Lady Be Good Read Online Free PDF

taking candy from a baby.
    As Emma watched those white teeth flash in his tanned face, she knew she’d done it. She had a dreadful temper, but she’d worked hard to control it, and it hadn’t gotten the best of her for years.
    She fumbled for her beer and took a deep swallow as she tried to recover, but the fact that she was stark naked made it difficult. She was accustomed to dealing with rebellious students, unreasonable parents, demanding faculty members, and an overworked maintenance staff. How had she let one man upset her so easily?
    As she tried to muster her dignity, she grew conscious of the slide of water over her skin. An unbridled streak of sensuality reared its silky head. She fiercely repressed it as she set the bottle back down and spoke more sharply than necessary. “Now that we have that settled, I’d like you to have the name of a clean tattoo parlor for me by tomorrow afternoon.”
    He regarded her with the bland expression of the mentally impaired. Physically, however, there was nothing wrong with him. Sunlight flickered across shoulders that were strong and powerful. Without his Stetson, she could see that his blue-black hair was thick and a bit curly, like a dark archangel’s. If a Renaissance sculptor had ever gotten the urge to chisel a Texas cowboy into the frieze of a cathedral, Kenny Traveler would have been his man.
    “Search services are extra,” he said.
    “What do you mean? Extra what?”
    “Money. That fifty dollars a day you’re paying me doesn’t cover search services.”
    “You consider finding a tattoo parlor a search service?”
    “Yes, ma’am, I do.”
    She’d known his fee was too good to be true. “Exactly what does the fifty dollars cover?”
    “Driving, mainly. As I said, finding tattoo parlors is extra. I also don’t do hair and manicures.”
    “I didn’t ask you to—”
    “Massage is included in the fifty. But, ’course, you know that.”
    “Mas—”
    “Suitcase hauling only once a day. Any more than that’ll cost you an extra thousand bucks. Pointing out the sights is included in the base fee, but if I have to do any Spanish translation for you, I’ll need to charge you by the hour. As for sex, that’s an additional fifty dollars. Does that seem fair?”
    She stared at him and wondered if she’d somehow gotten water in her ears.
    He shook his head. “No, you’re right. It’s the off season, so I need to discount. Tell you what. Let’s make it thirty for sex, and that’ll cover the whole night, not just one time, you understand. A budget traveler like yourself will have to agree you won’t find a better rate than that.”
    Slowly her tongue came unglued from the roof of her mouth. “Sex?”
    “The whole night for thirty dollars.” He propped his elbows on the deck. “Lately I been thinkin’ about how unfair that is. A woman can charge hundreds of dollars for an entire night, but a man—Hell, it’s discrimination, is what it is. I swear, lately I been thinkin’ about filing a complaint with the EEOC.”
    She couldn’t take her eyes from him. She was both repulsed and strangely fascinated. “Women pay to have sex with you?”
    He regarded her as if she were the slow-witted one. “You hired an escort service.”
    “I thought I hired a driver.”
    “And a guide. An escort . It’s the same thing. Didn’t Francesca explain to you about drivers and escort services?”
    “Apparently not,” she managed.
    He shook his head. “I’m going to have to talk to her about this. She should have taken into consideration the fact that you don’t understand how things work over here. Now I’ve been put in an awkward position. I don’t like discussing money with my clients. What I mainly like to talk about is pleasure.”
    The way he lingered over that last word—his Texas drawl stroking it with slow molasses—sent a shiver up her spine.
    Suddenly, without any conscious direction, her mind began to race. Sex for hire? Had she just been given the