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Strangely, my groin roused yet again at the fantasy of trailing fingertips over his skin as he sprawled over my bed. My blood heated over slipping my tongue into his mouth and swallowing his moans as he came undone beneath me. I yearned to explore him and the unexpected desire he’d lit inside me with driving force I failed at ignoring.
He was all sorts of voodoo I didn’t believe in but couldn’t deny with my body’s response.
But codes of conduct and the fear of somehow hurting Katie remained.
I would do well to remember both so I wouldn’t do something stupid again and end up living with even more regrets than those that already littered my soul.
Chapter 15
Sean
“I didn’t do that.”
I believed Zack’s adamant response to the pictures I had sprawled over my desk.
He leaned forward from where he sat across from me and picked up the two I tapped at, lifting them closer. “Little fucker had a hidden camera.” Lips pursed, he shook his head while studying the grainy image of him propping the young client against the wall by his neck. “You can’t see it in this image, but his feet were on the ground, and I barely held him. Didn’t cut off his oxygen because he’d specifically asked me not to.”
Zack shifted his attention to the second, a closeup of the young man’s face that showed bruising where Zack’s fingers had supposedly been the day before the picture was taken.
Jackson Zerig was a twenty-seven year old waif who’d been a client of Zack’s the month before. There’d been nothing special about him…he had brown hair and eyes, a nondescript type of person one would see on the street and immediately forget about, but there was no denying the guy in the both images was the same man.
I always booked new clients. It had been me who’d put Jackson in a room with Zack.
“He wants two million in cash or he’ll leak these to the press,” I stated quietly, my stomach a rock, my shoulders hitched up near my ears.
Zack paled at my declaration, his focus jerking up to my face. “But I didn’t do this!” he reiterated, his voice raised to a point I hadn’t heard from him before. He’d never even skirted the edge of losing his shit. “I barely put any pressure on his neck!”
“I believe you, so I’m assuming the bruising all over the rest of his body is makeup. We’re going to prove it—you have nothing to worry about,” I assured Zack even though I didn’t feel as though my words held weight, nor did I have a clue how to go about doing what I’d promised.
I’d wracked my brain throughout the half-hour drive to Micah’s mansion and the addition which housed Elite’s office, and I’d come up with nothing. My brain refused to think of any creative way other than offing the asshole attempting to extort the family business Micah had built from the ground up.
My temples throbbed, but I had Zack recount his night with Jackson Zerig from beginning to end—twice. We went over the contract together where the client’s limits listed anything beyond vanilla. He’d wanted to be wined and dined, something Zack excelled at, thus the booking choice on my end. He was the perfect escort for what Jackson Zerig had requested.
Had the asshole planned to do this from the very start?
I’d looked over his paperwork, the contract and NDA he’d signed, but hadn’t caught a hint of a red flag. Not even a sixth sense had raised hair on my neck about the guy.
I bet Micah would have sniffed something fishy out though. He wouldn’t have booked the new client if he’d been the one to look over Jackson’s application. Surely, I’d missed something.
Guilt and shame sat heavy on my shoulders. The issue facing us was my fault. Plain and simple.
Elite was a legal business, but attempting to fight Jackson would definitely lead to too much exposure and attention that might prove bad for our image.
“The quarterly meeting is Saturday,” Zack felt the need to remind me. “When does Micah get back?”
A piece of me cracked inside, but I refused to show how my employee’s words hurt. I was the gay branch manager, but I clearly wasn’t trusted by more than just myself to take care of shit. “Friday,” I bit the word out.
“You’ll talk to him as soon as he’s stateside?”
Teeth clenched, I nodded.
“Shit.” Zack shook his head again and tossed the images onto my desk. He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “Tell Micah I’ll do whatever necessary—answer any questions—go on record, for fuck’s sake, if that’s what he needs.”
I nodded.
What Micah needs.
More words to make me feel like an incompetent fuckup.
