The Has-Been and the Hot Mess - Isabel Jordan Page 0,21
me famous again.”
She shrugged. “If there was any other way, I would do it. But there isn’t. Getting the kind of job you want is sometimes a popularity contest, I’m afraid. But once you get it and knock that movie score out of the park, well, that’s a whole different story. You’ll be able to write your own ticket.”
He let out a sigh like a condemned prisoner who just found out his last appeal had been denied. “Fine. I’ll do it. But I don’t have to like it.”
Where the hell was Mr. “I’ll Be The Best You’ve Ever Had” when she needed him? Kendall managed to hold in her eye roll, but just barely. “I can agree to those terms.”
She held out her hand, and it wasn’t until he grasped it with his own huge, warm, calloused hand that she realized her mistake.
Do. Not. Touch. Him.
It felt too good. Made her forget that he was a grumpy asshole sometimes. Made her forget he was a client. Made her forget her own name.
That’s when his thumb brushed gently over the back of her hand and she almost came right then and there.
Lord help her. If she made it through another day without mounting this man, it’d be a miracle.
Chapter 12
Setting up Jackson’s social media profiles took Kendall about four hours, but by the end of the day, it was totally worth it. He now had a few thousand followers, and the numbers were steadily increasing by the hour. A couple of phone calls to some social media influencers who owed her a few favors, and he’d have hundreds of thousands of new followers by tomorrow.
It took a few more hours to get social media and a quick-and-dirty website done for the animal rescue. Ray, who was a startlingly great photographer, helped her get tons of amazing photos of the ranch and the dogs to include, and a couple of the employees had helped her write up emotional bios for each animal.
And the most popular photo so far?
It was a shot she’d snapped of Jackson with her own phone. One of the dogs had gotten sick in his pen, and Jackson had spent about half an hour cleaning it in the brutally hot sun. Kendall snapped the pic just as he’d lifted the hem of his T-shirt to wipe some sweat off his forehead. Most of his face was visible, but she doubted many of the people liking the photo on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter would notice.
They’d be too busy counting his abs.
There were eight of them.
Kendall knew because she’d not only counted them, but had imagined counting them with her tongue.
Fortunately, he’d been obvious to her unblinking interest in his half-naked torso because he’d been focused on the task at hand, which was to get a little Cairn terrier named Monkey back into a nice, clean pen so he could recover from whatever he’d scarfed up during his yard time.
She also had a picture of Jackson carrying Monkey from the groomer’s tub in the barn back to his pen. He had the dog tucked into the crook of his muscle-y arm like a football and was talking to him in that low, grumbly voice of his while Monkey licked his chin gratefully.
It wasn’t a photo that was as overtly sexy as the ab shot, but this photo was the one that really played merry hell with Kendall’s good intentions. Because at the end of the day, licking clients just wasn’t professional. But that’s what she wanted to do. More than anything.
Jackson had enough money and employees that if he didn’t want to clean pens and bathe dogs, he wouldn’t have to. But he did it. This wasn’t a job for him. It was a calling. And judging by the smile in his eyes when he carried Monkey back to his pen, he loved doing it.
Ultimately, that’s what made Kendall decide to go ahead and buy a new vibrator rather than wait until she was reunited with hers in LA.
So, the moral of the story? A hot man taking care of dogs was even more panty-melting than a hot man showing off his abs. Who knew?
Her ovaries might actually combust if she ever saw him holding a human baby.
She’d barely been able to make eye contact with Jackson at dinner, knowing that a vibrator was probably already on an Amazon truck, headed her way, and that she was going to use it to get off while picturing him taking care of that