Boyfriend for Hire: A Stand-Alone Contemporary Romance (Escort Files Book 1) (8 page)

Pushing aside the urge to brush his fingers against her breasts—so close, no more than an arm’s reach away—he said, “Well, there’s that trail we talked about. Also, they can charter us a boat if you’re feeling boat-ish again. Also snorkeling at that spot they recommended. The one from the book we both liked. Really, there’s plenty of choices. We’ve completely gone off the plans we made, so we might as well just pick what we want. What do you feel like?”

Her martini glass covered legs shifted on the couch as she brought up both feet and tucked her toes into the gap between the cushions. She sipped, then said, “You feel like walking? I think I’d like to see the trail. They say the birds and the views are amazing. Maybe that trail to the petroglyphs?”

That did sound good to him. As per his handler’s instructions, he’d brought good shoes for it. And he’d never seen anything like those petroglyphs. There was actually a lot on this island to explore. “Do you have boots?”

She nodded and said, “I haven’t used them in a while, but I’ve got them. My little pack too.”

He slapped his hands against his thighs and said, “Then let’s do that. I’ll go get ready and load up on supplies. Water and such. That okay?”

“Perfect.”

Twelve

She was going to die. Amy was sure of that. Either from the heat or from the pain shooting up her legs from her feet. The trail was beautiful and the petroglyphs had been amazing, giving her the feeling that she was connecting to some past person intent on leaving their mark.

But now she was going to die. And it might be from embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sinking down onto a stone by the side of the trail. She sighed, then groaned when the pressure of walking finally eased. She balanced her feet so that only her heels connected with the ground. The pain retreated, but left just enough of itself behind to make sure she knew what she would get if she tried to stand again.

Mike rushed over and dropped his pack, kneeling in front of her. He wiped his forehead with his short sleeves and said, “Tell me what’s wrong.” He glanced over her, as if looking for her injury.

Though it was hot and he was flushed from heat, he was otherwise entirely unaffected by the rigorous hike. It made her feel even more inadequate, but what had she been thinking in the first place? She knew better. After spending so many years indoors, her only exercise the yoga she made herself do twice a week, she was in no shape for a hike. Not her feet anyway.

She choked back her humiliation and said, “My feet. It feels like knives when I step.”

“Knives?” he said, glancing down at her feet and touching her ankle. “That’s not good.” He got a sort of speculative look and asked, “When’s the last time you actually wore these boots?”

“It’s been a while,” she admitted.

“How long a while?” he prodded, giving her a sympathetic look that made her want to cry even more.

“A few years.”

He sighed and leaned back, taking in the long sloping ground they would need to cross before they reached the car. He cupped her kneecap gently, which made her pain cross wires with the pleasure of his touch. She took in a long breath and leaned back on the rock, readying herself for what was no doubt going to be a long nightmare of hobbling back to the car. She wondered if taking off her shoes would make it better or worse.

Mike gave her knee a quick squeeze and then smiled. “Good thing I’m an excellent pack horse. I’ll carry you.”

She jerked her knee from under his hand and leaned even further back, horrified. “No, absolutely not.” She didn’t want him actually feeling the evidence of how many carb-filled breakfasts and lunches she’d had over the past years. The very idea was almost enough to give her hives.

Plopping down on the ground at the base of her rock, he looked up at her and said, “Well, then we’ll just wait until you feel like going on. We can talk.”

Oh god, that was even more horrifying. She would sit here and sweat while there was no one else around to provide any distraction at all. Sweat, stink, and be lame.

None of this was good. Would being carried off the trail or hobbling along and sitting in the sun to sweat every ten steps be worse?

“Are you sure you can carry me?” she asked. “I’m not exactly tiny.”

His eyebrows rose and his eyes shifted downward, then slid right back up from her chest to her face, as if he knew he shouldn’t be looking in that direction. “I have no comment on that,” he said, then winked. Yeah, he totally knew she saw that. It was hard not to smile. He was so blatant!

“I’m being serious,” she said, wiping the back of her neck where the heat was already making drops of moisture track down into her shirt.

He spun a little on the ground so that he could face her and made as if to reach for her hand before pulling away. Amy could tell when he finally got it, that she was nervous and embarrassed. The smile fell away and his eyes grew darker as he looked at her. “You’re perfect as you are. And yes, I can carry you.”

The intensity in his eyes, his voice, that little low growling hum underneath his words…it was all too much. Combined with the heat, she felt dizzy for a moment and gripped the rough stone of her make-shift seat to center herself.
I’m okay and I will not faint like some girl in an historical novel with a too-tight corset.

“Should I take my shoes off?” she asked, flexing her feet and feeling hints of that pain return.

Mike shook his head, very serious again. “No, feet swell once you take them off if something is wrong, and you don’t want to walk back to your cottage in bare feet. Then again.”

“What?”

“If you want to give me your key when we get there, I can bring your sandals.”

If she hadn’t been so hot and in so much pain, the idea of him having unfettered access to her room and the drawer full of her Marion-selected underthings would be too much. Instead, all she could think of was getting these boots off. And then burning them at the first opportunity.

In a really, really big fire.

Reaching down, she started unlacing her boots and said, “Best just to get it over with.”

Mike laughed and unzipped his pack, holding out a hand for her boot. “I’m not complaining.”

When she finally stood on the trail in her socks, she felt physically better, but when he held her hand so that she could stand on the rock, she was sure that death from mortification was imminent.

Getting a piggy-back ride from a hot guy wasn’t something she’d done since college days playing drunk volleyball on the beach. And she’d been a tiny thing then. She slid her arms over his shoulders and then wrapped her legs around his back. His strong hands gripped each of her thighs and he said, “Perfect. I could get used to this.”

He set off down the long sloping trail, eyes ahead of them and his steps steady and strong, their pack hanging off his chest so that he was double-burdened. The feel of him was exactly what she dreamt it would be. His shoulders were hard and with each step, she felt the flex and give of his muscles beneath her arms. It was hard to keep her hands still where they rested on his chest. The swell of his chest muscles and the shallow valley between them begged to be explored. Her thighs wanted to clench together of their own accord, his hands around her legs a point of heat that shot missiles of desire up her spine.

If only she could turn him around and then—

“How are you doing up there? You’re awfully quiet,” he said, breaking the vision apart. Which was a good thing. A very good thing.

“Just enjoying the scenery,” she said, because that was true in a way. He was just the only scenery she happened to be looking at. “How are
you
doing down there? Do you need to rest and put me down?”

He snorted at that and said, “We’re perfectly balanced like this. I’m good.”

They were quiet for a while, and she sensed him tensing beneath her, his fingers spreading a little further apart on her legs as if he needed a better grip. She
was
too heavy for this. As they rounded the final curve and saw the car in the parking area a mere hundred yards away, she asked him again. This time, he said, “I’m sorry it’s over. I like the way your hair feels.”

She’d been leaning close to him, her face almost cheek to cheek with his, and her hair was sliding along his neck and shoulder. Could that simple thing be worth that much work? His hair was short, so maybe it was just a novel experience.

He lowered her to the ground next to the car, not letting her weight fully onto her feet until she tested for a reaction. She felt like her feet might be bruised, but the knife feeling was gone and she sighed.

“I’m okay,” she said, then added, “Physically anyway. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over having to be carried off a trail.”

Mike laughed, but not at her, with her. The hair around his temples was damp from the heat and he looked delicious. Amy looked away, trying to focus on something that had zero sexual fantasy value, like maybe the car. Or her shoes.

Tension crept up very suddenly, and almost before she knew it, Mike leaned forward. Nearly erasing the space between them, he whispered in her ear, “I enjoyed it. A lot.” As he pulled away, he brushed her cheek with his. It was quick—the lightest of touches—but the urge to reach out and pull him to her was almost more than she could tolerate and keep her composure.

If this was what Barbara meant by relaxing, she had been way off base. Amy was the opposite of relaxed, but she was tense in an entirely new way. This was something she’d never felt before in her life. The charge at the base of her spine when he was near, the way her body wanted what it wanted…which was to be as close to Mike as she could get…all of it. It was overwhelming.

She sucked in a deep breath and let herself be caught up in his eyes as he leaned back. Yes, this would be the time for a kiss.

Except it wasn’t. This was not what she wanted him to think of her. Overheated, sweaty, her mouth dehydrated from the hot hike. Shaking her head, she pulled back and said, “I don’t think I should drive without shoes.”

She dug the keys out of her pocket and held them out, not meeting his gaze because to do so would be to lose her self-control.
Beyond here, there be dragons.
Amy could no longer deny the simple truth. She wanted those perilous dragons that lay beyond the boundaries of what she knew. She wanted Mike.

Thirteen

Mike didn’t know what to think. Did she or didn’t she like him? There were moments when he felt like their chemistry would cause the world around them to spontaneously combust, but then she would pull away. He had to ask himself, was this one sided? Was his intense desire for this woman making him interpret that chemistry incorrectly?

Did she feel at all…even the smallest bit…like he did?

Left on his own for the afternoon, he lounged in bed and ignored the glorious world just beyond his windows. The day was beautiful, a kind of balmy softness in the air that begged for a swim in the ocean, but it held absolutely no interest. As he watched the ceiling fan spin lazily above him, he couldn’t stop himself from going over every minute of the day, looking for and evaluating every moment for a clue as to what Amy really felt.

When he’d lifted her onto his back, her thighs clenching around him and her fingers spreading against the skin of his chest, he thought he might go insane from the electricity between them. He’d wanted to turn her, settle her onto the front of him and join with her so tightly that they were no longer two people. He knew the ecstasy of that moment was just waiting to be unleashed.

If not for the pack on his front blocking the view, she would have seen how much he wanted her.

And when he’d let her down and come close to her ear, the scent of her almost made him lose himself. What would she have done had he given in to his desire to simply nuzzle her neck? To lick the salty sweetness? To kiss that curved lobe of her ear? To bite the curve where her neck merged into her shoulder?

He didn’t know and he hadn’t done it. He might never know.

And now she was resting and he was alone in this room trying not to run across the beach to knock on her door and find out. His belly rumbled in hunger, cruelly reminding him that dinner would be separate tonight. He didn’t know if it was because she was really tired or simply tired of him. He hoped it wasn’t the latter.

Mike dreaded going out into the main hotel area to get dinner, but ordering room service didn’t seem right. This was on her tab and he didn’t want to take advantage of her generosity. Changing into a basic t-shirt and pants, he sighed and left his room, hoping he was early enough that the pavilion for casual dining would be empty.

He had no such luck. That same woman was there, this time with a man he guessed was her husband. He had his nose in a book and she—glass of wine in hand—was watching everyone come and go. And when she saw him, her eyes glinted and that predatory gleam from before returned.

“Oh great,” he muttered, and asked the server for a table for one.

Thinking it might be safer if he wasn’t in the more isolated corners, he asked if a small table near the railing was available. It made him conspicuous, but it also meant she might be less likely to say anything to him with so many others around. He felt it like a pressure on his back when she turned in her chair to stare at him.

Shaking his head, he ordered a sandwich and fries. He’d eat quickly and then be gone. When his food arrived, he tucked in, wolfing down the food and avoiding meeting anyone else’s eyes. He could feel her back there, the soft sound of turning pages breaking through the clutter of noise as her husband remained engrossed in his reading.

As he signed the bill, a hand touched his shoulder from behind and he jumped in his seat. Flinching away, he turned his head to see her bent close to him, a devilish smile on her face. “You’re not busy tonight, I see,” she purred.

Her confidence in her right to touch him, to approach him like he was nothing more than a piece of meat for sale, rankled him. It also shamed him. And that made him angry.