Part of him realized how weak this was, that he, Beau Prescott, one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL was offering a woman money to be with him. Not out of convenience, but because that was the only way he could have her.
But the other part of him didn’t give a damn. If money was the only way he could get Josie and end the torment of having her so close without being able to touch her, then that was what he’d do without hesitation or conscience.
Still, he must have had some pride left because when she said she was only willing to stay until spring, he shrugged it off, and said. “Fine. I plan to be back in L.A. by then anyway. Once I get my sight back…”
“You won’t have any need of me. You’ll go back to L.A. and your groupies, and everything will be back to just the way you like it,” she concluded.
His offer was more than that of bored rich guy, but he had no intention of letting her know about his ongoing obsession with her.
“When do I—I mean, um, we—start?”
A gentleman would have given her some time to adjust to the thought of becoming his paramour. Beau was no fucking gentleman.
“Now,” he practically growled, before doing what he had been dying to do since she came back into his life a week ago. Kiss her. Kiss her like the man he was now, in order to satisfy the boy he had been back then.
JOSIE WAS COMPLETELY TAKEN ABACK BY THAT KISS. From what she’d seen in the tabloids over the years, Beau had been with countless women, all prettier and way more famous than she was. She’d expected him to be all smooth swagger, to take her back to his bed in the next room and claim the girl who had sworn she’d never work for him with cocky disdain.
But there was nothing smug about the way he kissed her; it felt more like an attack than a cashed in chip. And his beard rubbed roughly against her skin as his mouth devoured hers with something akin to desperation. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought he was actually attracted to her and not just looking for any warm body to share his bed.
“Josie, Josie…” he said, coming up for air, “…we need a bed.”
“A bed?” Josie repeated.
“Yeah, a bed, and since you’re always wanting to help me, I’m going to let you lead me to it.”
He stood there, waiting. Waiting, she realized, for her to make the next move, for her to lead him to the location that would seal her fate as a woman who would sleep with a man in exchange for money.
Quickly, she grabbed his hand and led him out of the bathroom and over to the bed. Like ripping off a Band-Aid, she thought to herself. It was better not to contemplate it too long, just do it.
She placed him right at the bed’s front edge and said, “You can sit down.”
“You sit down, too,” he said.
Her heart drummed in her chest as she took a seat at the far corner of the bed. But he said, “Closer.”
She moved infinitesimally closer.
“I felt the bed move a little bit. But I’m not sure you actually moved.”
“I did,” she assured him, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice.
“Now, Josie, a deal’s a deal. Don’t make me work for something I’m paying good money for.”
Guilt and shame roiled in her stomach, but nonetheless she forced herself to plop herself down right next to him. “No, I’d never want you to have to work hard for anything, Mr. Prescott,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
A shadow of a smile crossed over his face. “Now that’s the Josie I remember. Punishing you for that mouth of yours is going to be fun.”
He reached up and stroked the side of her face with a large palm, and she flinched. Just like that, her former sass disappeared. Wayne had always accused her of the same thing, telling her she deserved his punishments, because she couldn’t keep her mouth closed.
“Oh, hell, now you’re trembling,” he said.
She tried to stop, but found she couldn’t. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m trying not to.”
He gave her an irritated sigh. “Try harder. Look, I know I’m blind now, but imagine me the way I used to be. Back then just about every other woman in America would be paying for the chance to sleep with me. Literally. A few of my groupies even paid people off in order to get near me. I’d walk into my hotel room for an away game and it would be like, boom! Two, sometimes three or four naked girls on my bed. Surprise!”
She held herself as stiff as possible in order not to shake, her hands squeezed tight in her lap. “That must have been really nice for you.”
Beau sat there silent for seconds on end, and she began to wonder if he wasn’t about to call the whole thing off, having seen how poorly equipped she was to handle being somebody’s consort.
But then he said, “Why don’t you start by telling me what you’re wearing now.”
She looked down at her clothes. “A plaid shirt and some jeans.”
She expected an insult about her non-sexy wardrobe choices or worst, another story about his groupies. But he went still again, as if trying to hold himself back. “Unbutton the shirt.”
Tentatively, she began to do as he said.
“Are you doing it?” he asked.
“Yeah, I am,” she answered, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I tell you what,” Beau said. “Why don’t you give me my money’s worth and narrate what you’re doing while you’re doing it.”
“Narrate?”
“Like when I first came here and you wanted to talk me through everything you were doing like I was some kind of helpless invalid.”
Her eyes widened at his misinterpretation of her sincere actions. “I wasn’t trying to treat you like you were helpless, I was just trying to—”
He cut her off with a long, slow shake of his head. “Last I checked, I wasn’t paying you to argue with me. You’re so big on calling me Mr. Prescott these days, from now on when I make a request, all I want to hear from you is, ‘Whatever you say, Mr. Prescott.’”
Was he serious? She clamped her lips together to keep back an angry reply.
“Whatever you say, Mr. Prescott.” she finally answered after a brief wrestling match with her pride. Then she began narrating in a monotone between clenched teeth. “Right now I’m unbuttoning my shirt. Three more buttons to go. One . . . two . . . three. . .”
“Take the shirt all the way off.”
She began to do as he said.