Free Boyfriend for Hire: A Stand-Alone Contemporary Romance (Escort Files Book 1) by Nina Strych Page B

the car in the parking area a mere hundred yards away, she asked him again. This time, he said, “I’m sorry it’s over. I like the way your hair feels.”
    She’d been leaning close to him, her face almost cheek to cheek with his, and her hair was sliding along his neck and shoulder. Could that simple thing be worth that much work? His hair was short, so maybe it was just a novel experience.
    He lowered her to the ground next to the car, not letting her weight fully onto her feet until she tested for a reaction. She felt like her feet might be bruised, but the knife feeling was gone and she sighed.
    “I’m okay,” she said, then added, “Physically anyway. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over having to be carried off a trail.”
    Mike laughed, but not at her, with her. The hair around his temples was damp from the heat and he looked delicious. Amy looked away, trying to focus on something that had zero sexual fantasy value, like maybe the car. Or her shoes.
    Tension crept up very suddenly, and almost before she knew it, Mike leaned forward. Nearly erasing the space between them, he whispered in her ear, “I enjoyed it. A lot.” As he pulled away, he brushed her cheek with his. It was quick—the lightest of touches—but the urge to reach out and pull him to her was almost more than she could tolerate and keep her composure.
    If this was what Barbara meant by relaxing, she had been way off base. Amy was the opposite of relaxed, but she was tense in an entirely new way. This was something she’d never felt before in her life. The charge at the base of her spine when he was near, the way her body wanted what it wanted…which was to be as close to Mike as she could get…all of it. It was overwhelming.
    She sucked in a deep breath and let herself be caught up in his eyes as he leaned back. Yes, this would be the time for a kiss.
    Except it wasn’t. This was not what she wanted him to think of her. Overheated, sweaty, her mouth dehydrated from the hot hike. Shaking her head, she pulled back and said, “I don’t think I should drive without shoes.”
    She dug the keys out of her pocket and held them out, not meeting his gaze because to do so would be to lose her self-control. Beyond here, there be dragons. Amy could no longer deny the simple truth. She wanted those perilous dragons that lay beyond the boundaries of what she knew. She wanted Mike.
     

Thirteen
    Mike didn’t know what to think. Did she or didn’t she like him? There were moments when he felt like their chemistry would cause the world around them to spontaneously combust, but then she would pull away. He had to ask himself, was this one sided? Was his intense desire for this woman making him interpret that chemistry incorrectly?
    Did she feel at all…even the smallest bit…like he did?
    Left on his own for the afternoon, he lounged in bed and ignored the glorious world just beyond his windows. The day was beautiful, a kind of balmy softness in the air that begged for a swim in the ocean, but it held absolutely no interest. As he watched the ceiling fan spin lazily above him, he couldn’t stop himself from going over every minute of the day, looking for and evaluating every moment for a clue as to what Amy really felt.
    When he’d lifted her onto his back, her thighs clenching around him and her fingers spreading against the skin of his chest, he thought he might go insane from the electricity between them. He’d wanted to turn her, settle her onto the front of him and join with her so tightly that they were no longer two people. He knew the ecstasy of that moment was just waiting to be unleashed.
    If not for the pack on his front blocking the view, she would have seen how much he wanted her.
    And when he’d let her down and come close to her ear, the scent of her almost made him lose himself. What would she have done had he given in to his desire to simply nuzzle her neck? To lick the salty sweetness? To kiss that curved lobe of her ear? To