Mackenzie
“So who are they?” Jake asked.
“Who are who?”
“Your three clients—the ones you would risk your life for?”
I sat back in the chair and thought for a moment. The tips of my fingers rested on the handle of the cup of hot coffee in front of me.
“Okay, so first up is Ethan Valentine,” I said.
“The quarterback?”
“The one and only,” I replied flatly. The last time I had seen him in person he had told me all the things he was itching to do to me. It was kind of hard to forget. Apparently, this Indiana farmboy hid a very voracious desire for ropes and chains. “He’s currently taking a break in New Mexico.”
“A break?” Jake asked.
“A break.”
Jake nodded knowingly. I couldn’t tell him the details because I was sworn to confidentiality.
“Who else?” Jake asked.
“Daisy Jones.”
“The popstar?”
“You know you are very good at this,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee.
“I bet she keeps you on your toes.”
He wasn’t wrong. Trouble followed Daisy around like a shadow. Her latest drama was getting caught in the backstage bathroom of the Long Beach Entertainment Centre with the lead singer of a heavy metal band and an ounce of cocaine. All relatively tame stuff if she hadn’t been on her knees mid-fellatio when the singer's heavily pregnant wife had caught them. The blowback was a maelstrom of angry allegations, one stalled tour, a visit to rehab, and one big, fat, angry divorce.
It had taken a lot of smooth talking on my behalf to save her biggest endorsement deal, Allstar Cosmetics. Worth several million dollars, they didn’t want their high-end product being stained by their celebrity ambassador. They wanted the pure version of Daisy Jones. Not the slut-puppy who gave blowjobs to lead singers while on her knees in a backstage bathroom.
I remembered her very brief explanation during the aftermath.
“Honey, I thought you liked women,” I had said.
She had simply shrugged. “He was there. We were high. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Many careers had been sunk because of that old chestnut.
Somehow I had saved the deal, thanks to my inherited ability for smooth talking and bullshit, and she retained her very lucrative endorsement deal. But she owed me. She owed me big time.
“And last, but certainly not least . . .” I paused for effect. “Jake Pennington. Hockey player.”
Jake folded his big arms across his chest.
“EX-hockey player,” he reminded me, sitting back and putting his feet on the chair across from him. “And I don’t need an agent.”
I finished my coffee. “We’ll see.”
“No, I’m pretty sure that’s the current state of play.”
Noticing his dislike for the direction this conversation was going, and remembering rules one and two, I decided to raise the mood. I sucked in a deep breath and grinned. It was time to lighten things up.
I leaned forward and poured two shots of bourbon from the bottle that still sat on the table in front of us. I needed Jake to relax.
“Okay, let’s play never have I ever,” I said handing him his glass.
He raised an eyebrow. “So we’re teenagers now?”
I shrugged. “We’re stuck in a cabin. It’s snowing. There’s not a hell of a lot to do right now.”
I raised my eyebrows at him, and he thought for a moment before he leaned forward and took the glass from me.
"Fine. Do your best,” he challenged, sitting back and resting his arm on the table.
This game was good for getting to know your companion and if I was smart I could use it to my advantage. I wasn’t sure how, right at that minute, but I was pretty sure I would recognize the opportunity when it struck.
“Okay. Never have I ever . . .” I thought for a moment, biting my lip as I considered my question. My eyes glittered across at him mischievously. “ . . . been with one of my friend’s girlfriends.”
His eyes locked on mine. And then very slowly, he raised his glass to his lips and took the shot.
I screwed my nose up. “Really? What about the bro code, and all that?” I asked, genuinely surprised that Jake had done something like that. If there was one thing I had already learned about him, it was his undying integrity and loyalty that he had for his friends.
Jake’s eyes gleamed. “Oh, there was definitely bro code,” he said. “In fact, it was done because of bro code. It was back in high school. A threesome with one of my teammates and his girlfriend. A total favor, I promise. Remind me to tell you about it sometime.”
I shook my head and screwed up my nose. “No, that’s okay. I don’t think I need to know that story, like, ever. Or any other of your horny hockey player stories.”
Jake shrugged. “Okay, my turn.” He thought for a moment. “Never have I ever . . . been in handcuffs.”
When I slowly lifted the shot glass to my lips he raised an eyebrow, intrigued.
“In or out of custody?” he asked.
“Out of custody,” I replied, then winked as I slung back the shot.
Jake grinned and then took a shot himself.
“Really?” I asked.
“Come on, Z. What do you expect? Me being a horny hockey player and all.”
Boy, I regretted my earlier comment. Because now I was picturing him in handcuffs. Naked. And that was very, very inappropriate.
My brain scurried for a question. It needed it to be tame because I didn’t need any more mental images of Jake naked, or in handcuffs. “Okay. Never have I ever . . . given someone a fake phone number.”
Jake looked at me like it was the most boring question in the world, and then did his shot.
“Well, knowing your phone and its bad behavior, you were probably doing them a favor,” I quipped.
Then remembering that giving out a fake number had sometimes been a necessity back in college, I threw back my shot of bourbon. After my fourth, it didn’t taste nearly as bad as the first. But I still screwed my face up as my tastebuds shriveled up and died a cold, ruthless death at the taste on my tongue.
I poured two more shots. Just a splash this time because I was starting to feel a little . . . relaxed.
Jake paused for a moment as he thought of a question. “Never have I ever . . . peed my name in the snow.”
I gave him a pointed look. “Come on, rookie. How could I have? Until last year I’d never even seen sno—wait. Are you telling me you have?”
When he took a shot I really screwed my nose up this time.
I was definitely filing that away under TMI.
“College hockey game in Minnesota. We won and I got toasted. It was pure necessity, I promise.”
I pushed the mental image of him with his hand on his cock out of my head. And completely ignored the warm pulse it evoked between my thighs. The guy peed in snow and now I was turned on? Clearly I was mental.
“Changing the subject.” I said, fixing him with bourbon-glazed eyes. “Never have I ever . . . sent a dirty text to the wrong person.”
When Jake took a drink I don’t know why I was surprised.
“My one and only dick pic,” he explained. “My coach was super impressed.”
I laughed so hard I realized I probably needed to stop drinking. And then my imagination got the better of me and I started to imagine what his dick pic looked like. Instantly, my body warmed and my inner muscles fluttered and clenched with interest. Oh, hell.
Jake leaned forward. “So you’re telling me you’ve never accidentally sexted the wrong person?”
I shook my head. “I don’t sext.”
“Come on, Z. You’ve never sent some lucky guy a bit of eye candy? No sexy Shakespeare?”
“Um, no.”
He sat back and looked so damn delicious I had to exhale deeply. He was so big and so broad I suddenly wanted to reach across and press my face into the wide plane of his chest like some weirdo.
Stupid alcohol. Five shots and I was back in high school again.
Deciding I was getting a little too intoxicated, I suggested we play another game. One that wasn’t going to get me so plastered. One that would at least give me better odds of not having to take another shot.
“How about we play truth or dare?” I proposed, desperately trying to convince myself that my body’s reaction to Jake was purely stimulated by the four additional shots of bourbon I had just consumed.
“Okay,” he said, folding his arms across his broad chest. And then he went straight for the kill. “You’re never going to give up badgering me about hockey, are you?”
Taken by surprise, I did what I did best when I was caught unawares. I deflected. Even if he was right. Because I wasn’t going to give up. I was going to wear him down—but damn, I wasn’t going to admit it.
“What happened to rule number one? No hockey talk.”
His eyes remained firm on mine. “My rules. I can break them.”
I pulled a face. He didn’t play fair.
“You didn’t ask me for truth or dare,” I pointed out.
“Okay, fine. Truth or dare?
My eyes flashed at him. “Dare.”
He leaned forward. “Tell me the truth, if you dare. You’re not going to give up badgering me until you get me on the ice again, are you?”
“Really? That’s your dare. A question about you? Are you that full of yourself?”
“Answer the question.” Again, his eyes remained on mine.
“Fine.” I crossed my arms across my chest to mirror his body language but they both totally failed to connect and slipped because I was more inebriated than I thought. I quickly regained my composure and raised my chin. “I can be quite tenacious when I want to be.”
“You don’t say.”
My eyes fell to the bourbon in his hand. “Best you throw that back. After all, rules are rules.”
I watched him drink his shot, completely ignoring the way his throat worked as he swallowed the alcohol, or the way the light gleamed on his wet lips as he snapped the shot glass down on the table.
“My turn,” I said, dragging my eyes from his lips. “Truth or dare.”
He thought for a minute. “Truth.”
I made sure our eyes met. “Answer truthfully, have I worn you down yet?”
He shook his head. “I can be just as tenacious.”
“So what’s it going to take for me to prove how serious I am?”
He considered my question for a moment. “Give up?”
I frowned. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
He shrugged. “Okay, then. Show me your boobs.”
“No way! I’m not that drunk.”
“Then you gotta take another shot.”
Another shot would ruin me.
“Bra on?”
“Of course. I may be a perv but I’m not a complete douche.”
His eyes glittered across at me. He didn’t think I would do it—that was obvious. And something in the way he looked at me made me want to prove him wrong. He needed to know that I wasn’t afraid to go after what I wanted. That as his agent I would go as far as I needed to go to win.
“So, let me get this straight. If I show you my boobs, you’re going to consider keeping me on as your agent.”
He looked a little too smug. “Yes.”
Going by his response, he didn’t think I was going to do it.
Without taking my eyes from his, I slowly undid the buttons to my shirt.
Jake remained straight-faced. But I would have bet a million bucks he wanted to look. Because at the end of the day he was a hot-blooded male and if I’m completely honest, my rack was a little bit awesome.
I let my shirt fall open.
“Well, are you going to look?” I asked.
“I have a confession to make,” he said, his eyes firmly fixed to mine.
“What?”
“I really didn’t think you would do it.”
“You underestimate me.”
A smile tugged on his lips. “Apparently so . . .”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“A deal’s a deal,” I said. “Are you going to look?”
Jake’s eyes dropped to my chest area.
He continued to look. In fact, he continued to look for a really long time.
Finally he looked up and grinned. “Nice rack.”
My eyes stayed on his. “I guess that means we have a deal.”
* * *