“The way of the hand?” Maxwell asked. “We’ve worked together for months, Dean. Why am I only now hearing of this?”

“You know how it is. If people know you’re a massage expert, they’re always asking for massages at the worst time. Plus, I don’t just carry my hot stones and kit around with me everywhere I go,” he shrugged easily. “I’m sure you understand.”

I had no idea what deep corner of his perky, toned ass he was pulling all this from, but I wished he’d just keep it simple. If I’d learned anything in my anxiety-ridden ramblings about Dean to friends, family, and co-workers, it was that complicated lies were bad lies. Simple lies? Those were the good ones.

“Is that how you two met?” Jonas asked. “While you were practicing the way of the hand?”

“That’s right,” I said, jumping in before Dean could make this worse. Part of me wondered if he was enjoying this, and I sincerely hoped not. I had a feeling Dean was most dangerous when he was having fun, so I needed to find a way to make this boring, and fast. “We met at a party and the massage stuff came up. I was really stressed and he offered to give me a demo massage. Five minutes and I was sold.” I shrugged. “Sometimes you just know.”

Another server–a man this time in a white button down with a little black vest–came around and set salads in front of us. They were big wedges drizzled with fancy looking white dressing and candied crumbles of bacon. Apparently, this was the sort of thing where the food was already selected for us ahead of time. All around the room, my co-workers were chatting easily and enjoying their salads. Meanwhile, I was sweating bullets and I had a wedgie. And it was no ordinary wedgie. We were dealing with a stuffed taco situation–a vedgie.

That damn thong Dean picked out for me was an emergency thong. It was just there in my suitcase because you never knew when you might run into the man of your dreams when you were out of town. It was the same reason I kept things downtown trimmed, polished, and gleaming, if you know what I mean. I liked to be prepared for anything, even if I had sworn off men for the foreseeable future. It just helped me to know I was ready for spontaneous, wild sex and a romantic romp at a moment’s notice. Because you never knew when you would find yourself in the middle of a dirty Hallmark movie, and everybody knew those neutrally attractive actors were ready for wild sex beneath their festive sweaters.

But this damn ass floss was wedged in every bit of me, and I desperately wanted to get up and do a very unladylike reach up my dress and yank it out of there.

“You alright, sweetheart?” Dean asked. He tilted his head down, giving me a look of genuine concern.