Jo pushed up onto her knees, lifting one over me, until she was straddling me around the waist. As she bent down, covering my bare chest with tiny kisses, I watched her long blonde strands as they brushed along my torso. Her hair was naturally blonde, nothing fake about those honey color strands that tickled my chest.

When I saw her for the first time on stage, a short black wig covered all that blonde hair. It wasn’t until I’d paid for a more private show that I’d discovered it was all a ruse.

During the day, Jo was a single mom, supporting a little boy in a city of millions. Sometimes, I wondered how she did it. Sometimes, I wished I could be the man who swept her off her feet and took care of her and that little boy.

But I wasn’t.

I couldn’t.

Because both of us were too selfish, too real. We knew things like that just didn’t happen in a city like this.

At least, not for people like us.

So, I would give her this, and she’d give it back in return.

A few stolen moments, a brief period of closeness, before the world caught up to us again.

It was enough.

Slowly, Jo made her way up my chest, quickly giving a soft bite to my nipple, before moving up to my chin. Just as our lips touched, a phone began to vibrate on the nightstand.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” she said, rolling off me as she reached for her phone. “I set an alarm, so I wouldn’t be late to pick up Ben.”

Nodding, I sat up, watching her scramble around the room. With swift efficiency, she threw on her clothes and finger-combed back her hair into a knot at the base of her skull.

“Call me again? Maybe sooner this time? I figured when I stopped charging for these little visits, my phone would be ringing off the hook,” she said with a small smirk.

“Yes,” I agreed.

No good-bye kisses, no promises of plans. That was how we did this, and it was exactly what I needed.

Now that I had a clear head, I knew exactly how to handle my new assistant.

Chapter Six

I’d been a resident of New York City for two weeks, or thereabout so far, and I’d failed at just about everything the city had offered me. I could barely walk a block in heels, and I hated the subway. And, on a Thursday night, when the rest of the city, including my live-in boyfriend, were out enjoying a night on the town, I was drowning in a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

Karamel Sutra—my favorite.