Page 18 of Peaches

“I have an engagement I’d rather not attend, but can’t escape either.” Okay, sounds a lot like his problem, not mine, and I’m not sure where I fit into this but… “Problem is,” Oh, there’s more? “I left the impression with someone that I wouldnotshow up alone.”

Here is where I feel like this gets interesting, folks. Adjusting myself slightly in the seat with nerves quickly climbing, I focus on him and tell myself to also focus on what comes next, because odds are it’s about to knock me out of this chair on my stupid ass.

“You accompany me to dinner, at my father’s house.”

Say what!?

“Under the name Kimberly Walters…”

“Excuse me…”

“You should be used to working under a different name by now, Ms. Presley. I don’t know why this would bother you.” His eyes flare, daring me to talk back. Normally I would, but I’m too stunned to even think of a response.

“Now…”

I close my eyes, shake my head, swallow hard and try and keep up.

“My father has never met Kimberly. Never even seen a picture. As much as my ex…”

Ah, there it is. The puzzle is finally coming together. My eyes open and meet his determined green ones sitting across from me as I’m suddenly a little more interested in this story.

“… loved to be spoiled for lack of a better term, she shied away from the limelight. She’d accompany me to parties but always duck out from my side when it came time to take a picture.”

“I don’t see what I stand to gain in this,” I hear myself say which earns me a smile from the gorgeous man across the room from me.

A man that I’m suddenly realizing wants me topretendto be his… his what, exactly, I’m not sure. Buthisnone the less.

That’s right! His! One hundred percent, all encompassing, his for the taking whenever he feels like it, and oh God do I hope he feels like it - his! Screw not mixing business with pleasure. And I mean that in every real sense of all three of those words. Screw. Business. Pleasure. But I try and reign in my horny teenager tendencies as I look him in the eye dumbfounded and wait for him to go on.

“You do me this little favor,” he suggests, making my lower stomach clench and my leg rise as I instinctively cross it over the other to keep my pheromones in check.

I’m hopeful he won’t get a whiff of what other kinds of favors I’d like to do for him. On second thought! I uncross my knees and widen my legs a little. Maybe getting taken by the big bad wolf across his desk wouldn’t be a bad thing after all. But just as my mind starts fantasizing about all the ways I’d love to see that happen, the thought of wolf sex making me slightly turned on and deranged, (because hell, wolf sex is so much more tantalizing and dangerous than doggy style, and I think Brett Beckett would be all kinds of dangerous, dirty and rough for my liking), he continues.

“And I’ll give you another advance. Twice the amount of your last one.”

The world stops spinning, and I think I’m about to be sick.

What the hell did he just say?

“Of course, the addendums to the contract will still need to be signed. You’ll still be required to produce a work of fiction that I approve of and actually want to publish. But you’ll have the funds you need to help your family, to help yourself, and hopefully get your mind back on track and your fingers typing so you meet your next scheduled deadline.”

Forget the deadline, but maybe not the hot wolf sex, twice the amount of my last advance? That would be…. did he really just say…wait a minute, is he for fucking real?

“It’s just…” I go to say and stop myself. I close my eyes and actually feel the reason in the back of my brain screaming at me.

It’s just… my mind silently reels with worry, screaming…

It’s just that it’s a damn trap! I know it! We all know it!

Forget the way my body wants him, what about the addendums, the extra conditions!

I can get another publisher who won’t make me sign my name in blood and threaten to take my baby away, my manuscript, and change everything about it. I can get another source of income. I should just move home. Forget this town, it’s humid and stinks sometimes anyways.Literally.I should move back and help out my mother and Archie by being his live-in caretaker. Then I can take my time, get a real job, and find someone to publish my book who actually takes pride in my work, not the second-generation offspring from a man who broke records when the writer’s market wasn’t even so competitive.

Who cares if Brett looks like the most tempting slice of mouthwatering cake in his Armani suit and I still can’t get my mind to stop thinking of him pounding into me wolf style on top of his desk! I need to keep my damn dignity! Or hell, take it to the street corner instead. But I shouldn’t, under any circumstance, sign myself over to a man that will eat me alive, figuratively, and hopefully very fucking real speaking, if I give him the chance.

My eyes open to find his intently resting on my own. He wants and needs an answer. Now, I can feel it. I glance at the time and see it’s almost six o’clock. That leaves me no time to run home, change, have a second’s rest so I can wrap my brain around the mind fuck of a day I’ve just had before I have to do what I know I internally have already agreed to.

Dammit, there goes that dignity!

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