Desire (Desire, Book 1) - By Missy Johnson Page 0,18

good god, anything but Bambi. I shot Emily a look, who smiled at me innocently, batting her eyelashes.

“Right. I’m, uh, Bambi.” I began, tapping in the details on the payment page. “That will be…$485?” I squeaked, glancing at Emily. She nodded. Holy shit. $485 for half an hour? That was some serious cash. After Bryan paid, Emily led him to a room, while I called Steph.

The girls had their own waiting room, decked out with plasma televisions, a pool table, sofas and even a kitchen. I waited nervously as the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is Kait at reception. We have a new client for Steph in room four.”

“Great, thanks Kait. I’ll let her know.”

By the end of the night, I was completely exhausted. There had been so much to remember, but I’d enjoyed myself much more than I ever thought I would have. The girls were lovely, and even the men weren’t the creepy stalker type I had been expecting. Some were actually really cute and friendly.

“Hey, how did it go?” I jumped at the sound of Ara’s voice. It was close to three in the morning when I got home, so I was surprised Ara was still up. She had her head in a book, but based on her excitement, I think she’d been waiting for me.

“Hi.” I sat down on the couch, taking off my shoes. “It really wasn’t that bad.” I admitted, rubbing my feet. “Seriously.” I added, seeing Ara’s expression. “Everyone was nice.”

“What were the guys like?” Ara’s nose screwed up.

“They were nice.” I said, chuckling at her expression. She’d obviously had the same misconceptions about the men that frequented brothels as I’d had. “There were a couple that looked like they lived at home with their parents, but some weren’t bad looking. It’s just their jobs don’t allow them to meet women that easily.” Ara didn’t look convinced. I giggled. She’d make an awful escort.

“So listen, Neri and I had a pretty good chat.” Ara changed the subject.

“Yeah?” I felt a pang of jealously. My best friend had a better relationship with my sister than I did. I tried to push the feelings aside, knowing I should be happy she was opening up to someone. My biggest worry was that she’d bottle everything up, and eventually lose it. “How is school? Is she settling in okay?”

“Good. She likes it. She’s made a couple of friends already. She’s pretty hot and heavy for this Jeremy guy though.” Ara raised her eyebrows. “What do you know about this guy?”

I groaned. Just what I needed. If Neri took after me at all, then she was probably sleeping with Jeremy already.

Had mom had the ‘chat’ with her at all? Did I need to? That would be an exciting conversation I couldn’t wait to participate in.

“I guess I will talk to her then.” I sighed. “Devon came over today.”

“The cop?”

I grinned and nodded. “He is so hot, Ara. I turn into a pool of mush around him. I even imagine his hands on me. Inside me…” I sighed dreamily.

“Oh eww! Kait! Way too much info.” Ara shook her head viciously, as if trying to shake the image from her head.

“What?” I protested. “If you saw him, you’d understand.” I said, nodding knowingly, sitting back and throwing my feet over the arm of the chair.

“No news on mom, either.” I added sadly. Ara was quiet.

“I’m sorry about your mom, Kait.”

I shrugged. “Feel sorry for the kids. They’re the ones suffering here. I don’t really care. What?” I protested. Ara looked at me doubtfully. “I honestly don’t. That probably makes me sound like the worst person in the world, but I moved on.”

“I don’t think feeling nothing is ‘moving on’.” Ara rested her head on her arm. “I know you, Kait. No matter what happened before, no matter how much she hurt you. You love your mom.”

The logical part of me knew she was right, but right now I couldn’t deal with this conversation. I’d dealt with all this a long time ago. Bringing it all back up now wasn’t going to help anyone.

“Thanks Ara, for minding the kids and everything. I’m pretty beat. I think I’ll head to bed.” I brushed over her hair with my hand as I walked past her. She gave me a half smile.

Chapter Nine

Getting up after five hours sleep was hard.

Really hard.

I dragged myself out of bed and off into the shower.

“Morning guys.” I yawned. Both Neri and Sam, who were up already, looked up and smiled