“That’s not how this works, Mr. Union. I think it’d be best for everyone if I spoke to my boss and had someone new take over.”

That was what I should have said. I’d gone above and beyond the call of duty with him. I’d spent more than a day taking care of him, and that was so far out of my job description that I could make a case to Sybil to drop him completely as a client. I had a degree in public relations, not babysitting or housekeeping. No offense meant to anyone who worked in either of those fields. I respected the hard work it took to take care of kids and homes. But this wasn’t my home, and Reb was definitely not a kid.

I’d seen that for myself. Not that I’d doubted his masculinity before, but now I had visual proof burned into my mind.

He’d been half-conscious when I’d stripped off his clothes and cleaned him up. Not awake enough to have a coherent conversation, but enough that I wasn’t trying to move him around on my own. I told myself over and over that it was no different than helping my mom bathe my grandfather after his stroke, but…no, it wasn’t the same at all.

And I couldn’t get the memory of those amazingly defined muscles and that long, thick–

Dammit.

This wasn’t the time or the place for me to be ogling a guy, and it was never the time or place for me to ogle a client. I wasn’t immune to the fact that Reb was gorgeous, but that wasn’t the point. Nothing was going to happen between us. Nothing could happen between us.

And I preferred it that way.

Which meant I needed to take back control of the situation before it got any further away from me than it already was.

“If you have anything planned for Saturday, cancel it.” The expression on Reb’s face told me the direction of his thoughts, and I mentally cursed myself for not being more put off by it. My irritation at myself came out in my next statement. “You’re doing charity work.”

“I am?” He didn’t seem annoyed, but rather amused.

“You are.” I did my best to keep from returning his smile. The fact that I was torn between wanting to kick him or kiss him didn’t make his grin any less infectious. I took a step back to put some distance between us, but it didn’t stop me from being able to feel the tension between us, the very thing I’d felt before we kissed. That couldn’t happen again.

No matter how much my mouth still burned from just the memory.

“That’s your brilliant PR plan? Have me do a little charity work, and all will be forgotten?” He shook his head. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

My temper flared, and I crowded into his space, glaring up at him. “Just because you’re paying–”

Before I finished the sentence, I saw the corner of his mouth twitch and realized he’d been intentionally goading me.

Asshole.

“Look,” I snapped. “This isn’t going to be some ‘one and done’ thing. The shit may not have hit the fan until recently, but you’ve been spiraling for months, and everyone knows it. It’s going to take more than one Saturday picking up litter if you want to move beyond ‘paid your debt to society’ and on to salvaging your image as a good guy.”

“You think I’m a good guy?”

I sighed. He wasn’t going to make this easy for me. “Fine. You do what I tell you to do, and do it well. In return, I’ll make sure you get something for your troubles.”

He grinned. “Then I put myself in your hands.”

I tried to think of the most bland, platonic way to take that statement. “I’ll send you a text with the time and place tomorrow.”

Then, before he could see me flustered, I excused myself and left. I needed to get home anyway. I needed to have a good meal, and a good night’s sleep, especially since I’d be working over the weekend. I told Reb the truth when I said the company would be billing for the time I’d spent, but a little voice at the back of my head wondered if I’d have stayed even if that hadn’t been possible.

By the time I arrived home, all of my frustration from the past week had coiled into a tight ball in the middle of my stomach. Going into public relations, I’d known that I’d be asked to work with people I disliked. While not all clients were people in trouble looking to smooth things over, there were enough that I knew, sooner or later, there’d be someone I found distasteful.

Except, if I was honest with myself, I didn’t actually dislike Reb. He got under my skin in a way that no one else had been able to, and I didn’t like that, but if I’d met Reb under different circumstances, we might have gotten along. I still wouldn’t have dated him, of course, because I was sticking to my life-long resolution to avoid romantic entanglements with people in his line of work.

I reheated some take-out and wrote myself a note to pick up some groceries on my way home from work tomorrow. My supplies were looking a bit sparse. I didn’t have the time to cook myself dinner every night, but I tried to get at least a couple home-cooked meals a week.

I ate standing up, tidying up the kitchen as I went. I moved on automatic pilot, making mental lists of all the things I needed to do tomorrow to get things set up for Saturday. I had a couple ideas of places where Reb could do community service, so that was the first thing to get settled. Once I did that, I could leak information to the media. I didn’t want to give a direct invitation to news outlets, even though most of them would guess a PR firm of some kind was involved. That’s just how things worked, especially when the client was in the entertainment industry.

One of the interns at the firm had an uncle who owned a huge construction company that often worked with Habitat for Humanity. I’d check there first to see if they had any projects this weekend that Reb could work on. The press would have a field day with pictures of him lifting things, hammering…sweating…

“Dammit,” I muttered the curse as I put away the last of the dishes, but I couldn’t chase away the images that came up, one after the other.

Reb wiping his face off with the bottom of his shirt, showing off that flat, tight stomach, and the trail of golden brown hair that disappeared under the waistband of his pants. Jeans that hung low enough on his hips that I could see those amazing v-grooves. Pulling his shirt over his head to reveal rippling muscles and tattoos I wanted to trace with my tongue…

Fuck.

I needed a shower. A cold shower. Now.

But when I went into the bathroom, I changed my mind. I needed to get rid of this tension, and it was getting late. I could combine cleaning up with getting some relief, and maybe that would even get Reb out of my head. I had to focus on correcting his image, not that amazing body of his.

As I washed, I tried to pull up one of the fantasies that had worked for me in the past. A hot model I’d seen on a billboard. A favorite character on a television show. A completely imagined man who knew exactly what to do with my body.

But every single one of them morphed into Reb, that smirk on his face and heat in his eyes. So I gave up and closed my eyes, letting my imagination wander even as my hands did the same.

I ran one hand over my breasts, fingers teasing my nipples as I imagined the rough callouses on his fingers scraping over my skin. His lips moving down my throat, teeth nipping at me until I knew he’d left little marks. My free hand went between my legs, moving over the thin curls that covered me until my fingers reached my clit. I circled the already throbbing bundle of nerves, thinking about how he’d touch me there. Rough, hard passes until his mouth soothed me. Just the right amount of suction.

It was the thought of looking down and seeing Reb’s head between my legs, tongue and fingers driving me toward orgasm that undid me. The muscles in my body tensed as a small cry escaped me.

Even as the release eased the tension in my body, I couldn’t help but think that I’d made a mistake.