High Class Read online

  Late afternoon sunlight streamed through Claire’s bedroom window as she zipped up her suitcase and took a final, long look around her house. Dust motes danced gently in the sunbeam, the hallway clock ticking loudly.

  It felt so empty. With her sisters now boarding at university, the house all but rang out with hollowness. She’d often wondered if she could survive the twins’ hormonal years, but surely living with that was better than living with this … nothingness.

  She exhaled softly. She might spend half of her time with men, but she’d never felt more lonely. Never before had she wished for the seemingly harassed, frenetic lifestyle she’d witnessed so many young mothers and wives live.

  Her cell phone rang, startling her. Caller ID revealed it was Maisey, doing her mandatory, pre-check call. Once Maisey was satisfied everything was on track for the weekend ahead, Scarlet disconnected. Then with a final look around the too-quiet house, she stepped outside in black skinny jeans, high-heeled leather boots and a cream and grey-flecked knit jumper to wait for the agency’s town car.

  Maisey had made arrangements with Mackenzie on where to meet. No client was allowed to know where she lived. No client knew where any of the escorts lived, period. Their privacy was to be protected at all costs, because without it, their safety was put at a much higher risk.

  Despite Mackenzie’s wealth, if Maisey discovered he’d learned her address, she had no doubt he wouldn’t be welcomed back as a VIP client.

  If you really want him out of your life, then you’ll tell Maisey the truth.

  She pushed away the snide little voice, and then nodded at the driver as he tucked her suitcase into the trunk, and she climbed into the back seat. Fifteen minutes later, the town car pulled up at a service station, where a big black SUV waited.

  Mackenzie was out of the SUV and had her back door open almost before the sedan had stopped. Faded, snug-fitting jeans caressed his thighs and buttocks, and lovingly defined the bulge of his cock. She tore her eyes away, focusing on his crisp white T-shirt and dark-colored jacket. She blinked. Damn, he wore his clothes well. She looked higher. His warm eyes brushed over her, his features not quite so stark. Almost as though he’d relaxed at seeing her arrival.

  He cradled her forearm as he helped her alight, confirming her thoughts when he murmured, “Thank you for coming.”

  Her chin lifted and her hand tightened on her clutch bag. “It’s my job.”

  His eyes narrowed and his jaw tensed. But she didn’t find relief at knowing she’d scored a point against him. Far from it.

  “Indeed,” he said quietly, even as he took hold of her suitcase and escorted her toward his SUV.

  It wasn’t until he drove out of the city and onto a remote stretch of highway, where darkness fell all around them and lightning flickered behind distant clouds, that she turned to him and said, “I’m sorry.”

  He turned to her. “What for?”

  “For trying to bring you down to my level.”

  He turned his focus back to the road, but she knew his attention was all on her. “And what level would that be?” he asked softly.

  “The level of doubts and insecurities I seem to have whenever I’m around you.”

  Passing headlights gave her a glimpse of his forbidding face, another flash soon after revealing a slightly less stern profile. He sighed, as though expelling any lingering tautness. “You’re scared of what we could have.”

  “What we could have?” she echoed, her heart thumping and her throat going dry.

  He turned to her then, another set of incoming headlights showing his intense stare. “Yes. We’re attracted to one another more than just physically. And you know as well as I do that it needs to be further explored.”

  She blinked. “We share a business transaction. Nothing more.”

  “Really?” His stare had turned back to the road, but the strength of his emotions rolled off him in waves. “What if after this weekend you’re proven wrong?”

  She couldn’t stop yearning from cramping in her belly. “I’ll worry about that if it ever happens.”

  Not when, please God, not when.

  She’d tried to walk away from Mackenzie once to save her heart, she didn’t know if she was capable of doing it twice. She’d seen her mother go through hell because she’d fallen in love with a faithless man, and she refused to follow in her mother’s footsteps.

  But had she already left it too late?

  She didn’t have an answer to that. What could she say about the very thing that scared her the most?

  The wind picked up as they began the ascent toward the Blue Mountains, leaves and twigs swirling across the road and treetops swaying. She peered out the window, watching lightning blaze across the sky. It looked like one hell of a storm, and they were heading directly into it.

  Mackenzie didn’t seem concerned; he drove the car effortlessly, his control at the wheel seemingly as confident as it was behind the helm of his global empire. It was common knowledge that he owned a chain of luxury five-star hotels, liquor stores and restaurants right across the globe, making him one of Australia’s most wealthy and successful men.

  As his paid escort, she wasn’t expected to ask about his personal life, not unless he wanted to spill his secrets of his own accord. Even so, she recognized he was as emotionally scarred as he was materially healthy. That he carried his wounds all on the inside drew her to him all the more. Despite his worldly success, he was a warrior fighting his own personal demons.

  He indicated a couple of times, turning off the main road and onto a much narrower sealed road. A few minutes later he pulled onto yet another road and negotiated a winding track that climbed steeply before the road abruptly levelled out and the headlights glinted on a log cabin’s windows.

  The scent of incoming rain announced its arrival just seconds before the heavens unleashed a torrential downpour. Winds even stronger than before lashed at the car and buckled even the biggest of trees. Mackenzie parked beside the cabin and flicked off the headlights, before he drew off his jacket and said wryly, “Looks like we’ll be getting a little wet.”

  She nodded, strangely invigorated by the storm. “It looks like it.”

  He climbed out of his seat and ran around to her side of the car, the rain drumming on the car’s roof and the wind howling. Helping her out, he held his jacket over their heads while they ran to the front door.

  Scarlet laughed giddily at the total wildness of it all. Her life was dictated by rules. It was energizing to have those rules tossed away with the winds and enjoy the spontaneity.

  Despite Mackenzie’s jacket, they were both drenched through long before he pushed an old-fashioned key into the lock and thrust the door open. Even with his arm around her, she all but fell inside. He released her and slammed the door shut. But the barely audible click of the light switch didn’t yield any light.

  Pitch blackness surrounded them, and Scarlet’s breath caught in her throat, her humor fading as the dark and dank cold quickly set in.

  “The wind must have knocked out a power line,” he muttered.

  She pushed up the sodden sleeves of her jumper and rubbed at her bare, goose bumped arms. “Then I guess we’ll have to keep each other warm.”

  She sensed his approach even before his hands landed on her shoulders, his silhouette shadowy and barely visible. “You’re freezing.” He took hold of the hem of her jumper, and her arms went into the air obediently before he dragged the sodden jumper along with her tee up and over her head.

  The clothes thudded heavily to the floor, and her nipples strained against the thin material of her bra. But her pebbled nipples weren’t just from the cold. Although it was dark, she felt his eyes devouring her, as though he could easily see her partial nakedness. She had no doubt his brilliant memory filled in any blanks.

  She swallowed hard. This once she was unsure of what to do. All her escort experience and business sense yielded to the churning emotions and needs filling her to the brim.


  Mackenzie too seemed swept up in that same whirlpool of yearning when he said her name in a low, hoarse tone like a benediction. Then he cupped the back of her head, his mouth moving over hers in a kiss that made her forget about the cold, made her forget about everything but his male heat and hardness.

  The noise of the rain and the wind and the night’s blackness cocooned them, until all she knew was Mackenzie and his mouth, his hands moving up and down her hips, his cock bulging against her belly in his wet jeans. His kiss deepened, his velvet tongue pushing into her mouth, exploring and stroking. Until she was moaning against his lips and he was drinking in the sound.

  He drew back, his dark, sensual voice underscored with a thread of concern. “Get undressed. I’ll find you a towel.”

  She did as he asked, the heavy rain and wind drowning out his retreating footsteps. She hugged herself, but it was her emotions that made her feel vulnerable and exposed, not the fact she was naked.

  Being with Mackenzie was dangerous on too many levels. No matter how much she resisted he dug past her defenses, leaving the walls around her heart weaker with each invasion. Somehow she had to remember this was her job, nothing more. That Mackenzie was her client, not someone capable of breaking her.

  Thunder rumbled outside, masking any noise. But she sensed Mackenzie’s return like he was a part of her.

  He didn’t say anything, just gently dragged the towel back and forth across her shoulders, along her spine and buttocks and then the backs of her legs. When he proceeded to do the same at her front, she closed her eyes and leaned a little closer, her breath hitching and her legs going weak.

  For a man with such big hands, he’d always had a deft touch. Always been the only man who’d ever brought her to ecstasy. He bent and placed the towel between her thighs then slowly see-sawed the towel forward and back, scraping the soft material across her clit until she was breathless and moaning.

  Lightning crackled outside, illuminating the room and revealing Mackenzie’s intensity. As though pleasing her was his one ambition. As though gaining her submission was his greatest win.

  What scared her most was that he didn’t even need to try. He was a master craftsman and she was putty in his too-capable hands.

  But just when orgasm was seconds away from rippling through her body in much needed release, Mackenzie straightened and drew the towel up and around her. “We’ll continue this … after I light the fire and get you warm.”

  Her breath stuttered in rhythm to her pulse. She wanted him to finish what he’d started now. Not in half an hour. “Bastard,” she whimpered.

  He bent his head close to hers and his chuckle sent goose bumps down her spine. But it wasn’t until he sucked her lobe into his mouth that her inner barometer charged straight past the fuck me immediately level.

  “Call me what you want,” he murmured throatily, “because I plan on making you ten times hotter before you come and come … and come.”

  Her pussy clenched, and the moisture pooling at her core had nothing to do with the rain. “You’re paying me to make you come,” she croaked.

  His fingertips grazed under her jaw. “I do that every night just thinking about you, and what we share in the bedroom.” His chuckle sounded deeper, darker. “But right now, tasting your cum on my lips and tongue, and seeing your juices glaze my fingers and dick is everything I want and need.”

  She swallowed hard, before he stepped back and added, “I’d better light that fire before my dick takes over my brain.”

  She stood silent and shaking with lust as intermittent lightning showed him stacking kindle and bigger hunks of wood over scrunched-up newspaper. A match flared and he set the tiny flame onto the paper before it lit and quickly caught hold.

  She blew out a soft breath, glancing at the gloomy interior. The growing fire caused shadows to flicker and dance across the log walls of the dining and lounge area. The room was stark, with no pictures or mementos that she could see. Nothing that was personal at all.

  She frowned. She’d never been inside his home, had no idea where he even lived. He’d always taken her to fancy hotels and apartments for the night. His holiday home was as close as she’d come to his private living space. But with no photos or knickknacks, she had no further clues to his life.

  Did his intense privacy indicate issues with trust?

  Aside from the front and back entrance, there were only two other doors leading to rooms. She guessed one opened into a bathroom and toilet, the other to a single bedroom—and no doubt to a king-size bed where Mackenzie would make love to her most of the weekend.

  She shivered with longing. Don’t ever forget you work in the sex industry. You fuck men like Mackenzie, not make love.

  He stood then and turned around, his eyes glinting with the flare of the fire in the background. “Come here,” he said huskily.

  She smiled, and let go of the towel to reveal all her splendour. His eyes burned hotter than the fire when she sashayed toward him, undoing her hair and allowing it to fall in a ripple of movement almost to her waist.

  No matter her true feelings for him, she’d never forget she was first and foremost a call girl, paid to get him off.

  His jaw tightened with lust. “You’re fucking gorgeous.”

  “And you’re handsome as hell,” she retorted, winding her arms behind his nape and standing on tiptoe to kiss his sexy mouth.

  He kissed her back like he owned her, the scrape of his stubble only adding to the intensity of the moment. He even tasted amazing, mint and spice, his lips lush but firm. She slid her palms down his arms and tucked her hands beneath his tee, stroking over his wet, but warm skin, where his tight core muscles rippled with every little movement.

  Though he wasn’t bulked up like a thickset bodybuilder, his corded strength never ceased to amaze her. He could probably bench press two of her without any great effort. He made her feel safe and secure, like he could protect her against anything.

  The woman who stole his heart would be very lucky indeed.

  She shoved aside the green-eyed monster and instead lost herself to his skilled lips and mouth. They didn’t stop kissing until he pulled back to strip off his shirt, then his jeans and boxer briefs. Her eyes widened in familiar appreciation at his body. Sheer perfection. His every dip and plane might be imprinted on her brain, but she doubted she’d ever stop ogling him.

  He tugged her back towards him, his mouth connecting to hers once again and his cock pressing thick and insistent against her belly. “You don’t know how much I need this … need you,” he said against her mouth, his voice hoarse.

  “The feeling’s mutual,” she breathed. But he wasn’t to know she was speaking the truth. He wasn’t to know she wasn’t being Scarlet, paid call girl. She was being Claire, homemaker and everyday girl next door.

  He tilted her back, and laid her down beside the fireplace. A soft, thick rug pressed beneath her spine as he moved over her, his eyes glinting from the reflection of the fire. Scarlet blinked up at him. The storm might still be raging outside, but passion raged just as ferociously between them.

  Her breasts scraped across his chest, arousing nerve endings in her nipples, and causing her pussy to spasm with need.

  Placing most of his weight on a forearm, Mackenzie slid a hand between her thighs and parted the petals of her sex, a finger sliding deep inside her wet heat. When he took up a rhythm and bent his head to suckle her breast, she arched with a gasp.

  Holy shit. How did he so effortlessly generate such heat and pleasure? She’d been with many talented men in the bedroom, and yet not one of them had come close to making her feel this good.

  A pity that just as she reached for the peak, he paused, and waited for her to cool off before he started the foreplay all over again.

  “Don’t do this to me,” she whimpered, firelight flickering his profile in and out of shadow and making him look like some barbarian of old.

  “You want me to stop?”

  She shook her head, bu
t he withdrew anyway, only to stroke the flesh around her clit, being careful not to touch her quivering mass of nerves.

  “Is this what you want?” he asked.

  “Yes … no. I don’t know!” she gasped.

  A quirk touched his lips, before he crawled down her body and said, “Perhaps this?”

  Parting her labia, he lowered his head to her mound. When his mouth latched onto her clit and he suckled, she shrieked at the high voltage electricity sparking into life, his tongue flicking and licking. She lasted perhaps ten or twenty seconds before she exploded with one orgasm, and then another, while Mackenzie tasted her essence, lapping at her like she was the finest cuisine.

  Giving her one last, long lick, he looked up at her with glinting eyes. “Better now, baby?”

  “Yes.” Hell, yes.

  He kneeled between her legs, and pushed her knees back so that she was exposed to him. “I plan on making it even better for you.”

  She was too drowsily sated to even think of a response, let alone put a stop to his next round of seduction. But by the time her hazy mind processed him centering his cock at her core, before he thrust forward and filled her to the hilt, it was much too late.

  She gasped, equally stimulated by his delicious entry and horrified by his uncovered cock. “You didn’t use protection!”

  He looked down at her. His stare fairly glowed, revealing no regrets. “You’re on the pill, and I know you use condoms when you’re with your clients, just as I always do.” He leaned forward and brushed a strand of hair back from her face. “Baby, our first time without condoms should be with one another.”

  She stared up at him, too turned on to be mad, though there was a simmer of reproach deep in her belly that would boil over at some point. “You should have asked first.”

  He nodded, before bending further and kissing her with a slow tenderness that caused her heart to melt. Until he pulled back and murmured, “After this weekend, I hope I’ll never need to ask again.”

  If Scarlet had even one iota of sense she’d put him in his place right there and then. But the moment he moved his hips and stroked long and deep inside her, she was lost to everything but sensation.