PosterBoyForAverage (15 page)

She pictured Mike shirtless in the sun and her face grew
hot. The rest of her body followed suit. Picturing him shirtless made it easy
to picture him naked. Which made it easy to picture him over her, pinning her
wrists, sliding deep inside her and—

“Um, hey with the sexy noises!”

“What?” But Aubrey felt herself glowing with an embarrassed
blush.

“You. Made. Sexy sounds. Stop it.”

“Sorry.”

“Though he was quite sexy, I must say. My husband needs to
get home soon,” Bradlee said.

“This is all fascinating, Bradlee, but why in the world are
we on the phone discussing Mike? Shirtless or otherwise?”

“Well, we got to talking. He asked about you. Then he tried
not to look like he was waiting to hear about your every move with bated breath.
Why is it bated breath by the way? Is it b-a-i-t-e-d? Or is it b-a—”

“Bradlee!”

“Sorry. Anyway, we got to talking and we both realized that
you’ve never given him your cell phone number. Or any other info. Aubrey, shame
on you, how can you have hot monkey sex with a man and not give him your
digits?”

Aubrey groaned. “What is your ever-lovin point, Bradlee?”

“I gave it to him.”

For some reason, this information made her heart do that
weird floppy-fish thing in her chest.

“Okay. That’s fine.”

“Your voice just went up,” Bradlee said.

“No it did not.” Aubrey was concentrating hard on not giving
herself away. Her heart had gone from flip-flopping to racing.

“Yes it did. Anyway, he also said Chuck is doing much better
and that his mother was taking him to Connecticut to visit family.” Bradlee
laughed but said no more.

“And that’s funny?” Aubrey sat on the edge of the bed and
stroked the hem of her robe. It was her self-soothing gesture, she realized
that. It was obvious how the hem along certain parts of her robe were soft and
threadbare.

“No. What’s funny is he reminded me of you to a degree. He
was all kinetic. Hence all the bare-chested yard work. He was trying to keep
busy. Chuck in the hospital had been stressful. Chuck well and gone was somehow
harder to deal with.”

It was just her luck, Aubrey realized, that he’d be there
alone with nothing tugging at his time while she was here doing a shoot. She
was so relieved for him that Chuck was doing well she wanted to call him. If
her sister had the number. But then she thought better of it. Because it felt
like an excuse maybe and she didn’t want to seem needy or clingy or…

“Desperate,” she sighed.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. Look! I have to run. I’m going to take a shower,
scrounge up some dinner and send my pics from today in. Thanks for taking
Batman. He loves Laura so I’m sure he’s having the time of his short, furry
life.”

“Do you want his number?” Bradlee said, not falling for her
sister’s diversion tactics.

“I…um…okay, sure,” Aubrey said.

She wrote it down on the hotel pad by the phone. That task
done, she set the receiver back in the cradle with slightly shaking hands and
forced her feet to carry her to the bathroom for that well-deserved shower.

Day three dawned. Aubrey yawned, stumbled into the lobby and
groped in her bag for her folded-up list. The Key West trip was beginning to
feel like that movie
Groundhog Day
with Bill Murray. Same day over and
over. The only difference was the men who would stand up when she called their
names.

The lobby was more crowded than usual. A large group was
checking in. She glanced toward the concierge desk and the blonde woman was
there, as usual, smiling. She gave Aubrey a finger wave that made her laugh
despite her still being sleep-stunned.

Aubrey’d spent hours before bed forcing herself not to
contact Mike. When she wasn’t considering calling him, she was staring at her
phone willing it to jingle and for it to be him. Then she tossed and turned all
night, having dreams ranging from the searing sex they’d had to him chopping
down her entire garden because she wouldn’t call him to him chasing her with
the weed whacker. That had been the doozy that had gotten her up at five a.m.

Now she blinked to clear her bleary eyes and called out the
first name. “Willie Caldwell?”

He stood, looking slightly bored. But on a second glance,
Aubrey thought it was more nerves he was trying to mask as boredom. He was very
tall with the slim muscled build of a swimmer. That V gave swimmers away every
time. A tattoo of a crow on his left pec gave him a bad-boy vibe even though
his shy, darting blue eyes revealed him to be anything but.

Aubrey smiled at him and he smiled back. Ah, there was that
smile. A real heartbreaker. His hair was the dark golden brown of wet sand.
“First shoot, Willie?”

His eyebrows went up and he gave a quick nod. “Am I that
obvious?”

“Only to an old fogey like me.” She’d bet he was barely
nineteen. “Come stand by me. You’re my Mr. September.”

Now that her calendar had entered the fall months, she felt
a resounding ache in her chest over her Mr. December. Back in Baltimore,
working on her yard, restless, shirtless and alone…

She pushed her mind back to her list. “Trevor McGee,” she
called. She resisted saying it with an Irish brogue. Which made her laugh. Which
gave Trevor, who was clearly the resident bad boy, a reason to raise a sun-bleached
eyebrow and say, “What’s funny, teach?”

Oh great. A teacher analogy
. She’d never heard that
before. She’d even had one guy sing Van Halen’s
Hot for Teacher
to her
during a shoot.

“Nothing at all. You’re my Mr. October. Try to look spooky.”
She was joking, of course, but he pulled a face that was very Jack Nicholson in
The Shining
.

“Not so much!” she laughed.

He was shorter than the others, stockier too. He seemed to
have muscles on his muscles and tattoos on his tattoos. The overall effect was
bad boy who was good in bed. Close-cropped black hair. Yes, true black. And
bright-blue eyes. A goatee that was so perfectly manicured she wondered if
someone came over to help him with it. The overall effect was the devil himself
on the beach.

She liked it.

“Come get in line now, McGee. Don’t give me a hard time
today. I haven’t had enough caffeine.”

When she said “hard time” she had a flashback to big, rough,
workingman hands closing around her wrists, holding them pressed to sofa
cushions as Mike plunged into her.

A rush of moisture flooded her panties and Aubrey chewed her
lip so as to not give herself away.

She cleared her throat. “Next up is Floyd Brown.”

Floyd did not live up to his boring name. He was a thickly
muscled, shorn young man with pristine tan skin and not a bit of ink. His
eyebrow was pierced, however, and that made him stand out from the crowd. Upon
closer inspection, Aubrey realized his left nipple was pierced too.

He gave her a nod, said not a word and got in line.

“Floyd, you’re my Mr. November.”

And then she realized they were done. It occurred to her
that Gail had booked her through tomorrow and she wondered why. She was done
with her calendar men.

“Right,” she said. “Let’s find my van and get going.”

“Um, I think you’re a month short,” someone called.

“Actually,” she said, half-turning, “my Mr. December is—”

“Here.”

Her eyes caught up with her ears and she stalled out like an
ancient car.

Mike.

Here.

Right in front of her.

The other men seemed to rustle around her like a flock of
birds, trying very hard to figure out what was going on. Was this man a threat?
Should they defend their photographer’s honor? Should they put all this muscle
to good use?

“Mike…” she said softly. Her heart gave a kick like a rabbit
in her chest and she coughed to help find her equilibrium.

“Aubrey,” he said, nodding. His eyes roamed the other men
and he smiled, showing he was no threat. “Guys, how about a coffee or a juice
or an…um…power shake on me.” He opened his wallet but Aubrey beat him to it.

“Can you guys go into the coffee shop and grab yourself
something on me? Tell them to charge it to my room, 227.”

They looked at each other and then at her again. “Please?
I’ll only be a few minutes.”

They filed out together, a big, silent, wary row of men.

“What are you doing here? Bradlee said you were doing my
lawn.” She realized how stupid that sounded once she said it. A laugh burst out
of her and she said, “Not that I expect you be home doing my lawn. You’re not
my lawn boy. Not that you're a boy. You’re clearly a—” She was rambling and
wanted to weep with gratitude when Mike cut her off.

“I had to come.” He stepped forward and grabbed her wrist
lightly.

What was it about him and that spot on her? Every time she
did it, she fleetingly wondered if the energy from his grip would build up
there on her wrist and one day his fingerprints would stay there. His grip
encircling her wrist visibly. As if he’d branded her.

She shivered pleasantly at the thought of being marked by
Mike Sykes.

“Why? Why did you have to come? And the money! To fly here.
You don’t have—”

She needed to know and she wanted to hear. But it was hard
to keep her lips off his lips. He’d taken a step closer so that she now felt
wonderfully crowded by his masculine energy.

He captured her other wrist and used his grip on her to reel
her in closer to him. They were in the middle of the bustling hotel lobby but
she felt as if they were all alone. Somewhere deserted where her only focus was
him.

It stole her breath.

“I needed to see you. I used some pool money. So sue me.
Angela took Chuck off to visit her sister. He was better. That’s how it works.
He spirals fast and being the miracle kid he is, once he starts to rally, he
rises out of the ashes fast. I joked once we should rename him Phoenix.”

She smiled at him and tried to suppress the crushing urge to
wrap her arms around him and kiss him.

“Oh,” was what she managed to say.

“I had nothing to worry about anymore and my brain took
over.” His thumb was sweeping back and forth across her pulse point and the
sensation of his touch somehow leapfrogged from her arm to her belly to her
pussy. She heard a gasp slip free of her and Mike grinned. The grin did nothing
to smother the heat building in her lower body. It only served to fan the
flames.

“I have to…we have to…” she amended.

“Go to your location and shoot,” he said. He leaned in and
gave her a slow, thorough kiss.

Aubrey was almost certain she could feel the other calendar
boys watching from the coffee shop.

“They're looking, aren’t they?”

“Let them look,” he said, hauling her in. His big arms
trapped her close and his mouth explored hers more thoroughly.

It occurred to Aubrey that her ever-vigilant concierge was
probably watching this whole thing.

Her phone buzzed.
Probably Gail wondering how the day was
.

“We have to go,” she said. “We have to go. Before I give up
and just—”

“Drag me upstairs and have your way with me?”

She pulled back suddenly, her nerves jangling. “Why did you come?
Why really?”

“Because I had to. I had to tell you that you were right and
I was wrong. And all that…” He tilted his head back to look at the ceiling. “All
that connection and electricity and amazing stuff we felt when we were
together. It was real and it’s worth it and…”

“And I’m a big girl who can get involved with anyone I like?
Even a man who has a son who has some issues and that’s okay with me?”

“That too.”

She pulled his arm. “Come on then. We have to go to the
beach and be sexy.”

“With three tagalongs,” he groaned as she led him toward the
coffee shop door.

“Not their fault, Mike. They were here first. But you’re the
coup de grace
,” she said. She squeezed his hand.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we save the best for last. Mr. December is the page
that’s supposed to entice you to buy the following year’s calendar. And that’s
the slot that Gail specifically applied to you. You’ve got a fan.”

He stopped short and cupped the back of her head, pulling
her in for one more kiss before they entered the busy room and found September,
October and November.

“You mean you, right?”

“Me too,” Aubrey laughed. She pulled the door open. “Let’s
get this done so we can get to the important stuff.”

“Making up?” Mike whispered right up against her ear so she
shivered with the sensation of his lips on her earlobe, his hot breath on her
skin.

“Yes, that. Making up. More than once.”

“In various positions,” he added.

“Oh talk dirty to me, Mr. December,” she chuckled.

“Want to see my candy cane?”

Aubrey was fighting a wave of hysterical laughter as she
waved down her calendar men and hustled them toward the exit.

* * * * *

Aubrey realized it was hard—very hard—to pay attention to
the men in front of her with the man she’d been thinking about behind her.

Mike did his best to stay out of her way as she shot
September, October and November.

And she did her best to be creative. Surfboards, an old
abandoned rowboat bleached by the sun. Surf and sun and trees and even a
stellar shot of Floyd with tourists focused as blurry drops of color in the
background. A storm started to roll in way off on the horizon just as she was
ready for Mike.

The other three leaned against a low stone wall built along
the edge of the common area where the soccer-mom van was parked.

“You’re up, December,” she said, frowning.

“Don’t look so happy about it,” Mike teased. He whipped off
his shirt but kept his jeans on. He was the only one of them in jeans instead
of surfwear.

She wasn’t unhappy about it—she was simply trying to focus
on what she needed to say instead of the thundering sound of her pulse in her
ears.

The light was changing. She shooed him out onto the beach
where there was more white foam in the surf than there had been. Gray had
become the predominant color.

“Damn.”

“Did I break your camera?” Mike yelled to be heard over the
churning water.

“No, smart-ass. The light is changing. The storm is coming.
I’m not sure…” She stepped back, dropped to one knee, fired off a few shots of
him. It would be her preference to shoot him with this charged backdrop. But
she also knew the appeal of this calendar was pretty boys in the sun on the
beach.

Not a man she thought of until she was breathless with a
volatile gray-and-blue backdrop of roiling sky and the occasional fork of
lighting.

These will just be for me…

She caught a few with striations of blue-white lighting in
the belly of the ever-darkening clouds. His blue eyes shining almost
supernaturally in the odd light. A seemingly solid column of sunlight hovered
over him juxtaposed perfectly with the dark view out on the horizon. He looked
angelic. Lit by the heavens.
Special.

His hair ruffled in the wind and she took his picture again
and again. He didn’t say a word and neither did she. She did what she did and
he just stood there, watching her curiously.

It was all she needed.

The wind really kicked up and she had to brace herself
against its assault.

“I think we need to head in,” he yelled. “It’s really racing
toward us now.”

She took two more pictures, addicted to the look of him and
the volatile scenery.

“Your camera, Aubrey…” he said loudly as the first fat drops
of rain descended.

She nodded, held out her hand for him and he grabbed it.
She’d shoved her camera up under her flapping t-shirt. She let out a surprised
whoop when he stopped short and she realized he was holding his phone out. It
was set on camera and she saw the beach and surf images flash by on the small
screen as he moved it.

“What?”

But he leaned in and kissed her. She could feel the awkward
angle of his arm being held up but didn’t care. She kissed him back.

His tongue touched hers for one electric moment and for that
instant Aubrey wondered if they’d been struck by lightning after all. But it
was just him. Just their chemistry.

The rain got harder and she gasped.

Mike laughed, pulled back, held the phone out. “I can take
pictures too,” he teased.

On the screen, there they were, kissing.

“It’s a good shot,” she said, feeling breathless again. And
it was. She meant it.

Together they ran.