As they entered his bungalow, she continued, “Not just Mason. Just…” She gestured broadly toward the window as if the sunshine might answer for her. “Men.”
He arched an eyebrow. “I’m not so-so about anything.”
She laughed and tossed her hat and sunglasses onto the rollaway bed and threaded her fingers into her thick blond hair, loosening the waves she’d tied back. “In my experience, most men are so-so.” She lifted her hand to stop his rebuttal. “You’re always the exception to every rule.”
“What rules am I the exception to?”
“I don’t know. You just are.”
He worked that over but came back to the original topic. “Not to be the not-always-guys guy, but again, I’m not so-so in anything.”
She half-smiled, twisting her fingers together, and blushingly added, “If that picture of us says anything, I guess you’re right.But the men I’ve come across? Definitely so-so. In almost every department.”
His pulse strummed in his neck. For all that was holy, why did a woman like Jules Lowry have so-so sex?
His lips parted, but nothing came out. He parsed her words. Magazines had named her the most beautiful woman. Award shows had crowned her best actress. He didn’t dispute any of that, but the accolades alone opened the men of the world up to her. She literally had her pick. And all of them were so-so? “I don’t know what the hell to say about that.”
“Then again, I’m the common thread between men and me. MaybeI’mso-so. I don’t know. Maybe sex is just so-so.”
A sheen of sweat tickled the back of his neck. “You’re not. Trust me. You’re not.”
“You don’t know that.”
He knew the way that woman kissed. She wasn’t the problem. He’d stake his life on that.
“In movies, it’s so easy to make everything look perfect. I’m not really on a mountain, fighting a dragon, but it seems real once production has worked their magic.”
“That’s not comparable,” he said.
“And steamy kisses? The bedroom scenes? There are dozens of people on set. Some are feet away. Inches sometimes. Fixing hair. Directing where to look. How to sound. We have these little undergarments on. It’s not real. Real life doesn’t have that. Which is why it always falls flat.”
“Sex? Are you talking about real life or scripted productions?”
“All of the above.” She shrugged and swept toward the window, staring outside, clearly avoiding him. “Men as a species aren’t exactly known as givers. If they are, it’s mostly like a checklist to accomplish before they get to their big finish.”
His jaw dropped. Rhys didn’t plan to defend menas a species, but he had to say something. Except “Uh…” was all that came out. He cleared his throat. “Again. I’m not so-so at anything.”
He hated to repeat himself, but reiterating the point was necessary to make it perfectly clear.
“I know, Rhys. If I didn’t know before last night, which I would have guessed, I know now. Can we drop it?”
He didn’t want to. “Real life doesn’t have to be so-so.”
“Yeah. Okay. In theory. I agree.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes, blushing. “Actually, I believe you. Your kiss proved it.”
“Mykiss? Baby, that was a joint effort. Kilimanjaro, remember?” Her cheeks were pink from the memory, and he wanted them flushed because of what he could do right now. He’d kill for her face to be flushed, her lips parted, as she moaned his name.
He ran a hand over his face and paced to the far side of his far-too-small bungalow. The bed they’d spent the night in was the only thing separating them. While they’d been gone, someone had made it. He wanted to mess it up and prove what he’d said. What he wouldn’t do to push inside of her.
The consequences would be insurmountable, but that would be a problem to deal with another day. Rhys only cared about one thing—making Jules as high as a kite with his cock. Jesus Christ, he was going to lose this job.Oh well.He didn’t give a single, solitary iota of a fuck.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked.
He strode across the small distance and planted her on the edge of the bed then paced around his tiny bungalow, because he hadn’t mapped this out and didn’t have a plan. “This is what we’re going to do.”
“Rhys…”
“We throw Sloane’s plan out the door.”
