Page 5 of Infatuation (The Josh & Kat Trilogy #1)

Three

Kat

As Derek kisses my lips, he runs his fingertips along my thigh underneath my pencil skirt.

I return his kiss with equal enthusiasm and run my fingers through his hair.

Heck yeah, I do. Derek the ex-SEAL-bodyguard is way, way hotter than Kevin Costner ever was (and Kevin Costner was pretty freaking hot back in the day).

I lean back onto the arm of my couch, pulling Derek’s lips with me as I go and coaxing Derek’s body on top of mine.

Holy shitballs, this man’s clearly got a hard body beneath that Men’s Wearhouse suit.

And that’s not all that’s hard about Derek, either—the bulge behind his slacks feels like it was forged in a steel factory. Good lord.

It’s all I can do not to bust out singing Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”—not because I will always love Derek Insert-Last-Name-Here, obviously.

I only met the guy less than twenty-four hours ago, and, as far as I can tell, he’s got the personality of a baseball bat.

No, that iconic song is on the tip of my (extremely busy) tongue right now because oh my effing God I’m about to fulfill a fantasy I’ve had since I first witnessed a certain juggernaut of cinematic artistry at the tender age of nine .

My mom rented The Bodyguard from Blockbuster Video on a Friday night (plus video games for my dad and four brothers to keep them distracted while we two girls watched our movie), and by Sunday afternoon, I’d watched that damned movie at least six times from start to finish (and that was a full year before we got our first DVD player, which means I actually had to rewind that freaking thing every time I wanted to re-watch it, so that tells you how committed I was to Whitney and Kevin’s once-in-a-lifetime love) .

And all through the years since that first Bodyguard marathon, through puberty and high school and college, whenever I’ve been dumped or no one asked me to a dance or I’ve had PMS or gotten a crappy-ass grade in a class (that last one being a fairly common occurrence), I’ve watched Kevin and Whitney as a sort of therapy, I guess, kind of like digging into a cinematic pint of Ben and Jerry’s.

So it’s no wonder that now, as a twenty-four-year-old woman with an unapologetic sex drive and an unwavering dedication to you-only-live-once, having hot sex with my very own real-life bodyguard is right at the top of my sexual bucket list. I mean, come on.

Not all sex has to be about some kind of deep soul connection—sometimes, it can simply be about making a lifelong sexual fantasy come true.

“Katherine Morgan?” Derek the Bodyguard asked yesterday when I opened the front door of my apartment and beheld his no-nonsense hotness for the first time.

I leaned against the doorjamb and smiled broadly, pleasantly surprised about the gift the universe had just plopped into my lap (or, more accurately, the surprise Sarah’s new boyfriend, Jonas, had just plopped into my lap).

“Yes, I’m Katherine Morgan,” I replied to Derek yesterday, extending my hand and flashing him my most flirtatious smile.

“But please, call me Kat.” I knew a bodyguard would be coming to my house, of course—Jonas had already said as much earlier that morning—but only in my wildest dreams did I imagine he’d look like Derek.

“Miss Morgan,” Derek said, seemingly impervious to my charms. “My name is Derek Something-or-Other, and I’ve been assigned to protect you.” He looked at his phone. “By a Jonas P. Faraday?”

“Yeah. Jonas mentioned he’d be sending someone. Thanks for coming.”

“I’ll be watching over you during the daytime,” Derek continued matter-of-factly. “And my partner, Rodney, will take the night shift.” He motioned across the street. “That’s Rodney over there, just so you know what he looks like.”

I walked out of my apartment and peered across the street in the direction Derek was pointing—and there, sitting in a nondescript sedan, was Father Time.

When Rodney saw me looking at him, he curtly waved, started his engine, and drove away, and I suppressed the urge to laugh with glee that Derek had been the one to show up on my doorstep to take the first shift .

“Come in,” I purred to Derek, brushing past him into my apartment.

“Sure. Just to do a sweep of your surroundings and give you a safety de-briefing. After that, I’ll keep watch from across the street to give you privacy.” His tone was strictly professional—very Kevin-Costner-at-the-beginning-of- The-Bodyguard. Not the least bit flirtatious.

Things looked grim for my chances of singing Whitney’s tune right about then—and honestly I might have dropped the whole thing if it weren’t for what happened next: Derek’s eyes unmistakably darted down to the curve of my breasts in my tight-fitting blouse and then down to my hips in my slim-fitting business skirt and then back up to my lips— at which point they flickered with unmistakable desire.

And that’s when I knew Mr. Professional Bodyguard maybe wasn’t quite as all-business underneath that dark suit as he seemed—and that maybe, just maybe, it was only a matter of time before Derek the Bodyguard would be whispering things like, “No, Kat, I can’t protect you like this” and “Not on my shift” and “I was hired to protect you, not to help you shop” into my ear.

“Come in, Derek,” I said, waltzing back into my apartment from the walkway. “You wanna cup of coffee?” I asked breezily, even though coffee wasn’t at all what I was thinking about.

Derek grinds his hard-on into me and kisses me, jolting me back to the delicious present on my couch.

His hand skims my thigh under my skirt and I widen my legs to let him know I’m not at all shy here, big fella, that this isn’t my first time at the sexy-times-rodeo and he need not be quite so respectful of my vagina (which I’ve noticed he hasn’t even attempted to touch).

Derek reacts to my implicit invitation by floating his hand up toward the increasingly wet crotch of my panties.

Yes. That’s right. Go for it, Bodyguard.

Do it. I’ve got the chorus of Whitney’s song all cued up for you, baby.

But, damn, his hand stops at the inside of my thigh and then trails across my hipbone and around to my ass.

Damn.

I press into him with increased enthusiasm, and—

My cell phone buzzes on the coffee table, repeatedly, with an incoming call.

Crap. I’m supposed to be at work right now, actually.

I had an early breakfast meeting with a client (the owner of a new boutique) about the social media campaign I’m planning for her—and afterwards, I swung by my apartment on my way back to the office “to grab an umbrella.” Or so I said.

Yes, it had started to pour—this is Seattle, after all—but we have plenty of extra umbrellas and plastic ponchos at the office.

What I was actually doing with the whole “I gotta grab an umbrella” ruse was creating an excuse to lure my new bodyguard (who’d been shadowing my every move all morning long) into my apartment to see if I could seduce him into seducing me.

My phone stops buzzing and I refocus my attention onto Derek’s lips.

I kiss him a bit more enthusiastically and he follows my lead, running his hand over my blouse, right over my nipple. Good. That’s good. Come on, Derek. Let me be your Whitney.

I wonder who was calling. Was that my boss?

Or maybe Hannah Banana Montana Milliken?

Or maybe it was Sarah, calling to tell me some new juicy tidbit about her new boyfriend (who supposedly loves her but won’t say the actual words)?

Or maybe, just maybe, it was the boyfriend’s Hottie-McHottie-pants brother, Josh Faraday?

I smile at the thought, even as I’m kissing Derek.

Josh sure didn’t try to hide his attraction to me the night before last at Jonas’ house.

“Don’t worry about me, guys,” Josh yelled to Jonas and Sarah as Jonas barreled to his room with Sarah slung over his shoulder. “I’ll just party the night away with Party Girl with a Hyphen.”

“Oh no, you won’t, Playboy,” I shot back at him. “You’ll have to find another Mickey Mouse roller coaster to ride tonight.”

Of course, I was wildly attracted to him, too—who wouldn’t be?—but I’m not sure how I felt about his whole “Mickey Mouse rollercoaster” analogy. And, regardless, there’s nothing I love better than taking a cocky guy down a peg. It’s kinda my specialty, actually.

I was trying to stun Josh into humbled silence with my little zinger, but Josh wasn’t even remotely fazed.

He swaggered over to me and leaned his lips right into my ear, making the hair on the nape of my neck stand up and my crotch tingle.

“So that’s how we’re gonna play this, huh, Party Girl with a Hyphen?

” he said. “We’re gonna play it cool? Okay, babe, fine with me—we’ll play it however you like,” he whispered, his warm breath teasing my ear.

“But we both know where this is headed. Mmmm.” And with that, he sauntered out of the room, whistling as he went, and never looked back.

I must have stood there for a solid five minutes, my mouth hanging open and my crotch pulsing in my panties. Day-am.

My phone buzzes sharply with a voicemail on the coffee table next to my couch.

Who the heck is trying to reach me so insistently?

Derek’s tongue is swirling around mine and his hard-on against my thigh is becoming urgent.

Well, whoever’s calling, they’ll just have to wait.

I press myself into Derek’s erection, goading him on, and he reacts by kneading my ass with his strong hand.

Hmm. That ass-kneading thing isn’t really working for me, actually.

There’s just no finesse to it. It’s like the dude’s wearing freaking oven mitts.

Or maybe the problem is that Derek just isn’t that great a kisser?