Just Josh

Chapter Seven

Josh stood where she left him for several minutes after the curtain closed, his energy focused on controlling the hard-on his body created when he visualized fucking her against the mirrors. Not that it meant anything. His cock would react the same way if he thought about fucking the sales assistant. It was simply the response of a highly-sexed guy with an over-active imagination.

But it wasn't the hard-on that pissed him off. What pissed him off was how easy she'd made it look while she was playing him. If she had moves like that...

It was a dangerous game with a guy like him. One he would win if she pushed him into competitive territory. Even if it looked like he was losing, he would fight his way back to the top. He was famous for it, reveled in a hard-won victory. It was his drug. There was no high quite like it. And it had been way too long since he scored a fix.

In the meantime, he would give her the benefit of the doubt. One shot to prove he wasn't dealing with a ringer. If he was, the penalty would be swift and hard, pleasurable for them both but punishing for her. He'd make her so hot for him, she would beg -

Where was that music coming from? It was tinny and echo-y and vaguely familiar. If it was a ringtone, he was pretty certain it meant the nineties were calling.

"Oooh," Avery's voice called from behind the curtain. "That's probably Beth. Can you pick up and tell her I'll call her back?"

First he was tasked with purse holding and now he was her secretary?

"Who's Beth?" he inquired as he reached for her phone.

"A friend. We're going out later."

"Hi, Beth," he crooned in his lowest, most seductive voice. "I'm afraid Avery can't come to the phone right now. She's getting dressed."

"Who is this?" A polite English voice inquired.

"Josh."

"Josh, who?"

"Salvatore." He grinned and parroted a pickup line from his mother's favorite TV Show. "How you doin'?"

I'm great," the voice replied. "Have we met?"

"Nope. What part of England you from?"

There was the sound of a curtain sharply tugged across a rail behind him while they got acquainted. Then Avery appeared in another dress she hadn't quite finished getting into, marched over to him on bare feet and held out her hand.

"Give me that."

"Ah-ah-ah," he held it out of her reach. "I'm having a nice little chat with my new friend Beth. Is she single?"

"If you go within ten feet of her, your mother's dreams of grandchildren will be crushed."

Josh lowered the phone back to his ear. "You don't like kids, Beth?"

"Love them. But I don't think that's what she meant."

He fended off Avery's attempts at ending the conversation by taking a step back, stretching his arm out and inviting her to talk to his free hand. "She doesn't seem to want us to be friends. Probably worried you'll tell me something she doesn't want me to know."

"If you don't give me that phone -"

"She's very private," Beth replied. "If she wasn't, I'd have heard about you before now."

"Anything specific you wanna know?" He ducked out of Avery's way, utilizing some of the moves he'd picked up on a snowboard with a satisfying lack of protest from his knee. "My life's an open book."