The forever weekend, p.2
The Forever Weekend, page 2
“Punk’d?”
The sign holder was more than handsome, he was like handsome times infinity. He had this studious-boy-next-door thing going on. Short blond hair and kind green eyes that were darting all around the airport, searching for us apparently.
Kasey snorted. “What is this, two thousand and three? No one gets Punk’d anymore.” She tilted her head, giving him an appreciative once-over. “Bailey probably hired drivers so we wouldn’t have too many cars at the lake house. Let’s head to baggage claim, our luggage should be there by now.”
Kasey walked off to grab our bags, I didn’t follow her; she was stronger than me. She was used to carrying a toddler on her hip all day, she could handle our two suitcases. Instead, I went to talk to tall, blond, and handsome with the sign. I was too intrigued to wait, and he was clearly looking for us.
“Excuse me, um, sir? I’m Livi. Of Livi and Kasey.” I pointed to his sign. “As appealing as this all, uh, seems, did someone send you for us? Because neither Kasey nor Livi,” I pointed to the sign again, “would have had the foresight to hire a car service.”
He dropped said sign down by his side, giving me an easy smile. “Your friend Bailey hired us.” He reached out and took the carry-on strap that was resting on my shoulder.
“Us?” I smiled back. I had no choice, his voice had an adorable Southern edge to it, and was making me slightly giddy. Either that or my meds hadn’t worn off completely.
“Yes, ma’am.” There it was again, that melt-your-panties-off Southern drawl. “Bailey hired two of us for the weekend. We’re from Club Concierge.” When all he got in response was silence and my mouth hanging open, he chuckled. “Your friend basically hired male butlers for the next three days.”
My eyes went wide. “Oh.”
Every girls’ trip we joked about hiring some hot man-candy to wait on us hand and foot. And every year we never actually went through with it. Bailey liked to spoil her friends, but hot-man butlers? That took the cake. I glanced behind me as Kasey struggled her way over to join us. The buff butler man handed me the sign and went to help her. Well, he certainly seemed good at his job, didn’t he?
“Who did what? What did I miss while I was wrestling all of our luggage?” Kasey blew her chocolate brown bangs out of her face and shot me a dirty look. “Thanks for the help by the way.”
My eyes darted to our new friend. He’d gotten on his cell phone, but I whispered all the same. “Bailey hired us hot-man butlers for the weekend.”
“Shut. Up.”
“I will not.” I pursed my lips, gesturing with my head to the cutie with my carry-on. “That’s what Southern charm over there said. Apparently, she hired two of them.” Please God let the other one be as gorgeous and as Southern as the one easily holding all our bags in his muscular arms. Not that Southern men were in short supply where we were from, we lived in Texas, but let me tell you, there is a difference between the South and the Deep South. FYI, the Deep South, was my weakness. That’s not really a pun intended type thing, although it could be. You ladies know what I’m talking about.
When butler number one got off his phone, Kasey stuck out her hand in greeting. “I’m Kasey. It’s nice to meet you.”
He shifted my bag to his other arm so he could shake her hand. “Cole. Nice to meet you.” He glanced to me. “Both of you.” He gestured in front of him, indicating that we should go ahead. “My buddy is pulling the truck around to pick us up.”
If his buddy was even half as adorable as Cole, it was going to be a hell of a weekend.
Chapter Two
Livi
When we finally made our way out of the crowded airport and got to the curb, a big black Suburban drove up. The back hatch opened automatically and cool air whooshed out. It was hot and humid as hell outside; the AC leaking from the truck was more than welcome.
Cole loaded our bags inside and then opened the back door for us and we climbed in, me first, then Kasey. After our adorable new friend Cole got into the passenger seat and shut the door, the SUV pulled away from the airport terminal. Between the window tinting and the overhang blocking the sunlight, it was extremely dark in the car. I couldn’t really see the person driving, and believe me, I was trying.
Real, real hard.
Cole turned in his seat to introduce us. “Kasey, Livi, this is Taylor. Taylor, Kasey and Livi.”
“It’s nice to meet you ladies. Are y’all excited for your girls’ weekend?” Taylor’s voice floated back to us and I melted into a puddle on the leather seat. Thank you lord for the two sweet blessings sitting in the front. I could look and touch. Not that I would, I was a little too old for weekend flings, and my divorce wasn’t even final yet. But the point was, ladies, I could. So taken with his voice and the delicious thoughts free-wheeling in my head, I forgot he asked a question.
Luckily Kasey answered and saved me from looking like a total airhead. “Are you kidding? A whole weekend where the only person I need to be responsible for is myself? I look forward to this all year.” Cole and Taylor both chuckled. I wondered if that was part of their job. Humoring the women, because like I said, Kasey wasn’t that funny.
Eventually, we got out from under the overhang and the inside of the car brightened considerably. I was one hundred percent unprepared for what I saw when I glanced in the review mirror. Taylor was core-clenching hot. The kind of hot that hurts. He had the palest blue eyes I’d ever seen set in a face lightly kissed by Georgia summers. With dirty blond hair that was curling out from under a faded Georgia Bulldogs baseball cap that he wore backwards, he radiated country boy cool. From what I could see of his hands on the wheel, his arms were full of muscle and definition, not in a gross beefy way, but in an easy I-bale-hay-in-my-free-time kind of way.
My insides went up in flames, he was that gorgeous.
When I was able to tear my eyes away from his forearms to look back at his handsome face in the rearview mirror, he was staring right at me. He’d caught me checking him out, red freaking handed. I should have been embarrassed, but I wasn’t. No ma’am. Instead of shying away, or trying to play it off, I held his gaze. He was the first one to break eye contact. Probably a good thing considering he was driving. I bet their Google rating would go way down if they killed us.
Taylor cleared his throat, projecting his voice to reach us in the backseat. “So, are all of y’all married?”
I answered quickly and without thinking. “Oh, I’m not married.” Kasey jabbed me in the side. “Ouch.” I turned to her, whispering, “What? I’m not.”
Kasey murmured back to me, “If you don’t want our friends to know you’re getting divorced, then maybe you shouldn’t tell people that you aren’t married.” She shook her head and answered Taylor, “The rest of us are. Married, I mean. Happily married.”
I wrinkled my nose. “He didn’t ask you to fuck him Kasey, calm down.” Then I sighed, knowing she was right about the other thing. “Uh, guys? I’m not married, honestly, I’m getting divorced. But I don’t really want the other girls to know that yet. So, please forget I said anything. Okay?”
Cole quickly nodded his head. “No problem.”
Taylor caught my eye in the rearview mirror, sexy smirk in place. “Oh, I won’t forget. I won’t say anything to your friends, but I certainly won’t be forgetting.”
I held his gaze a second time. When he broke away to look at the road, I leaned over and stage whispered to Kasey. “Is he hitting on me? It’s been so long since someone hit on me, I can’t tell.”
“Yes, he is. And don’t even think about it.” Kasey gave me her most stern mom look. It never worked on her son Knox, and it wasn’t going to work on me. She turned her attention back to the front seat. “So. How in the world did you two get into this line of work?”
Cole answered, “For most of us it’s just a part-time gig. Something interesting to do to put ourselves through college. I’m a couple semesters away from graduating and heading to law school, and Taylor is graduating next month as well. It beats waiting tables or stripping, and the money is way better.”
I asked, “Is it fun? I mean, working with women all the time? Are people ever super bossy and bitchy?”
“Nah. Ninety percent of the time it’s women like you and your friends. Looking for a fun weekend and some laughs.” Cole got his phone out again; I saw that he pulled up his maps app. “We should be arriving in about ten minutes.”
Bailey found us this beautiful house on Lake Hartwell. It was supposed to be only a few miles from this quaint little tourist town in southern Georgia. All the pictures she sent us online made the place look so tranquil.
When we first started this yearly tradition, we would search out places to party. Sun, shots, and swinging from the chandeliers. Now, we looked for places off the beaten path to relax and recharge. Apparently, in this case, a place with enough room for two personal butlers.
Bailey was nonstop fun, and she was too rich for her own good. It didn’t surprise me she hired men to be at our beck and call all weekend. We talked about it every year. How amazing it would be to have gorgeous men bring us drinks and drive us around. A fun time with hot men, without being hit on every two seconds, or getting into trouble with our husbands.
Huh, guess I didn’t really have to worry about that now. Lucky me. And I meant that. I wasn’t being sarcastic. My husband cheated on me. My marriage was over. I deserved to ogle hot dudes for three days.
I peeked over at Taylor’s profile. Holy hell, he was extremely good-looking. I wondered what I looked like after a three-hour flight where I slept like the dead. Probably not so great.
Chapter Three
Taylor
Damn, she was beautiful. Honestly, Livi was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. Since I’d taken this gig I could say, in my line of work, I’d seen my fair share. Old women, young women, flirty women, rich women, a lot of plastic women. There was something innocent about Livi though, something wholesome.
Which made me want to get her very, very dirty.
She had hair the color of honey and it fell down her back in these no-fuss waves. She had stunning, dark green eyes that tipped up on the ends, and her little button nose had a light dusting of freckles. Her skin was smooth and flawless, and her lips, my god, her lips. I wanted to suck on them until they were red and swollen.
Since I didn’t want to be too obvious, I didn’t turn around in my seat to check out her body. Thankfully, we were going to be at a lake for three days. I was sure I’d get a chance to see her in a bikini. Or naked? I’d shoot for seeing her naked. I mean, dream big, right?
To top it all off, she was the only girl on this trip not married.
It was like a summer miracle.
We weren’t supposed to hit on the women we were working for, let alone bone them, but this was my last butler job ever. I was graduating with a degree in sociology in three weeks. Then it was off to the real world, the boring world, the world I wanted nothing to do with. I might as well have my fun while I still could.
I glanced in the rearview mirror again when I heard the sound of Livi laughing. It must have been something Cole said. It irritated me that he’d been the one to make her laugh that freely. Her head was thrown back and her neck looked so damn kissable.
I wanted to make her laugh like that. Why? I couldn’t fucking tell ya.
“Tay, are you listening to me?”
“Huh? What?” I glanced over at Cole; he looked annoyed.
He shook his head and mumbled under his breath so only I could hear, “Stop thinking with your dick, man, she’s not for you,” then louder he said, “we take a right up there where that wooden sign is. You see it?”
“Yeah, man, I see it.” I steered the glorified mommy mobile the company made us use onto the narrow driveway.
The house that stood before us was amazing. I’d been coming to this lake with my family since I was a little boy, but I’d never seen this place before. It was new construction, but built to look old. A lot of worn wood surrounded by decades-old trees. It had a screened-in front porch, balconies on the second story, and a spectacular view of the lake. Damn, I loved my life. I was getting paid to spend the whole weekend at a gorgeous house, flirting with a beautiful not married girl.
I put the car in park and everyone jumped out. Cole went around the car and grabbed a couple bags from the back, and then he and Kasey headed up the drive. I patiently waited for Livi to step beside me.
“So pretty.”
Livi leaned in and grabbed a suitcase, dragging it out of the back and then almost toppled over from the weight of it. “Yeah, Bailey has really outdone herself this time. This view is incredible.” She glanced over her shoulder, eyeing the glittering lake.
I traded her one of the smaller bags I was carrying for the larger one that she was bound to drop on her toe. Or mine.
When her gaze moved up to mine, I winked. “I wasn’t talking about the house.”
She rolled her eyes, a smile dancing on her pretty face. “Nice line, kid.”
“Kid? I’m pretty sure we’re about the same age.” I bit my lip, women loved that. “And it wasn’t a line. I think you’re gorgeous. Spend the weekend in bed with me.”
Totally forward, I knew that, but I found that taking big risks usually resulted in bigger rewards. Livi had been checking me out in the rearview on the drive over. She liked what she saw, and I could see the appreciation in her eyes. Plus, she’d all but shouted that she was single as soon as I’d asked.
She was interested. Whether she let herself act on it was the gamble.
“What?” Livi started laughing so hard that it took her a few minutes to compose herself and answer me. “Absolutely not.”
Not a polite no, but absolutely not? Talk about a bruise to your ego. “Why?” I had never been turned down that quickly before. No joke. Never, ever.
“Let’s see. Number one.” She shot me a pointed look. “I literally just met you. Number two, I’m here on a girls’ weekend. And number three, my friends still think I’m married. I’m pretty sure banging you in the next room would tip them off something was wrong since I’m not the cheating type.” She started to walk up the purposefully worn wooden steps, calling over her shoulder. “Plus, isn’t that like against company policy or something?”
I grabbed her free hand, pulling her back down a step to me. “I didn’t hear anywhere in your numbered list of reasons that you didn’t want to spend the weekend with me. FYI, this is my last job. I graduate in a few weeks so I don’t care if they fire me.”
She rolled her eyes again, took her hand out of mine, and walked the rest of the way up to the porch. She stepped inside and I could instantly hear her and her friends’ high-pitched delight at seeing each other. Girls.
You know what I said to my friends when I hadn’t seen them in a while? Hey, man, what’s up.
I waited for all the squealing to stop before I entered the house, making sure I had a sexy smirk on my face. I needed that first impression to be a real gut punch, get the lusty thoughts going right away. “All right, ladies. Where do I need to put these bags?”
It was Bailey who answered me, she was the one we had been emailing back and forth to set this whole weekend up, and she was the only one not zeroed in on my straining forearms. Man, I loved girls’ weekends.
“Well, I was about to ask everyone how they wanted to do sleeping arrangements. There is one bedroom with a full-size bed, which I claimed for myself.” She paused and gave everyone a glittery smile. “Another bedroom with a king and then a room with a bunk bed that the guys are using. So either all three of you can fit in the king or there is one other bed, it’s a full but it’s on the side porch. It’s screened in and the owner promises me that the fan they have out there keeps it plenty cool at night.”
My gaze immediately darted to Livi. I was mentally pleading with her to take the outside bed. If she took that bed, there was a damn good chance I could charm my way into it. It was secluded from her friends, and she’d be alone. I knew she wanted me, now I needed to convince her to act on it.
Livi raised her hand. “I’ll take the outside bed. I don’t mind.”
Hell to the yes. I fought the urge to drop to my knees so I could properly thank the powers that be for my good fortune.
Kasey spun and narrowed her eyes on me. Crap, did I fist pump for real or only in my head?
One of the other girls, whose name I couldn’t remember, asked Livi if she was sure about the outside room. Livi nodded, smiling. “Really, I don’t mind at all. Maybe I’ll be able to get a little work done in the mornings too.”
Other girl, whose name I really should learn, pointed at Livi. “No ma’am. No work this weekend.” Then she turned, eyeing Cole and me. “Although the scenery here is pretty inspiring.”
Were we scenery? I gave a mental shrug. Whatever. It wasn’t the first time a girl had called me inspiring. Other girl was platinum blonde, leggy, and sassy.
I took Livi’s bags out onto the side porch, wearing an enormous smile, and placed them under the bed. I took a quick look around, checking out the space. The room was perfect. The bed was made with lightweight white linens, the antique iron frame wasn’t against any restrictive walls. Plenty of room to work.
There was a door that led to the outside, I could easily slip in and out without being seen by anyone in the house. Plus, with that high-powered fan in the corner, no one would be able to hear her screaming my name.
Chapter Four
Livi
I saw Taylor’s face when the option of the lone bed came up. I saw the look in his eyes. Hope. And what did I do? I encouraged it. Not too smart, Livi, you cannot have a weekend-long sex-fest with that man. You cannot. You are almost thirty, not twenty. Pull yourself together, woman.
Although. I was getting divorced, and didn’t most people going through a breakup need a rebound? Taylor was so pretty, and his voice, holy hell his voice. I could listen to that man read me the damn dictionary.
