Page 115 of South Beach Bodyguards

“Then by all means, take your shirt off.” Lola turned to another woman sitting on the sofa with her. “Chloe, maybe you should close your eyes. I’m not sure you can handle all this man chest.”

Chloe, a brunette with cleavage I could lose myself in for days, snorted. “If I get scared, you can hold my hand.”

I undid the buttons on my dress shirt matter-of-factly. I wasn’t going to put on a show, but I wasn’t going to be shy either. I was already picturing bragging to the guys about how the pop star Lola Brandy had wanted to see my muscles. They would give me shit for days, but at the same time they would be jealous as hell. There was something so damn satisfying about pissing my buddies off.

Once my shirt was all the way off and I draped it over the table, Lola clapped. “Bravo.”

That made me grin. I liked that she wasn’t a diva taking herself far too serious. She was just having fun post-show and I appreciated that. Part of me was aware I wasn’t helping my cause with Miranda. I wasn’t exactly showing her how much I wanted her. But I had a habit, ten years deep, of pretending I didn’t give a shit about Miranda and me, and I covered those feelings up with flirting, fucking.

Casual as shit, that’s me. It’s also the world’s biggest lie.

But if Max and I have anything in common it’s that we’re both amazing liars.

Lola reached out and slid her hand across my abs. “A little lower,” I told her.

Her laugh was practiced, melodic. “Aren’t you a bold one? I like it.”

This was what I got for being impulsive and not sticking to my original plan of asking Alejandro to lunch. I was standing there third-wheeling behind him as he bared his chest for my boss. I was mortified. Mostly by the fact that I felt things that I should not be feeling. I was used to his attention being on me. It wasn’t exactly a huge secret that as a teenager he’d had a crush on me. So in the past, his flirting had been directed towards me, and what woman doesn’t like a little harmless crush?

He’d been discreet when his brother was around, obviously, and never took it so far as to make me uncomfortable, but I knew. It was because he had watched me carefully and had opened doors for me and rushed to help me with a bag of groceries when I went over to the Garcias. He had liked me.

Now he just seemed unconcerned with my presence. He’d been talking to everyone in the suite but me. But I couldn’t exactly complain, because hello, I had just put him on the spot in a major way. Also, I had never given him any encouragement or any reason to think I would be okay with him flirting with me. In fact, the one time he had gotten a little too close to me, I had snapped at him and put him on guard, offering a sincere apology. I couldn’t exactly expect him to sit around and think about only me for a decade. That teen crush was in his rearview mirror apparently.

Ricky, a dancer who had been on tour with Lola for three years, sidled up to me, his eyebrows raised. “Girl, where did you find this guy?”

“We grew up together, so to speak. I dated his brother when I was younger.” But I realized immediately I should have just said we were old friends, because now Ricky, a well-known gossip, seemed intrigued.

“So there is another one who looks like this? Are they single?”

“Straight,” I told Ricky. “Sorry.” I didn’t want to go into details and the whole sob story and tell him Max was missing. That he had disappeared and was presumed dead. People alternated between horror and gruesome curiosity and I wasn’t up for that. “As for being single, I can’t speak for Alejandro.”

Another thing I had intended to ask Alejandro before I blurted out I wanted his sperm. It wasn’t exactly fair to ask for a sperm donation without consulting his partner, if he had a girlfriend. Not that he looked like he had a girlfriend, given that he was now allowing both Lola and Chloe to pet his chest, but I still needed to ask.

I could see why they were enamored of his body. I only had a view from behind and it was still a great one. His shoulders were broad and muscular. His back was rock solid. He had tattoos on his biceps. A cross. A skull. Those were new. This was all new. He hadn’t looked like that as a teen, and I hadn’t had this reaction to him in the past.

I felt… warm. In my cheeks. In my womb. In my inner thighs, which suddenly seemed really damn exposed in this piece of nothing bodysuit. I basically had two inches covering my pussy and I shifted in my heels, feeling suddenly like desire was shooting out from me like a laser beam.

Panicked, I clapped my thighs together and crossed my arms over my nipples. Thank the Lord for pasties. No one could see the taut buds that were betraying me without warning.

“Whoa,” Chloe exclaimed. “I went too low there, I’m sorry. But holy shit, your biceps aren’t the only thing that’s huge.”

Everyone laughed. Everyone but me. Alejandro had a big dick? Why didn’t I know that? Hell, why would I know that? Did I want to know that? My body seemed to think so. Confused, I decided since this was my last night on tour, there was literally no reason why I couldn’t have a drink. I took a glass of champagne off the wet bar and took a massive sip and tried to tell myself my feelings were the result of emotions running high. I wanted a baby desperately. My hormones were playing tricks on me in pursuit of conception.

“You know what they say—speak softly and carry a big dick,” Alejandro said. “I let it do the talking for me.”

Again, a swell of laughter rose up from the room. Glad everyone was having such a grand old time. Though it was a scene that wasn’t unfamiliar. Life on tour was a party, filled with sexual innuendo and jokes. Only now, it was different. I felt left out.

Alejandro belonged to me.

Not sexually, but he was my friend, my past. And here he was stepping into my world and yet ignoring me.

Lola patted the spot on the sofa next to her. “Have a seat, Mr. Big Stuff.”

Some pop stars put on a show of flirtation but draw the line at sleeping around on tour, not wanting entanglements, stalkers, unexpected pregnancies. I had been with Lola for two years, and on three different tours before hers. She was the only one who didn’t give a rat’s ass about playing it safe. She loved a good boy toy in her bed and I knew that look in her eye. She wanted Alejandro.

And she would get him. Because she was Lola Brandy and no single man was going to say no to a piece of pop star ass.

Normally I could give two shits who Lola had sex with. She was a beautiful, talented woman. Men wanted her. She was single and at the top of her game. I wasn’t even jealous of her success. She worked her ass off and deserved it and treated her staff well.

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