“No, thanks. I don’t want to leave you alone.”
She rolled her eyes, but didn’t argue the point, sitting on the edge of the bed and looking around. “Where’s the remote?”
“First things first, Doc,” he needled. “Who did you think I was when I showed up?”
“What does that matter?”
“It could be important.” Not. He just wanted to know.
“Fine. I thought you were a male prostitute.”
She said it outright, just like that, not a trace of embarrassment and he realized that he hadn’t expected something so bald. A friend of a friend maybe. A blind date of sorts. But a male prostitute?
“Why the hell would you think that?”
“Because one was supposedly coming, of course.”
“Of course,” he muttered. “Why?”
“The usual reason. Figure it out yourself.”
“Is that, ah, like a regular thing with you?”
“It’s none of your business, but as a matter of fact, this was going to be my first.”
She watched him, waiting for the next question it seemed. He ran his hand along his jaw, stubbly with a far-after-five-o’clock shadow, and finally ventured, “Some kind of an experiment?”
“No. It was a present. I broke up with my boyfriend, and Mattie, you know my best friend I mentioned before, I guess she thought, some, you know, some rebound sex would do me good.”
“Rebound sex.”
She nodded.
“So you have your friend set this up instead of maybe just going to a bar and picking up a guy to get laid, like a normal person?”
“I didn’t have her set it up. She did it on her own initiative.”
“What a pal.” It was damn hard to keep the smirk off his face. But Dr. Barrett looked as serious as ever.
“I guess she thought I needed somebody who knew what he was doing.”
“It’s not that complicated.”
“A professional, I mean. Anyway, I’ve had my share of the bar scene. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“But a gigolo, or whatever you call it, is? Where’d she find him? Craigslist?”
“I have no idea. Mattie has an agency for everything.”
“Why the hell would you go along with something like that?”
“Why would you? You played along for quite a while now that I think of it. What was that all about?”
“Intelligence gathering,” he lied.
She shrugged. “Anyway, it was Mattie’s present. I guess she and I have had quite a few talks about how lame all the guys at my university are and how, even though you’d think they’d focus on the intellectual, all they really want are big boobs.”
“Which I can’t help noticing you have.”
She stared at him coldly. “And empty brains, which I don’t happen to have and never would pretend to just for the sake of some moron’s ego. Anyway, she wanted me to go on vacation with her, but when that didn’t work out, she sort of, well, sprang this present on me. She said the guy would just show up. It’s very hard to try to talk Mattie out of anything, so I figured, why not?”
“Why not? Even if your friend didn’t get this guy off Craigslist, I don’t suppose you ever heard of the Craigslist Killer? Maybe you should have done that, ah, extrapolating thing you scientists do and drawn some conclusions about the advisability of a date for sex with a total stranger.”
Her chin jutted out. Maybe she had. “It was an impulse. I can see now it might have been risky. Although considering what actually did happen to me tonight, the risk is laughable in retrospect.”
Well, he had to give her that.
“And, anyway, he called to cancel right before all the shooting started.”
“Lucky for him, I guess.”
She was sitting with her shoulders hunched over, trying to hide those fabulous tits. She was a funny thing, he thought again, this doctor. She didn’t look much older than her early twenties at most, though, he knew from her file she was a little older than that.
He thought about what he hadn’t seen in her file. “You don’t have a family? Parents? Whatever?”
If she thought that was an odd follow-up question, she didn’t let on. “No. I was raised by an aunt who’s passed. It was her barn you burned.”
“Your barn now?”
“Nobody’s barn now,” she pointed out. She fidgeted a little and asked, “What about you? Do you have a family?”
“A mother,” he admitted, surprising himself. He never talked about his real life when he was on a job. Never.
But seeing her sitting there, so dewy and prickly all at the same time, he had to admit that there was another rule he was thinking about breaking, as well.
“What happened to your parents?” he asked.
“They died when I was six.”
He said nothing.
“In a plane crash,” she added.
“Oh. I’m sorry I gave you a hard time about flying, then. But I’m sure you know what they say—”
“It’s the safest form of transportation, blah, blah, blah. I know. I still get sick at the thought of leaving the ground. I’d never done it. Since then I mean. Until today.”
Man, did he feel like a shit, forcing her into the helicopter like that. “You did well, then,” he offered.
“Thanks. What about you? You said you had a mother. What happened to your father?”
“Don’t know. Never met him. Whoever the hell he is seems to be some kind of a state secret, or she treats it like it is.”
“Your mother?”
“Yeah.” He steered her back to the subject of her expected visitor, the one she thought he was. “Why now with your friend’s present? The timing seems a little off. Did your boyfriend just leave you or what?”
“Is this really relevant?”
“Humor me.”
“No. It was a few months ago. And he didn’t leave me. I left him,” she clarified. “Although, technically, he ran away to Vegas with a stripper.”
Jonathon laughed. He couldn’t help it.
“That’s not funny! But anyway, it was”—she glanced at her watch—“still is, I guess, my twenty-seventh birthday tomorrow and…”
When she faltered, he prompted, “And what?”
“The truth is—and I didn’t even admit this to Mattie—but the truth is I wanted to have at least one bout of sex that was good by the time I turned twenty-seven.”
Well, that was an invitation if he’d ever heard one. Those condoms might come in handy after all.
Chapter Four
#xa0;
Oh, great. She had practically invited her bodyguard or secret agent guy or whatever he was to have sex with her. How weird was that?
The look this Jonathon gave her when she admitted her birthday plans was so alpha male that it surprised her. She’d expected a bit more from someone in his position. But she supposed she shouldn’t have. He had kissed her with quite a bit of enthusiasm back at her house. Intelligence gathering. Right.
His eyes dropped to her boobs—she’d caught that before, although he had hurriedly looked up and now he didn’t—and he started to unbutton his shirt, causing her a moment of panic. Kissing him in her house, a million years ago, had been so hot. But being chased by men with guns wasn’t an aphrodisiac. If she ever needed someone to keep his nose to the grindstone and do his job, his real job, it was Agent Vale. No moonlighting here.
Before she could say it, though, he had his shirt unbuttoned, although his shirt, like hers, was probably freezing and still damp. Maybe he was taking it off for that perfectly innocent reason. She followed his movements as the shirt parted and he cast it aside. God, it didn’t feel innocent. She didn’t think she’d ever seen such a spectacular torso, all lean muscle and a slight sprinkle of black hair heading down in a vee toward his crotch.
His smile—now that they weren’t being shot at or held aloft in that atrocious flying machine—was attractive. In fact, everything about him w
as attractive. The black hair, the green eyes. It would have been so perfect if they’d been back at her nice cozy house and he’d been a, well, a prostitute. “No, this isn’t right,” she said instead.
His hands went to his waistband. “Maybe not, but I’m all there’s likely to be in the next few hours, so you better just go with it.”
“Oh, give me a break here! You’re not a prostitute!”
“You got me there.” He kicked his boots off and sat on the chair to remove his socks. Even that struck her as sexy. How hard up was that?
She tried again. “I mean what I wanted was an honest quid pro quo. Somebody who didn’t mind doing it and who—”
He broke out in laughter. “There’s not a guy alive who would mind doing it with you.”
“You know what I mean!”
“No, I don’t.” Socks and boots off, he stood to remove his jeans and she watched, more turned-on than she cared to admit. Maybe her ex-boyfriend had a point about this stripping thing.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer, Agent Vale—”
“Jonathon.”
“Yes, well, but I do have a few other things on my mind at this point. Like stopping anybody from shooting at me. Ever. What about the, er, the bad guys in all this?”
“They’re not invited.”
“I mean, wouldn’t this distract you?”
“Very much.” He chuckled again. “But I’m not really expecting anyone. If I was, I wouldn’t have let us stop here to sleep. And I have to sleep eventually. I’ll be more alert than if I was sleeping, won’t I?”
“You don’t know how I have sex,” she cracked and he laughed again, forcing her to observe, “This isn’t very romantic.”
“And you thought screwing a prostitute would be? It’s not. Believe me, I’ve done it. It scratches an itch, if nothing else is available, but when you’re paying for it, it never compares to the real thing. And luckily for you, I’m available.”
He was in black boxers now and, despite the earlier walk in the freezing cold for hours, he looked hot, both figuratively and literally, with that buff chest and narrow waist, as well as long-muscled legs and what looked to be a very impressive erection underneath the black material. She swallowed hard and for a heart-stopping second, considered it.
“But I am just teasing you about trying to fill in as your birthday present. I needed to get out of these wet clothes while I sleep. I’ll leave the boxers on.”
No mention of the erection, she noticed. Although then, of course, he did.
“Sorry about that.” He gestured to his boxers. “I’m sure you’re not surprised, but that kind of scenario—you know, servicing a hot babe—gets a guy going, especially when he’s taking his clothes off, even if it’s for strictly utilitarian reasons. But I was just playing with you.”
He went over to the bed and pulled back the covers, slipping underneath, taking the side by the door, opposite the one on which she was sitting. He patted the bed next to him. “Now get under the covers. Keep your clothes on if you have to, but it’d be better to let them dry and just sleep in your underwear.”
She took a deep breath. Could anybody say awkward?
God, was she expected to get in the bed with this gorgeous guy and just go to sleep? It would have seemed impossible at any time, but as wired as she was, given everything that had happened, it seemed especially laughable.
She got up from the bed and stood at the end of it, looking down at him. “So that’s it? I tell you I mistook you for a male prostitute I ordered up, and that’s the end of the discussion?”
He closed his eyes, fluffing the pillow underneath his head. “Yeah. I was dying of curiosity. That’s all.”
His breathing got more even, but she stayed at the foot of the bed.
“Don’t even think about leaving,” he said, eyes still closed.
“Why do we both have to sleep in the bed, anyway? Aren’t you supposed to take the…”
She looked around. The floor had carpet so thin and hard it probably qualified as linoleum and the chairs were little more than straight-backs with battered cushions.
“Well, how about a sheet or something? In between us. Like in that old movie.”
He opened his eyes and came up on his elbow. “Seriously? You just admitted you were about to hire a prostitute.”
“I didn’t hire him. Mattie did.” She was a stickler for details.
“Right. Whatever. So, I don’t think my sleeping next to you is going to offend your delicate sensibilities.”
“Oh, sure. Since I was going to have sex that makes me the type of woman who’d jump into bed with anybody.”
“To sleep,” he pointed out. “We both need to get a good night’s rest before tomorrow. And since there’s only one bed, this is how we’re going to do it.”
She didn’t even know why she was trying to fight with him. Maybe because it was distracting her from what she really wanted to do with him, which probably was not such a good idea.
“What’s your deal, anyway, Doc? Out where you were? Doing whatever you were doing. Don’t say it!” he warned as if she was going to explain her research when explaining her research was the last thing on her mind with this hunk in bed two feet from her. “And what was with the bread baking?”
“I like to bake. It relaxes me. It was my other treat for my birthday.”
“That’s cute.”
“You’re a sexist,” she accused.
“Actually, I’m not. It might surprise you to know my single mother was extremely enlightened and she raised me that way, too.”
“Does she know what you do?”
He grinned. “Know? She trained me!”
Her mouth fell open and she sat on the opposite side of the bed again. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. I guess you could say I’ve had an unusual life.”
“Now, that I believe.” She hiked her bare feet underneath her and took a sip from the diet coke on the side table.
He watched her. “So, the way you said it—why you went along with this present thing—it kind of sounded like you meant you’ve never had good sex before.”
She set down the bottle. “I don’t think I have.”
“If you’re not sure, then you haven’t.”
She said nothing. He was staring at her boobs again. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe the nerves. Maybe just that she was turning twenty-seven years old in less than two hours and had spent her pre-birthday being shot at and chased. But suddenly it gave her kind of a buzz, this hot guy so close to her. So close she could reach out and touch him.
“So why are you out there in the wilderness, Veronica?”
She shrugged. “I told you. It was my aunt’s place. I grew up there.”
“Doesn’t mean you have to stay there. You should see where I grew up.”
“Where was that?”
“Never mind. It was nuked, anyway.”
He laughed at whatever her expression was—he was pretty cheery for a guy whose job entailed getting shot at—and she said, “I don’t know whether to take you seriously or not.”
“The only time you have to take me seriously, Doc, is when I’m trying to protect you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“How do you even teach at the university, anyway? That’s a long haul.”
“I’m on sabbatical. When I’m teaching, I rent an apartment for the school year.”
“Oh. Well, then rather than this round-about thing with your friend ordering up your sex, you should just pick up a guy at a bar when you’re in your town phase. Or maybe hook up with one of those horny college boys.”
She pursed her lips. “Thanks for the advice on my love life—”
“Sex life.”
“But just because I told you who I thought you were at first, you don’t have to go bringing it up every five seconds. It makes me sound kind of hard up.”
“I’m trying to be helpful. Save you some money.”
&nbs
p; “It wasn’t my money. And you’re obsessed with it.”
He kept eye contact with her, but his pupils looked very big, the black overtaking the green. “It’s hard to think about anything else right now. It’s very hot. And very unnecessary. I’m sure you have guys after you all the time.”
She guffawed. “Hardly.”
“Why not?”
He was so straightforward about it. But how could she sum up a lifetime of studying and excelling—which didn’t leave much room for the opposite sex—and why would she want to with such a prime specimen lying in bed in front of her?
“Can we drop talking about my love life?”
“Sex life.”
“Whatever.”
He sat up in bed against the headboard, giving her a distracting view of his bare chest. “Can I ask you something, though?”
“I guess. What?”
His gaze went to her mouth and she licked her lips. She could see no coyness in his expression as he stared at her, dark eyes flicking down her form. She felt it in her bones almost. With just a look.
“Are you trying to turn me on here, Doc, or are you clueless?”
She glanced down to his lap at what she’d been politely ignoring then looked back up again, feeling her face turn beet red.
“Could you actually be surprised I still have a hard-on with you sitting at the edge of the bed and telling me you were after good sex?” His voice was low and husky. And turned-on. It would have clued her in to how his erection was faring, even if she hadn’t seen from her quick glance how it was tenting the covers.
“I’m not trying to turn you on. You asked about it.”
“Sure, I did, but once I got the answer, you figure I stopped thinking about it? That’s a little naïve.”
“You’re the one who said you were kidding about wanting to sleep with me.” Her voice projected more bravado than she felt.
“Maybe, but apparently my cock wasn’t kidding. And just a tip here, if you were serious about getting laid, you’re overthinking it. Maybe that’s your problem with guys. Tonight, for instance—all this coltish behavior—if you’re changing your mind about getting your birthday sex, you don’t sit here talking to me, trying to turn me on.”
Alone With an Escort Page 5
