They’d returned to Shannon’s room to sleep for the night, which was on the east side of the B&B, so they were up early, courtesy of the bright light shining into the windows they hadn’t covered.
“Let’s go to the lake,” Leo suggested.
The man was full of excellent suggestions.
They rented a pontoon boat, Maureen packed them another picnic basket, and they headed out to start their day.
Once they were out on the water, Shannon pulled off her coverup, revealing a stringy red bikini that barely covered all the essential parts.
“Good God,” Leo said, pulling her into his arms. “You are the most amazingly gorgeous woman I have ever met.”
This suit wasn’t at all her new style, her preferred style. She’d bought it for a client who wanted part of their arranged date to involve swimming in the hotel’s pool. The choice had been deliberate, since the purpose of that swim was a prelude to sex for money.
Tossing it into her bag for this trip had been an afterthought. Given Leo’s reaction, she was glad she had. Although…
“True confession, this isn’t what I’d choose to wear to the beach.”
He’d brought a Bluetooth speaker, and it pumped out background music, a hip-hop song from the ’90s at the moment. Leo, who clearly had moves, was gyrating his hips and dancing along to the song, holding her tightly so that she swayed along with him.
“No? Then why are you wearing it? Besides the obvious, that we’d get in trouble for public indecency if you weren’t.”
“If you keep dancing like this we’re going to get into trouble anyway.”
He grinned wickedly. “We can always jump into the water. I bet we can do all sorts of naughty things without anyone being the wiser.”
She laughed. “That’s some awfully clear water.”
He didn’t stop dancing. “Fine, then we’ll get ourselves all nice and hot and bothered and we’ll have some seriously explosive sex when we get back to the B&B.”
Hey, changing her life did not mean she couldn’t still be somewhat naughty. Shannon reached between them and stroked his erection. His eyes widened, and then he cupped the back of her head and made love to her mouth, while she slipped her hands into his shorts and steadily pumped until he bucked against her leg and mumbled against her lips, “If you don’t stop…I’m going to… Fuck, don’t stop…So good. Oh God, Shannon…”
She kept it up until he climaxed and then wrapped his arms around her and squeezed while burying his face in her hair. After a long moment, he pulled away and said, “Okay, I clearly need to jump into the water. Coming?”
“Not yet,” she said demurely.
He laughed. “Let’s go. I’ll make sure you come.”
And he did. Spectacularly.
With the sun beating down on them, their bellies full from another of Maureen’s delicious meals, they spent the day tooling around the lake, dropping anchor whenever they needed a dip, and having the time of their lives.
It was the perfect way to spend her last full day of vacation.
Tomorrow she was checking out. Back to work. Back to reality. Her next appointment was Wednesday at seven. Another businessman, another fake date, another evening spent having sex for money.
After this time with Leo, after experiencing pleasure for the sake of pleasure, after discovering sex was so much better when it was with someone she actually liked, Shannon didn’t want to think about how she was going to endure sleeping with other men and pretending to like it at that.
God, she wished she were brave enough to start her life over now instead of waiting until she had enough money saved to pay cash for her dreams.
Because if she could walk away from her current source of income, she would not hesitate to carry on this affair with Leo. See where it led. Explore these interesting feelings that seemed to grow with each moment she spent in his company.
The problem was, she was afraid to finance a loan, afraid Davit would stumble across her name, her information. She’d created an LLC for her escort business, and Star wasn’t something that would pop for him. But Shannon Williams? Davit had probably already checked out every single Shannon Williams out there, looking for her.
She knew he’d searched for her in the beginning, because she’d stalked social media and had spotted comments here and there that made it clear if only to her. Eventually, he’d quit posting about her, but she knew him well enough to know that didn’t mean he’d given up on finding her.
Davit was the definition of an obsessive personality, and she was his greatest fixation. It all stemmed from his own father’s obsession with her. Davit had admired his father like the man was a god, even though the elder Grigoryan spent the bulk of his time grooming Davit’s older brother to take over the family business.
When his father died, Davit didn’t get to take over as don, of course, so he decided to take over the next best thing: his father’s own obsession.
Shannon.
Any man who could move into his own father’s bedroom the day after his death, who could sleep with his father’s fiancée when the man’s body hadn’t even been cold for twenty-four hours, would definitely not give up his search for that obsession after only a single year.
Chapter Eleven
The ringing of his phone interrupted the music. Someone was trying to FaceTime him.
Shannon was in his lap, and he was teaching her how to drive the boat. There was more laughter than learning occurring, but that was okay.
That was what was supposed to be happening.
Grabbing his phone, he saw that it was Max. He considered ignoring him, but if yesterday was any indication, Max would keep calling until Leo answered.
His
