Page 20 of Filthy Hot Escort

As he walked away from his table, he let his fingers drift along the back of the neck of the older woman who’d sat beside him. He paused to lean down and whispered in her ear. “It was a pleasure to meet you. Good night.” The woman practically swooned, and Julian winked at her husband even as the man shot Julian a death stare.

12

Julian found Skylar speaking with a group of people, holding captive their attention as she shared a story about a seventeen-year-old girl she’d come across on the subway, a skateboard under one arm and an SAT workbook under the other. Skylar had introduced herself and discovered the young woman wanted to be an engineer but didn’t have the grades to get into a good school. Encouraged by the girl’s excitement over mathematics, Skylar encouraged her to keep trying and ended up connecting her with a professor at MIT who agreed to mentor the young woman.

She beamed at the small group. “And I’m happy to say that Gabrielle is now at the prestigious University of Caltech, getting her Master of Science in aerospace engineering. I understand NASA has their eye on her.”

Hanging back, Julian waited until she shook hands with each of them and stepped away to grab a champagne glass from a passing waiter.

“Quite the speech you made on stage,” he said as she tipped back the glass. “I liked the part where you called out your boss.”

“Thanks,” she said lightly, her eyes scanning the crowd. She had yet to make eye contact with him. “I am of the opinion that comments like the one he made need to be called out.”

“Let’s hope his meeting with HR doesn’t go as smoothly as he’d like.”

She laughed lightly then her eyes fell over him. For a moment, she froze and narrowed her eyes, searching his face. Her delicious lips parted, and she hitched a breath. Her body swayed toward him as if pulled by an electrical current.

In a flash, she shook herself slightly and gained control.

He’d seemed familiar to her, but his eyes and lack of a mask had thrown her off.

But it was too late. She might not recognize him, but her body had betrayed her.

She was just as attracted to him now as she had been three months ago.

She squinted, tapping her fingernail against her champagne glass. “You look familiar. You don’t work for Merryl Lynch, do you?”

He shook his head. “Hell, no.”

A bubble of laughter slipped out before she steeled her expression. She cocked her head to the side. “Do I know you?”

He shrugged. “You could,” he said, sliding his hands into his pockets. “If you wanted to.” He could see that itch at the back of her mind— the itch that was telling her she’d seen him before, but he didn’t check the right boxes. He figured he’d let the questions simmer. Sometimes a good conversation, like good sex, could do with a little bit of simmering—it made the experience that much richer.

After her response to him just now, he no longer thought it was just a possibility that they’d have sex—it was only a matter of where and when.

Someone called out her name, and she responded with a quick gesture indicating she was on her way. “I’m afraid I’m needed,” she explained while moving to step around him. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a few media interviews to attend. Please do enjoy the rest of the evening.”

He waited until she was almost past him. Then, bending his head in close to her, he touched her elbow and murmured in her ear, “We should fuck.”

She almost choked on the champagne she’d just taken another sip of. She backtracked and glared at him. “Excuse me?” Her tone was deliberately frosty, but past the glare, there was a glimmer of light in her eyes, a hint of arousal in the way she caught her breath and how the tip of her tongue touched the inside of her lip.

“I am of the opinion that we should fuck.”

She nervously glanced at the little clusters of people around them. He’d spoken at a normal level, and it was entirely possible that one of them had heard. He didn’t care.

Skylar licked her lips. “You’re being wholly inappropriate, and you need to leave.”

He could smell her perfume this close to her, see the freckle he remembered from that night on the side of her upper chest, and feel the tidal pull of all the shades of gold in her eyes. Her desire for him was apparent in every breath she took, every lick of her lips, and every rise and fall of her delightful breasts.

Skylar McKenzie was trying awfully hard to be the good girl. The dedicated employee. The giving mentor. The winner of the charity award. Fuck, she was a veritable saint.

But she was also naughty to the core.

“You don’t want to go off with me and fuck?” he asked, grinning a little.

“No.”

“Oh, but you do.”