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The way he felt in that surreal moment was nothing short of powerful. The way her eyes stirred something inside of him had caught him by surprise.
She was wearing a black mask, meaning she was here for entertainment. Only there were rules firmly in place tonight: black masks came looking. Gold masks didn’t pursue. Those rules had been part and parcel of the Masquerade Party for ages.
He’d never broken the rules before, so after that first heady locking of gazes, he’d moved on. Told himself their connection couldn’t have been as powerful as he’d thought.
But then it happened again. And he’d known then no rule would keep him away from her. At that moment, he was hers, and she was his.
He’d left the throng of women surrounding him and made first contact. He’d told himself he’d only give her a tease. A taste. Then the rest would be up to her. In speaking with her, even for those few minutes, she’d intrigued him with her intelligence, her subtle sexuality it seemed she didn’t even know existed, and how she’d not only held her own with him but had clapped back oh so smoothly.
Yet she’d walked away from him, even though her body was practically vibrating with desire. In all the times he’d attended parties like these, he’d never had a woman walk away from him before.
An intriguing start to what would prove, he hoped, to be an even more intriguing night.
As the platinum blonde continued on, her hips sashaying to a beat only she heard, he offered up a silent prayer of thanks to his friend Marcus, who’d called him earlier in the day, begging him to take his place at tonight’s party.
“I’m retired,” Julian had said into the phone. Semi-retired, actually, but Marcus didn’t need to know that.
“I’m hearing that more and more from you. But you forget, you and your precious journalism career would be nothing without your escort work,” was Marcus’s rebuttal. “It paid for that fancy college degree you like to brag about.”
“A Masters from Columbia is definitely something to brag about,” Julian cheerfully pointed out.
“Whatever. I accidentally double-booked, and I can’t let either my client or the host of the Masquerade Party down. Please, I’m begging you, attend in my place. You always said you enjoyed the event. The cat and mouse of it all. So bail me out tonight. You’ll get all my tips,andyou’ll get to fuck a woman or two. Or three or four, if you play your cards right.”
Julian chuckled. “I can fuck anytime I want. Any woman I want.”
And yet . . . Marcus was right: Julianhadalways enjoyed his time serving as an in-house escort at the Masquerade Party. The obvious benefit was how anonymous he was under his mask, something he preferred when he wasn’t with a regular client now that he had his journalism career and social standing to consider, not that it would be the end of the world if his past or current activities got out, but it would certainly be . . . inconvenient. It was on record that he'd once acted as an escort; in New York, it is entirely legal for someone to pay someone else to accompany them and spend time with them. Plenty of people had once speculated whether that escort work had blurred the line into prostitution, but they’d never been able to prove it. As for Julian? There really wasn’t any difference because he was paid regardless of whether he had sex with a client or not, and the sex only happened at Julian’s will and no one else’s.
Lately, apart from one steady client, he hadn’t done escort work for quite some time. But right now, Julian couldn’t deny that his blood was buzzing at the thought of the chase. The challenge. The hunt. Often, the women and men at the Masquerade Party convinced themselves they were in charge when they were always the prey, prey that was never harmed but only pleasured. He didn’t worry if a woman was single or not; they were obviously there because they weren’t getting what they needed, and for one spectacular night, he’d make their bodies sing to the heavens. He knew how to fuck, how to make a woman come, how to give a woman pleasure, and so long as he gave the women whattheywanted, what they needed, it satisfied a deep need in him that surpassed whatever monetary boon he’d needed earlier in his career.
It hadn’t been about the money in a very long time.
To put it mildly, it was complicated and certainly fucked up, but for his own reasons, he’d happily act as an escort in some manner for the rest of his life. In all his career, however, he’d never had a woman look at him with lust in her eyes and then walk away.
As much as the blonde had tried to infer she was only interested in the women surrounding him, he knew that was bullshit. The way her heartbeat had fluttered in her throat the minute they’d first locked eyes . . . the way she hadn’t been able to tear her gaze off him the next time they saw each other . . . the way her nipples had pebbled when her chest brushed his . . . there was no doubt she wanted him.
And yet she’d run.
Granted, newbies to the Masquerade Parties were often hesitant at first. But it was more than that for his princess.
She’d been afraid.
Not of him, but of herself.
Afraid of her own pleasure.
“Challenge accepted,” he murmured, then plunged into the crowd to find his mystery woman.
4
Skylar retraced her steps, trying to make her way out of the maze and back to Rex— even though she was so shaken, she had to stop several times to catch her breath and reorient herself. The sensual stranger in the gold mask had triggered such deep and devastating arousal within her that her core still quivered. Thank God she’d found the strength to walk away from him. One more second of staring into his eyes, and she’d have been lost forever. It wouldn’t have been fair to Rex, but more so, it wouldn’t have been fair to her—she was fighting a losing battle when it came to her ability to experience pleasure but to have that man so deep in her skin that she’d never dig him out would only make things more painful.
Soon, she escaped the twists and turns of the drapes and found her fiancé still sitting on the same couch, holding his martini and hers. He looked irked as he scanned the room, presumably for her. She slowed, a strange desire to walk away coming over her. Once, she’d looked at Rex and felt happy. Now? Now she simply felt exhausted.
She made her way toward him, and Rex immediately caught sight of her, a mix of expectation and exasperation on his face. “Here’s your drink. You sure took your time,” he said petulantly. “I almost downed your martini.”
“I’d be fine if you did,” she murmured, remaining standing even when Rex waved at her to sit next to him on the couch, a gesture she ignored. “I’d actually wanted champagne.”
“You need something stronger for tonight. Maybe two martinis. I’ll flag down another waiter.”
