Page 9 of Seduction on the Slopes

Miles is yammering on about his experience doing press, and while I appreciate his efforts, it’s just not the same for him.

“Look, as much as I’d like to be, I’m not you, Miles.”

I rarely say his name out loud and I’m reminded of why. It’s because I get a little hard just from those smooth letters rolling off my tongue, and makes me start thinking about what else I’d like on my tongue . . . At least we’re sitting down so he won’t notice the growing bro-bone I have for him.

“They don’t expect you to be me, just be yourself.”

“Yeah, but myself is kind of a roughneck asshole.”

Miles opens his mouth to counter that, but I give him a go-ahead look and he shuts it. Yeah, that’s what I thought.

He takes a bite of his own food and washes it down with a swig of water, and when he’s done, points his fork at me. “You can be charming.”

I almost choke on the meatball I’ve been chewing. Miles Palmer thinks I’m charming? I want to record that and broadcast it all over the damn place. But more so, I want to tease him. So up my eyebrows go, and I give my best coy smile, which isn’t very good, because coy isn’t really my jam. “I can?”

Miles glares at me and stabs another bite of food. Heh, got him. “You know you can.”

Oh, this is fun. I wish I could tell if he were blushing. I bet he is. I want to lean over and put my cold hands to his cheeks to find out, but he’d smack me away, no question. So instead I have to sit here practically squirming with covert pleasure—Miles thinks I’m charming. “Yeah. I can be charming as fuck.”

He rolls his eyes but smiles, and nudges my foot under the table before slipping more tofu off his fork and into his mouth. “Well, do that. Pretend you’re on a date.”

“I don’t think you want me doing that exactly.”

All of his considerable attention turns to me, and I feel pinned to the dining hall chair by his dark eyes. Is he wondering what it would be like to be on a date with me? He’d probably be disappointed.

I’d try hard—like plan an actual date and not just take him to some party in the woods I know about—and it wouldn’t be good enough for him. Hard to see a guy like that at the movies, or god forbid bowling. I think Miles would rather die than wear a pair of shoes hundreds of other people already have. Or maybe he’d plan it, and I’d end up embarrassing him. Either with my terrible table manners at some fancy-ass restaurant or by falling asleep at the opera or some shit.

He’s still staring at me when he asks, “Why not?”

I’m not an expert at reading people—usually it’s better for people to use a sledgehammer than words when trying to get something through my thick skull—but the slow, deliberate way he says it is . . . kinda sexy? Did he mean it to be sexy or is it just me thinking he’s walking talking sex and that clouds my judgment?

So instead of answering in a sexy way, or what passes for sexy for me at any rate, I make a joke. Because even if he laughs at me, it’ll be because I meant him to, and not in a mean way. “Because that pretty much always ends with boning.”

Everything about him goes stock still. He’s good at staying still, Miles is. Not like me. I can’t sit still to save my life, but even so it’s weird. How still he can stay and for how long. Dude isn’t even blinking. It’s starting to freak me out.

Finally he takes a breath and his eyebrows sort of crunch in the middle, like he wants to say something but doesn’t quite know what. Before he can decide, he shakes his head and takes up another forkful of kale. “Does anything involving you ever not end in sex?”

“Only stuff with girls.”

Miles rubs the bridge of his nose. I wonder if I could make him do that after every conversation we have? My track record so far isn’t bad.

Miles

“Jesus, never mind. We need to focus.”

“I was focusing.”

“Not on sex.”

“Oh.”

This kid . . .

“Yeah. So, the next press event is day after tomorrow. The good news is, it shouldn’t take long.”

We’re not a big enough deal to rate a lot of time, not like the figure skaters and the men’s hockey players. But more than some. I don’t know if the biathletes were even invited . . .

“And the bad news?”

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