What She Needs - Lacey Alexander [3]
“Well, I called Shannon into the room, just because I thought it seemed pretty cool—and then we saw the form to enter the sweepstakes and . . .” He trailed off again. The coward.
“And,” Shannon picked up for him, “Kev thought it sounded like exactly what you needed.”
Jenna gasped, and Shannon cringed, and Kevin hung his head in shame. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way,” he explained, cautiously raising his gaze back to her, then slowly lifting himself up onto the couch—presumably to put some distance between them. “I just thought something like that would . . . bring you out of your shell. Make you like sex more.”
At which she gasped again. “I like sex fine, for the trillionth time. And I am not in a shell! But I might soon be in a cell—after I murder you.”
“So . . . what did you tell them?” Shannon asked. She set the popcorn down and moved to sit beside Kevin on the couch—probably to protect him, Jenna concluded.
“Well, I was completely flustered—I’ve never been so caught off guard in my life! And I was going to say no, flat out, that they should give it to someone else—but then they told me the prize was worth fifteen thousand dollars! And that threw me so much that I said I was in the middle of something and would have to call them back.”
“Are you gonna go?” Kev asked with a small, speculative head tilt.
Jenna simply blinked, nonplussed. “I’d rather be tarred and feathered.”
“But think about it,” Kevin said, apparently overcoming his fears and getting back to his usual confident self. “You won. Out of probably thousands and thousands of entries. I mean, what are the chances?”
“I don’t know, but next time, enter me to win something I want, please. A tour of Tuscany maybe. A week in Paris. Not two weeks of sex with strangers paid to give it to me.”
“But wow,” Shannon said, still obviously dumbstruck by the price tag, “a fifteen-thousand-dollar value. Are you going to just give that up?”
Jenna drew a deep breath, trying to think it through. For crying out loud, why couldn’t it be a fifteen-thousand-dollar trip to somewhere she felt passionate about, like one of the many places she’d researched for the historical biographies she wrote for a living. But no—she’d won a trip to some sort of crazy sex palace. Just her luck.
“I have an idea,” she said, pinning Kevin in place with her stare. “Why don’t you go? Since you thought the place seemed so cool and all?”
“Well, because I’m not single. The prize was for a single, right?”
A technicality, Jenna decided. “Yes, but I checked out the website, too, and I see couples are welcome. I bet they can give you a slightly less deluxe package for two of the same value. You entered—you go.”
“The thing is,” Kev said, “I’m not the one in need of a, uh . . . sexual outlet. Shannon and I are perfectly happy with our sex life.”
Jenna let out a huge breath. Why did he not get this? “So am I, for God’s sake! I don’t need this any more than you do. I’m a happy woman. When my friends don’t butt into my life in weird ways, that is.”
“Okay, okay,” Shannon soothed her. “You’re right. We went too far. It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing, sort of a joke. We never dreamed you’d really win.”
“Well, ha ha, very funny.”
“Listen, though,” Kevin added, clearly trying to sound reasonable, “why don’t you go anyway? Not for the sex, but for the other stuff.”
“What other stuff?”
“Well, if you went to the website, you saw the pictures. It’s an up-scale beach resort—pools, a spa, restaurants, you name it, and I’m sure all that stuff is included in your prize. So why don’t you just go and sit on the beach—soak up the sun and relax.”
She let out a sigh. “I could use a little relaxation after this.” And then the irony hit her—that she might have fewer people pressuring her to have sex at a sex resort than she did here at home. “Do you think they’d mind my turning down the sex part of the prize?”
“I don’t see why,” he said with a shrug. “That’s what the amped-up price is for—mostly. According to the site, they do this big analysis of each guest to design