“Are you telling me you’re teaching me techniques you learned from a gay guy to pick up other men?”
“He was bisexual and it works on women just as well. Do you want to continue or not?”
He took a sip of his drink, then lifted the glass in salute to her. “Please continue.”
“Step three: comment on something she’s wearing or on an accessory.”
“Why can’t I tell her she’s pretty?”
“Never comment on the body, looks, build, or otherwise during the first few minutes of contact. It puts you into automatic creeper status if she knows you’ve been assessing her body like you’re checking out the meat counter at the grocery store.”
“But she’s got to know I’ve been looking at her if I was able to comment on what she’s wearing. And isn’t it going to make me sound gay if I comment on the shoes she’s wearing or her purse?”
“It depends on what you focus on. Accessories are not something most guys notice.”
“So what do I comment on?”
“Your aim is not to be like most guys. Tell her how the color she’s wearing really makes her stand out and looks fantastic with her skin or hair, or really brings out her eyes. Or how you really like her choice of jewelry.”
“What if she’s wearing black?”
She sighed and shook her head. “You’re really trying to get out of this, aren’t you?”
“Hey, that’s a legitimate question!”
“If she’s wearing black, tell her you noticed how elegant she looks.”
Josh picked up his glass and chugged the rest of the contents, even though she was fairly sure there was only a finger, at most two, of whiskey left in the glass. He slammed the glass down decisively on the tabletop and scooted his way out of the booth. He straightened the cuffs on his jacket, and while she’d convinced him to wear a collared shirt, she hadn’t convinced him to tuck it in.
“Okay. I’m going in.”
…
He was back in mere minutes.
“Strikeout.”
Caroline threw her hands up, then fisted them on her hips. “You can’t be serious, Joshua Martin. That wasn’t even trying!” But he had tried. And she didn’t even seem to believe that counted. Caroline expected more from him. So in turn Josh demanded more from himself. She took him by the shoulders and spun him back around in the direction he’d come from, then gave a deep sigh. “Look.” She pointed to a brunette at the bar. “Her. Go. And remember what we practiced. May the Force be with you,” she said as she gave him a little shove.
Remember what we practiced.
How the hell would he ever forget? Her words alone brought a rush of heat. All he could think about was the smooth satin texture of Caroline’s skin beneath the tips of his fingers as he had practiced kissing her. The truth was he wasn’t giving this outing his all, not because he couldn’t, but because he didn’t want to. He wanted to stay in this booth with Caroline and pull her into his lap.
The room swam out of focus and instead his brain supplied him with the image of what Caroline had looked, and smelled, and felt like in his arms. It was pretty heady stuff, and he shook his head to get rid of the light-headed, pulse-pounding sensation that took over his body cell by cell.
He glanced back at Caroline. She jabbed a finger in the direction of the brunette and mouthed the word “go.” He didn’t want to disappoint her. He really didn’t. But this was going to be yet another tremendous flop.
He needed to focus.
A whisper of movement at his side and the sudden whiff of Caroline’s perfume turned his body rigid with awareness. “I thought I was supposed to do this on my own.”
She leaned in conspiratorially, her breath warm on his neck and at the base of his ear. “You were taking too long. I thought you might need a wingman.”
Her movements were quick and light as she slid away from his side and easily strode up next to the brunette, introducing herself and asking about the drink the girl was holding.
It was like watching some kind of reality television show with the sound off. He could see what was happening, but couldn’t hear it. Only when Caroline swiveled toward him and crooked her finger in a come-here motion did he walk toward the women.
“This is the friend I was telling you about,” she told the brunette. “Hey, Josh, I have someone I’d like you to meet. This is Emily.”
She smiled and reached out a hand, so he shook it and smiled back. “Can I get you two another drink?” he offered. He was deliberately trying to find a way to keep Caroline from leaving him there on his own.
Caroline speared him with a saccharine smile that he instantly knew was not genuine. She was going to play along with it only because she was acting as his wingman, but she didn’t want to overstay and end up a third wheel.
While they waited for the drinks, Caroline kept asking the attractive woman questions and pointing out all the ways in which Josh was a perfect match or liked the things she liked. Josh’s insides began to curdle and curl in upon themselves. He didn’t like this artificial manipulation. He wasn’t interested in dating this woman. He didn’t want to date any woman besides Caroline and it felt wrong to lead her along, pretending just for the sake of practice.
Almost immediately after the drinks arrived he put one into Caroline’s hand, and one in Emily’s, nodded at Emily and said, “It was lovely to have met you, Emily. Enjoy the drink.” He then strode away and waited for Caroline to follow.
He didn’t stop his focused breathing or his direct path through the crowd until he was outside the doors of the bar. The door swished open behind him.
“What was that?!” Caroline blustered. “You were doing great. Why’d you leave?”
He turned on his heel and began walking, taking in cool drafts of the cold night air to clear his head and calm the sick feeling swirling about inside of him. “I had to get out of there.”
Caroline trotted along after him, right on his heels. “Oh. Right. I guess that was a lot more intense than you’re use to.” She touched his arm and Josh froze in his tracks, fighting off a bolt of yearning so sharp it was almost painful shooting through his system.
He spun, bringing him face-to-face with her. “Intense doesn’t even begin to describe it.”
He leaned in and Caroline backed up a step, giving a little oof sound as she bumped her backside up against the brick wall of a building. Josh stepped forward, deliberately crowding her personal space. Her breathing came faster, her eyes a sharp spearmint green. “That was probably the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever done. I’ve always been true to myself. That” —he pointed in the direction of the bar—“wasn’t just unfair to that woman, when I have no interest in her. That was unfair to me, too.”
Caroline frowned. “Why? It’s just practice. Harmless flirting.”
Inside Josh was a roiling mess of emotions and need. Her words only added fuel to the conflagration. “Harmless?”
He moved in, placing a hand on either side of her head, and leaned toward her until his mouth was only a fraction of an inch from hers. He locked his gaze with hers. “Does this feel harmless?”
Her eyes glittered and her cheeks flushed pink. “If you’re trying to intimidate me, it won’t work.”
“The truth is I have no intention of intimidating you.” His gaze dropped to linger on her mouth. “But I have every intention of kissing you.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Back to truth or dare, are we?”
Her full lips tightened just a fraction. “Why are you playing this game with me, Josh?”
“Who said I’m playing?”
He captured her mouth in a kiss both steel and velvet, soft but unyielding, that left no room for doubt. He wanted her. Now.
Chapter Eight
Bricks dug into her back, and the heat of Josh’s body pressed against hers in the front. Caroline was shocked at her eager response to his kiss.
This was the man who had ruined her young life. The man who’d gotten her ali
enated from everything she knew and loved. The man who’d taken her brother’s ideas and left him without a dime to show for it. The man she planned to betray. And yet her damn body responded to him.
Need vibrated through her, and she realized the vibration was her own murmurs resonating deep in her chest and throat as she kissed him back and wrapped her arms around his neck. The silken glide of his tongue against hers flavored with the smoky tang of whiskey only ramped up the need to a fever pitch. He hadn’t put a hand on her, but she wanted him to. She pressed her body against his. It took the honking of a passing car and jeering from the driver egging them on to knock out the haze of sexual desire clouding her brain.
What am I doing? Crap! I’m making out on the street with my client! With Joshua Martin!
Caroline pushed him away, her breath coming in harsh, rasping gasps. “We have to stop.”
The predatory look in his eye was like nothing she’d ever seen before. He looked at her as if she were the very pulse of the universe and everything were transfixed upon her. A shiver of need rippled through her in response, making her hyperaware of him.
“This isn’t over.” The husky quality of his voice indicated he was both highly aroused and deliberately holding back—at a cost.
Her respect for him bumped up a notch.
Not all guys would back down with a single word in the midst of seriously making out. But that didn’t change things between them. If anything it only increased the stakes and gave her more reason not to be alone with him.
“Yes, it is. We’ve got a business arrangement, Josh. That’s it. I—we—can’t do this if you want to succeed in this makeover process.” At least that was her story and she was sticking to it. Josh unleashed was a temptation she wasn’t prepared for on a number of levels.
He pushed back from the wall, shoving his hands in his pockets. “You’re calling the shots.”
I only wish.
Caroline didn’t feel in control of anything, especially herself. Her reaction to him had been intense. She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes for an instant, trying to regain her balance. She sighed and looked Josh straight in the eye, putting on her best no-nonsense face despite the jitters from being so close to him after that kiss.
“Look, if we’re going to pull this off, if we’re truly going to make the world believe you’re the guy to be envied and emulated, not just because of your wealth or your mind, but because you’re the hottest property out there, then you’re going to have to adjust to the idea that there are going to be many, many women not including me, whom you’re going to flirt with and charm.”
“It’s just a strategy.”
“Of course. What else?”
He nodded. “I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.”
She refrained from touching him, and instead balled her hand into a fist that she beat into the side of her leg. “You were doing really well in there.”
He snorted and turned his gaze away from her, looking back up the street toward the bar. He turned on his heel and started making his way toward their parked cars. Caroline hurried and caught up with him.
“Really, I’m not just saying it. If I hadn’t known how much work you’d put into your training, I’d have never been able to guess you had issues with crowds at all.”
He glanced at her and shrugged deeper into his jacket, flipping his collar up. He was more guarded now, and the glimpse of sex god she’d seen in him was fully cloaked in his CEO exterior once more. “For all the good it did me.”
Caroline shook her head. “Don’t be so negative. It did better than you know. And on Sunday, when we go to the Softech luxury suite at the football game—”
Josh stopped in his tracks, forcing her to halt and turn around toward him. “Football game? A damned football game! You never said anything about a football game. Do you have any idea how many people are in one of those arenas? Thousands! I can’t do it. You’re out of your mind.” He’d turned pale, and a sheen of sweat filmed his skin.
“Breathe, in and out…” she said as she started making almost Lamaze-like breathing patterns and rolled her hand with the motion to get him to calm and focus.
He followed along, bracing his hands on his knees.
“Deep in and out,” she said, imagining something far more dangerous than teaching him how to relax.
…
Deep in and out. Yeah. He could imagine a lot of that he could have been doing right about now if it hadn’t been for those mood-breaking assholes in the car. He glared at her, but followed her advice. “You know it sounds suggestive when you say it like that.”
Caroline glared back at him and didn’t rise to the bait. “Keep breathing. You’re starting to get your color back.”
He straightened and tilted his head back to look at the dark night sky. All that endless space helped calm him more than the breathing. Millions and billions of miles of stars without a single person in sight. And he could almost reach out and touch them.
“Do you ever look at them and wonder what it might be like out there?” He glanced down and studied her face for a moment. She wore a pensive look, her brow furrowed with deep thoughts.
“Have you ever been in love?”
Okay, that was a left turn he hadn’t anticipated from her. “Truly?”
She nodded.
“Once. At least I thought I was.” Josh stared at her, waiting for her to get the connection, until she met his gaze. It was clear she didn’t realize he was talking about her. “What about you?”
“No. Not really.”
And the moment passed.
“Come on—”
Caroline shook her head, the light breeze coming off the Puget Sound sending her hair spinning in wisps around her face. “My dad always said true love was sacrifice.”
Josh shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “That’s a little disconcerting.”
“I know, right? And given his military background, I always assumed the colonel meant an organ donation or limb or something.”
“I can see where that might influence you to keep things casual.”
She gave a nervous laugh, looking anywhere else but at him. They’d reached their cars. Time to go their separate ways.
She pulled her keys out of her purse and glanced up at him. “How about I pick you up for the football game on Sunday?”
“You afraid I’m not going to show?”
She raised one sleek dark brow and an image leaped to mind of kissing her there, then her eyelids, then her nose, and finally her mouth. Josh swallowed hard.
“I know you won’t. That’s why I’m going to be your chauffeur.”
“And what about the rest of this week?”
She flipped the keys around her fingers, catching them in her palm. “I’m going to devote that to finding out more about Miss Aubrey Wymer and how I can get you two together. As soon as I have something I can present to you, we can study it.”
“I thought you said you weren’t a matchmaker.”
She swept her dark hair back over her shoulder. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do to earn that paycheck you’re forking over.”
At every opportunity she reminded him this was all just business. He got that. He really did. But the problem was, his heart didn’t. Beyond just being physically attracted to Caroline, which had only grown more intense every day since the first time he’d seen her in high school, he had a deeper need to have Caroline see him as a man. A viable boyfriend. Hell, in his wildest fantasies, a lover. But fantasy and reality mixed together were a cocktail rimmed with disaster.
“See you later.”
She waved as she got in the car and started it up and pulled away from the curb, her taillights flashing bright red as she tapped them before rounding the corner and disappearing out of sight.
What was he going to do?
He needed Aubrey’s interest to get to her father. Didn’t he? Maybe he didn’t. Maybe Carvales’s plan was just stupid
. Maybe getting a pumped-up image would be enough to pull in the investors, and money could smooth out the ripples in legislation. What the hell good was it being one of the richest people on the planet if he couldn’t actually make this happen?
Problem was, with a woman like Caroline, no amount of money was going to smooth out the past. She was wearing her professionalism like protective armor, and until he broke through that, there was no hope for getting her to admit she wanted him, and even less for her to give him one night in her bed. That had become his end game, his winner-take-all moment. If he could reach that, he could walk away from this insane fantasy he’d been nursing for over a decade to get her to admit she wanted him, to know that he’d gotten Caroline for himself even after she’d deemed him unworthy.
He hated himself for being so easily sucked in by her charms, as if nothing had changed and he was still that same geeky friend of her kid brother she could dismiss as easily as blinking. He needed to excise his past and focus on his future. He wanted to leave a legacy that would outlive him with the launch of Aeon—and someone to share it with.
She walked into his office the next day all long legs, stunning curves, and glossy dark hair. His mouth instantly went dry at the sight of her.
“Ready to learn about your future girlfriend?”
“What’ve you got?”
Caroline tossed a black file folder onto his desk and settled in the chair across from him. Ignoring the silky slide as she crossed one tanned, toned leg over the other, he flipped the folder open and was met with the image of a blonde with such wide eyes she reminded him slightly of a doll. His gaze flickered up to meet Caroline’s. “What, is she seventeen?”
Caroline’s scowl said close enough. “No, twenty-one.”
He glanced again at the picture. She sure as hell didn’t look it. An uncomfortable squirming started in his gut. Maybe this idea was wrong all the way around. He felt nothing for the girl, not even a little flare of male interest. Yes, she was beautiful, but nothing like Caroline. The subtle tease of her jasmine perfume was already making him itch to touch her again.
“She likes to hang out on Minecraft, likes a variety of music, and has a Pomeranian named Coco.”
The Geek Billionaire Makeover Page 9
