Big Shot(7)
She’d known Wes for much too long, and he’d been best friends with her brother, Connor, for too many years for her to hold a grudge or allow her resentment to make things awkward between them. Instead, she’d put her big-girl panties on and she’d channeled her hurt feelings in a much more positive direction. She wasn’t the kind of woman who got mad. But she was the type to get even.
And with this bet, he’d thrown down the challenge she’d been waiting for, along with the chance to make him eat his eat his words and regret not making her part of the Premier Realty team. She planned to win, which meant Wes would have to put his big-boy jock strap on and welcome her into the fold.
And if she didn’t win . . . well, she’d recently been contacted by a recruiter who’d been trying to woo her into taking a job with a high-profile real estate firm in Atlanta. She’d definitely entertained the offer. It would be a fresh start after Mitch, as well as the next step up on her career ladder. The biggest factors holding her back from accepting the job were leaving her family and moving to a new city where she didn’t know anyone.
“What’s the matter? Having second thoughts?”
Wes’s amused voice, which was just shy of being smug, pulled her back to the present. She wasn’t afraid to take his dare. In fact, she couldn’t wait to get started.
“Not at all, Big Shot,” she said, meeting his gaze across the table. “But I would like to clarify your wager. When you say you want me to do whatever you want or need, whenever you ask, are you propositioning me?” Not that it mattered, since he was going to lose the bet, which would make accepting the recruiter’s offer a moot point. But she was curious to know what he’d meant by his statement and if he was actually suggesting they finally do something about the undeniable attraction between them that he’d spent his adult life trying to pretend didn’t exist—even though she’d seen enough evidence to the contrary.
He slowly shook his head. “Not sexually.”
Bummer. A traitorous part of her—mainly, her damn neglected vagina—was disappointed with his answer. She crossed her legs beneath the table. “So, you’d want me to be your slave?” she asked incredulously.
Finishing the last drink of his beer, he pushed his glass aside. “Slave is such a harsh term.” He contemplated for a moment before a sly smile eased up the corner of his mouth. “Think of it as you being my personal assistant.”
She could only imagine the things he’d order her to do. Based on their childhood and the various torture tactics he and Connor enjoyed inflicting and the crazy things they’d dare her to do—which she’d done because she’d pathetically wanted to hang out with them—she was fairly certain he’d make her life a living hell for two weeks. Just because he could.
The cocktail waitress came up to their table to see if they wanted another drink, and they both declined. Before she could walk away, Wes stopped the other woman.
“Hang on, Tricia,” he said, taking his wallet out of his pocket. “Let me give you my card and you can close out my tab, along with her drink.” He handed over his American Express and gave Tricia a sexy wink that made her blush.
“Sure thing, Wes,” she said with a flirty smile.
Natalie wasn’t all that surprised he was on a first-name basis with the cute, perky server. He’d probably already gone out with her, because it was certainly his MO when it came to the fairer sex. He loved women, they adored him in return, but he was a serial dater, and most women didn’t care because the guy was ridiculously good-looking and hot as f*ck. He was a shameless flirt. An unapologetic player. He was a man who’d never, to her knowledge, had a long-term serious relationship with a woman.
But did she mention that he was drop-dead gorgeous, which negated most of his more obvious flaws and his inability to commit to anything other than Premier Realty? His masculine features were chiseled to GQ standards, and the dark scruff along his jaw only made him look more attractive—and made her wonder, on more than one occasion, how that stubble would feel abrading her neck or the more sensitive skin along her inner thighs. His jet-black hair always had that slightly tousled look to it that was sexy, not messy, and a woman could literally drown in his mesmerizing blue eyes. She couldn’t deny that she’d been under the spell of that smoldering gaze a time or two herself, so she knew how potent it actually could be.
Around the age of sixteen, a wild and rebellious Wes quickly learned the power of a slow, sultry, panty-dropping smile that got him laid on a regular basis—which Natalie knew because she’d shamelessly eavesdropped on the many bragging and comparison sessions he’d had with Connor about the girls who’d put out at school. Over the years, she’d seen him use that sexy-as-sin, swoon-worthy smile on whatever woman he’d set his sights on.
Natalie had never been the kind of girl to shed her underwear for just any guy, but that sex-clenching smile of Wes’s . . . Jesus, it made her wet, every . . . single . . . time. And when Wes glanced at her after Tricia left the table, her body reacted to the residual effects of the charming, irresistible, half-hitched smile still tugging at his lips, and the goddamn smolder that would give Flynn Rider, from the Disney movie Tangled, a run for his money in a smoldering contest. There was no denying the slick moisture coating the silky thong between her legs or the needy ache that was totally inconvenient and impossible to ignore.