I imagine her legs wrapped around each side of my waist as I lift her up against the shower wall and kiss her full, promising lips. It’s the exact image that sent me begging Hannah to find out which room she’d be in.
‘So you’ll do it?’ She lunges forward, excitement pinched over her delicate features.
Distracted by images of her entwined in explicit positions, I have no idea what she’d asked of me. I could be persuaded to agree, when it makes her face light up like that.
‘Sorry, Abby, do what?’ I take another sip of the whiskey and will myself to concentrate on what she’s saying.
‘Feature on my radio show?’ she repeats casually, as though it’s already been decided.
‘What? You’ve got to be kidding.’ Yet it explains the reason that a woman who had literally thrown me out of her bedroom only a few short hours ago is here in my bedroom, flashing her brightest smile and a little too much flesh.
‘I need a man.’ She assumes the persona of a damsel in distress. Oh, she is good.
‘I’m right here, honey…’ I wink suggestively at her and glance down at my groin.
My last comment earns my third light slap on the arm of the day.
‘Oh, sorry I thought you meant…’ I know well she didn’t, but nothing in this world will stop me trying. The more she shoots me down, the more I want her. I haven’t been turned down in years. This is alarming unfamiliar territory and fifty shades of fucked up, even for me.
‘Will you help me, please?’ She adopts an altogether different tack again.
What man can resist a woman in need of rescuing?
‘What would I have to do? Theoretically speaking, of course. I’m not agreeing to anything yet.’ Listening to her proposal will buy me time with her at least.
‘I need a man, someone that oozes sex and success, someone who will send the ladies looney, to answer a few callers’ questions about love, from a man’s perspective.’ It rolls off her tongue, as though it were the simplest request in the world.
Her words might have stroked the largest of egos; hot, sexy, successful. Not mine. Alarm rips through me. I’m the one person that can’t talk about love. I’ve never had any real experience of it. If she wants me to talk about one-night stands on the other hand, I could talk for days. But love? No way.
‘Abby.’ I resign myself to the fact that once she accepts my refusal, she’ll bolt out of the door, at lightning speed. ‘I honestly don’t think I’m the right man for the job.’ It’s the truth.
‘You see, Callum Connolly, that’s exactly where you’re wrong.’ She jabs my torso, wincing as her finger bends backwards in the process. It doesn’t deter her from stating her case.
‘You’re sexy, young enough to draw interest, old enough to have a bit of life experience, successful, yet approachable.’ Her flattery knows no bounds when she wants something.
‘You think I’m sexy and approachable?’ I momentarily bask in her compliments. I’ve been called a lot of names over the years, but none of them included approachable. Arsehole maybe, arrogant definitely. I sigh deeply and attempt to summon the right words. ‘The thing is, Abby, I might have a reputation with the ladies, but I’m definitely no expert onlove.’ I downplay the worst of my front page antics.
‘What and you think I am?’ She laughs. ‘Biggest fuck-up ever, yet because I have two degrees and a bit of compassion, I’m deemed as some sort of guru. Ha. If only you knew…’ She knocks back the rest of her drink and holds the glass out for a refill.
I stand but hover nearby hoping that she’ll expand on what she started, but she opts for a different approach once again. She should have considered a career in politics.
‘The thing is, Callum, you clearly don’t struggle with women. They seem to like you. You represent the kind of man that a lot of women think they want. Your opinion would mean everything to them. You don’t have to talk about your own experiences in love, you only have to advise them on their own situations.’ She crosses then uncrosses her legs as she talks.
Does she know what she’s doing to me? Of course she does.
A lightbulb moment overcomes me. I’ve been thinking with my dick and completely forgotten that I need her, too. The bet had gone right out of my head.
She notices the change in my stance immediately. I’ll have to add ‘astute’ to her ever-growing list of unexpected traits.
‘What?’
She probably expects me to announce that I’ll do it, if she has sex with me right now. Tempting though it is, I need her for something way bigger, a matter of my reputation amongst my teammates, my integrity, a question of my masculinity.
‘I actually need a woman, too,’ I confess.
‘I knew you’d put me in this position, Callum Connolly. I won’t sleep with you to get you on my show! It goes against everything that I preach every day on air.’ She plays with the charm bracelet on her wrist instead of meeting my eye.
At least she didn’t say she won’t sleep with me because she finds me repulsive.
