Don't Stand So Close

by Eva Luxe

  He sat down in one of the chairs, elbows on his knees. His arms were big, and inked up. The sleeveless shirt he wore showed them off beautifully.

  “I don’t need this, you know that, right?” he said. “This… image makeover thing you’re supposed to be giving me.”

  “What you need is to get back on the team and stay there.”

  “I managed it without anyone until now.”

  “You’re suspended,” I pointed out.

  He rolled his eyes. Oh boy. When he wasn’t putting forth his ridiculous charm, he seemed to have an attitude like a teenager. What fun. But I couldn’t help but want him. Despite myself, my panties dampened and my pussy clenched itself tight in between my thighs.

  I wouldn’t do it, I told myself. I wouldn’t let this guy drag me down career-wise, no matter how good-looking he was.

  I didn’t sleep with my clients. Ever.

  Looking back at his strong body and handsome face, I had to remind myself of that fact again. It didn’t stay in my mind as long as I had wished. Instead, it was pushed out by thoughts of Hanson pushing himself into me, filling me up and making me beg for more.

  Don’t do it, Lacey , I told myself.

  I knew I was strong enough to withstand this cocky player. I just wasn’t so sure that I wanted to.

  Chapter 8 – Lacey

  By the time I was back in my own office after meeting Hanson Bell, I knew exactly what I was in for with him. A hard time.

  Bell was the type of person that thought he was above rules, above the word “no,” and hot enough to get away with it. Coach Thompson was clever enough to know what he had in Bell as a player, but he was a little bit like a father, too nervous to reprimand his son.

  It made for a bad combination. Especially considering that my body seemed to think differently about Bell than my mind did. I was glad, however, that he was gone, because without his presence to distract me, I was gathering the mental fortitude to focus on representing him instead of fucking him.

  “Lacey,” Conrad said, knocking on my door with papers in his hand. “Do you have a stapler I can use?”

  I nodded and opened my drawer. I held it out to him. His hair was messy and his tie askew. It looked like he’d slept in his office again.

  “I heard you got Hanson Bell,” he said, taking the stapler from me and crushing it down on the corners of his pages. “How did that go?”

  “Not as well as I’d thought it would. He’s a real piece of work. It’s not going to be easy getting this guy on track.”

  Conrad grinned and handed me the stapler back. “I could have told you that. The guy is a legend on the field, but off it? He’s a machine. Women fall for him wherever he goes. He’s like a modern-day Hansel, leaving women in his wake instead of breadcrumbs.”

  I chuckled. “That’s a terrible comparison.”

  Conrad shrugged. “It’s true.”

  I nodded slowly. I had a feeling Conrad was right, if Bell’s response to me was anything to go by.

  “What are you going to do with him?” Conrad asked.

  I shrugged. “My job. I’m going to get him back on track and turn his notoriety into esteem.”

  Conrad chuckled. “You would be the first woman that would make a lasting impression on him.”

  I shook my head, but I was smiling. “It’s because I’m not here to have a piece of him.”

  “And if he won’t change?”

  “I’m not going to ask him to change. I never ask anyone to change. I’m just going to ask him to put the side of him the public likes to see in the forefront and keep the rest to himself.”

  Conrad shook his head and walked to the door, still chuckling.

  “Some people aren’t as four dimensional as you paint them to be,” Conrad said, turning at the door. “What if there isn’t anything else to show? What if there’s nothing more to him?”

  “Then what they say about him is true,” I said. “He would be just a dick.”

  Conrad laughed at my joke and left my office. I turned my attention back to his file. I didn’t think for one second that the side Bell showed everyone was the only side to him. And it wasn’t just because of my dirty fantasies about him. Instead, it was the philosophy I lived by in this job.

  Everyone had alter egos. Everyone had secrets. You just had to know which parts of yourself to highlight so people didn’t think you were an asshole.

  I leaned back in my chair and stared at my laptop screen for a moment, thinking. A trail of breadcrumbs, huh? And what was it leading to?

  I opened Google and typed in his name. The usual results popped up. Wikipedia page, game stats, score cards. All the stuff you would expect for a pro football player. But there were also other pages that had nothing to do with his achievements on the field, but off it.

  If they could be called achievements. Hanson Bell was a tabloid favorite. There was only one thing that made the gossip magazines happy and that was gossip, of course. And there was more than enough of that going around in Hanson’s life.

  From what I could tell, Hanson Bell was a different-woman-every-night kind of guy, and he made sure that the world knew about it. Or rather, he didn’t hide it. Page upon page that I pulled up in my search results reported on his extra-curricular activities. They called him a womanizer, a player that hadn’t been benched in his sex career so far.

  This wasn’t good. I could relate to the man. It was easier to sleep around and not get attached. But if it was about fame and reputation, Bell would have to keep what happened between the sheets away from the press.

  I didn’t believe that people could change. In fact, they only became more of what they already were over time. I did believe that you could choose what you showed the people around you. It was what made me so good at my job.

  My clients listened to me because I didn’t expect the impossible from them. I helped them be who they were, just more efficiently.

  It was something I’d had to do my entire life, so it was only natural that I would be good at it and choose it as a career. I had a father that couldn’t practice what he preached and a vision for who he wanted me to be. It taught me how to show the right faces to the right people.

  Hanson Bell was going to be easy. Sex was like an addiction. It made you feel good, and when you came down from your high, you looked for another fix.

  That boy knew what he was doing. His reputation was the price, and he was all too happy to pay up. That wouldn’t do, though. It was my job to pull him out of the image he had created for himself.

  I had an idea about how to do that, too. If he was portrayed as someone who took, rather than gave, we had to do the opposite. If he was self-centered, he had to show a selfless side of himself. If he was hated, he had to show compassion. People were easy to please and to convince. You just needed the right formula.

  I pulled a notepad closer and started scribbling down bullet points about the kind of person Hanson was showing himself to be to the public, and what we could do to fix it. By the end of the day, I had an idea in mind. Hanson wasn’t going to like it, but he would have to choose. Either his career would suffer even more, or he would play my game by my rules.

  The women had to go. He had to clean up his act and show that he could be without random hookups, if that was what it came down to. He needed to demonstrate dedication and commitment, not only to football and his team, but to himself, as well.

  I leaned back in my chair again and swiveled back and forth, my elbows on the armrests and my fingers interlinked. I thought about Luke.

  He had been a good guy. Any other woman would have been thrilled by someone who was that committed. I just wasn’t like other women. I didn’t want commitment. I wanted fun. I wanted no-strings-attached sex. I wanted to be my own woman, without having to make changes for a man. It wasn’t a lot to ask, was it?

  Luke had thought so. He had gotten hurt because he had invested himself emotionally in me. I had warned him not to.

  I hadn’t gotten hurt
by telling him goodbye. Would I miss him? Yes, there were sides to him that I enjoyed spending time with. But I could do without those things if it meant maintaining my own independence.

  The moment you committed yourself to someone else and let them in, you sacrificed a part of yourself. The more you did together, like build a life and a family, the more you lost of yourself. Until eventually, there was so little left that you were only half of who you used to be. And then, when something went wrong and you lost the person you put everything into, you couldn’t stand by yourself anymore.

  I had seen it too many times. It had happened to too many people around me.

  I refused to let that happen to me. I was happy alone. And if I had to break a couple of hearts to stay that way, so be it.

  I just didn’t do it out in the open for everyone to see, the way Hanson Bell did it. I understood what it meant, though, and I knew how to help him.

  It was how I had figured out how to help myself. It was just a matter of keeping parts of myself hidden until no one else was looking. When they were, I’d bring my other sides to the forefront.

  Hanson Bell was about to get special treatment. I wasn’t just going to show him what to do as a PR Manager. I was going to teach him my own tricks of the trade.

  And I was determined not to allow myself to become distracted again by thoughts of him fucking me. Sure, I would let him tie me up to the goalpost and take me publicly in front of a football stadium of cheering fans if it was what he wanted— if he weren’t my client.

  But since he was, he was off limits. I had to let go of those dirty thoughts. Starting right then and there. No more thoughts about his tongue circling my nipple and then creeping slowly down to my wet pussy. Those thoughts were done, completely, I promised myself, right before I allowed myself to indulge in them a little more, just last one last time.

  Chapter 9 – Hanson

  On Friday, I drove to the address Lacey Townsend had messaged me and parked in front of the building. When I announced myself at reception, the woman behind the desk blushed. She knew who I was.

  I flashed a brilliant smile at her. She fumbled on the computer, pressing backspace a lot more than she should on the keyboard, before she finally told me I could go up.

  I rode the elevator to the third floor and followed the directions to Lacey’s office.

  The door was open, and she wasn’t in her office when I arrived. I walked in and waited for her. The office was neat and tidy. It looked like a place where work was the main concern, but she had added a few personal touches.

  I walked around her desk, glancing at her things. She had photos of her and another woman on the desk, a plant beneath the window, and ornaments along the top shelf of her bookcase.

  I didn’t see photos of a man anywhere. It didn’t look like she had anyone she was serious about.

  That was always a good sign.

  Yeah, I knew I wasn’t supposed to be interested in the person hired to fix my image. But how could a guy help it— with a woman as smoking hot and ambitious as Lacey?

  “Mr. Bell,” she said, as she walked through the door of her office, and I nearly jumped. Catching myself, I cleared my throat in what I hoped was a casual gesture. “You’re early.”

  I nodded, walking back to the side of her desk I was supposed to be on. I looked her up and down. She wore black pants and a white blouse that offset her dark hair very well. Her eyes were sharp and bright.

  When she walked, she moved her hips from side to side. Her breasts were on the larger side, and her blouse traced her figure perfectly. A small amount of cleavage was poking out again. I couldn’t help but think she had done that just for my benefit.

  She cleared her throat this time, and I looked at her eyes again. She didn’t look flustered that I’d been staring. She wasn’t blushing.

  What was it with this woman? She seemed unimpressed by my advances. Other women would be eating out of my hand right now.

  It made me want her more. What was it they said about forbidden fruit? It didn’t fall far from the tree of desire? It made your mouth water even more because you knew it was the juiciest kind?

  I was mixing my metaphors. But Lacey seemed to have that kind of effect on me. My mind was spinning and I wasn’t able to stop it.

  “Take a seat, Mr. Bell,” she said.

  “Hanson, please,” I said.

  “Hanson,” she said and nodded.

  I liked the way my name sounded in her mouth. I could imagine her on her back, naked, her eyes closed and her lips mumbling, or screaming, my name.

  “Let’s get down to business,” she said.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  I had an idea of what business I would like to get down to, with her.

  She glanced at me. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Did she even like what she saw?

  She must have worked with a lot of famous people, but I didn’t rely on my fame. I was skilled in other areas, and I got what I wanted, when I wanted it.

  “Have I mentioned how good you look today?” I asked when she didn’t answer me.

  “Look, Mr. Bell… Hanson. Let’s be honest with each other. You’re not the kind of person that wants to go as far as a conversation with a woman. I’m not here to do anything else than talk. We’re going to have to find middle ground if we’re going to work together.”

  I smiled. “So, a little bit of both?”

  She didn’t look impressed.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Women fall at your feet. I understand that’s what you’re used to. I want you to see me as an equal, a business partner, if you will. Someone who will give you what you need, not what you want.”

  I shrugged. “And if those things are one and the same?”

  “What you need is to salvage your reputation. What you want is to get into my pants. I think we both know which one we’re going to prioritize here.”

  “Are you always this cold?”

  She looked at me, and her eyes were the color of the sky, so bright I felt like I could see for miles.

  “I’m good at my job,” she said. It wasn’t an answer. “Speaking of which, we’re going to start off your rehabilitation with a bang.”

  I grinned again. A bang . She shook her head, realizing what she’d done.

  “Seriously,” she said. “You’re like a teenager.”

  I shrugged.

  “What did you have in mind?” I asked her again.

  She didn’t respond. Again. She was complicated. She just wasn’t turned on by me or by my approach. She was a challenge. That made me want her even more, because, like I said, I happened to like challenges.

  “What are you doing this weekend?” I asked.

  “I’m going out with you,” she said.

  I blinked at her. “What?”

  This chick was two steps ahead of me, it seemed. Fucking women these days. So damn driven.

  “We are attending a charity event tomorrow evening. They’re taking donations for a new children’s wing at Jackson Memorial Hospital.”

  I rolled my eyes. It wasn’t what I’d had in mind when she’d said she would go out with me. Of course, she was messing with me. Hot, unavailable, and apparently, full of shit. This was exactly the kind of woman I wanted to pursue.

  I shook my head. “I’ve got something planned already tomorrow.”

  “Cancel it. This is important.”

  “Can’t we do it another Saturday?”

  “Sure,” she said. “I’ll call them and ask them to move the entire charity for your convenience.”

  I realized she was being sarcastic with me.

  “Funny,” I said.

  She looked up at me, her face still as closed off as before. I didn’t know what to think of her or how to judge her reactions. She looked completely uninterested. It made me want to try harder and harder to get her to crack and get something out of her.

  A couple of orgasms would be a great start.

  “It’s a formal event.
Black tie. I expect you to wear a suit. We should meet up a little earlier to discuss your approach. So be ready by six.”

  I shook my head. “You didn’t once ask if I want to attend this event.”

  She looked up at me. Her eyes were piercing on the surface but underneath they looked deep enough to drown in.

  “You’re right. I didn’t,” she finally said. “But did your team ask if you wanted to be suspended for a DUI? Did you ask all those women in the tabloids with you if they wanted to be dragged down with you in your spiral of embarrassment?”

  I gaped at her, speechless for once in my life.

  “Looks like we’re on the same page, then,” she said.

  She wasn’t fucking around. Lacey Townsend had been serious when she’d said, “let’s get down to business.”

  “Just so you know,” I told her. “That DUI charge? It was bogus.”

  “That’s what they all say,” she said.

  “I’m serious.” I looked at her, pleading with her to listen. Finally she stared back, ready for my explanation. “I never even drive myself. I have a chauffeur. I was just in the limo. I was sleeping.”

  “Well, Florida has a law that says if the keys are in your hand or even near you, then that satisfies the intent element,” she said, with the knowledgeable air of someone who had plenty of clients who had had DUIs before.

  “Exactly,” I told her. “So, that’s the issue. I shouldn’t have gotten a DUI. But it wasn’t as bad at it sounds.”

  She shrugged, unimpressed.

  “When it comes down to it, it doesn’t really matter,” she says. “It makes no difference to the public how you got the DUI, because they don’t pay attention to the details. They just care that you got one. And now, they care what you’re going to do about it.”

  She was a tough cookie. What was I going to do about it? I had no clue. I had just been planning to live my life but apparently she and Coach Thompson had other plans for me.

  “What am I doing here?” I asked.

  “You’re here because you need your image cleaned up if you want people to see you differently. Right now, you’re the party guy, the guy who gets the girls and the booze. Not the wins.”