Page 13 of Sultry Bodyguard Summer

“Not yet. Keep looking at me like I’m your boyfriend. Blake could still be watching.”

I force my lips into a smile. Inside, I’m crushed. Another phenomenal kiss and another abrupt end. Another night spent listening to him turning in his bed while I finger myself silently and imagine him sliding into bed beside me.

I can’t take this.

I steel myself. “Can we go back home?” I try to sound seductive, but it comes out flat.

"Of course."

He leads me to my side of the car and opens the door. The consummate boyfriend in many ways, expect, perhaps, the most important.

We get on the road back to Mangroves Club. Oliver keeps rubbing the pad of his thumb against the inside of the steering wheel, a small movement, but a big tell. He's agitated. There’s something he wants to say, but he doesn’t know how to say it.

“Oliver, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“You know I’m a professional. I know privacy and discretion. Also, because I’m a therapist dealing in a highly charged physical and emotional environment, I’m good at emotional detachment. I know how to be physically affectionate without investing my feelings.”

He faces forward, but he must be listening because his thumb stops moving on the leather.

“I think you and I have good chemistry. As a professional, I’m not really sure what that means. But in our case, I take it to mean we’ve got a connection that feels natural and easy. Basically, I'm asking—and not for the first time, I realize—if you’d be interested in a no-strings-attached affair.”

He swallows hard. “It wouldn’t work.”

“Because of your job?”

“That’s the thing. I don’t do these things. I don’t have affairs.”

“I didn’t think you were the type of guy to have affairs on the job, which is why I’m pretty sure you’re going to reject me for a second time. But I can’t help asking when I feel this strongly that you and I have something special. For me, I’ve never felt a connection like this with anyone.”

Finally, he looks at me. “Really?”

I get the inkling of a small victory. “Yeah. That’s why I think we can do this.”

The guard at the front gate waves us through. Oliver waves back. “It’s not just my job.”

Ugh.There must be someone else. Oliver strikes me as a devoted man. Even if he doesn’t have a girlfriend, is his heart somewhere else? Is he hopelessly in love with a married woman? A woman who lives a thousand miles away?

“When I said I don’t do these things, I wasn't talking about work. I was talking about….” He pauses. “I have a hard time saying this, but I want you to know. I’m a virgin.”

I'm at a loss for words. I would’ve guessed Oliver was inexperienced. He's no man-whore. He's not cruising for a lay with the summer holiday hoppers at Sandbar & Sips.

But didn't he have a high school girlfriend? A college girlfriend? I guess the answer's no. Surprise ebbs, and excitement fills me. “As far as I'm concerned, that's not a problem. It’s actually an opportunity. I’m highly skilled, if I do say so myself. I can show you the ropes. However you want.”

Silence builds as he drives along the circular road through Mangroves Club. His face is expressionless, like when I give him a smoothie in the morning.

He stops the car in the driveway. “I have to think about it.”

“Okay,” I say breezily. “You know where to find me.”

He nods.

I wake at six. Half an hour early. Because I’m energized.

Is this the day? Will he decide on us?

I put on a Dave Matthews Band playlist, which Oliver will hear from his room since he gets up when I get up. I set my morning coffee to brew and look on my phone for this morning’s smoothie recipe.