Head On (Strength And Love)(5)

She starts crying again, big wracking sobs, and I feel fucking awful. Which makes me angry because I rarely feel bad, and this is her fault.

“I ask you again. Why no safe word?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know any safe word.” She screams at me and I see a flash of spirit then. Some anger, and I think she’s going to be okay. But my mind is whirring.

“You’re Isla Rose, correct?”

She nods. “And is this your email?” I pull up her details on my phone and she looks at them and frowns.

“Yes, that’s my email.”

“Your Facebook profile?” I show her the screen shot and those divots between her eyes deepen.

“No, that’s not my profile picture.” She studies it some more and points a slim finger with natural short nails at the picture. “I’m not twenty-five either.”

My heart sinks. Please, God, make her over eighteen. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

Frankly, I’m relieved. She looks younger. I swipe over my phone. “Are these your bank details?”

She looks and nods, blinking up at me through long, blonde lashes, wet with her tears. Fuck, she’s gorgeous.

“Well, last night, sweetheart, you transferred over ￡2,000 into my bank account and sent me an email requesting one of my special services. You told me where to find the key, bad hiding place by the way, any burglar worth his salt will know to check the stone by the door. Then you asked me to creep up the stairs and give you a rough, non-consensual fantasy.”

“Special services?” She wipes at her eyes with the sleeve of her nightdress. “Two thousand pounds!” Her voice rises. “Oh, God. That’s the last of my savings. What the hell do you do for two thousand pounds?”

“I erm…I service women. You know?” For the first time ever, I feel a flash of shame for what I do. For a moment, I hate her for making me feel it.

“No. I don’t know.”

“I have sex with women for money,” I bite out.

“You’re a prostitute?” Her eyes go like saucers.

“No. Not a prostitute. I’m an escort.”

“What’s the difference?”

Oh, fuck her. I’m fuming now. “I sent you an email back.” I jab and swipe at my phone and pull it up. “Look, it’s here. And here’s where we agreed the safe word for if you don’t want to continue. Say it and everything stops. Christ.”

“Look.” She sits up in bed and I wait as she composes herself. “I didn’t send you that email, and I haven’t checked my mail for a few days. I don’t know if you sent me one or not. When I tried to get in yesterday, I couldn’t. I meant to look into it, but forgot because I was busy. My dad left for a business trip. I didn’t request your services. And I couldn’t use the ‘safe word’ as you keep saying, because you put your blooming hand over my mouth.”

The way she spits out blooming as if it is an angry curse word makes me smile. But my smile falters as I think what this means. The implications are horrible. My mind does the math, working out all the permutations, and how and why this has happened. None of them are good.

“You’re not very good at it, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Her words take me completely by surprise and I stare at her. “Excuse me.”

“This male gigolo thing. You’re not good at it. If I had booked you, I’d want my money back. It’s not how I’d imagine being pleasured by a gigolo would be.”

“How would you imagine it would be?” I can’t believe this conversation.

“You know…” She blushes and she’s fucking adorable. “Being seduced and all that.”

I snort. “Yeah, funnily enough, I do get requests for the heart and flowers shit, but not all women want that. Some of my clients like it rough and ready. And some of them like to pretend it’s against their will. Not all women want romance and seduction. Some of them want a good, hard fuck.”

“Not for their first time.” She snaps her mouth shut, and her eyes widen as her blush deepens.

The air freezes in my lungs. Did she just say first time? No fucking way.

“Are you telling me you’ve never had sex before?”

She looks away and stares at the floor, and it’s all the answer I need. I think I’m going to be sick. I nearly had sex with…no assaulted, a fucking virgin, who looks like she’s stuck in the nineteen hundreds. Fuck me, what the ever-loving shit is happening here?

“So, you didn’t request me?” I ask one last time.

“For the millionth time, no!”

“Then someone is setting one of us up.”

“What do you mean?”

And suddenly something else occurs to me. She’d said the lights would be off, but the landing light was on. If it had been turned off as she’d said…My God, if I’d been in the total dark, I’d never have seen the terror in her eyes and realised how wrong things were. I’d have picked up on it eventually, I’m sure. But this whole situation could have been way worse. The nausea intensifies. “Do you sleep with the light on usually?” I point to the landing.

She frowns, a tiny crease marring her otherwise smooth skin. “No. But I’m not usually alone, Dad’s always here, or my gran, or sometimes Uncle Dave, but he doesn’t stay anymore. If Dad goes away then a friend will stay if Gran doesn’t. Oh, and Dad hooked up with a girlfriend for a while, but that’s over now.”