a tight red-and-black corset and a short flared skirt. No panties. A little surprise for my handsome client. I’d felt the wind lift my skirt briefly on the walk from the subway, giving me a thrill of chilly excitement, a reminder that yes, I was really doing this.
 

I was relieved to be alone in the elevator. Glad to have a moment to prepare myself for whatever was to come. Jeanine had assured me it would be fine. This was after saying yes had triggered my panic mode.
“You offer the whole Girlfriend Experience. I can’t do that,”
I’d said. I couldn’t be anyone’s real girlfriend. How could I pretend that for someone I didn’t even know?

Jeanine laughed, a delightful chortle. I could see why her clients adored her. “He doesn’t want the GFE. This guy wants the wham-bam, thank-you-ma’am approach. No chitchat. Probably no talking at all. That’s why it’s so perfect for you. You get laid, and you don’t even have to warm him up first.”
 

She knew me too well. Small talk was my enemy. Never mind meeting a guy at a singles bar. I’d scare him away from me after drink number one. Too blunt, they always said, right after
“Oh my God, did you really say that?”
 

Jeanine was right. I’d stay quiet, open my body, and have a good time. And in truth, there was something delicious about the mystery of it all. About playacting the part of a sexually experienced, physically confident professional escort.
 

The mirrored door opened. Fifteenth floor. Time to meet my client.

My heels clicked on the polished wood floor as I walked down the hallway, making me feel posh and sexy, like a siren from the movies.
 

His was the door at the end. I paused, took a deep breath, and rang the bell.
 

Footsteps. The door opened.
 

And there he was.

He was dressed in dark gray sweatpants with a plush red bathrobe loosely belted over it, and he was toweling his still-wet hair. Clearly, he’d just gotten out of the shower. A few droplets still shimmered in the cleft between his pecs.

“Saffron? I was expecting you later. But come on in.” His deep baritone rumbled through me like a freight train.
 

Caught staring at his chest like a lascivious teenager, I quickly looked up at his face. And was immediately entranced by those full lips, those sculpted cheeks, and yes, that darkly hungry gaze, which was even stronger in person.
 

I obediently followed the sweep of his hand into the apartment. Hardwood floors, a simple but elegant crown molding, a picture rail. Prewar era, with at least some of the details intact, including a carved fireplace, which was, sadly, painted over.
 

The big windows had no covering at all, a stark frame for the dark-lit skyscrapers in Midtown. A plush, expensive modernist rug with circular patterns covered the center of the floor. There wasn’t much furniture, just piles of moving boxes, a brown leather couch I could imagine sinking into, and a single curvaceous wood chair. A sensual one-of-a-kind piece, obviously handmade. It probably cost a fortune.
 

The daytime me, the architect Samantha Lilly, would love to get her hands on this place. The original apartment had obviously been cut up into smaller chunks at some point and never properly mended. It could be put right and made beautiful.
 

But tonight’s version of me, Saffron the sex worker, was a different matter. She was all about the apartment’s inhabitant.
 

I heard the door latch behind me with a quiet click as I turned toward Dylan, acutely aware I was now alone with a complete stranger who expected to have sex with me. An incredibly sexy stranger, but a stranger nevertheless.
 

Own it.
I could hear Jeanine’s words in my head.
Flaunt it.
 

“So, uh…” He sounded as nervous as I felt. It gave me the courage I needed.
 

Flaunt it. Be your sexiest self. He has no idea who you are in real life. You will never see him again.
 

I unbuttoned my peacoat slowly, sliding each button out of the buttonhole and slipping my finger down to the next one. As I watched him watching me, I could see the rise of an erection under his sweatpants, see his eyes get even darker. We didn’t have to know each other to know what we both wanted.
 

I could see why Jeanine liked her job.
 

Normally, I would have asked if I should hang the coat in the closet, or maybe draped it over the edge of the couch, but this wasn’t me. This was Saffron. And Saffron made a statement with her every move.
 

 
I let the coat slip out of my fingers and pool onto the floor in an elegantly careless heap.
 

Dylan stared at me, openly appreciative.
 

My breasts jutted up under the thin fabric of the corset, eager for his touch. My skirt hid my bare bottom, but, I suspected, not for long. Not the way he was looking, like he wanted to suck the marrow from my bones.
 

So pure, this transaction. So simple. So insane.
 

“Like what you see?” I made my voice sultry, like Mae West or what I imagined Jeanine to be like with a client. A mistake, because I immediately giggled at the absurdity.
 

Dylan raised his eyebrows. “Is this a joke to you?”

I walked over to him, a trifle unsteady on my stiletto boots but making it part of my sway, and pressed my hand against those damp curls on his chest. “Hardly a joke.” I could feel his heart thump under my palm, nearly as fast as my own. “So? Do you want me to stay? Or do I refund your money?”
 

He was startled into a laugh. “Blunt. I like that.”

“Good, because that’s what you get. I’m all yours for tonight. Make use of me.” I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth, but he seemed to like them.
 

“You’re not what I expected.” His gaze traveled over my body. I felt it like a caress.
 

I took another step, so close now, and ran my hand through his damp hair, enjoying the way it sprang against my fingers, a live thing. Enjoying the fact that I could do this. Hell, I could probably pull his sweats down right now and give him a blowjob, and he’d think it was part of the usual deal.
 

Except that probably wasn’t how it was done. The client should lead, right? “What do you want to do first?”

He frowned. Was he having second thoughts? Was he going to kick me out? After all that buildup, disappointment felt sharp in my throat.
 

But no. “This, I think.” He ran a finger gently across my clavicle. My skin prickled.

His gaze followed his finger, his eyes hooded, his gaze remote.
 

He slipped one hand under the top edge of the corset and caressed my nipple with a rough thumb. “And this.” The touch, skin to skin, so intimate and personal, made my body wake up with a jolt. Breath hissed through my teeth.
 

“Is that good?”

“Very.” My breath stuttered. He’d know I wasn’t faking anything.
 

“Who are you, Saffron?” He was looking at me with a strange, intent gaze.
 

This wasn’t in the program. We were supposed to be having an impersonal encounter, a simple exchange of services. But I should be polite to the client. “What do you want to know?”

“For starters, how old are you?”

“Twenty-five. How old are
you
?” I let a challenging note sneak in. I was getting irritated.
 

But he merely looked amused. “Thirty-one. How long have you been a call girl?”

And here Jeanine had assured me he wouldn’t want to talk.
 

“Long enough to know what I’m doing.”
 

His fingers danced down my body across the lace and silk, over the flimsy skirt, down to my bare leg. Then up under my skirt. He was getting more comfortable with his role. He was also about to discover I wasn’t wearing panties.
 

“Do you like the work?” His voice was husky. He was turned on. So was I.
 

Still, wasn’t I supposed to be doing things to
him
? Things he’d paid good money to have done. Wasn’t I supposed to be a body to him, not a person?
 

He looked at me. Intent. Like a predator. Waiting.
 

“I like sex.” I felt embarrassed saying it, but it was apparently the right answer. He inhaled sharply.
 

Fingers sliding farther up my thigh, spreading shivers like a chain reaction. Fingertips reaching my groin, tangling in my pubic hair.
 

“Oh.” I could hear the guttural surprise.
 

“Ohh.” I groaned with pleasure as he curved those tantalizing fingers between my legs, flirted with my nerve endings, retreated. I was throbbing now, so hot for this man I knew nothing about.
 

Hot for him
because
I knew nothing about him.
 

Unexpectedly, he stepped away. He sat on the couch and rubbed his face. And yet he was clearly fully aroused, a powerful erection tenting his sweats.
 

“Do you want me to…?” I gestured toward it.
 

He laughed uncomfortably, and I knew. This was his first time paying for it.
 

The answers flooded in. An apartment filled with boxes. A man who clearly didn’t need to pay for sex. Who was self-conscious about what we were doing.
 

I glanced down at his left hand. Sure enough, there was a lighter band of skin on his ring finger. A missing ring.
 

My chest tightened; a sympathetic nerve twanged. He might not be comfortable paying for sex, but for whatever reason, he needed this tonight. Needed me here.
 

I knelt in front of him. “May I?”

He nodded jerkily. I pulled his sweats down and off, leaving his bathrobe in place. There was something so sexy about a half-clad man, clean and ready for me. His erection jutted up expectantly, his arousal thick and strong. But he closed his eyes, pained. Not a sexy pain, not pleasure anticipated, though maybe some of that too. No, this was emotional. Like opening up unhealed wounds.
 

I paused. This wasn’t right.
 

He opened his eyes. “Go ahead.” But it sounded like
Go ahead and get this over with,
and that too was wrong.
 

I closed my hand around his cock, feeling it pulse against my palm. I spoke softly. “Dylan. I’m not only here because you hired me. I thought you should know. I find you incredibly attractive.”

He opened his eyes. “You don’t have to—”
 

I put my fingers to his lips. “When I saw your picture, I wanted you right then. Not just your body either. Something about you, it’s…” I shook my head in wonderment, and I meant it. I didn’t feel this way. Ever. But I did tonight. I wanted this. Wanted him. “I don’t need to know your personal history. I don’t need to know anything. But I thought you should know this. I’m here because I want to be.”

It was the right thing to say. He let out his breath in a soft explosion of sound. “Thank you. I think I needed to hear that. It shouldn’t matter, should it? But it does.”
 

His cock jumped in my hand as I stroked the length, enjoying the feeling of supple skin, the ridge of aroused muscle beneath. He was going to feel so good inside me. He closed his eyes, and I could feel him finally start to give in to the experience.
 

My gaze strayed to the ghostly band on his ring finger. His ex must have done a number on him. I gradually sped up my strokes, listening to his breathing change and change again, feeling an answering quickening, a reflected pleasure at his response.
 

I’d never had sex with a man I didn’t know. This was a first on so many levels. And yet it didn’t feel like we were strangers anymore. Dylan was seminaked, his eyes slitted, his body open to me. It was all happening so quickly, and it felt so intense.
 

This could get addicting.
 

A Fountains of Wayne song abruptly started playing. Clearly a cell phone ringtone.
 

My hand spasmed. He pulled back.
 

“Sorry.” I felt all sorts of cross with myself. Jeanine probably never let her concentration fade. “Do you need to…?” I gestured toward the ringing phone.
 

He shook his head. The phone stopped ringing, but the moment was gone. His erection was already fading.
 

What was the proper hooker etiquette here? Sympathy? Give him a breather? Work harder to turn him on?