“I have no idea why woman feel the need to make their lives harder by walking on stilts,” she muttered, swishing the bottom of her dress to the side so she could adjust a strap on her shoe.
“Are you not used to wearing heels?” he asked. She hadn’t been wearing them in the apartment—in fact, she’d waited until the very last second to put them on, but many women did that. He hadn’t thought anything of it.
“No way! How would I outrun my peers if a zombie epidemic rolled through?”
He laughed, slipping his hands into his pockets when she let go of his arm, another reflexive trait. “Four-inch stiletto Jimmy Choo strappy sandals would definitely be the wrong choice for a zombie apocalypse.”
When she straightened up, there was a troubled look on her face.
“What?” he asked.
“You know an awful lot about women’s shoes.” Her inquiring gaze turned suspicious.
He didn’t know why. What did she think, he would steal hers?
For some reason, a wave of defensiveness washed over him. “Women are proud of their shoes,” he said. “I hear about them a lot.”
“Women hire you, and then spend their time talking about shoes?”
He laughed at the absurdity of it. “Small talk. It’s one of the many options after talking about the weather.”
“I hate small talk, for just that reason. There is so much pressure to come up with something to say, then you have to pretend interest in the other person’s reply. Forget about remembering any of it. In which case, what’s the point? Silence is a much better option, if you ask me.” She straightened up and sighed. “Do those women tell you how much the shoes hurt their feet?”
“It comes up, yes.”
“It’s like they’re chewing on my toes.”
Colton laughed. “Maybe the zombie apocalypse has come after all, just in another form.”
She waggled her finger at him. “You’re onto something there. Isn’t it ridiculous to spend an arm and a leg on a pair of shoes that hurt to walk in? What sort of tomfoolery are they trying to sell? I’m not buying it.” She started forward again, slower this time.
“You did buy it.”
A smile followed a wince as she stopped and shook out her other foot. She was like a cat with tape on its feet. He couldn’t stop chuckling.
“I did buy it, you’re right,” she said. “Four inches of it, when I’m used to walking in flats. Joke is on me, clearly.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to mock your pain.”
“Life is pain, highness,” she said with too much emphasis.
“What’s that?”
“The Princess Bride.” She held out her hands like that should’ve been obvious.
“Ah. Never saw it.”
Her head whipped around. “Are you kidding me?” She speed-wobbled. Her shoe scuffed the pavement and she tripped.
He ripped his hands out of his pockets. Fabric tore, but he didn’t stop to analyze the problem. He grabbed her upper body, skimming a breast and not apologizing, as he took her falling weight and hoisted it into the air. She clutched his arms like a rock climber and yanked her knees to her chest, curling into a ball in midair.
“What are you doing?” he asked, holding her, dead weight, with nearly straight arms. He already felt the strain. She wouldn’t be in the air for much longer.
“Trusting you to save my dress.” She uncurled, daintily placing her feet onto the ground. Breathing hard, hands still on his arms, which were bolstering her sides, she looked up at him with wide eyes. “I am so glad I got you instead of Sam. Sam would’ve dropped me immediately, and that would’ve ended in skid marks and a giant hole. The dress would have been ruined. I would have been forced to wear the purple one, and it’s a little frumpy.”
His gaze traveled her heart-shaped face, taking in her full, pouty lips, currently parted as her chest heaved. Her wide-set hazel eyes, speckled with green, were deep and trusting, yet they burned with the fire of intelligence and passion.
Without him meaning to, his hands slipped down her sides, feeling both the silky material of the dress and her smooth skin. Her flesh erupted in goosebumps and her pupils dilated, desire soaking through her expression.
A warning signal shot through him, but before he could disentangle gracefully, sparing her feelings, she ripped her hands away and took a wobbly step back.
“My bad.” She wiped off her arms like she was covered in cooties.
A grin wrestled his lips. Clearly she wasn’t as worried about sparing his feelings. “You okay?”
“Yes. Sorry about that. I’ll get the hang of these.”
This time he did offer an arm, pleasantly surprised when she hesitated in taking it. While most men might’ve been pissed a woman didn’t want to touch him, Colton was relieved. He wanted tonight to go differently than these gigs normally did. He didn’t want to regret helping her, which he would if she started coming onto him. Besides, he didn’t want to have to reject her. It sounded like enough men had burned her.
“So I don’t have to dead-lift you again,” he said.
Her small hand wrapped around his forearm. “Thanks,” she said, a blush bleeding through her makeup.
“We should stop and get you a different pair of shoes. If you want to wow him, falling on your face isn’t the way to do it.” He extended his other hand toward his car, parked five spots away.
“We don’t have time.”
“We can miss the actual wedding. You won’t get to meet him there anyway. Unless you want to see him actually tie the knot?”
“No, I don’t care. Yeah, we can miss that part, I guess. Assuming he won’t notice.”
“He won’t,” Colton said with conviction, though he wasn’t so sure. Madison didn’t know the bride, and hadn’t spoken to the groom in ten years or more. The fact that the guy had invited her to his wedding was a sign that he’d never forgotten her. Maybe he still felt bad for how things had ended all those years ago. Or maybe he’d still had feelings for her at the time of the breakup, and he’d allowed peer pressure to influence him. Both of those feelings would’ve faded had he hooked up with her on social media for old time’s sake, as people did, and found out she was an ordinary woman of moderate beauty leading an ordinary life.
But she wasn’t.
Not by a long stretch.
Colton had friended her with Dick’s gym profile, as they did with a lot of their prospective clients, and browsed her pictures. Even when she was in yoga pants with her hair up in a messy ponytail—or especially when—she was a knockout. Her photogenic, easy smile and the cute little dimple on her chin would make any man take notice. Her body was fit and toned—he’d just witnessed an impressive display of that strength—and when she wore business suits with reading glasses, she had a naughty librarian vibe.
Oh yeah, this guy was wondering what might’ve happened if he’d held on, Colton had no doubt. He would notice she was missing, which meant the best strategy was to make him wait for her appearance. She needed the upper hand.
He glanced at Madison as she gingerly made her way along the sidewalk.
She seemed like an honest person who didn’t want to play games. She’d said she didn’t want the groom back, and he believed her. No, she just wanted this horror show from her past to recognize that she had some worth.
Colton would do better than that. He didn’t do any job by halves. She’d leave that place as the belle of the ball. He’d make sure this ex rued the day he was too weak to stand up for his girl in front of his friends.
They didn’t call him Thunder for nothing.
“Do you always flex when you walk?”
Colton came out of his reverie, noticing Madison staring up at him with a perplexed smile. “Is that something muscle guys do?”
“Sorry, I was thinking about something else. Here we are.” He motioned at his car.
Her eyes widened. “Oh wow, a Porsche? I was thinking you were leading me to the blue car.” She pointed at the next
car over, a ten-year-old Honda on its last legs with more dents and scratches than tread on its tires. “I was trying to figure out a polite way to tell you that we should take my Beamer.”
“I’m wearing this suit, and you assumed I’d drive that car?” He shook his head and pulled the key fob from his pocket, only then remembering the fabric ripping.
“Well, yeah, you know. Because… Uhm. I just had no idea your line of work—” Her voice hitched and she cleared her throat. “But you’re living large, so that’s awesome. Good job. Doing…the thing. Your thing. Good work.”
A wave of embarrassment washed over him. It was a first.
Even back when he was in full swing, flinging up girls’ skirts before leaning them against his car in a public place and sliding in between their thighs, he’d never been embarrassed about collecting the money afterward. It was the topping on his sundae—screwing beautiful women and getting paid for it. Who wouldn’t want that job?
But hearing Madison say it…
It was definitely time to throw in the towel. What would happen if his mother ever found out? Or his sister? The shame would be intense.
“My primary business is as a fitness model,” he said, leaning over to check out his pocket. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t also trying to hide his red cheeks. The seam had pulled apart a fraction at the top, but it wouldn’t be noticed. “I get sponsorship through that and ad money from my workout YouTube videos.”
He didn’t go on to mention that yes, working for Big Dick had made him double what all those other endeavors pulled in, combined. Other than the car, house, and clothes, he lived modestly and put everything away. He had a big nest egg that was ready to be poured into his dream.
“Well then, happy days for being pretty and having a bunch of muscle, huh?” She waited patiently for him to open the door, said thank you, and slid into the leather seat.
He closed the door behind her and walked to the other side of the car, his head buzzing and his whole body energized. He felt like he was in the middle of a really great workout with something even better to look forward to afterward.
It was probably the coming competition for Madison. He wasn’t in it for real, of course, but he’d play like he was. He loved the thrill of competition. Of going up against an opponent and coming out victorious.
As he opened his car door, he tried to remember the last time he’d felt this good.
“So back to more important matters,” Madison said as he sat in the driver’s seat. “You haven’t seen The Princess Bride? How is that possible?”
“It’s a chick flick.”
“It is a pop-culture flick. It applies to all sexes. And it’s also on TV all the time. It’s like saying you’ve never watched The Breakfast Club.”
“I’ve never watched—”
“Don’t you dare.”
He laughed as the engine purred to life. “I have seen The Breakfast Club, actually. I just wanted to see what you’d do. Hard not to. Occasionally it’s the only thing on TV.”
“I know. I kept watching portions of it, and finally sat down and watched all of it from beginning to end. It’s fine, but The Princess Bride is awesome.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s campy and silly and funny. It’s lighthearted fun. You have to watch it.”
“Don’t wanna. You can’t make me.”
“I’m going to pay for two hours of your time, sit you in front of a TV, tape your eyelids up, restrain your head, and force you to watch it.”
“Wow. That got weird really fast.” Grinning, Colton activated his navigation. “Do you want high-end heels or run-of-the-mill?”
“I want something I can walk in that won’t eat my feet. And don’t tell me your final decision, because I don’t like that you know more about shoes than I do.”
“You don’t strike me as the kind of girl to put much stock in gender stereotypes. At least where it concerns shoes.”
“I’m not, but you make me feel frumpy. I can shrug it off when a girl does it, because I’m not a girly girl. But when a guy does it, I start to question my life choices, like why I constantly leave the house without wearing pants.”
“Without pants?” Colton decided on high-end to match her dress and his suit. If anyone was looking, their fashion would hold up.
“Not proper pants. If I’m not going to work, I wear yoga pants or leggings, mostly. Or sweats. If I have to, jeans’ll do me.”
“And you wear suits to work?”
“How’d you know?”
He shrugged. “Usually people who are forced into one extreme do the opposite when they get a choice.”
It was a good cover. Much better than I stalked you. No, no, don’t worry, it wasn’t to plan a way to kill you or anything. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t crazy. You can feel safe traveling on a dark road with me, no problem.
“It’s a pity, because these shoes are really cute,” she muttered, swishing her dress away and analyzing her shoes.
“You can wear them when you don’t have to walk as much.”
“I’d need a donkey to carry me from place to place.” She huffed and swished her dress back into place.
“I’m going to have to twirl you on the dance floor,” he said, following the navigation.
“Why is that?”
“Because clearly you like seeing your dress move.”
“Oh.” She smoothed the fabric over her thighs. “It’s really pretty. I hardly ever splurge like this.”
He wanted to ask why she didn’t splurge more often, since her position paid her well and she obviously liked the dress. But that was a no-no on the job, not to mention money talk was often viewed as socially awkward. Instead, he let the silence descend, remembering her hatred of forced communication.
“We’re going to have to touch each other at the wedding,” he said after a moment. He wasn’t trained for silence on these gigs. Autopilot was a bitch.
“Yes.” She didn’t elaborate.
“If we’ve been together for a year, we would’ve had sex.”
“One would think so, yes.”
“We’ll need to touch each other with that in mind. Would you like to set some ground rules?”
“Sure.” She didn’t turn away from the window. “Don’t touch my butt, my punanny, or my breasts. I won’t touch your crotch or your butt. If we need to kiss, a quick peck on the cheek or lips will be plenty. If you want to go overboard, I’ve always wanted a guy to kiss me sweetly on the inside of my wrist. Not my palm, though, because you don’t know where it’s been.
“We’ll need to stand close, but I’ll only drape myself over you if he tries to show off with his chick or something. I’ll definitely have the hottest date at the wedding, so I’ll win that competition. I think he’s a salesman or something, so I’ve also got him beat when it comes to work. But he’s wily, and doesn’t care about people’s feelings, so he might get creative. If that happens, I will fuck you six ways from Sunday if it will somehow keep the past from repeating itself. When push comes to shove, do whatever will win the day, and I’ll compensate you.”
A surge of warmth filled his gut as his cock stiffened. He had not expected that language from her mouth. The intensity of his hard-on shocked him. It felt like he was first starting out in this gig. What had gotten old and, frankly, depressing felt exciting and new. Unpredictable.
So fucking hot.
Blowing out a breath, he tried to think of something to say. But he could only replay her words. The passion in them. And think of how warm her hand had felt on his arm when they’d walked side by side.
“I was kidding,” she said softly. She must’ve thought she’d gone too far.
“No, you weren’t,” he whispered. “And don’t stress. He isn’t paying a hundred dollars a plate to humiliate you. We won’t have to resort to extreme measures.”
“You don’t know him and his friends.”
Colton could hear the past haunting her words. Whatever they’
d done must’ve been truly mortifying and cruel for her to have carried it around all these years.
Not realizing what he was doing until he’d done it, he laid his hand on her knee. She flinched, but didn’t push it off.
“My friends and I were young and dumb once, too. We were assholes from time to time,” he said. “But those attitudes go away. He won’t be looking to hurt you again.”
“Then there are the mean girls.”
“They grow up, too.”
“Sure. Into catty women. They’ll probably be there. I’m sure they’ll remember. They’ll see you, get jealous, and want to tear me down. While cackling. They were really great at, like, super-loud cackling. So there’s that angle, as well. Catty assholes.”
“Okay. Well, if we meet the catty assholes, I’ll fuck you on the dance floor, then take you back to the table and fuck you there, too. Hell, I’ll spread wedding cake on your body and lick it off before fucking you on the cake table. How’s that?”
Her body shook with silent laughter. “At least we’ll make a scene.”
“Exactly. We’ll steal the show.”
“Steal their thunder, as it were. Now I know why the fates picked you, Mr. Zeus.”
Colton turned into the shopping center and lucked out with a space right up front. “He was in charge of lightning bolts, I think.”
“Zeus’s mostly forgotten brother, then. Lionel.”
“Lionel?” He laughed as he got out of the car and quickly headed over to her side to get her door. “Can’t I just stick with Thunder?”
Smiling up at him, she took his hand and let him pull her up. “Zeus isn’t called Firebolt, is he? No. He has a proper name. A godly name.”
“And Lionel is my new godly name?”
“Why do you think you’re the forgotten brother?” She laughed helplessly, threading her hand through the little strap on her clutch. “Oh, how far you’ve fallen, from Thunder to Lionel. Your boss will not be pleased.”
“I don’t know—you tried to pick Sam, so maybe I still have a shot.”
“Doubtful.” She shut her door and reached out. “Do you mind if I use you as a walker? I’m sure I can manage, but you just never know. As you saw.”
Thunder (Big D Escort Service Book 1) Page 5
