Tapping The Billionaire (Bad Boy Billionaires #1) (12 page)

TAPRoseNEXT (2:30PM): There’s another reason I’m nervous.

BAD_Ruck (2:31PM): Okay…

BAD_Ruck (2:32PM): Are you going to freely give this reason or is this an invitation to pry?

TAPRoseNEXT (2:33PM): Ugh…

BAD_Ruck (2:34PM): Do you have a foot fetish you’re trying to hide?

TAPRoseNEXT (2:34PM): No. I don’t even like my own feet, much less anyone else’s.

BAD_Ruck (2:35PM): An ex-boyfriend’s name tattooed across your lower back?

TAPRoseNEXT (2:35PM): I do not have a tramp stamp!

BAD_Ruck (2:36PM): Hairy back moles?

TAPRoseNEXT (2:36PM): I’m a lady, Ruck. I’m smooth everywhere.

BAD_Ruck (2:37PM): Damn, Rose. Stop talking dirty to me. We’re trying to talk you off the ledge, remember? Not push me out onto it.

TAPRoseNEXT (2:40PM): I’m a virgin.

BAD_Ruck (2:41PM): An anal virgin?

TAPRoseNEXT (2:42PM): No. A certified, my-pussy-has-never-been-penetrated virgin.

BAD_Ruck (2:44PM): Jesus.

TAPRoseNEXT (2:45PM): That’s sweet, but we don’t have time to pray right now.

For what seemed like an hour, I watched the text box bubbles move as he gathered a response.

BAD_Ruck (2:48PM): This scenario deserves a prayer. Hell, it deserves an airplane banner with the words, “Get your shit together, men, because dreams can come true. There are still gorgeous, sexy, intelligent women out there who are saving themselves for the right guy.” Christ, I think you might be the last twenty-something virgin in New York.

The last twenty-something virgin in NYC?
Gah.
That did
not
make me feel better. That made me feel a hell of a lot worse. I sounded pathetic.

TAPRoseNEXT (2:50PM): That’s one crazy long banner. And thanks for the vote of confidence. I feel even worse about it now. I’m not a total prude, by the way. I’ve been with men. I know what a penis feels like in my mouth. I’ve just yet to find the right penis I deem worthy of sex.

BAD_Ruck (2:51PM): You’re killing me right now. Do you even realize how rare you are, Rose?

Now, I do.
I was the last twenty-something virgin in New York! I might as well have offered up my vagina to the Museum of Natural History. Surely, it would be shown in the fossils display. I could already picture it, right beside Tyrannosaurus Rex’s teeth.

The Last Virginal Vagina in New York.

Georgia Cummings 1990-2080

Died happily in her Chelsea apartment, surrounded by all sixteen of her tabby cats.

TAPRoseNEXT (2:53PM): Yeah, I’m the last single virgin in NYC. I might as well start stocking up on cat food because my future is looking very glum at the moment.

BAD_Ruck (2:54PM): Rose. Listen to me. This is not a bad thing. You’re funny, intelligent, and obviously beautiful. And you’re confident enough to know what you want and how you want it. Your confidence and self-respect are sexy as hell.

TAPRoseNEXT (2:54PM): Well, when you put it that way, I sound really awesome.

BAD_Ruck (2:55PM): Because you are. So, tell me why your sexual history is even factoring as a problem in your mind?

TAPRoseNEXT (2:57PM): My experiences in telling a guy I’m a virgin have never ended well.

The reactions I received were not usually great. I either became a challenge, where getting into my pants became their sole purpose in life, or treated like some pariah, as if my virginity was a problem that needed a solution. Sometimes, I wondered if it would be easier telling a guy I had crabs.

BAD_Ruck (2:58PM): I can imagine. Most of us are just grunting cavemen.

TAPRoseNEXT (2:59PM): Exactly. And I can’t help but wonder what would happen if I told this guy I’m a virgin. He has potential. He could end up being more than just one date. I’m just worried if I tell him, I’ll end up being a challenge instead of something more.

Wow. Even I was surprised by that response. Did Kline Brooks really have the potential to be something more?

BAD_Ruck (3:01PM): If he’s worth your time, he won’t see you as a challenge. Of course, he’s going to be silently thanking God you’re willing to give him the time of day, but he won’t make a one-eighty and just focus on trying to get in your pants. And from what you’ve told me, he doesn’t seem half bad. He apparently knows how to separate his personal life from business. And he doesn’t have a reputation of screwing all of the women in your office. This isn’t the New York norm.

Everything he said was true. Kline’s track record was a good one. He wasn’t plastered all over Page Six with a different woman on his arm. He wasn’t known as some playboy. He was just Kline—handsome, attractive, and all-business Kline Brooks. Which only made me more curious what he was like outside of the office.

TAPRoseNEXT (3:04PM): So, let’s just act like you’re him for a second. When would you want the whole “I’m a virgin” bomb to be dropped?

BAD_Ruck (3:05PM): Before it got to the point where our clothes are off and I’m sliding a condom on.

TAPRoseNEXT (3:05PM): LOL. Obviously.

BAD_Ruck (3:07PM): If you’re asking me when to bring it up…I don’t really have an answer for you. It should come up organically. You know how dates go. Eventually, the whole sex topic does come up. Your being a virgin isn’t a fucking crime, so don’t feel like you have to confess it the second the date starts.

TAPRoseNEXT (3:07PM): Good point.

BAD_Ruck (3:08PM): Feel better?

TAPRoseNEXT (3:08PM): Consider me officially off the ledge.

BAD_Ruck (3:09PM): Fantastic. Good luck tonight.

TAPRoseNEXT (3:10PM): Thanks, Ruck. Enjoy your date with whomever the lucky woman may be.

BAD_Ruck (3:11PM): Dirty talk and a compliment in one convo? You’re too good to me. And listen…

TAPRoseNEXT (3:12PM): LOL. Yeah?

BAD_Ruck (3:12PM): If all this advice turns out to be shit, I might be able to help you out with the cat acquirement. I know a guy.

TAPRoseNEXT (3:13PM): And that’s my cue to officially end this convo. Bye, Ruck.

BAD_Ruck (3:12PM): Bye, Rose.

I hopped off the subway way uptown, and instead of heading to my apartment, my legs strode for the one place that always helped take my mind off things. It was a quarter after three. I had four hours to get my hair done, get ready, and meet Kline at the event.

If there was one thing I was good at, it was choosing a kick-ass hair color to suit my mood.

And if there was one thing Betty, my hair stylist, was good at, it was fitting me in last minute. She was a genius when it came to color and cut. If I told her blonde, she’d find the perfect shade to match my skin tone and have me trimmed, dyed, and out the door within two hours.

Hmm… From red to blonde? That might be the best idea I’ve had all day.

“N
ervous.” I shook my head. “I can’t believe I’m fucking nervous.”

I guess Walter
was
having an effect on my life like my mother had predicted. Although, I highly doubted me talking to myself was what she’d had in mind.

That was what this was, though. It had to be. The illusion of someone being there,
listening
, and fooling me into saying all of my rambling thoughts out loud rather than reciting them internally.

Long and unkempt, his whiskers flowed freely from beneath his nose, and in keeping with his old man status, stuck out haphazardly from his kitty eyebrows. His white-rimmed eyes rooted me to the spot with their contempt, and the subtle stripes in his fur did nothing to soften his appearance.

“This is your fault,” I told him, his wolflike ears mocking me with every word.

One uninterested lick of his lips is all he gave me in return.

“What? Nothing to say? No support?”

He licked his paw and wiped his face before turning abruptly and sauntering out of the room, holding his tail pointedly straight in the cat version of a middle finger salute.

“Thanks for nothing, asshole,” I shouted after him.

Jesus.

I shook my head as I stepped in front of the mirror to adjust my tie. This was a whole new level of low. Not only was I talking to the fucking cat; I was
yelling
at him.

Tonight had my stomach on edge in a way it hadn’t been since I’d given Tara Wallowitz my first kiss behind the gym after our seventh-grade dance. She’d had braces and I’d been drowning in all my awkward, barely-a-teenager glory. Two sets of fumbling hands, an overaggressive tongue, and a cut to my lips later, it was over.

I didn’t foresee tonight with Georgia being like that at all, but the basis of my feelings was remarkably similar. Out of my element and thrown off by her initial lack of enthusiasm, I’d put in a lot of effort over the last couple of days to turn it around and smooth the way for tonight’s date. But now I was invested. I
cared
how tonight went. And that hadn’t been the norm in a long time. I felt a little like I was walking into a set-up with no tools to escape the consequences. That wasn’t cool. MacGyver was cool, and he always made tools out of whatever he had. I’d have to do the same.

“Mr. Brooks?” my intercom squawked.

I grabbed my phone from the counter and jogged the five steps to press the button.

“Yeah?”

“Your driver’s here.”

“Thanks.”

I snatched my wallet and keys off of the front table and slid out the door without looking at myself in the mirror again. I’d already spent far too much time questioning my tie color.

I was
not
the kind of guy who carefully considered every element of my outfit. Tonight was the closest I would ever get to contradicting that.

“Frank,” I greeted as I approached the car, reaching a hand out to shake his. On days like today, I couldn’t help but notice how much of his time I monopolized.

“Mr. Brooks.” His greeting was warm, and he had a face to match. A smattering of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes pointed to a life filled with laughter, and the gray of his hair hinted at the possibility of a daughter or two.

“I wish you’d call me Kline,” I said with a smile, knowing it would never change.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

I shook my head and gave him a friendly slap on his shoulder with the hand not clasped in his. “Don’t be sorry. I’m the one who should apologize—dragging your ass all over town all day and night.”

“No trouble at all, sir.”

I chuckled again. “This makes twelve hours in this shift, right?”

“Yes—”

“And you’ve still got the rest of the night to go?”

“It’s no trouble, Mr. Brooks.”

A nod was all I could give at the time, so I did. It was a gesture that made it possible to get on our way, to get to the benefit, and to get busy letting Frank off the hook. I’d embellish the not-nearly-enough gesture with a fatter-than-expected tip on the bill later.