Madam of the House
Harlequin NEXT
ISBN: 0-373-88136-3
June 2007

“Curb appeal only goes so far.”

Oh, man. These guys definitely had curb appeal.

Half-dressed and not a single one a day over twenty-five, the men that littered Cecilia’s finished basement were the stuff of fantasies. Draped over sofas and chairs, shooting pool, leaning against the bar. Tanned, muscular, sweaty.

Mercy. It was Beefcake City, and she was the mayor.

Close your mouth, her cool side whispered. Don’t drool.

Jake, looking crisp and business-like in a dark gray Armani Exchange coat and black pants, spotted her from across the room. In slow motion—she would have sworn it was slow motion!—he came toward her. He looked yummy enough to serve on a plate.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said.

He couldn’t possibly.

“Is it that obvious?” she said.

“They’re a little rough.”

“Are they?” She sucked in a breath.

“Most of them came straight from work. But once we clean them up a bit, they’ll look a lot better.”

Oh, that kind of rough.

“Uh-huh.” She muttered, thinking it wasn’t possible that they could look any better.

Jake snapped his fingers in front of her eyes. “You okay? Are you disappointed?”

She scanned the yards and yards of tanned flesh and muscle, punctuated by the occasional tattoo, and she said, “Jake, you’re my hero.”

#

An hour later, however, after walking amongst them, she understood what Jake had meant when he said “rough.”

These guys were far from the clean, educated, smooth-talking American Gigolos she’d expected. Richard Gere, they were not.

They didn’t smell good, they didn’t put a lot of stock into personal hygiene, and they didn’t speak three languages. In fact, they barely spoke English.

She’d been “dude”-ed about a hundred times, had endured a multitude of bodily noises that had all the guys cracking up, and Jake had to break up more than one shoving match that broke out when a discussion about the trade of a certain Philadelphia Eagles’ running back turned ugly.

Cecilia watched them for a while, like Dian Fossey watched the gorillas, taking copious notes on their behavior and trying to figure out what, if anything, their primitive gestures meant.

Sadly, she realized, these boys did not have what it took to seduce a group of worldly, cultured women. Everyone knew that for “older” women, sex appeal started with the mind.

She caught a glance at Jake’s butt as he bent over to pick up a beer bottle.

Okay, maybe it didn’t quite start with the mind, but cerebral stimulation was definitely an important element.

When they’d all gone, Cecilia sank back into the couch and covered her face with her hands. “Maybe we should just forget the whole thing.”

Jake sat down beside her and draped an arm over her shoulder. The intoxicating scent of cologne rich with balsam and sandalwood surrounded them, a welcome change to some of the odors she’d recently encountered.

The smell cocooned her in the illusion that there was someone else who could take charge, here. A manly man. A knight on a white steed. A father-figure who could make it all better.

But there wasn’t. There was only a man who’d been merely a boy just yesterday. This was all on her.

“I’m not going to tell you what to do,” Jake said, as if to underscore her thoughts. “But the guys are pretty psyched up about the idea of this thing. All that money. Plus, you know, it’s sort of a fantasy…”

“What, to be fondled by a bunch of peri-menopausal women?”

Jake grinned. “To get paid for sex.”

“Oh.”

“Listen, they’re more than willing to do this. They just need a little polishing.”

“A little?” She shook her head. “One of them peed in the potted palm.”

“Frat boy.” Jake shook his head. “I used to be one of those, just four short years ago. And look at me now.”

“Oh, God.” He had to remind her he was only twenty-five. She removed his arm from her shoulder.

What in the hell was she going to do?

“Listen,” Jake said. “We can do this. I’ll help you.”

She looked at him as if he were insane.

“We can,” he insisted.

“They just…They need so much work.”

“So, we’ll teach them how to be good at this.”

She looked at him, horrified.

His eyes grew wide. “No! No, I didn’t mean the…uh…the sex thing. I’m sure they know how to do that part. I mean the other stuff. Speaking. Dressing.”

“What, like gigolo charm school?”

He smiled. “Right. Exactly.”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on. You’re the classiest lady I know. All you have to do is give them a quick lesson.”

She buried her face in her hands. “We are so going to burn in hell for this.”

“Well then, I guess we’d better make it worth it.”

She took a deep breath. “All right. If we’re going to pull this off, here’s what we need to do…”