Page 10 of Wingwoman
I tapped my pen to the notebook. “When I asked what you were looking for, I meant more like… blond or brunette? Tall or short? Funny or sultry? Not which Greek Goddess most fits your weird criterion.”
He flashed that smile again and leaned forward, resting his elbows onto his knees. His broad shoulders flexed with the movement. “I see. Seems like I’m more of a big picture guy and you’re more about the details,” he said quietly. His eyes traveled down my body, landing briefly on my neck.
Thick silence filled the space between us and I could feel each one of his slow breaths like I was drinking in his exhalation. Then, clearing his throat, he broke the silence. “Okay then. My big picture criteria hasn’t changed, but I’ll add some details… for you. To start, I’ve always been partial to the girl next door.”
My thoughts went immediately to Maggie and how she had spotted Josh at the bar. Based on her love of horses and the photo on his website with a horse, maybe Maggie would be a good muse for him?
“But not too young,” he added. “I want a woman; not a girl I have to teach.”
Nope, not Maggie, then. And then immediately after, I was flooded with relief. I scribbledgirl next doordown on my notepad. “Good. What else?”
He shrugged and leaned back on the couch once more. “That’s about it. Nothing too Hollywood for me. Everything else we’ve got to discover while we’re out and about.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I really don’t recommend that. Having a list in hand is helpful. There’s so much you don’t know when you’re looking at someone from across a bar. And with you being so high profile—”
“Okay then,” he interrupted, his expression shifting as it moved across my face and body. “I like brown hair. Not too dark, but also not anything from a bottle. Natural chestnut brown hair.”
I swallowed as heat swirled at the center of my breastbone. Out of instinct, I ran my fingers through my own light brown hair. I’d always considered it mousy. Not blond enough to be striking, but not dark enough to be considered glamorous.
“I’ve always been partial to whiskey brown eyes. A girl who can have a killer comeback ready at any moment, and who can be just as comfortable around me in heels as she is in flip flops.”
He’d just describedme.
Like… exactly me. My toes wiggled against the foam sole of my flip-flops and I swallowed as that prickly heat in my chest flared into a fireball.
I cleared my throat and at the last minute, remembered to scribble down what he’d said. “Right,” I said, hardly recognizing the throaty rasp of my voice. “Anything else?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “She has to be willing to ride a horse.”
My gaze flicked to his crotch for only a fraction of a second.
Crap. I jerked my gaze back to his eyes and he gave me a knowing wink. “Arealhorse. Although handlingthatmight be good, too.” He emphasized the word ‘that’ with a small flick of his hips and grinned at my flushed cheeks.
I scribbled horseback riding down into the notebook, avoiding his gaze and taking deep breaths to calm down my heated skin. “What would it mean to be your muse? What would be expected of her?”
His grin was disarming and curved slightly higher on the right side of his mouth than the left side. “Well, she’d be exclusive to me for the time we’re together. I want someone I’m crazy about. I want to fall in love with her. Real love. The kind of love that makes me unable to stop thinking about her when she’s not around. Where I can’t keep my hands off of her. The kind of love where she’s just as sexy in a baggy T-shirt, cooking breakfast in the morning as she is in a gown on our way to the Grammys. Someone who prefers to spend most nights quietly at home rather than out being seen. Someone who isn’t enamored with me just because I’m famous.” He swallowed hard and for the first time since I’d spotted him at the bar the other night, I saw something real behind his eyes. Not just a performance.
“That’s not a muse, Josh,” I said quietly. “That’s a soulmate. You’re looking for your soulmate.”
He blinked rapidly and just like that, the curtains were drawn once more. Josh the famous musician was back and the man seeking a soulmate was gone. “No,” he said, his voice sharper than a knife’s blade. “Well… yes. But it’s different.”
“How?”
He drew in a long, deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, to start with, I’d want her to move in with me relatively quickly. It sounds demanding, I know, but I need a muse to be there when creativity strikes. And since I never quite know when that is…”
“You need her to be at your beck and call?”
Gross.
Normally, that would be tough to find. A woman willing to move in with a man almost immediately? But something told me that with Josh, most women wouldn’t object.
Even still, I snorted, and with a shake of my head, I snapped my notebook closed. “I don't run a brothel or an escort service, Mr. Gabriel. If that’s what you’re looking for, Nevada isn’t all that far of a drive.”
“Believe it or not, it’s not about the sex. She would have her own room. Her own bathroom. We wouldn’t have to share a bedever. I can be in love with my muse from afar. In some ways, it might be better if she never falls for me. But you asked what makes a muse different andthisis what. For me, at least. Like with a painter – sometimes they need their muses to sit and pose for them. And who knows when the mood may strike to create their art. I’m the same way. Sometimes I’ll need solitude. Sometimes I’ll need her company to write my music.”
“And what if she has her own job? Friends? Family? Her own life? You can’t expect her to just drop everything to be there when you need her to be.”
“That’s not what I’m asking,” he insisted. “She can have her own life. Hell, I prefer that. How boring would it be if she didn’t? But that’s why her moving in with me is so important. So I get her all the other moments of the day.”
