He’s cut, ripped, jacked to shit. Up close I can count the indented squares below his pectorals that look so much like polished marble. He’s got a sparse sprinkling of chest hair and a dark line that bisects his tight abs, disappearing into his low-slung shorts. I stare at the bottom of the line far too long and suck in the side of my lower lip to keep myself from drooling.
Wrapping around the sides of his abdomen and jutting out from his hips are those things that no girl knows the word for—only that they make her feel stupid and hot. They are handles, I guess, to hold on to while you’re riding him or giving him a blow job. Or maybe they’re made for licking. All I know is that they are a big turn-on and I feel like they’re beckoning me to touch them to see if they’re real. I wonder how he’d react if I bent over and just licked him like a lollipop.
He’s engaged in his own perusal, but I’m looking no different than I was the last time he saw me. My light brown hair is in a tight braid, although there are many strands that have escaped due to pulling my helmet off and on. I’m wearing my lycra crop pants and DriFit long sleeve t-shirt. I look like shit, but his gaze—when I finally meet it—is appreciative.
He rubs the towel through the dark rich pelt on his head and then slowly rubs it over his face then his chest and finally his abs. My eyes track every movement. His body looks like something that was computer generated. It is hard and powerful and he’s so close that I can smell him, a musky clean sweat that fires every neuron. Not every man in a suit looks this good when he strips off the wool and linen. This is the body of a fireman or athlete; not of a banker.
“You don’t have time for a walk in the park. You spend your Saturdays working. Do you do anything but deliver packages?” He finally moves, waking me out of the fantasy dream state where I’m measuring the hardness of his chest with my tongue.
“Not these days,” I admit. Mentions of my job bring my attention back like the hard return of a rubber band. It’s almost painful to leave fantasy-land. “Here, I need your signature, and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“I didn’t realize I ordered something to be delivered by Neil’s,” he says looking pointedly at the logo emblazoned on my shirt and ignoring the papers.
“It’s not from Neil’s,” I say and then stop because I remember exactly what I’m doing here. This Ian is my special project and since he’s working with Malcolm . . . I let that thought die along with all my lust. Bitter disappointment is a sour flavor.
“I find I can’t sign anything right now. Hurt my wrist doing curls.” He twists his perfectly normal, uninjured right wrist.
Shaking my head, I try to shove the papers at him again, but he remains disinterested. He tosses them to the side without even looking and walks toward the kitchen. Pulling open a glass refrigerator door, he gestures toward the contents, asking if I want anything. I shake my head no but I follow him. I can’t help it. The tractor beam of attraction just tows me right along.
“Your wrist looked fine when I came in.”
“Watching me?” He raises his eyebrow again. “Did I have good form?”
I don’t want to flirt with him. Or rather, I do but know that I shouldn’t. Not only is he involved with some kind of shady business, but until my mom is feeling better, there’s no room in my life for anything but work and her.
“Yes. You have a very nice body, but it’s a dime a dozen.”
“Is that right?” He’s amused and not the slightest bit irritated.
Confidence oozes out of his every pore. He knows exactly how women respond to him and he rightly assumes I’m no different, but I’m trying.
“The city is awash with hard bodies. It’s more trendy than ever to be fit now. In fact, I heard a news report that young men are having body issues because of the push toward the well-defined abs. You’re a bad influence.”
He finds this response even funnier and his face cracks into a wide, bone-melting grin. The hollow in his cheek is back and it’s got a superpower all on its own. I kind of hate myself for being weak-kneed at the sight of it—at the fact that my own lips are curling up in response. Tonight when I get home I’m going to force myself to watch Spike TV so I can relearn to hate men again. Or I’ll spend five minutes with my stepbrother. That will do it.
"Just a word of caution because I don’t really care but the next customer might: Messengers are supposed to be invisible." He winks so I know it’s not a real insult.
“Sorry, I didn’t bring my invisibility cloak, Bruce Wayne.”
“Batman, huh?” He leans even closer, so close that his breath tickles my hair. Right above my forehead, he whispers, “One thing you should never do is issue a challenge to a guy like me. I always like to win. Always.” Then he draws back and leaves me in a quivering state of Jell-O.
“Always?” I don’t even know why I’m asking. It’s like poking a tiger with a stick.
“There was that one sad time when I was eleven, I asked my neighbor to my middle school dance. She was seventeen.”
“Did she go?”
“Sadly, she turned me down, but it didn’t stop me from pursuing her. I tend to be more determined than most.”
He made that sound like a threat and a promise at the same time.
“I’m guessing you caught her eventually.” That’s where these stories of conquest usually end.
“By the time Cass expressed a return affection, I was in the process of moving and unready for a long distance relationship, so our childhood love remains unconsummated.”
“I can see you are real broken up about it.”
He winks. “If I was, would you tend to my broken heart?”
“If cures for the broken heart can be delivered, then I’m your girl,” I quip.
“I’m sure I can keep you busy for a long time,” he murmurs.
It’s hard, but I manage to keep my whimpers soundless. He drains his glass of water and then strides toward the front hall where he’d tossed the papers earlier. I scurry behind him.
“You didn’t tell me your name the last time we met.”
“Victoria Corielli.”
“Victoria.” He says my name, testing it on his tongue, holding the syllables inside his mouth for a moment as if he’s savoring a fine wine. Everything about him is so sexual. God. “What did you bring me?”
“I don’t know exactly. A contract,” I answer.