The Distraction (Body Work Trilogy, Band 2) - Softcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Sierra Kincade, author of the Body Work trilogy, including The Masseuse, lives in the Midwest with her husband and son. When she’s not writing naughty books, she loves eating chocolate cupcakes, binge-watching cable series, and singing loudly in the car. She wholeheartedly believes that love stories are real, and you should never choose a partner who doesn’t make you laugh.

Sierra Kincade, author of the Body Work trilogy, including The Masseuse, lives in the Midwest with her husband and son. When she’s not writing naughty books, she loves eating chocolate cupcakes, binge-watching cable series, and singing loudly in the car. She wholeheartedly believes that love stories are real, and you should never choose a partner who doesn’t make you laugh.

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The Body Work Trilogy

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A huge thank-you to my agents Joanna MacKenzie, Danielle Egan Miller, and Abby Saul. I am doing what I love because of you and I am so proud to have you standing by my side. I am ever grateful for the kindness and support of Leis Pederson, editor extraordinaire, and Jessica Brock, my super-cool publicist. Go Team Masseuse! Cupcakes all around!

A special thank-you to my most excellent beta readers: Deanna, who nicely lets me know when she trips in plot holes so that I can fix them; Courtney, who gives Alec the best legal advice; and Katie, who is the master of backing up a “this doesn’t work” with a “but this does!” I love you guys.

And always, thank you to my husband, who knows me better than anyone and likes me anyway. I love you.

One

I closed my eyes, swaying my hips to the hard hit of the bass. The music flowed through me, a stimulant, urging my heart to keep time. My hips swung right, paused, and I reached down one sweat-slicked leg to drag my fingers seductively up my calf. Arching my back, my pelvis made one slow, tempting circle that defied the fast rhythm, and I placed both open hands on my stomach. I was already drenched, and the thin fabric dragged across my skin as I pulled it up.

“Slower,” commanded Jayne. Her voice was raspy, like a moan. Everything about that woman oozed sex. I did as she said because I wanted her approval. I wanted to be her.

My hips made a figure eight as I inched my shirt up to my bra line. My stomach was hard and flat, conditioned by weeks of workouts, but my legs were already trembling.

“Good,” she said. “One hand on the pole. Easy. Grab it like a cock.”

I bit my lower lip to stifle the giggle, but the way she said cock made my groin ache. It had been too long since I’d had what I wanted, what I needed. The hard, insistent pressure pushing into me, filling me, bringing me to the edge of my sanity with powerful thrusts.

I’d had to find another way to keep my desire under control.

Slowly, without opening my eyes, I felt for the erect pole and gripped it with just enough pressure, just as she’d taught me. It was slick, too wide for me to close my fingers around.

“Show me what you’re going to do to me,” Jayne said. She was farther away now, behind me, evaluating my every move.

I spread my legs wide and bent my knees. Holding on with only one hand, I dropped nearly to the floor, the pole sliding through my grasp. I rose then, feeling the cool metal brush high on my inside thighs.

“Make me want you,” said Jayne. “Make me so hot I can’t keep my hands off you.”

Dark eyes appeared behind my closed lids. A flash of broad, muscular shoulders. A drop of perspiration sliding down the ridges of hard, washboard abs. Desire pooled deep inside me, lapping against the surface of my womb with each swivel of my hips.

“Anna,” he whispered. “Come for me.” I could still hear his voice.

I hooked one knee around the pole, feeling a wave of self-consciousness as I pushed off with my opposite foot, spinning in a slow circle to my knees.

“There are some hot bitches in this room tonight!” shouted Jayne, suddenly enthusiastic.

Cheers erupted around me. I opened my eyes, a huge grin spreading across my face as Jayne shut down the stereo. Beside me, a woman in her forties with some brand-new silicone laughed hysterically as her friend, easily twice her weight, tried to pull herself out of the splits. Near the front, two college girls pulled their tank tops back on over their sports bras. A woman who was easily sixty was still dancing around one of the ten poles that had been evenly spaced around the room.

Strip-aerobics had become my new Missing Alec Management Plan. It didn’t make me feel half as sexy as he could, but it worked to take some of the edge off.

I stood, and jolted upright as someone slapped my ass.

“Girl, you should seriously consider a dancing career.” Jayne planted her fist on one cocked hip and grinned. She looked like a stripper: fake eyelashes, heels that could have been murder weapons, and boobs the size of my head. It was impossible to tell how old she was under all that makeup. She was wearing a purple pleather bodysuit tonight, one of her many exciting wardrobe choices for the pole dancing class she taught twice a week at the gym.

My face lit up. I twisted my rib-length black hair into a wet knot at the back of my head with a band from around my wrist.

“You think?”

“Totally,” she said. “I can get you an audition if you’re interested.” Her brows wiggled.

I laughed. “Thanks, but that’s okay. I’m not sure my boyfriend would love the idea of other men watching me take off my clothes.”

My smile faltered. I still called Alec my boyfriend, but I hadn’t seen him in almost three months. Eleven weeks and four days to be exact. I’d written to him, but he hadn’t written back. He hadn’t called either. My dad’s friend on the Tampa Police Force had said this was because he couldn’t, that the FBI had locked down his communications with the outside until they could build a case against Maxim Stein. I hoped this was true. All that I had to hold on to was a promise I’d made the night before his arrest. That I’d wait for him, no matter what.

“Boyfriends.” Jayne rolled her eyes. “Dance with me, and you’d have a new lover every night.”

I giggled as she hiked a leg up my thigh and attempted to treat me like the pole I’d spent the last hour grinding against.

“Fine,” she pouted. “If you change your mind . . .”

“I know where to find you,” I said. “Thanks for the class, Jayne.”

A couple of ladies gave me high fives on our way out the door. I loved this class, one of the many perks the gym owner had offered me after I’d started offering massages here six weeks ago. I’d signed up after trying to burn off my sexual frustration on the elliptical trainer, and I hadn’t been sorry. Now I was toned, hot, and had moves. I hoped they were appreciated when Alec got out of jail.

“I still don’t see why they black out the windows.”

I smirked and turned toward the frustrated voice originating behind me. Trevor Marshall may have worked in advertising, but he was built like a runner, which is exactly what he’d spent the last hour doing in the main equipment room of the gym. He was tall and lean, with long pronounced muscles that I had the privilege of digging my thumbs into every other Wednesday, in the massage room at the gym. He ran a towel over his sweaty face, revealing a light smattering of freckles across his nose, and scrubbed at his blond hair that had turned dark with sweat. He was handsome, there was no denying it, and the attraction stirred inside of me as it always did when I saw him.

Attraction, but not lust.

“Because freaks like you would fall off their treadmills trying to watch,” I told him. “It’s a liability issue.”

“Seems more like a killer marketing strategy.” He smiled, and his gleaming green eyes dipped, just for a flash, to check out the damp tank top and shorts that clung to my curves. “And as an aside, I’m not sure you’re allowed to call paying customers freaks.”

“On the job,” I specified. “We’re not in session, so I’m allowed to call you whatever I want.”

His gaze...