Page 31 of Pleasure Island
He tapped the table with his bottle. “So. Enough about everybody else. Tell us more about the job.”
“What’s there to say?” I spread my hands wide. “I stand outside her office during the day to make sure nobody gets in and tries to hurt her. I escort her to and from work. That’s it.”
“Is she some hot celeb?” Jake waggled his eyebrows at me.
I thought about Mila, then shook my head. “No, not a celeb.”
“But hot, though?”
I thought about the brunette who’d filled most of my waking hours over the past week. Hot? Hell, yeah. She was hot.
Jake laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He leaned forward and caught my gaze. “You interested?”
I almost choked on my beer at the question. “Interested?” My eyes started to water. “In…the client?” I almost blurted out Mila, which would have been a bignoon thethings it’s cool to discusslist but I managed to suck it back at the last second.
“Who else?” Jake leaned back in his seat. “It’s kind of like some movie set up. The bodyguard and the sexy thing he has to protect from all threats.”
“You ought to spend your days writing books with lines like that,” I told him, tossing a wadded-up straw wrapper at him.
He batted it away, an unrepentant grin on his face. “You still haven’t answered the question.”
“Which one…am I interested?” I bought a few more seconds by taking another drink of my beer. As I lowered it, I shrugged, hoping it was as casual as I’d tried to make it. “No. I mean, she’s gorgeous, but she’s a serious ball-buster.”
That was one way to describe Mila. Especially that first day. She’d softened since then, chatting with me – or at least chatting while I sat there and did an imitation of a wall.
I’d never tell Jake, or anybody else, but Mila was more than a little intimidating.
It wasn’t just that she was gorgeous and smart and self-assured, although that in and of itself might have been enough. Her job, though…shit, I’d almost swallowed my tongue once I figured out what she did.
She called herself asex specialist. I’d ended up nabbing one of her office brochures so I could read more about it without running the risk that she’d catch me and start teasing.
Shelovedto tease. It was playful and nothing mean-spirited, but I was uncomfortable with it. It was her confidence and self-assuredness and just…hell, everything about her.
On top of that, she was completely comfortable talking about sex.
I wasn’t even comfortable remembering my one and only encounter with it.
Talk about two radical opposites.
Kane and Jake had started talking, and I sat there, drinking my beer and hoping I hadn’t given anything away. The last thing I wanted was for my cousin to realize I had some weird hang-up about sex.
Actually, it was the last thing I wanted anybody knowing about me.I’dbe happier not knowing it, but I was stuck with the reality of it.
* * *
Later that night,I laid in bed.
For some reason, I’d picked up the brochure from Mila’s office, and now I found myself studying her face. Whoever had taken the pictures for her was good. The photographer had managed to capture both Mila’s wit and her subtle sexuality.
Sexuality.
Sex.
I traced my finger along the edge of her face and felt my cock start to stiffen inside my pants.
It wasn’t the first time I’d had a reaction to her like this. Hell, the first time had been at her office, but I’d managed to deal with it.
I wasn’t in a public place now though, and I didn’t have to will the erection away.
