Not that there was anything wrong with her blue one-piece. It covered everything it should. No, it was more to do with the fact that she wasn’t yet comfortable with her altered image. Showing her body off like this was a new venture, and despite all the assertiveness and motivational courses, it was just skin-deep. Underneath, she was still the chunky frump her ex-husband accused her of being. It would take a while for her head to catch up with the outer image.
A little more comfortable now she’d hidden her body from view, she retraced her steps and confronted her mother’s present. Holy guacamole, Mom did good.
Her visitor was well over six foot, more than a match for her own lofty height. Another of Clifton’s complaints. He’d never allowed her to wear anything but flat shoes so she wouldn’t tower over him. At the time, she hadn’t seen it as lack of confidence on his part. She’d simply bowed under to his dictates.
This man didn’t appear to have any problems. An aura of confidence surrounded him as he leaned against the breakfast bench. Denim jeans hung low on his hips. A black tee shirt hugged his muscular chest. Dark hair cut short and swept back from his face, chocolate brown eyes, and a smile that threatened to turn her insides to mush. Sex appeal oozed from every pore. A person would have to be dead not to notice. She might be a repressed divorcée, but she sure wasn’t dead.
A spiral of heat exploded in her belly and slid downwards on a rush of hormones. She squirmed as dampness pooled between her thighs. Her breasts throbbed and nipples peaked beneath the fabric of her swimsuit. On a rush of embarrassment, she crossed her arms over her chest.
Oh, my giddy grandma, where the hell had that come from?
For the first time in her life, the mere sight of a member of the opposite sex had turned her into a molten mass of swirling heat. If she’d thought those early feelings for Clifton had been hot, wow. Try this one on for size.
Jake grinned at the wide-eyed look on the face of the woman in front of him. “You didn’t need to cover up for me,” he said. She looked cute, standing there with a goodly portion of leg on show beneath the bottom of the bright blue sarong. He wasn’t complaining. And if this is what Dad walks into every time he visits a customer, no wonder he won’t retire, the dirty old reprobate.
He continued to watch her as she ran one hand through her hair, the other plucking at the knot of the sarong. When he made no effort to avert his gaze from her body, the red in her cheeks deepened. He knew it was rude to stare, but he couldn’t help himself. This woman was worth looking at.
“Look, I-I’ve never d-done this before,” she stuttered. “In fact, I didn’t do it. My mother bought you for me to practice on.”
Back up a minute there, Jake. What the heck is she talking about?
“You’d better come in and sit down.” She waved a hand toward the living room. “We have to discuss this.”
Jake followed her into the next room, his gaze fixed on the seductive sway of her hips as the sarong pulled tight across her ass. When she pointed to the couch, he sauntered over, using the opportunity to adjust the fit of his jeans. Damn hard to get comfortable in tight denim when a body had a raging hard-on.
She gestured again and he sat, squirming as he felt the shape of the little black box in his back pocket dig into his ass. The stud finder, an invaluable tool used to locate the studs hidden behind the wallboards of a house. He was about to remove it from his pocket when Madison perched on the edge of the seat opposite him.
“Mother, I’m going to kill you for this.”
She whispered the words, but he still heard them. Huh? What did her mother have to do with where she hung her paintings?
He glanced around the room. The cottage had to be at least a hundred years old, with the high ceilings and beautifully molded cornices common to that era. The flocked wallpaper and chintz drapes created an old-fashioned but delightful re-creation of times gone by. His dad did good work. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but it seemed to suit the woman across from him.
He glanced back at Madison. She’d twisted her hands together in her lap. A wash of delicate pink swept up over her face and the tip of her tongue came out to dampen her bottom lip. His libido immediately raised its head again, his cock twitching in reaction.
Jake ran a hand over his mouth to make certain he wasn’t drooling like a pubescent fool. A few months without a woman and he’d morphed into a randy teenager, turned on by nothing more than a woman’s swimsuit-clad body and the glide of her seductive tongue.
His mind suddenly supplied a vivid picture of Madison going down on him, that little pink tongue flicking…
For fuck’s sake, Jake, get with the program or she’ll think you’re an idiot.
“So what would you like to do first?” he managed, giving his body a stern warning to behave.
“Um, maybe we could start with your name.”
“I’m Jake H—”
“No, don’t tell me your full name,” she squealed. “It’s not necessary.”
Jake stared at her. Then he shrugged. What the hell? If she didn’t want to know his last name, it was fine by him.
“After all,” she continued, “we’re not going to see each other when this is over.”
Feeling like he’d taken a step into some obscure twilight zone, Jake shook his head. When what is over? “Um, okay by me. I’m Jake and you’re Madison. Where do you want to do this?”
“Hey, slow down. No way can I go into this dead cold, so to speak.”
By now, Jake was totally confused. For crying out loud, what was she? Some kind of kook? All he wanted to do was hang a few paintings, go home, and tell dear old dad he’d done the job.
“I don’t know exactly what a stud does,” she said. “I mean, it has to be more than an escort, someone to take me out to dinner and such. But I can’t just jump into it. I have to get to know you a little bit first before we…you know…do it.”
Somewhere along the line, Jake had lost the thread of the conversation. He started to retrieve the stud finder as he replayed the last bit over in his head. He hesitated a moment, dragging his hand from his pocket and sitting up straighter on the couch. His eyes felt like they were about to roll out of his head as he took in her meaning. He wasn’t certain he had understood. Guess it was time to find out. “Ah, what is it exactly you want of me?”
Madison squirmed. She should have asked her mother for the phone number of Stud Finders Incorporated and cancelled this appointment, but as the man was already on the spot, she may as well hear what he had to say. Who knows? She might actually be tempted to take part in her mother’s crazy scheme. It sure couldn’t be any worse than her attempts at trying to get picked up in the singles’ bar.
But to have to put it into words… It was bad enough to be in this position, but to actually tell him what she needed—Lord, she wasn’t certain she could do it. Not without sounding like a total idiot. She should throw him out, tell him she’d changed her mind. Then she spotted the Madison Paxton Makeover Plan on the polished table on the other side of the room.
How badly do you want this, Madison?
The question burned through her brain, the answer following quickly behind.
Lots. I need to be more than Clifton thought I was.
Enough to risk the embarrassment of the telling?
She nodded to herself. Jake gave her a strange look, making her cringe. The poor guy probably thought she was crazy. She released her breath on a fatalistic sigh. Okay, here goes. “I need a man to teach me all about sex. Which is why my mother hired you for me.”
Jake’s eyes boggled. He tried to speak, but couldn’t think of a suitable comeback. She crossed her legs and he caught a glimpse of upper thigh. Why would a woman like this need to learn about sex? She was sex. He had an immediate vision of rolling naked with her on satin sheets, those long legs wrapped about his body as she dragged him in…
“So what do you think?”
Her voice cut across the raunchy pictures in his mind. He shook his head and c
oncentrated. “Why do you feel you have to be taught?” He tried to sound intelligent, instead of like a little boy who’d just been handed the keys to the candy store. “You must be what, twenty-six, twenty-seven? Surely you’re not still a virgin?”
She looked perfectly adorable as a blush colored her cheeks. He kept his gaze trained on her face as she lowered her eyes and stared at her hands. Testosterone raged through his blood again when she bit delicately at her lower lip, the same lip he wanted to trace his tongue across, suck into his mouth, crush with his own. Why the heck did she think she needed help?
“My ex-husband said I was frigid. I need to prove to myself there’s nothing wrong with me. I want more than just missionary position.”
He coughed before managing to find his voice. “How long were you married?”
“Ten years.”
Jake ran his hand through his hair. Ten years and her husband never did it any other way but missionary? The idiot had to be brain-dead. Now if he had this woman in his bed…
You’re boring, Jake, both in bed and out.
Courtney, his ex-lover, had branded those words into his brain, never to be forgotten. He was a thirty-six year old lawyer, moderately affluent, and for the first time since he was a teenager, she had made him doubt his manhood. She had taken all his confidence in himself as a man and ground it under her two inch heels.
Did he even have it in him to satisfy a woman? According to Courtney, he was useless in bed. Shit, maybe he was. And now this woman wanted him to teach her all about sex? How the hell was he supposed to do that when he wasn’t even certain he was man enough?
He’d have to put her straight, tell her exactly what Stud Finders Incorporated was all about. He opened his mouth, the words hovering on the tip of his tongue. Then he paused and dragged in a deep breath.
What if… Nah, he couldn’t.
Could he?
Could he pretend to be her stud, use this opportunity to get ready to jump back into the dating game? Brush up on his technique so no other woman would say he was boring in bed?
He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. He was all set to be up-front and honest. Until she moved her legs again and the vision of those long limbs wrapped around him jumped right back into his head. His pulse picked up a pace and his body hardened a little bit more. And in that moment he was lost.
“So how exactly do you want to learn?” Dumb, Jake, dumb.
There was only one way to learn about sex and that was by actually participating. He couldn’t believe he was about to do this. His dad would crucify him. If he found out, that is, and Jake sure wasn’t going to enlighten him.
“It’s not just the sex,” she said as she lifted her hands to cup her flushed cheeks. “I was married at eighteen. I went from my mother’s house, to college and straight into marriage with Clifton. I never learnt to… I missed out on the whole romance and flirting bit. The fun of dating. And there’s one other thing.”
“What’s that?” Jake held his breath as he waited for her next revelation.
“Whoopty-do.”
He frowned. “Whoopty-do?”
Madison nodded. “Yes, whoopty-do. I’ve never experienced one, not in ten years.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t—”
“You know…an orgasm. I’ve never gotten off.” She shrugged. “No whoopty-do.”
“Oh, whoopty-do.” Jake managed to keep his face serious. He’d heard it called many things before, but this was a first. Her eyes highlighted with what appeared to be anticipation, she leaned toward him and the tension in his body tightened a notch.
“That won’t be too hard, will it?”
“Not hard at all.” Hard? Holy crap. Then he caught a glimpse of cleavage above the knot of her sarong. His body reacted right on cue, his jeans tightening even more over his crotch. He needed to get out of here before she twigged to the fact he had the biggest hard-on he’d had in a long while.
You shouldn’t be doing this, Jake.
He wanted to ignore the irritating voice in his head, but it kept chipping away at him. Damn, he was so tempted. Nothing was a greater turn-on for a man than to have a woman ask him to teach her all about sex.
What had his father said about her when he’d asked Jake to do this small job for him? Something about her being the daughter of a friend. That one little fact precluded him from playing around with her. In fact, if he gave into temptation, he’d be nothing but a sleazebag. Right? Yeah, right, Jake, so walk away.
After what had gone on, if he told her who he was now, she’d be mortified. Somehow, he had to find a way to let her down without embarrassing her.
“Hmmm, an unusual request.” He struggled to play the part of a knowledgeable stud. “Give me twenty-four hours to come up with a workable plan.”
If he just didn’t bother ringing her, letting her think he wasn’t interested… Nah, he couldn’t do it. That wasn’t going to help her confidence in herself. He couldn’t just leave her hanging like that.
Better if he called her in the next twenty-four hours and explained who he was. He could ask her out on a real date, get to know her without the subterfuge between them. That sounded like a plan. Lord knows, his cock was sure telling him it was a great idea.
The decision made, he stood up, turning away from her so she wouldn’t see the telltale bulge in his jeans. A pad and pen on the side table caught his attention and he moved toward it. “I’ll just take your phone number and be in touch sometime tomorrow evening. We’ll see where it goes, okay?”
Madison jack-knifed out of the chair. The makeover plan. She couldn’t let him see it. That would be just too embarrassing. Using her body to hide the damning piece of paper, she cut in front of him, grabbed the pad and pen and pushed it into his hand.
She reeled off her phone number. He wrote it down, then tore the bottom half of the page off and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans. “I’ve written my cell phone number down in case you change your mind,” he said.
With that, he turned and walked toward the front door. In a daze, Madison followed him. He spun toward her at the last moment.
“Until tomorrow night, Madison Paxton,” he whispered, then stepped outside.
A shiver of anticipation trickled down her spine. She moved to stand in the doorway so she could watch him. The denim of his jeans cupped his rear end tight enough to show off the perfect symmetry of his well-toned ass, the image imprinted on her brain as he bent to climb into his low-slung, bright red sports car. Something fluttered low in her belly and a silly grin spread across her face.
“Holy guacamole, Mother, you really did do good.”
CHAPTER 3
Jake felt as if he should be wearing a trench coat and have a fedora pulled down over his eyes. Thank God there weren’t too many of his friends still on the Sunshine Coast. It would be just too galling to be caught buying books on how to improve your dating technique. Worse—books on how to satisfy a woman in bed.
You’re boring, Jake, both in bed and out.
Courtney’s words bounced round and round inside his brain. On one level, he knew she’d used it simply as an excuse to break up their relationship. Hell, she wouldn’t have stayed seven years if she hadn’t been happy with him at least some of the time. That was the intellectual side of him. On a purely emotional level, it chipped away at his self-confidence, that fragile thing called male ego.
Before Courtney, he’d had his fair share of women and not one of them had complained. Just the same, he’d decided to brush up on the latest in dating and romance practices. Couldn’t hurt. After all, he’d been off the circuit for quite a few years.
He felt guilty enough lying to Madison. It went against everything he believed in. Okay, so he was using her to try to rebuild his shattered ego, to prove he still had it in the sack. But there was more to it than that. If she was willing to employ a stud service to learn about sex, she could end up with anyone. Some weirdo, a sex pervert maybe.
Hell, who knew what t
ype of man hired himself out as a gigolo? At least this way he knew she’d be in no personal danger. His decision rationalized to his satisfaction, he tried to concentrate on the reason he was here, but his mind refused to cooperate. One thought kept coming back to haunt him; he really shouldn’t be doing this. But he was already committed. Just the same, if he was going to go through with it, he wanted to give her top value for her money. Even if he wasn’t actually getting paid for it.
Shit, he was driving himself crazy. He had to stop this. Forcing himself to focus, he allowed his gaze to track across the shelves of the biggest bookstore in the area. He’d already selected a few titles: The Dating Game, The Pocket Guide to Dating Techniques, Sex for the Uninitiated, How to Please Your Woman.
He’d just reached out for 101 Sexual Positions when he heard a sound behind him. He pulled his hand back and spun about. Two girls, no more than seventeen or eighteen, eyed his selection of books and started to giggle behind their hands. One of them batted her eyelashes at him, planted her hands on her hips and arched her back to make her breasts more prominent.
Shit, she was trying to come on to him. He was old enough to be her father. A wave of heat rushed up over his face. Bloody hell, now he was blushing like a pre-pubescent teenager. He hunched his shoulders and turned to face the bookshelves again.
A slender hand, the nails painted bright red, reached around him and lifted a book from the shelf. “This is a good one,” a soft feminine voice said, breathy and suggestive.
He cringed, not daring to look at the girl. Grabbing the book without reading the title, he added it to the pile in his arms. “Thanks. Appreciate the help.” His face still burning, he turned on his heels and beat a hasty retreat for the service counter. The sooner he got out of here the better.
“Can I help you, sir?”
Jake didn’t say a word—he couldn’t, he was too embarrassed. He placed the pile of books on the counter, dug out his wallet and hunted for his credit card.
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