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“Yes, yes…” I began, with a sense of urgency in my tone. “I accept his apology.”
Mr. Sinclair nodded and a wry smile came to his face. Before he got off the man he shoved him in the back one last time. As the hapless assailant lay on the ground rolling and groaning in pain, Mr. Sinclair brushed his shirt at the elbows and walked back towards me.
“I think I’ve seen enough of Los Angeles for one night.” Extending his arm, he continued, “How about coming back to the hotel with me for a nightcap?”
Dumbfounded, I walked arm in arm with him back to the end of the block where the limo waited for us. As we approached, Armando scrambled around the front of the vehicle to open the door for us.
“Mr. Sinclair, sir,” he began. “Are you okay? I saw what happened. Do you, um, should I call the police?”
He waved Armando off with a casual gesture.
“What do you think? Does it look like I need help?”
“No,” Armando replied with a quick reassurance to his tone as he opened the door. “Not at all sir, no.”
After getting in the limo, we rode in silence for about a minute or so. At last, Mr. Sinclair broke the tension.
“Maddie, you okay?” he asked.
A sudden chill laid into me. I started to rub my upper arms in an attempt to warm myself. Noticing this, he reached across the seat and offered me his jacket.
Without thinking, I shook my head. “I’m fine Mr. Sinclair. It’s just a little chill.”
He extended the coat in my direction. “Maddie, I insist.”
I smiled and took it from him. Grabbing it by the lapels, I spun it around and draped it across my shoulders.
“Better?” he asked.
“Much, thank you.”
“Good,” he said, as he leaned back in the seat. “Oh and Maddie?”
“Yes?”
“Call me Greyson…”
MADDIE
“I’m fine,” he said.
Deftly, he undid his cufflinks with a few twists of his wrists and exposed the deep musculature of his forearms. Though lean, it was plain they possessed immense strength judging by the way he tossed a man nearly twice his size on the ground with them not ten minutes earlier. Once he’d finished, Greyson turned his head to one side and with an easy tug, undid his Windsor knot and the first two buttons of his dress shirt at once.
“Aaandd… what about you, Maddie? Are you warming up?”
As he finished speaking, Greyson leaned back and spread his arms so they spanned the entire width of the back seat of the car. In spite of what happened, he appeared none the worse for wear.
A gentle smile crept to my lips. “Yes, thank you, I am.”
Greyson kept his eyes focused on me as I spoke. Hardly a hair seemed out of place on his head as I reached down and tugged at the corners of the expensive fabric of his suit jacket. The silk lining inside felt smooth and a bit cool against my skin. As I looked at him, it was hard not to notice, well, his hard body. The crisp white of his shirt hugged against the perfect V-taper of his torso. At that instant I felt a deep sense of gratitude towards his jacket as it concealed the beginnings of my body’s war with my mind. Hard as crystals, my nipples pressed the sheer fabric of my dress, sending a streak of heat down the midline of my torso straight to my…
Okay Maddie. That’s enough. Jesus.
I blinked myself back to some state of rational behavior. If Greyson noticed my suffering, he seemed content for now not to make mention of it or acknowledge it in any way. Instead, he cast a casual glance out the window. Just beyond it, soft orange streaks from streetlights passed by us like curious, urban ghosts.
He spoke without looking back in my direction.
“You realize, of course, now that I’ve gone out of my way to protect you, you’ll need to be my escort for the remainder of my trip. And when we get back to my hotel, you'll be expected to begin your service by accompanying me to my room.”
My eyes widened as he finished his thought. Every square inch of my flesh tingled at the thought of his strong hands digging into my arms as he pinned me beneath him. Was he serious and if so, about what part of it? Silence followed his statement and left me to fill the void with interpretation of his intent rather than confirmation of it. At last, the pressure grew too heavy for me to bear. My lips parted in an attempt to form a sentence, speak a single word, hell, I'd settle for a grunt.
Which was, to my horror, exactly what I did.
God help me I grunted at the man.
I know it was a grunt because no sooner had I done it than his head moved on a slow swivel back towards me. His features formed an expression of amusement and surprise. Greyson’s eyebrows drew together in a mask of delight as his eyes fixed on mine.
“Come again?” he said with rising tone.
My entire being wanted to vanish, slip between the cracks of the car seats like forgotten pocket change. My heart stopped mid-beat as I searched for something, anything, to say in response. I tugged hard at his jacket once again, pulling it taut as a corset across my upper body.
Feigning a cough, I sputtered a lie.
“Sorry, my throat’s dry. I had a little cough there.”
Whether Greyson was content with my answer or not, he didn’t reveal it with a response and I was so mortified I looked away almost as soon as I spoke. There was a good reason I was such an awful poker player, after all. I had the sense that when it came to games of innuendo, he possessed far more skill than I. Just then, merciful providence intervened as the limo pulled into the hotel parking lot. As it did, I loosened my death grip on his jacket, slipped it off my shoulders and started to pass it back to him.
A curious look came across his face. “Don’t you want to wear that upstairs? To my room? As I recall, they keep the lobby a bit chilly.”
Clutching the smooth fabric of the jacket, I swallowed hard.
“You want me to come up to your room?”
Greyson leaned forward in the seat across from me and as he did, Armando opened the door for us to exit. He grabbed hold of his coat but didn’t attempt to pull it from my grasp. Instead, with a gentle pressure, he began to pull me towards him. Devoid of any thought to do otherwise, I found myself begin to move in his direction until at last, when I was not more than a foot from his face, he stopped.
“Yes, Maddie. I want you… to come up to my room,” he said in a low, direct tone. “Is that going to be a problem?”
As he talked, my skin tingled. My exposed flesh betrayed me as goosebumps erupted along the length of both of my arms.
“Um, Mr. Sin… I mean, Greyson.” I stammered. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”
“Well how else are you going to get my schedule for tomorrow? It may be a weekend but I’ve got business to conduct. Once I’m done I'll require an evening out.”
He paused and leaned in closer still. “You know, the evening I was supposed to have tonight but didn’t get.”
In an instant, my arousal turned to shame as I realized how terribly wrong things had gone since he’d arrived.
What the hell was happening to me? Focus, Maddie. Do the job you’ve been hired to do, damn it.
Immediately, I assumed the most professional posture I could muster.
“Yes, please forgive me. I know things haven’t gone well at all. Of course I’ll come up. Whatever you require of me to make things right, I’ll do. I promise.”
Greyson nodded. A dimple came to his cheek as he smiled. “Whatever I require?”
“Yes,” I replied without a thought.
With that, he gestured towards the open door of the limousine.
“I’ll have to keep that in mind,” he said with a smirk.
MADDIE
An hour and a half later, I’d finished brushing my teeth and spitting out the remnants of baking soda flavor when Katy’s interrogation about my ‘date’ began in earnest. Clad in her favorite pink pajamas, she leaned against the door frame, threatening me.
“Maddie, I swear if you don’t tell me everything that happened, I will make your life a living hell.”
I did a half-turn over my shoulder and raised an eyebrow at her in disbelief. “And if you made threats in clothing that didn’t have bunnies and dollies all over it, I might be worried.”
As I finished speaking, she crossed her arms at her chest and glared at me.
“Hah, hah, hah,” she said.
While she guffawed, I placed my electric toothbrush back in its charger, switched off the bathroom light and sidestepped my nosy roomie.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Katy warned as I passed by her.
As I walked away, I heard her footsteps hot behind me. She made quick little strides, marching down the hall after me like a tiny general.
Waving her off as I entered my bedroom I declared, “If I told you what happened you wouldn’t believe me, anyway.”
I spun around and plopped down on my bed. Before I’d even finished moving, I looked up to see Katy standing directly in front of me with her hands on her hips.
