Fangirl Down (Big Shots, #1)

She held her ground. “You’re going to have to start answering them or I won’t be able to do my job, Wells.”

He adjusted his stance, leaning forward a little, wafting his scent in her direction. He smelled like pine and a hint of something else. Like the interior of a new car. Warm leather? She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she shouldn’t be envisioning things. Things like dragging her nose along the curve of his strong neck to further study the origin of those leather and pine notes. “My old caddie didn’t ask questions,” Wells pointed out.

Josephine squared her shoulders and took a step in his direction. “I wouldn’t have taken advice from your old caddie two inches from the hole. He was a banana brain.”

“A . . .” Was he holding back a laugh? “You’re going to have to learn some meaner insults if we’re going to be spending time together.”

“Fine. He was human-shaped shit stuffed into some khakis.”

“Better.”

“Thank you. Answer the question. Which part of golf are you focusing on?”

“All of it. At once.” The words clipped their way out of him. “My pathetic world ranking, the possibility of another shitty finish, the disappointment from everyone, from . . . Buck, the fact that the fucking club feels like a foreign object in my hand now, when it used to feel like an extension of my arm.” He tilted his head, took a step closer to Josephine. “Does that answer your annoying question?”

His honesty created a sharp ache in the center of her chest, but she refused to let it show on her face. “It’s a starting point,” she managed.

Wells snorted. “A starting point to where?”

They were toe-to-toe now.

Close enough that she could feel his breath on her face.

When had that happened?

His fingertips were near enough to the edge of her towel that it seemed almost natural for him to brush those digits along the fronts of her thighs. But it wasn’t natural. Not with her boss. So she suppressed the urge to inch forward and find out how his thumbs would feel digging into her hips. And yeah. Wow. She didn’t need any more proof that her dry spell had turned into a dry era.

“I guess we’ll find out where you’re headed . . . together,” Josephine whispered.

“Together.” This time, there was no mistaking the way his light brown eyes tracked down to her mouth, his chest expanding. Enough that it almost touched the knot of her towel. Ever so briefly, his attention strayed to the bedroom located over her shoulder and his eyelids sagged. But just as quickly as it happened, he locked his jaw and stepped back. “I’ll meet you outside your room tonight at seven.”

“For what?”

“The party, belle. We’re going together.”

Stupid pulse. Please stop racing. “Why?”

The glint in his eyes was sort of . . . dangerous looking? “Because I’m not going to give the other caddies a chance to eat you alive.”

“I can handle myself,” Josephine insisted.

“Yes, but if they came for you, it would piss me off.”

“Does anything not piss you off?”

Wells ignored that. “And we need me calm and focused, right? We’ve already decided that.” He backed up until he reached his suitcase, picking it up with a very distracting biceps flex. “You’re not one of these women who takes a million years to get ready and makes us late, are you?”

“No.”

“Great.”

Wells started toward the door, then stopped, changing directions toward the mini fridge. Josephine watched curiously as he yanked open the door, observed the contents, and slapped it shut again. “There are juices in there, if you need them. Apple and orange. Do those work for you?”

It was embarrassing, really, the way she had a hard time finding her breath in order to answer that gruffly delivered question. This man was rude to her one second, and in the next, he was considering her blood sugar needs. What complicated corner of the universe had he come from? “Yes. And I brought stuff, too. Glucose tabs and . . . thanks.”

He left the room with a grunt.

Josephine sat down slowly in one of the many needless seating areas. She’d known joining Wells on his comeback was going to be an interesting ride. One hour in and she was already positive she’d underestimated exactly how interesting.





Chapter Nine




She was one of those women who took forever to get ready.

Wells stood across from Josephine’s door, his back against the hallway wall, and attempted to glare her into emerging. He could hear her jogging back and forth in there. Between what and what? Why were the things she needed to get ready spread out all over the room? It didn’t make any sense.

Maybe after he’d left, she’d taken another bath, since she’d loved the first one so much.

The memory of her moaning made him curse, a weary hand raking down his face. That sound was never going to fade away, was it? All husky and uninhibited. If she reacted that way to a tub full of water, he wanted to know what kind of noise she’d make if he went down on her. Just . . . spread her thighs open and fucked her with his tongue. His goal wouldn’t be to make her moan, though, it would be to make her scream.

Wells cleared his throat hard and started to pace.

He never should have gone into that bathroom. As a man who had been around the block a few times, he should know the difference between a moan of pleasure and a moan of pain. But some intuition had informed him that Josephine was inside that bathroom—and the mere possibility that she could be hurt had propelled him forward without a second thought. His impulsiveness had cost him. Big-time.

Now he’d seen her pale, round tits and those berry-colored nipples.

Life was going to be a lot harder from now on.

Harder. Yeah, that about covered it.

Knowing her naked body rivaled the temptation of her mouth . . . was going to be taking up a lot of space in his head. There was no way around that fact. No way to forget her thighs, slippery from a bath. Or her skin, softened and dewy from the heat.

“Fuck my life,” Wells muttered, right as Josephine dove through the hotel-room door.

“Sorry! Sorry. My parents called.”

“Your what . . .”

He’d been all prepared to complain. To give her a hard time about taking eight hundred years to throw on some clothes. Unfortunately, as soon as she came out of the room in a strapless minidress, he forgot the state they were in, let alone remembered to be angry she’d taken so long.

Nothing had ever been more worth it.

He’d never had a favorite color before, but the deep emerald of her dress instantly became the one. It covered more than the towel had earlier, so why did it make her skin look so different? Almost . . . glowing? She’d done something to her hair, too, because it was usually up in a messy knot. Now it was down and sort of flowy? Shiny, too.

Oh shit, and then she looked up at him, rubbing her red lips together.

Red.

Maybe that was his favorite color.

Focus, man. “A call with your parents took an extra half an hour?”

“It does when they think you’re experiencing a delusional episode.”

“Come again?”

“They don’t believe me. That I’m here caddying for you.” She fiddled with something in her purse. Was that a purse? It was the size of a wallet, yet it appeared to hold a hundred items. Chapstick, a mini comb, eye drops. A green, cylindrical penlike object and alcohol swabs. Was that her insulin? He’d done some research on type 1 diabetes before coming to San Antonio, enough to know that there were more ways than one to administer insulin. Since she didn’t appear to have a pump, he assumed she took shots. “At first, my parents thought it was funny,” Josephine continued, recapturing his attention. “But my father is now speculating that I suffered a concussion during the hurricane. My mother’s theory is that I met a man and eloped, but that might just be wishful thinking on her part. Either way, they’re ready to call the FBI.”

“You know, I can easily clear this up.” He waved a hand at her purse-thing. “Let’s go. FaceTime them.”