Personal Assistant (10 page)

       
Her
body tensed, released in a wave of euphoric bliss, unlike anything she
remembered. It had been a long time since she had fucked anyone. It had been
even longer since she had fucked anyone who knew how to fuck. Jonas was worthy.
He was the yin and yang, alpha and
omega,
her world
began and ended in that moment of bliss.

       
She
awoke to a light smacking on the cheeks of her face.

       
“Frankie.”
He turned her head one way and then the next. “Frankie, wake up.”

       
As
if coming out of a dream she opened her eyes.

       
“Are
you okay?” He was frowning down at her.

       
“I…
mmmm
, I’m better than okay.” Her eyes opened, her head hurt
just a little.
Probably from too much of a rush at once.
“That was…you knocked me out, Jonas.”

       
“I
know,” he winced. “I didn’t realize you had crawled that close to the
headboard.”

       
“What?”
She touched her head and immediately regretted it.

       
“I…you…I
can’t believe I’m actually saying this. You came. And I mean you came hard. You
practically pushed me out of there. When I pushed back in, and I may have been
a little overzealous, but in my defense I’d never felt anything like that
before. Well I pushed, and bam, you just whacked your head on the headboard and
then you were out. You scared me half to death. I thought you broke your neck
or something. You were limp, I mean boneless. I could feel a pulse, but you
wouldn’t answer me. I was about to call for an ambulance.” He looked so
relieved she felt bad for fainting.

       
She
didn’t feel the hit to the head amidst the bliss. She reached up to touch his
cheek. “Did you?”

       
“Frankie,
I’m already ashamed of myself. I didn’t have time to process everything at
once. It took me a minute to realize the extent of what happened.” His face was
a full flush of embarrassment.

       
“No
need to feel that way. I’m fine.
Better than fine.
You
have no idea how much I look forward to feeling the exertion when I wake up in
the morning.”

       
He
shook his head. A slight blush remained on his cheeks. “You’re something else,
Francesca
MacBeth
. I hope I survive this.”

       
He
rolled to his back bringing her with him to rest her head on his chest. His
fingers stroked her hair.

       
“Do
you want me to go to my room?”

       
“No.
Not unless you want to go.” He stopped stroking for just a second and then
continued.

       
“I
don’t think I can move on my own at this moment.” Frankie smiled against his
warm, damp flesh. She inhaled him deeply, all male, all wonderful.

       
“I’d
probably drop you, so maybe you should just stay with me tonight,” he said.
“Just this once.”

One
Week Later…

       
Frankie
sat outside on a chase lounge, reading another of the many scripts, as Jonas
did laps in his pool.

       
“Fran-
kie
.”
He broke her name into
two syllables as he called for her attention. He lifted himself up enough to
cross his arms and rest on the side of the pool near her. “I think I may cheat
today.”

       
She
let the paper drop just enough to peer at him over the top of it. She wasn’t
sure what he had to cheat on.

       
“Do
you think I should?” He plopped his chin on his arms and looked at her. The sun
was to his back, shining down on him. Soon it would be too cold, even in
California to get in a normal pool, of course, his was heated.

       
“I
don’t know. I mean are we talking about cheating on your SAT’s, or on your
wife?” She knew he couldn’t see her face and her sunglasses allowed her even
more privacy as they had this interesting exchange.

       
“First,
I doubt I would need to cheat on the SAT’s, because despite the fact that I
only attended college for a year, I am a fairly bright lad when I put my mind
to it.” He glared at her.

       
She
smiled behind the paper and waited.

       
“Second,
you’re the closest thing I have to a wife, Frankie, and since you schedule my
life I don’t see how I could cheat on you.” He lifted his head up suddenly as
if catching himself. “Not that I’m the kind of guy who cheats…on wives…or…”

       
“So
then you want to cheat with another assistant? Let someone else handle your
schedule?” she teased. He had really fumbled himself into a conversation she
was sure he had not planned. Many of their conversations seemed rehearsed in
his head before he began them. Most of them were business related or sex
related. This was a rare glimpse of him, just being him.

       
“How
did this…I really only wanted to ask if you wanted to get a burger.” He pushed
off the pool and sank into the water.

       
Frankie
sat the script aside and walked over to where he was. She didn’t stand close
enough that he could grab her or else she might end up in the pool again. She
took the phone out just in case she needed to toss it aside.

       
He
resurfaced.

       
“I’d
love to,” she said. “I’ll grab your towel.”

       
Waiting
on the man hand and foot was not really her job, but she didn’t mind doing it.
Sometimes it gave her something to do. They spent a lot of time in the same
house, but not a lot of time together. She spent a lot of time reading. He
spent a lot of time re-reading. Lately, he had spent a lot of time with the
script for the first film. He was going to need to bulk up for the movie, but
he was trying to keep himself at his current weight for award season. She
tucked her phone, the one she was given for this
job,
into the pocket she had sewn on the inside of her shorts. Her shirt covered the
top of them, and the phone was small, thin, and sleek enough she didn’t have to
worry about it looking bulky. She could have put it in her pocket, but she
never wanted to risk anyone picking it out, or worse, it falling out.

       
She
returned with his towel and opened it up. As he stepped into it he said, “I
would never cheat on you with another assistant.”

       
She
had to laugh.

       
She
insisted on driving her car because she knew his vehicles, any one of them,
would alert people to his presence. If he wanted to eat in LA or some other
celebrity hot spot she would gladly ride along, but he wanted to go to her
favorite place and get the burger he had coveted since the first time.

       
“This
car is killing me,” he said as he shifted in the seat.

       
“I’ve
had this thing since my first year in college.” Frankie looked at the biggest
indication of her vehicle’s age, the electronic console, and internally winced.
Okay so it was old. So what, it was paid for. Unlike superstars, teachers
didn’t get paid enough to change cars on a whim.

       
“I
didn’t think you were that old, maybe I need to re-do my math.” He slid his
hand on the dashboard and then blew on it to indicate dust.

       
“Hey!”
Frankie said offended. “It’s old, but it’s clean.”

       
“It’s
cramped up in here. How could you ever have sex in this car?” He pressed back
again in the seat and tried to adjust it. “There is barely enough room for my
legs in here.”

       
“For
starters, I have never had sex in this car. Second, we could have ate anywhere
in LA. You wanted to eat here. This is my neighborhood. I am not losing it to a
bunch of famous people under the age of fifty and paparazzi.” She took her eyes
away from the road to glare at him.

       
He
crossed his arms and pushed out his lower lip in a pout.
What a spoiled brat!

       
Seeing
that his over exaggeration was getting him nowhere, he tried for empathy. 
“I can’t help that I’m famous, Frankie.”

       
“I
know.
You poor baby.
You want your fans and you want
your privacy, too,” she said and patted him on the knee.

       
“Exactly.”

       
“And
as it is my job to try to give you everything you want, sir. You are stuck in
this vehicle. The simple fact is, when you want to go somewhere unnoticed, you
have to drive something modest,” she quipped.

       
“Modest, not ancient.”
He gripped the hand she had left
unconsciously on his knee and brought it to his lips for a kiss.

       
She
pulled her hand from his and he actually did pout.

       
“Sir,
until you decide to buy a modest mode of transportation you can drive, we can
go to all the places you draw attention at in your cars. Until then, consider
this a history lesson.”

       
Frankie
looked at him. He was looking at her at with a look of appreciation. An
expression she now recognized and saw often on his face. A look she loved to
see. A simple gesture that made her panties wet and increased her drive to
excel in her work efforts all at the same time.

       
They
pulled into a parking spot and got out. The breeze was cool on her skin. The
aromas of the restaurant permeated her nose. It pulled them both, silently
toward the building. He found them a table as she went inside to place the
order.

       
Frankie
returned with a tray full of food and sat it on the table.

       
“Oh,
that looks so good.” He practically drooled. He grabbed his burger and took a
bite. The bliss in his expression made her wonder why he would torture himself
like this in order to fit into a tux that looked like a million other tuxedos
from what she could tell. Did he really think it made that much difference?

       
She
chomped on a French-fry and watched him devour the sandwich. The burgers were
already cut in half, so it was easy to pick up half of hers and place it on his
plate. She didn’t need to eat the whole thing anyways and rarely did. Normally,
Shay would be there to split it with. Shay, the friend she had not had a lot of
time to see since taking this job.

       
“What?”
he asked around a bite.

       
“I
was just thinking about Shay. I mean I’m used to seeing her almost every day
and now…”

       
“I’m
hogging all your time.” He nodded as he picked up his drink.

       
“It’s
not like that.” Frankie tried to assure him.

       
“It’s
exactly like that.” He winked. “I’m selfish. I know this. I’ve been told this
by every woman in my life, my family members included.”

       
“You’re not selfish…well…not all the time.”
Frankie couldn’t
think of any time out of the bedroom he wasn’t selfish, but in the bedroom he
was the most unselfish man she knew.

       
“That’s
new.” He sighed. “I used to be pretty selfish there, too.”

       
“What?
Where?”
She could feel the heat crawl up her neck and
over her face.

       
“Look
at you blushing,” he teased. “You know what, and where.”

       
“Yeah right.”
As much as she liked to think they shared
something special, she was sure any woman who flipped through countless
magazines to see his face, was there in line for the first showing of any of
his films, had recorded his interviews on
Tivo
or
DVR, who thought the sun rose and set on his abs would certainly feel the same
thunder she felt in the bedroom.

       
“Seriously.”
He shrugged, “I don’t know what other people
feel when they have sex with someone. I know what I feel. I know that what we
do is not what I normally did. I heard that song the other day, I think it’s by
Kings of Leon,
Sex is on Fire
.
Anyways, I picked up the
ipod
on the counter…”

       
“That’s
where it went.” Frankie worried she had lost her music.

       
“Anyways,”
he said. Annoyed she had interrupted him. “And your image popped into my mind.
I spent half the run thinking about my role in this upcoming movie and the
other half about undressing you.”

       
“I’ll
adjust my playlists then.” She laughed. He didn’t think it was funny. He looked
at her for a very long and intense moment.

       
“Aside
from my family, I’ve never loved anyone but me. I have no idea what it is like
to do what my characters have done. It’s easy for me to pretend, at the base of
that emotion is sex and I can imagine the moments leading up to it, the actual
act, the afterglow or lack thereof. I can make myself cry if I think about
losing my family or a close friend. I can act like I understand what my
brother-in-law felt on his wedding day. You should have seen how happy he was
to marry my sister. But I don’t know what that feels like. I’ve never
romantically loved anyone, ever.”

       
The
speech sounded very much like a warning to her. “I hope one day you will.”

       
“Have
you ever been in love, Frankie?” He pulled the cup with his fingers causing it
to rotate on its base. She wondered if he was nervous. This was the most
personal conversation they had had.

       
“Yes,”
she shrugged.
“Twice.”

       
“And?”

       
“I
don’t regret it.” Feeling the personal part of the conversation was beginning
to shift to her she stood up and grabbed the plates.

       
“I’m
jealous. I thought I was the only man you adored.” His expression was a new
one, somewhere between sincere and playful. She could tell he was trying for
one and avoiding the other. She just couldn’t figure out which was which.

       
Frankie
smiled, she could feel her cheeks blush, but she had to say it. “You are the
only man I’ve adored since you played a psychiatric patient tortured by
aliens.”

       
“That
was years ago.” He laughed. She liked to make him laugh.

       
“I
know.”

       
She
started walking away from the table with the tray in her hands and heard him
say, “I guess I’ve got that going for me.”

       
Danger.
The more time they spent like this the more danger
she would be in of losing her heart to him for real. Not just in her fantasies.

A
week later…

       
Frankie
felt the hand on her ass and the push upward as she tried, again, to get her
foot on the ledge of the rock.

       
“Frankie,
you are killing me here. I can’t get any higher. You have to pull yourself up,”
he groaned.

       
“What
do you think I’m trying to do here?” She was exhausted. Her arms were spent.
Her legs tired. She didn’t want to climb this damn thing, but he insisted.

       
“Besides
break my arm?” he grumbled.

       
She
was growing angry and it apparently gave her enough incentive to launch that
foot one more time and finally, it gripped the ledge. She pulled herself upward
and could hear him moving behind her, quickly, easily, until they were both at
the top.