“I freaked out. We got interrupted, and it hit me just what was going on. I was about to have sex with Thomas St. Clair. A man I despise. Or should despise. A man who would probably hate me if he knew who I really was.”
“And so you freaked out and ran away and…what? Decided to go back? Because he’s that good at kissing?”
Mila directed a glare Josie’s way. “It’s not just about the sex, you know?”
“I know. So you went back to continue with the wild monkey sex?”
“I…I don’t know. Maybe. No.” She shook her head. “No. I went back for the money. For the kids’ laptops. No sex or kissing. Sex and kissing is off the table.”
“So you’re going to be his platonic muse? To get your students their laptops? No other reason?”
“Why did you say platonic like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you find the whole notion hilarious.”
“Because I do. I’ve never seen you like this. Clearly, Thomas St. Clair has ruffled your feathers, pushed your buttons, and I’m not talking in an aggressive damn-him-to-hell-I-hate-him way.”
“If you’re suggesting he and I can have some kind of relationship—”
“Mila, listen. Be his platonic muse until he finishes his book. Get the money for your students’ laptops. And if you find yourself still wanting him when he finishes the book…”
“I tell him who I am and see how quickly it takes for him to sue me?”
Josie laughed. “Or maybe, just maybe, see how quickly it takes for him to forgive you? After all, he was the one being a jerk back then, not you. Right?”
Mila shook her head. “You’re deluded.”
“Maybe. Just out of interest, who does he think you are?”
Letting out a sigh, Mila studied her tea. “He now knows I’m not an escort. Does that count?”
“It does. But not who you are? You’re just some random teacher who found his dog and then thought you’d get a free meal by pretending to be who he thought you were.”
“This tea is very hot.”
Josie smiled. “I know how you take your tea. Don’t avoid the question.”
“He doesn’t know I’m a teacher.”
“He knows you’re not an escort, but he doesn’t know you’re a teacher. He doesn’t know your last name, but you’re hoping he’s still happy to pay you money to…to…inspire him even though you ran away after kissing him and left some lame note about his word count under his door?”
“When you say it like that…”
“What kind of muse are you? Apart from the platonic kind?”
“The bossy kind?”
“So any kind of sex you have with him is going to be independent of the muse thing?”
“He and I are not going to have sex. Even if I want to.”
“Who do you want to have sex with?” a voice came from behind.
Josie twisted on the sofa and smiled at the tall, willowy woman walking toward them with a steamy mug in her hand. “Mila wants to have sex with Thomas St. Clair, but only as long as she’s not being paid to do so.”
The woman lowered herself to the cushion beside Josie, her stare swinging to Mila. “Thomas St. Clair the author?”
“She’s his muse. He’s paying her.”
“Muse? Doesn’t he write horror books? Are you that bad in bed, Mila?”
“Okay, okay.” Mila returned her mug to the coffee table and held up her hands, glaring at the two women opposite her. “First off, Josie, you know exactly why I’m being his muse, and it has nothing to do with sex. And second, Shanti, your girlfriend here is trying to get me into trouble. She told me to have wild monkey sex with him. Explicitly said if I didn’t have wild monkey sex with him, she was going to find a new sister.”
Shanti ran a gaze over Josie before she smiled back at Mila. “So you’re going to have wild monkey sex with him? But not in your role as muse?” She shrugged at Josie. “Well, that’s okay then, right?”
“No, it’s not okay. I don’t—”
“But aren’t muses meant to have sex with the person they are inspiring?” Josie leaned forward and picked up Mila’s tea, cocking a teasing eyebrow at her. Stealing each other’s drinks had been a thing between them since they were kids. “Isn’t that part of the whole muse deal? I mean, that last make-out scene I performed on stage with that actor with the really bad breath, what was his name…”
“Terrance?” Shanti suggested.
“Terrance. That was him.” Josie shuddered. “When I was making out with him, I was pretending he was Shanti the whole time, which means Shanti was my muse then. And I have sex with her every night. So, yeah, muse and sex go hand-in-hand. Right?”
“Right.”
Both Josie and Shanti turned their mega-watt grins on Mila.
Mila retrieved back her tea and hunkered up over it. “You pair aren’t funny.”
Josie pouted, eyes glinting with mischief. “No fair. I have been described by more than one critic as being hilarious, and Shanti is a stand-up comedian. Of course she is funny.”
Letting out a drawn-out sigh, Mila slumped back into her chair. “You are not helping. I came here for support and guidance. Josie, you told me you were going to help me.”
“Do you like him?” Shanti snuggled a bit closer to Josie, finding her hand and threading their fingers together without looking. “Or is it going to be sheer animalistic rutting?”
Mila puffed out another sigh. “I don’t know if I like him. I’m trying not to. He’s a bastard, after all.”
Shanti’s eyebrows shot up.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Josie gave Mila an exasperated look. “You should at least give her some backstory before you throw the B word around.” Shifting on the sofa, she smiled at Shanti. “Mila’s burgeoning career in journalism was destroyed by Thomas St. Clair over eight years ago. She was meant to write an article about him during her internship at the New York Times, when his first book went bigger than Ben Hur. But he kept skipping out of arranged interviews, didn’t answer calls or respond to emails, and Mila over there—the high achiever that she is—decided to eviscerate him in the article. She dredged up a lot of the private stuff from before he became famous. Stuff he clearly didn’t want anyone knowing about, because the day the article was published, Mila lost her job with a big ol’ threat of being sued if she ever wrote about or went near St. Clair again.” Josie paused, flicking Mila an ambiguous look. “And now she’s his platonic muse, he doesn’t know who she is but wants to bang her silly from what I can gather. And she wants to have wild monkey sex with him but ran away from him mid making out.” A little grin played with her lips. “Do you think he has blue balls by now?”
Mila removed her glasses and buried her face in her hands. Oh my God, my life is a soap opera.
“But does she like him?”
Shanti’s question sent a shiver up her bowed spine.
“I don’t know,” Josie answered. “Do you, sis?”
I don’t want to. But…
Damn it.
She lifted her head and returned her glasses to their place on her face. “He’s not what I thought he was. Of course, he could totally be putting on an act. He’s half admitted that his public persona—the joker wise-ass who never takes anything seriously—is a direct result of the article I wrote, even though he has no idea I am the author.” Guilt lashed through her. That was one hell of an omission of truth. “But something tells me the man I’ve spent the last few days with is closer to who he really is. Or maybe I just want that to be the case because…”
Ah crap.
“Because you like him?” Shanti finished for her.
She took a sip of tea. Her stomach protested.
“Because I like him,” she murmured, staring into the mug.
A warm hand closed over hers, and she lifted her head to meet Josie’s eyes. “Sis. If you like him, or even suspect there’s the possibility of you liking him somewhere in the future, you know you’re going
to need to tell him who you are. It’s more than just about laptops and word counts. It’s about what’s in your heart, your soul. You know that, right?”
She swallowed. Goddamn it, when had someone parked a bus on her chest? “I know. But not yet. He needs to finish his book first. And I need to get the laptops for the kids at school. Then…” She shrugged. “Then I’ll tell him.”
Josie frowned. “Oh, honey, you really do like him. Don’t you?”
“It’s insane.” She rolled her eyes. “For Pete’s sake, I’ve only spent a few days with him.”
“In person, maybe, but you know more about him than most people. I know you didn’t write everything you found out in that article. I also know you’ve read every book he’s written. Plus, when you just said you needed to wait? The first reason you gave was because he needed you. Not because of your students and their laptops.”
The truth behind Josie’s words scraped at Mila. Damn it, it couldn’t be right. “Crap,” she muttered, rubbing at her eyes behind her glasses. “Why did I give him my phone number?”
Josie’s laughter danced on the air above her head. She unfurled from the armchair and moved to stand behind Mila. “Welcome to the world of living in the moment. May your time in Impulse City leave you relatively unscarred.”
Mila raised her head, ready to tell Josie exactly what she could do with her unscarred bit, when her phone chirped with an incoming message.
Throat tight, bus stubbornly refusing to move from her chest, she glared at Josie and dug her phone from her bag.
“Is it him?” Shanti asked.
Hand shaking, Mila read the message on her screen.
4k down. 6k to go. Be ready. We’ve got dinner reservations for tomorrow night. 8 p.m. No is not an option. TSC
“So”—Josie chuckled over her shoulder—“it seems he’s still okay with the muse arrangement. Sex off the table and all. What happens after dinner tomorrow night, that’s a different story.”
“Hey.” Shanti smiled. “Maybe St. Clair could write that story?”
“Bet it wouldn’t be as silly as A Street Car Named Desire.”
Both Josie and Shanti gasped at her chuckled mutter. Josie’s eyebrows disappeared into her strawberry-blond bangs. “Mila Elizabeth Elderkin. You wash your mouth out with soap right this instant.”
Mila laughed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. Just something my old neighbor said to me today.”
Josie frowned. “Your old neighbor called Streetcar silly?”
“She may have been referring to Stephen King’s Christine. Either way, I disagree with her. Mind you, she told me today she had some kind of fling with Tennessee Williams.”
Josie’s mouth feel open. “Are you kidding?”
“Or Stephen King. She’s not sure which.”
“What?”
“But she did say writers never tell the truth.”
Josie studied her. Mila had seen the expression on her face before. It was the one she wore when reading a script she wasn’t overly convinced of. “And you want to believe her?”
“Hey, she’s got experience. Maybe even double the experience.”
Josie narrowed her eyes. Damn it, her lame attempt at deflection hadn’t worked.
“You want to believe her,” Josie said, watching Mila’s face closely, “as a way of continuing to be pissed at St. Clair. As a way of holding him at arm’s length when the pair of you progress beyond a platonic muse relationship, and you realize no matter how much you tell yourself otherwise, you… How did you put it earlier? Can’t stop wanting him.”
A hot lump choked Mila. “Damn your memory.”
“Makes sense.” Shanti nodded. “If I remember Psyche 101 correctly, the mind does cling to answers it wants, even when it knows the answer is a complete load of—”
Mila’s phone chirped again.
“Oh, more!” Josie perched on the arm of the chair and draped herself over Mila’s shoulder. “What’s it say?”
I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you came back.
Damn it, now he was apologizing.
Mila typed back: You didn’t know I was. I should be apologizing for leaving like I did.
“What’s she typing?” Shanti asked.
“She’s apologizing for being a dick,” Josie answered.
Mila flicked her a glare. “I wasn’t being a dick. And do you mind? Private conversation here.”
Her phone whooshed as she hit send.
A heartbeat later a reply came. Was it something I said? Something I did? I don’t have to do the weird tongue thing again. Or breathe. Was it my breathing that put you off? I can stop breathing if you like.
“Okay, I see why you’re having trouble not liking him,” Josie muttered over her shoulder.
Shanti leaned forward in her chair. “Why?”
“He’s funny.” Josie grinned at her. “Like you, lovely.”
“Will you two—”
Another chirp. Another incoming message. Or was it my socks? Not a fan of Batman?
Mila rolled her eyes. A knot twisted in her stomach. Stop playing the fool, St. Clair. And stop apologizing. Just get back to work.
“Tell him you’ll explain everything later,” Shanti suggested.
“After you have wild monkey sex on his kitchen counter.”
“Kitchen counter?” Shanti raised an eyebrow at Josie. “You don’t think they should start with something softer? The sofa?”
“Sofa’s boring.” Josie wriggled on the arm of Mila’s chair. “Oh, oh, oh. What about his desk chair? Imagine the positions—”
Mila’s phone chirped. Josie stopped talking. Shanti leaned farther over the coffee table. “What did he say?”
“Can I pick you up from your place tomorrow night?” Josie read over Mila’s shoulder. “Or are you still in mysterious muse mode?”
Both women stared at her. Hard. Silent. Mila swallowed.
And then, licking her dry lips, she tapped out a reply.
I will be at your place before eight. Now, write.
Josie sighed and wrapped her arm around Mila’s shoulders. “I guess that’s the only answer you could go with at the moment, isn’t it?”
Mila let out a shaky sigh. “Yes. I guess it is.”
Chapter Twelve
He wrote through Sunday afternoon, the evening, and most of the night.
Finding her note under his door, with its simple and to-the-point instruction, had kick-started a torrent of words he had no hope or will to stop.
He’d taken Reaper for a walk after Sebastian left, his chest still tight and heavy with an emotion he hadn’t been able to comprehend. It eluded him for the walk, teasing him, tormenting him.
A part of him wanted to be furious with Mila for running off like she had. There were who knew how many women in the world who would gladly throw themselves at him, and she’d left?
By the time he arrived back at his home, he was grinding his teeth and telling himself he was angry.
He wasn’t. But he kept telling himself he was. Better angry than…than…lost.
The second he saw her note, the instruction, all the sensations of being adrift, of being disconnected from something important, had disappeared.
He’d hurried upstairs, dropped into his chair, and began to write.
When he’d written four thousand words, he’d sent Mila a text. He’d tried to stop himself and failed miserably. Hitting send with a grin, he’d then made reservations for dinner and returned to writing.
At two thirty a.m. he cracked his back, saved the file, emailed it to himself as precautionary backup—A.K.A. a superstitious quirk he couldn’t break regardless of how sophisticated his computer was—and turned off his desk lamp.
Twenty thousand words done. Written.
If it weren’t the early hours of the morning, he’d text Mila again. Something along the lines of 20k done. Get your ass here now, muse. I need you.
But it was the wee hours of the morning. She would be asleep. So he couldn’t.
Really? Aren’t you the guy who called a hottie at three in the morning for a booty call only a few months ago?
Straightening in his chair, he walked through the darkness of his office. “Pee time, Reap.”
The soft scratch of claws on floorboards filled the silence, followed by a warm body nudging his calf and a whack of a tail.
The scent of late-spring jasmine hung heavy in the night air, threading into Thomas’s breath as he waited for Reaper to empty his bladder on the closest street light. A productive writing session usually left him wired, more than a little agitated, but with the muted soundtrack of New York and the whisper of wind through the trees in Central Park, he found himself far more relaxed than normal.
Content.
Wow, it had been a while.
With a scratch of his paws at the non-existent grass on the sidewalk, Reaper trotted back to him, up the brownstone’s stairs, and into the open front door.
“Bed time it is,” he mumbled with a chuckle.
He locked up, downed a glass of water, cleaned his teeth, stripped his clothes off, and climbed into bed. A bed he wanted more than anything to be sharing with Mila. Would she answer if he sent her a text? Would she come?
Text her. Tell her you’re finished. Ask her to come around.
Gritting his teeth, he killed the light and stared up at the black ceiling.
Reaper’s hot tongue scraping against his cheek woke him hours later.
“Okay, okay.” He shoved himself onto his elbows, yawning and laughing at the same time, even as he squinted about the bright room. “I get it.”
Light streamed in through the window, painting long shadows across the floor.
Bright room.
Shadows.
Light.
Frowning, he studied the shadows, his brain refusing to cooperate.
Shadows…
An invisible fist slammed into his chest and he snatched up his watch from the bedside table. “Shit.”
Six forty-two p.m.
He’d slept the goddamn day away.
Scrambling from the bed, he flung himself into the shower. Who knew when Mila would arrive at his door?
Okay, so he shouldn’t have thought of her while naked. And newly awake. Certain things demanded his attention. He turned the water to cold, closed his eyes, and stood under the icy stream.
The Mistaken Billionaire (the Muse series) Page 11