“It’s just the cameras.”

I didn’t quite realize what she meant until the flash came again. Before I had a chance to react, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to mine in a quick, chaste kiss. Another camera flash. I felt oddly frozen and then she pulled away. I stared at her, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

She wiped at my mouth as she murmured, “Smudge proof, my ass.”

I caught her wrist. “What are you doing?” I could barely keep my voice under control.

“Do you really want to wear my lipstick? Harlot red isn’t your color, Bobby.” She gave me a sensual smile.

A low chuckle that was devoid of true humor had me looking up. I pushed my own feelings aside. I had a job to do, and it didn’t include anything about me.

“Well, I’ll admit, when I saw the news clips of the two of you, I had no idea things had become so...intimate.” Hank was staring at us with a greasy sort of smirk on his lips.

I gave him a hard glare and watched as that smug, sneering look on his face faltered, then faded away completely. Only after he was no longer looking at Carly, I allowed myself to look away.

A moment later, there was a faint noise from the podium. It was time for whatever in the hell it was to start.

***

It was boring, that’s what it was.

The problem with boring was that it left me with too much time to think, and almost every single thought centered around Carly and the sleek, silvery-blue dress she wore and how much fun I could have peeling it away.

It had been nearly twelve months since I’d had sex.

The first thing I’d done after I got out was sit through a full physical and health screening. Disease was rampant in prison, and I’d lived with that fear for pretty much my entire incarceration.

To my relief, I’d gotten back a clean bill of health just a few days later. The first chance I had after that, I’d found myself a bar, and when the opportunity had presented itself, I’d gotten laid. I didn’t remember her name, and I was pretty sure she didn’t remember mine either. We’d had a box of condoms and we’d used the entire damn supply in a single weekend.

That had been a little over eleven months ago.

Since then, the only relief I’d received came from my own fist.

But I was pretty certain that even if I’d had sex three times a week, and twice on Sundays, my body would still have been misbehaving around Carly Prince. She seemed to drag it out of me. The mischievous grin, the way she watched me, the way she moved...oh yeah. I’d want her no matter what.

Now, as the third speaker of the night was escorted onto the stage, I found my eyes studying the elegant lines of Carly’s profile, the pretty bow of her lips, the curve of her jaw down to her neck. The dress she wore had an odd sort of sparkle to it, as if the designer had crushed up jewels to make it.

It clung to her breasts, accentuating her curves while still looking elegant, demure, even. It slid down along her torso, along her waist and hips, ended a few inches above her knee. I could only imagine what she wore under it. That sparkly thing fit like a glove, and while I was positive she had on something underneath it, I preferred to pretend she was naked.

Completely naked.

“...Carly Prince!”

The sound of her name jarred me out of my erotic stupor and I moved, half on autopilot. Jake and Ryan had walked me through what I was supposed to do, and I was already on my feet, drawing her chair back by the time the spotlight found our table. I could only hope that my suit jacket would cover the partial-erection I had, thanks to the direction my thoughts had gone.

She gave me a wide, open smile, and when I offered my hand to help her stand, she accepted as though we’d done this a hundred times. I escorted her up to the stage and passed her hand to one of the men there, then stood off in the shadows to wait for her to return.

Hands folded in front, I let my gaze roam over the crowd, just as I had seen Jake and Ryan doing. I was half-listening, but paying more attention to any potentially dangerous threat that might’ve presented itself.

On the stage next to me, Carly started to speak.

Her speech, I realized moments later, was all about second chances.

***

Things began to blur as we moved back and forth to events regarding what I soon realized was the music program Carly was funding in her father’s name.

The dinner I’d escorted her to had been a two thousand dollar a plate fundraiser and the place had been sold out. While I was glad she was raising money for the program, I couldn’t imagine paying two thousand dollars for a dinner where I’d have to listen to boring speakers.

The program itself, however, wasn’t boring. It was going to be multi-faceted, and despite myself, I was interested. Music lessons would be offered to disadvantaged youth, but there would also be a program for the politely named ‘troubled’ youth. Troubled like I’d been.

Sometimes I wondered what I might have been, who I might have been, if I’d realized I had better options. I’d made my choices knowing full well they were the wrong ones, and I had nobody to blame but myself, but her speeches about second chances made me think about what might have been.

We spent most of the day following the dinner dealing with stuff at the music center. Or rather Carly did, while we stood around looking stupid in suits and sunglasses. At least, I was pretty sure I looked stupid. Even with his arm in a cast, Jake looked like a natural.

Carly was exhausted when she got back to the hotel, and collapsed into bed almost immediately, while the rest of us stayed up to watch basketball. The Kentucky Wildcats had done pretty well so far, and I wasn’t opposed to them continuing on to the tournament.

My opinion on the matter provided some good-natured ribbing from Jake – and twenty dollars in my pocket when his team lost.

“Sucker’s bet,” I told him. “Anybody could have seen they were going tonight.”

It wasn’t until everybody else was asleep that I realized how long it had been since I’d just sat around bullshitting with a bunch of guys just for the hell of it. It had been...nice. Sitting in there, talking to guys who knew about my past and didn’t care. I liked it.

And I only had a couple days left.

That thought left me in a foul mood the next morning, and it wasn’t going to be a good day anyway. It turned out to be a lot worse than I’d planned. It wasn’t just less than stellar. It fucking sucked.

It turned out to be a tooth-grinding exercise in patience and bullshit as Carly made the rounds to all the local news stations, and then a couple of radio stations on top of that. At each one, she talked all nice with everybody and in turn, people played nice back – right up until they had her in front of the camera, and then they asked questions that were either borderline rude or right over the line.

The exceptions were the radio stations, and by the time we reached the last one of the day, Carly was dragging, and I was ready to hit something just to relieve some of the tension.

Preferably one of the assholes who were treating Carly badly.

“Is it always like this?” I asked Ryan, keeping my voice low as we stood in the corner, watching through the windows as she chatted with a couple of DJs.

“Like what?”

I tried to figure out how to say it, and then finally jutted my chin toward the DJs. “Well, those guys are being pretty decent. But the TV people...it’s like they were baiting her, just trying to get her upset.”

“They were.” Ryan sighed and shrugged. “And this wasn’t even a bad day. Local news stations don’t ever get that bad since she does have ties to the community here. Well, I won’t say never, but they aren’t like Barbara Walters or anything.” He checked the time and then looked over at me. “There’s no privacy for anyone anymore, Bobby. If you’re in the public eye, there’s even less. She didn’t ask to be in the public eye. She was just born there. I guess she could’ve moved to Montana, raise horses...” He shrugged. “Disappear. But she feels like she owes it to her dad’s memory to not completely vanish. People want some part of him to hold on to. She’s it.”