Big Bad Boys A Romance Collection - Penny Wylder Page 0,37

her head. “They’re not the same—”

“Pretty sure paying someone for sex is the same thing,” I mutter.

“Still! If you know what you want, and if it’s sooo specific that you can’t even admit it to me, or find it out in the wider world…”

“Oh my god, I cannot believe you are suggesting I hire a prostitute just to get fucked so that I’ll be less stressed-out and won’t snap at you.”

Lara laughs again, louder this time. “That’s not why. I’m concerned about you, Carmine. You need to get laid! Girls have needs.”

“And I am perfectly capable of fulfilling my own needs, thank you very much,” I reply with a toss of my head.

Lara shrugs. “Suit yourself. I just meant, if you don’t want to spend the time meeting someone at a bar, and you know what you want, seems like hiring someone online makes total sense. Saves time, gets you the necessary… Maybe you’d actually find someone into the same kinks as you.”

My cheeks flush bright red—especially when the doorbell tinkles and a customer steps inside, coat clutched against the fall breeze outdoors.

I shoot Lara a pointed we’ll talk about this later look and she scurries to help our customer.

As for me, I finish polishing off the schedule—there are a couple things we can shuffle around if I’m honest, and buy ourselves a little more breathing room to play with next week. Just in case we have another cake collapsing fiasco.

Then I pull my apron back on, smile wide for our new customer, who’s currently looking over the cake décor books in Lara’s capable hands, and head back into the kitchen to get this show back on the road.

Escort, I think with a laugh, shaking my head. Lara doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

3

Lunch break, AKA, just enough time to stuff my mouth full of the sub-par sandwiches we sourced from a shop nearby, then get back to work.

But part of my brain has been mulling over Lara’s comment since she made it just a couple hours ago.

What about an escort?

I’d never even thought about that possibility, let alone considered it. Escorts aren’t something you think about. Especially not when you’re a nice suburban girl who owns a cute bakery in town and works her ass off to make her business successful.

Then again, don’t nice guys hire escorts all the time? And what’s the difference between a one-night stand you find in a random bar versus one you contract, anyway?

Especially if the latter might actually be open to the kinks you’ve always dreamed about pursuing, but never found the right partner to chase them with…

I shiver and shake my head. No. Lara’s right. I’m just going stir-crazy because I haven’t had sex with a real live human in years. I just need to go out on the town and find someone to hook up with, that’s all.

Except that that’s never really been my style. The couple one-night stands I’ve tried have all sucked ass. And the time and commitment it would take—getting all dolled up, trying to flirt with dudes in bars all over again…?

Versus just ordering the sex I want online. From someone I could be completely upfront with about what I want, when I want it.

There’s something kind of empowering about that idea. The idea that I can just be totally upfront right from the get-go about what I want a guy to do to me…

It might be nice to recharge with another person for once, instead of just my drawer full of tricks.

So I find myself setting aside my crappy lunch sandwich and opening a tab on the computer. I do a search for male escorts with our town name, and despite the furious blush I feel rising to my face at just typing in those words, I hit the search bar.

A few websites pop up right away. The first few look sleazy as hell, all weird fonts and a million popups. I close them and scroll back to the search results, disheartened.

But then I notice the website beneath them. This one looks a lot more professional—between the header, “Sex the way you want it,” the neat layout, the easy-to-follow page setup, it looks like an actual, legit company. Not some scam site that’s about to dupe you out of your credit card details at the first chance it gets.

I click it open. Here to Serve, is the name of the website itself. And damn, just from the taste on the first page, if any of those