Scratch the surface, p.1
Scratch The Surface, page 1
Scratch the Surface
Mary Calmes
Contents
1. Jeremiah
2. Cameron
3. Jeremiah
4. Cameron
5. Jeremiah
6. Cameron
7. Jeremiah
8. Cameron
9. Jeremiah
10. Cameron
11. Jeremiah
12. Cameron
13. Jeremiah
14. Cameron
15. Jeremiah
16. Cameron
17. Jeremiah
18. Cameron
19. Jeremiah
A Note From the Author
Also by Mary Calmes
About the Author
Scratch The Surface
Copyright ©2021 Mary Calmes
http://marycalmes.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of author imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted on the cover is a model.
Cover art Copyright © 2021 Reese Dante
http://reesedante.com
Edit by Lisa Horan
Copy Edit by Brian Holliday
Proof Edit by Judy’s Proofreading
Created with Vellum
As always, I have to start by thanking my wonderful editor, Lisa, for all her hard work. She is so nice when she asks questions to get me to think. I can hear her in my head now and I’m getting far better at fixing things before she even sees them these days. Mostly.
Judy at Judy’s Proofreading is an angel and Brian Holliday has gotten to a point where he simply adds all the commas now and doesn’t bother trying to explain the “why” to me. I think that’s for the best.
And thank you, my amazing readers, for your continued support of my dream. I appreciate you all so much.
Scratch The Surface
Sometimes things look one way, but when you scratch the surface, there’s more than meets the eye.
Jeremiah Wolfe has always done what was necessary to survive. On top of working two jobs, he’s going to school to become a social worker so he can give kids the help he never got when his mother left years ago. When a rare night off finds him with the chance to make a quick buck, he jumps on it. But his evening goes sideways, and he’s about to head home when he’s propositioned by a stranger. A meaningless one-night stand is simple and easy, so he steps into the hotel room—as he has many—without expectation. But the man behind the door is a surprise, as is the instant connection that builds along with passion and a glimpse of his heart. Small wonder that Jere can’t get the nameless man out of his head.
Cameron Gallagher has never been accused of being spontaneous. He’s an introvert whose life is about schedules, plans, and lists. He’s always been the careful one, so inviting a stranger into his bed on the lure of his gorgeous smile and warm brown eyes isn’t only out of his comfort zone, it’s entirely out of character. Surprisingly, when he wakes in the morning alone, it’s not regret he feels, but the need to find the man who held him in his arms all night. It seems crazy, but he can’t get the man out of his head.
When they’re brought back together, each man believes it’s more than luck. They feel as though they’ve gotten a second chance. Sure, love at first sight is just a myth, the stuff of romance novels, but the more they scratch the surface, the more they realize they’ve got a shot at something lasting.
1
Jeremiah
The key card wasn’t working in the lock. Of course it wasn’t. No good deed went unpunished. Shifting his weight a bit so he was leaning on me even heavier didn’t help matters at all. Now I had his face lodged against the side of my neck. And he was drooling.
Christ.
The thought of having to put the guy down, take the elevator to the first floor to talk to someone at the front desk about recoding the key, just to have to come back up, was not appealing. It had been a mistake to help out Shawn, a classmate of mine, because if anyone questioned me, I wasn’t a guest at the hotel. I was there as an escort, and people heard that and thought prostitute without missing a beat. And while that had certainly been me at one point, that part of my life had been over for the past four years.
I should have stayed home, but Shawn called, pleading with me because he was out of friends and so turned to me, an acquaintance, a classmate, freaking out about how he was stuck in Tahoe and “Could I do him a huge favor?” It would be easy, he’d said, just a nice man who didn’t want to go to dinner alone, nothing more than that. The fact that my bike needed some work—it was twelve years old, after all—hadn’t hurt his chances of me saying yes. Even though Zack, my buddy, said he’d wait a week to collect, until I got my paycheck from my main job, owing anybody for anything never sat well with me. Plus, Zack was a nice guy with a wife and four kids; he couldn’t afford not to get paid. If I could get the money early and get the bike looked at, I could stop worrying it would blow up on the freeway, with me on it.
It had made sense to ride the twenty-five minutes into downtown Sacramento from Barrett Crossing, where I lived, change into my suit, dress shirt, and wingtips, and go sit in the bar and wait for Mark—all Shawn got was a first name—to show up. Several men had glanced my way, and it made sense, not because I was so drop-dead gorgeous but because, as a rule, guys who were away from home, especially in a place like Sacramento, were up for paying for sex. I’d been told many times that places they frequented on business—Manhattan, Atlanta, Denver, Orlando, Los Angeles, San Francisco—forget it, they would never pick someone up there. They might run into them again when they returned with business colleagues or, heaven forbid, when they were vacationing with their families or their partners. It was far too risky. But Sacramento was more of an anomaly. They felt safe inviting me up to their room, because what were the chances they’d ever be back if they didn’t have to be. It wasn’t a tourist destination unless you were dying to see the state capitol.
By nine o’clock, men and women were offering to buy me drinks, but no one who asked if my name was Shawn. I texted him to say his guy was a no-show. His call to me was a surprise.
“Hey, sorry, man. The client just texted Gina, my scheduler, and said his wife showed up outta the blue to surprise him.”
Cheater. Classy.
“Gina wanted me to go meet someone else, but I told her it was too late already. She was cool with that, so—” He took a breath. “—sorry to waste your time.”
“Fuck.”
“What?”
“I needed the money to fix my bike,” I explained, getting up and heading toward the lobby when a man smiled at me from the bar.
“I can send––”
“Don’t sweat it,” I assured him. “You’re as broke as I am, and it looks like I might have a line on something after all.”
“Okay, then, good hunting,” he said with a sigh. “Thanks again.”
He hung up, and I stupidly headed for the bar, thinking it would be quick and easy, and maybe even not as horrible as I remembered.
Mistake.
The guy, who had draped over me like a sweaty meat suit, offered to buy me a drink, and from the look of his Rolex and the large diamonds in his wedding band, I was thinking I could ask for five hundred easy, and I wouldn’t even have to fuck him more than once. But the goddamn bartender would not stop pouring him drinks, and the drunker the guy got, the sadder he got, and then it moved to downright maudlin.
“He said he didn’t love me anymore,” he whimpered, leaning against me as we’d lurched toward the elevator. “Can you fuckin’ believe that?”
I could, since he’d told me the same story five different ways. And leaving hadn’t been a possibility, because every time I tried to excuse myself, he got loud and people looked at us. I couldn’t have that. No one could alert hotel security or I’d get pinched. It was a nightmare.
Now, at his door, trying the key card one last time only to have it blink red at me again, I braced my hand on the door to think.
“Excuse me. Do you know what time it is?”
Turning my head, I saw a man standing in the doorway of the room next door. And even though I instantly catalogued dark midnight-blue eyes, a strong jawline, and lush lips, my first instinct was to return fire, since the tone he’d used was so annoyingly snide.
“Yeah, I know,” I snapped at him. “That’s why I’m trying to drop my friend off.”
His eyes narrowed. “Oh? Is that right? Your friend?” he challenged me, head tipped, daring me. “Tell me, how do you know him?”
The hell? “It’s none of your business.”
“And yet I’m making it my business,” he assured me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. “We’re buddies from college,” I explained quickly, not wanting anyone else to pop out of their rooms to question me. “Sorry for bothering you.” Hopefully he took the hint, taking the apology for the brushoff it was, and would retreat into his room.
He grunted. “That would be a neat trick, you and he going to college together, as I suspect he was probably pledging a frate
Even though I realized that the annoyed-looking man with the swimmer’s build, short blond hair standing up in tufts, and the perpetual scowl was my drunk friend’s buddy, and therefore my salvation, I still found myself wanting to tell him to go to hell.
“If you know him, could you call down to the front desk and have them bring up another key card, because this one isn’t working.”
He gave me an exasperated growl. “Stay there,” he ordered brusquely and then disappeared back into his room, closing the door behind him.
The fact that he’d given me a command, like a dog, grated on my nerves, but at least he was going to call someone. When the door in front of me slowly opened, my first thought was to punch him. They had adjoining rooms?
“Really?” I was incredulous.
“I can’t imagine why you’re surprised. You woke me out of a sound sleep,” he groused. “I’m supposed to make intuitive leaps when I’m only half-awake?”
“He’s passed out on my fuckin’ shoulder!” I was indignant. “What kind of leap do you have to make to figure this out?”
His glare could have cut glass.
“Can I please dump him on the bed so I can get the fuck outta here?”
Opening the door wide, the blond man stepped aside to allow me to enter. Letting go of his friend, I dropped into a squat and let him sag across my back before rising so I had him in a caveman carry. With his weight no longer being awkward, I crossed quickly to the queen-size bed and dumped him onto the comforter.
“You probably should have waited until I pulled that back,” he commented with a sigh. “I read somewhere that most hotels only wash their coverlets every six months or so.”
I turned to squint at him.
“Yes?”
“Does your brain just spin like that normally?”
“I was asleep,” he reminded me defensively, even though his voice never rose, remained level, soft, smooth, almost seductive. I had to wonder if he did it on purpose or if it was natural. “We have people to meet in the morning. I needed my rest.”
Shaking my head, I moved to the guy, took off his shoes, resisted the urge to hurl each one at his friend, dropping them on the floor instead, and then rolled him over on his stomach so if he vomited, he wouldn’t choke on it. Lastly, I moved the wastebasket right beside the bed.
“Okay,” I announced, turning to head to the door, “thanks.”
“Wait.”
I had my hand on the doorknob and looked over at the blond man.
“I should get your name. He’ll want to thank you.”
“Oh God, no,” I groaned as I turned the knob, “one night of hearing about Jim––”
“Tim,” he corrected me.
“Tim,” I echoed, “is more than enough.”
“So who are you?” he asked me.
“Just a Good Samaritan,” I assured him, opening the door and walking out.
In the hall, I took a deep breath, snapped my head from side to side to get the crick out of my neck, and then let my head fall back on my shoulders. I had a twenty-five-minute drive home with nothing to show for my night. For the billionth time, I told myself I should have stayed home.
I was surprised, as I turned to walk down the hall toward the elevator, when the blond man’s door opened.
He was staring silently at me, and I would have kept going, but there was something about his face, his expression, how sort of trusting it was; it had changed in the last few moments and was now something else entirely.
“Is he all right?” I asked, because maybe that was it. Maybe this was what fear or worry looked like on him.
“I believe so.”
“You believe?”
“I closed the door. He’s snoring.”
I waited, but I had no idea why.
He cleared his throat and then wet his lips.
“Okay, then,” I said slowly, studying him but not moving, admiring his long gold lashes as well as his furrowed brows. He was considering something.
“May I ask a question?”
I should have said no, but again, his expression, something I couldn’t put my finger on, a pull that usually never happened, stopped me. Normally people made sense right away. Like I could read them, what they wanted or needed. But either he didn’t know himself, or he was confused. Impossible to tell which, and that was new. “G’head,” I found myself saying.
“You’re a hustler, right?” he asked quickly. “You sit around in the bar and wait for people to come up and talk to you.”
“Are you a cop?” I asked, because how else would he know that? I had on a suit so I’d blend in, and my hair, mustache, and beard were all short, trimmed and neat.
“No,” he assured me. “But I saw you earlier, and then you were still there when I had to run down to the business center.”
I nodded. He had noticed me, and then kept track of me. Interesting.
“So, are you?”
“Maybe I just wanted to pick somebody up.”
“Did you?” He seemed interested in the answer, and I couldn’t help but notice how the T-shirt he was wearing clung to the muscles in his chest and abdomen.
I shrugged.
“Just be honest. I’m not trying to jam you up or anything.”
“Jam me up?” I repeated, scowling now. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-two,” he answered automatically, like it was good manners or something, and studied my face. “But that’s what you do, correct? You sit around in some bar, talk to men. And women too, I assume.”
I shook my head.
“Okay, so just men, and then you what, ask them if they want to have a good time?”
“You watch way too many movies.”
He grunted. “That’s probably true but…that’s how it’s done, though, yes? You do, in fact, sell your body for money?”
“On occasion,” I answered, feeling even more unbalanced than I had carrying his drunk-ass friend up the elevator. Why was I still standing there?
He took a breath. “And was that what you thought Doug wanted?”
Ah, the drunk’s name was Doug. “Yeah.”
“He didn’t, though.”
“No, he didn’t,” I agreed, trying to figure the man out.
“Doug only wanted someone new to tell the Tim story to.”
I nodded. “Tim’s been gone a long time, has he?”
“Doug and I just met, but from what I’ve gathered, around nine months?”
Taking a step forward, I put my hand on the doorframe. “So you and Doug met here on business?”
“Yes,” he said hoarsely, his gaze dragging over me slowly, mapping every inch, until all that blue was back on my face.
“And is your boyfriend at home waiting on you, or gone like Tim?”
“There’s no one”––his voice cracked––“waiting at home.”
“And it’s been a bit?” I asked softly, slipping inside the room.
“It has,” he confessed, closing the door with a click before turning to lean his back against it, never breaking eye contact with me.
I meant to say, “It’s five hundred upfront.” It was what I’d charged back when I was doing it regularly, and it was a familiar script. I normally gave people a quick rundown of my fees and then the rules, like no kissing, no swallowing, and how I was gone the second we were done. I did not stay and cuddle. That was not a service I offered.
I really should have explained everything so he was prepared, but his breath caught like he was nervous, and those full, pillowy pink lips of his parted, and his beautiful eyes narrowed down to slits. I dropped to my knees, and his moan sounded like he was in absolute agony.
He had nothing on under his flannel pajama bottoms, and when I dragged them down his hips, his long, beautiful, already erect and leaking cut cock caught on the elastic waistband. When it bounced free, I drew it into my mouth and sucked him down the back of my throat in one fluid, seamless motion. I knew what I was doing. I’d been giving blowjobs since I was fourteen, after all. I had years of practice.
