about that? Is that better?
“Loads!” Lilliana said out loud and laughed when she read the next line.
Yeah, I thought so too! As I was saying…I found your ad purely by accident and was intrigued. I would love to meet you. But according to your ad, I have to figure out what BSA stands for, right?
Heck, even if he guessed wrong, at this point Lilliana was willing to overlook that part, this one sounded like a winner. She was left with her mouth wide open as she finished reading the e-mail.
At first I thought…hmmm? What could it be? Bright Shiny Apples? Then I thought that didn’t make any sense! Okay how about Big Sweet Apples? No? What about Bodacious Succulent Apples? Oh hell. Why did I try and figure this out on an empty stomach? Well, let me go out on a limb here…Big Spankable Ass? If any of the answers are correct call me. My phone number is 555-0860. But even if I’m wrong, call me. Please:)
~Josh
Oh my. He’d answered right. Lilliana had been so busy cracking up at his apple answers that she was totally left speechless when she read the right answer. How in the world did he guess? Her lunchtime conversation with Lee surfaced in her mind and she remembered him saying how many folks were into spankings in Chicago! Was this Josh one of them? How else would he have come up with big spankable ass?
She logged off the ’net but not before she’d jotted down his phone number. She quickly went to her side table, picked up the cordless phone, and punched in his phone number, not wanting to give herself time to think and chicken out. Yes, he’d find out her number if he had caller ID, but nothing else, no address or anything like that. She couldn’t be found in the reverse directory. As the phone rang, the nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach increased to the point that she felt physically sick and was tempted to hang the phone up and forget the whole thing until she heard a deep voice answer.
“Hello, this is Josh. I’m not in at the moment. Leave a message. Thanks!”
She almost laughed out loud in relief. Okay, so it wasn’t meant to be. No way was she going to leave a message. She hung up the phone. The sick feeling in her stomach receded as she lay back against the pillows on her bed.
She turned and curled around the soft body pillow and looked out the large window in her bedroom. What in the world had convinced her to take out that ad in the first place? Loneliness and stupidity were an ugly combination.
She stared out the window, at the pretty lit-up garden in the backyard of the mansion that the cottage belonged to. A lone tear escaped and fell down her cheek. Lilliana smiled a small half-smile and closed her eyes and eventually fell asleep.
5
Josh was too impatient to wait for the elevator and instead took the stairs two at a time until he got to the sectioned-off area that led to his large, open bay loft. He wanted to know if Lilliana had responded to his e-mail, but after work his mother had decided she needed him to drive out to her home, way out in Winnetka, to help her move her sofa.
Josh had reluctantly driven out and, with more speed than he’d thought humanly possible, had helped her rearrange two rooms of furniture, listened to her lament about how his oldest brother Landon rarely came to visit anymore, among a host of other complaints such as the recently released scientific data stating that as a man entered his thirties, his sperm count was greatly reduced.
He’d moved the furniture, commiserated with her about Landon, and reassured her that his sperm count wasn’t in jeopardy, before he’d finally left and raced home, making it by ten o’clock.
After he’d let himself into his loft, he headed toward the kitchen and the cold beer in the fridge. He tossed his keys on the center butcher block table and grabbed a beer before going to his computer in his den.
The loft was split-level and over 3,000 square feet, smack in the middle of the Gold Coast near the lake. He’d paid the hefty, half mil fee for the loft with the money from one of his more lucrative commissions, with no help from his uncle.
Joshua was grateful for all that Allen had done for him, but at times he felt uneasy about accepting the handouts, as his brother Landon liked to call them. Although he disagreed with Landon and didn’t see them as handouts, he knew his brother said it to screw with him.
He worked hard and was good at what he did, and in his time with the firm, he’d added to their reputation as aggressive brokers who knew how to generate profit.
Besides that, their father had helped make the firm what it was today, as their uncle was always quick to acknowledge, and if he were still around things would be…different.
Shit. No use thinking about what could be and why the hell it wasn’t. His father wasn’t around. End of subject. Hadn’t been since he was a kid and there was no use rolling down that particular memory lane. Right now he was curious about whether or not the sexy admin assistant had answered his e-mail, and done with thinking about painful memories best left in the past.
Once inside his den he flicked on the overhead track lights, picked up the small remote on the edge of the desk and pressed a button. Music filled the entire loft from hidden speakers in each room. With the heart-pounding lyrics and bass of Lenny Kravitz to pump him up, he sat down at his desk and touched one of the keys on his wireless keyboard. His large screen filled with his home page on the Internet within seconds.
He saw the envelope icon telling him he had mail and clicked on it, searching for one from Lilliana Michaels. Within minutes of reading junk mail, and stupid forwards he’d patiently asked his mother to stop sending him that demanded he forward the stupid forward to ten people in the next ten minutes…he stifled the feelings of acute disappointment when he didn’t see an e-mail from her.
Maybe someone else had already answered the ad and he’d been too late. Or maybe she’d actually called him. His glance fell to his cordless phone that set on his desk. He picked it up and pressed the dial tone, but when he didn’t hear the static tone that indicated he had a voice mail, he pressed the end button. Then he noted that he had several new caller ID notifications and out of curiosity he scrolled down and stopped and smiled.
L. Michaels. 555-1914.
Hot damn. She’d called.
Josh sat back in his desk chair and swiveled around with his fingers steepled together. Should he wait to see if she’d call him back? He looked over at the grandfather clock in the corner. It was already 10:15. Maybe she’d think it was too late to call. Or maybe she’d chickened out and decided not to go through with it.
He doubted that. No way could someone come up with an ad asking a man if he knew what to do with a big spankable ass and be afraid to leave a message. Or would she? Maybe someone put her up to it, or it was all a joke.
Best way to find out was to call her and see if she was all bluff or if she was serious. He quickly pressed the button for last call return and ignored the unsettled feeling in his stomach as he waited for her to answer the phone.
The jarring of the phone woke Lilliana out of a light doze and after she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, she answered with a croaky, “’ello.”
“Hello, is this L. Michaels?” a man asked in a voice so deep and sexy, Lilliana woke up completely and bumped her head against her wrought iron headboard in her haste to sit up.
“Ouch!” she said and rubbed her head.
