Mandy found herself staring at his hands. She’d never seen hands like his, and she wasn’t even thinking about the gleaming blue-black nail polish coating his fingernails. He had beautiful, tanned hands, which managed to look finely structured yet very adept all at the same time. Like the hands you’d see on a gifted surgeon, sculptor, fine artist, or yes, guitarist. Every finger was formed with almost delicate symmetry while maintaining a manly edge. Mandy felt the strangest stirrings in her body just thinking of those guitar-strumming fingers playing over her naked flesh. Images of being sexually pleasured by a man like Ethan was enough to get Mandy’s spine tingling as a single line of cold sweat slid down her skin beneath her clothes.
Ethan suddenly looked up from the pages of the folder and held her fixated gaze.
A small smile tilted his lips when he caught her staring at him. Mandy felt her neck redden as she wondered if he could guess her thoughts or read her mind. Mandy knew she’d just die if Ethan knew she thought of him in ways she’d never thought of another man, even her boyfriend Marcus. She felt guilty and ashamed just having these strange, salacious urges. What the hell was her problem?
Jessica was chattering on and on about giving Ethan a whole new image and ‘refreshing’ his look so that he appealed to both older and younger fans. Something about building more interest in him as a standalone brand, much like Jaime, the band’s lead vocalist, was achieving with his new edgy and dark style. Jaime had always stood out for his mystery while Ethan had always been the brash, bold, and loud lead guitarist everyone loved to watch go wild on stage with his customized, flashy guitars.
With just a look, Ethan could make the most timid of fans scream out their desire any time his live solo riffs played out during the bridge of any of The Strum’s songs.
Mandy forced herself to look away, breaking contact with Ethan’s penetrating gaze, and she tried hard to focus on Jessica’s comments as the older woman walked Ethan through her suggestions for the revamp of his image.
Mandy had nothing but respect for Jessica’s vast knowledge of the industry and for the way she went out of her way to really understand a client’s passions - their lifestyle, personality, physical, and career elements - so that their new style was genuine and real. In fact, Jessica’s reputation in the industry was unparalleled and she had already attracted a lot of media attention from men’s magazines, talk shows, and national dailies. Working with her as closely as Mandy was about to was incredibly exciting, and she didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the opportunity that she’d been given.
Especially being able to play a part in transforming Ethan…
Every up and coming fashion stylist knew that the best way to break into the game wasn’t just through getting the fashion degree or having some retail experience – both of which Mandy had. It also took starting at the bottom by working as an assistant to an established image consultant. Mandy was looking forward to gaining all that on-the-job training with Jessica in order to learn how to work with clients and also how to run her own consulting business when the time came.
For a twenty-three year old, Mandy knew she was ambitious, driven, and sometimes even single-minded. Failure was not an option - something she’d learned from her father and a trait that her boyfriend Marcus encouraged, being as goal-oriented as she was.
The only problem with being so focused with her career meant that Mandy had very little experience with the opposite sex. Marcus was her first real boyfriend and Mandy couldn’t deny herself the truth… she’d never really known true passion or romance.
What love and respect she felt for Marcus didn’t carry the kind of sexual passion that she’d heard her friends speak of. She was attracted to Marcus, sure, especially given their history, but when it came to raw, animalistic hunger – the need to be taken, or to take from a man for her own desperate pleasure, she had only books and movies as inspiration.
Now Mandy couldn’t help wondering if she’d ever get the chance to really understand or experience what it meant to know the depth of carnality a man and woman could feel when they were so passionately drawn together. Was she even ready to explore beyond her boundaries?
Funny how meeting Ethan had brought all of these wild ideas to the front of her mind. What did it all mean? Why did her heart pound so alarmingly when their eyes met or when he spoke to her? He was always asking for her opinion on colors and styles and while Mandy tried to respond as coherently as possible, she found herself struggling to drown out the fire that singed her chest and spread to her lower regions when she lost herself in those impossibly blue eyes.