Page 19 of Opposites (Never) Attract
“Why are the massage ladies wearing scrubs? Andwhat’s up with the IV bags?” Tag asked, as he followed me through the hallway of the dressing rooms.
“I told you this is not an ordinary spa,” I said.
“I am not here to have anything put up my butt.”
“You’ll change into your robes here,” Esme said, looking like she didn’t hear him when I knew she had to. She opened one door, then a second across the hall. “And the first treatment room is on the right. Shock and Awe.”
Tag lifted an eyebrow and removed his cowboy hat. “Shock and Awe, huh, Sunshine?”
“You insisted on coming along,” I reminded him. “And my name is Kaitlyn.”
He leaned against the doorway of his changing room, slowly unbuttoning his shirt. “Why Kaitlyn?”
I kept my eyes glued to his as if I didn’t see that slice of skin he was revealing with every button. As if I didn’t care.
Because Kaitlyn was a normal name. I went to college with girls named Kaitlyn who always seemed to have their shit more together.
Their hair behaved. Their clothes fit better. The never got zits.
I used to watch them. Studied how they could fake a smile on a dime, turn a man’s head with a smirk, or shut down an advance with a glare.
They taught me the devastating eyebrow raise.
Of course these girls weren’t always named Kaitlyn, but they became a brand in my head. A type, that if I was going to make it in New York finance, I knew I would need to become.
So, when I typed up my first resume, I used the name Kaitlyn Calloway.
When Berkley hired me and questioned why the name on my driver’s license was different, I simply said Kaitlynwas my middle name, and what I preferred to use professionally. No one batted an eye because Sunshine was a ridiculous name…and thus Kaitlyn was born.
“What’s wrong with the name Kaitlyn?”
“Other than it not being yours, nothing. It’s just…”
“Just what?”
“Doesn’t fit you,” he said. It threw me the way he said it. Like heknewme. Like he had an opinion and authority about who I was, and the name Kaitlyn was selling all of that short.
“I disagree,” I said, and finally broke eye contact to take in his naked chest and it was… wow. Very wow. Thick with muscle, sprinkled with hair. He looked like a man who worked hard, day in and day out, and had no reason to go to a gym.
He looked like he could lift me up and press me to this wall and not give me a choice about it.
Heat flooded me. Just the idea… all that strength. Power. That will of his…
Oh God, this was the crush, but worse.
“Whatcha thinking about, Sunshine?” he asked, his voice low, like he knew what I was thinking about and helikedit.
“I’m thinking if you’re done getting naked in the hallway, there is a robe in your room. Put it on over your underwear and I’ll meet you in the treatment room.”
That I managed to sound prissy instead of breathy and horny was a miracle.
He chuckled. “I wasn’t planning on walking into the Shock and Awe room with my dick hanging out, if that’s what you think I’d do.”
“I have no idea what you’ll do, Tag Durham” I said. “I never have.”
I closed my own dressing door behind me and leaned against it. Jeez. Full-grown Tag was a force to be reckoned with. Suddenly, the fact that I, too, was going to be mostly naked under a robe with him during this…intense treatment… felt very risky.
Get it together, I told myself. You eat nails for breakfast and no one has ever gotten under your skin.
