Page 23 of Hot Shot

I force myself to wait five agonizing minutes before answering.Sure.

Your place or mine?

I smile. We both know “Spanish lessons” really means “bang the bejesus” out of each other, as Marco so charmingly put it last night.

My place.

Okay, it doesn’t have to mean that. I can absolutely ensure that our meeting is all business— planning the engagement party. Taking him up on his offer of Spanish lessons. Unless he expects to be paid with a little bow chika bow wow. In which case, fine, I’ll go to Spain knowing only a handful of words and phrases. I’ll survive.

But will I survive meeting with Marco and not having sex?

6

CARRIE

I open the door to Marco at seven o’clock Wednesday evening. My heart flutters when I see him, looking so badass with his brown skin, dark hair, and stubble shadowing his strong jaw. A T-shirt hugs his chest and biceps, and his faded jeans sit low on lean hips. Even with his brown eyes narrowed and his mouth unsmiling, he makes my girl parts quiver.

“Come in.” I match his expression with a look of boredom.

Thankfully I didn’t make any effort to look good. I wear a pair of huge loose sweatpants rolled down on my hips and a Sea World tank top,sonot sexy. My hair’s in a messy knot on top of my head, and I washed off all my makeup. Okay, I reapplied mascara. And a little lip gloss. Without those two products, I look like I’ve contracted Ebola. I don’t want to frighten him.

I lead the way into my living room and gesture at the couch. My laptop sits open on the coffee table in front of it. “Can I get you something to drink? I have skim milk or club soda.”

His eyebrows rise as he sits. “That’s quite the choice.”

“Okay, fine, I have beer.”

He shrugs. “I’m good.” He looks around, clearly checking out the place. He moves closer to the bright red accent wall where I’ve hung a lot of my black-and-white images, a combination of different sizes, some framed in black, others in white. It creates a striking display that I really like.

He studies the images, a varied assortment of portraits and landscapes, many with dramatic low-key lighting, lots of interesting shadows and textures.

“These are amazing.” He turns to my, one brow lifted. “Yours?”

“Of course.”

He turns back and studies them again. “I love this one.” He points at an image of my niece, Julia, taken shortly after her parents separated, a shot of her sitting with her arms around her bent knees in front of a stormy ocean with ominous clouds on the horizon. The wind turned her hair into a tangled mess around her face, and the dark weather reflects the tempest of emotion in her eyes.

“Thanks.”

I sit at one end of the couch and wait for him to join me, but he takes his time, wandering over to a different wall where I have another collection of framed prints, three large ocean scenes.

“These are great too.”

I recently sold a similar set through the gallery I’ve signed on with. They fetched a nice sum, the most I’ve made yet from selling my photographs, which encouraged me to think about going to Spain and trying to further my photography as a career. I know it’s a long shot, but at twenty-nine years old I have to do something other than modeling, as my career is definitely slowing and really, I’ve had enough of it.

Marco finally sits on the couch, closer than I’d like, because he makes my skin tingle everywhere just being near me. Damn him. I can feel pure physical energy pulsating from him, like a force field.

“I see you dressed to impress.” He eyes my sweatpants.

“You got it.” I smirk and his lips twitch. “Okay, here’s the guest list I made. Who else do you want to add?”

He pulls out his phone out and swipes the screen a few times to bring up a list.

“Can you send that to me?”

“Sure.” He swipes and taps a few more times. “There.”

“Okay, great.” A few moments later, I check my spreadsheet. “That makes thirty guests.” I bite my lip. “Should we invite Beck’s parents?”

---