No Ordinary Proposal Ch. 03

"I just washed him off and he's all dirty again."

I knelt because I wasn't stable enough to remain upright. "It's your dirty little mouth that did that."

"You say the sweetest things." Her smile was brilliant. She reached out to kiss me then opted for a peck on the cheek.

"I feel like I owe you one." I said, Jo just laughed.

"Don't you worry I'll extract my pound of flesh at some point." She grinned. "Maybe I'll just take a pounding of flesh."

I just looked at her eyes wide. She made a face and rolled upright and went back into the bathroom. I could hear her washing up and walked around the bed and she was chugging out of the bottle of mouthwash. She rinsed and spit. "It's not you. I'm just not sure Scott would appreciate me snowballing him with your load." She began giggling and put the mouthwash away. "This is so fucked up." She took several deep breaths and picked up her bikini and the towels and hung them up. She looked up at me dead serious and I started laughing, she broke into another fit of giggles.

"I'm starting to see your point."

She went out into the bedroom and began putting on the clothes she'd come back with, the shorts and tee she had been wearing earlier with a cute pair of pale blue panties beneath. Between the photographs and the shower it was nearly lunch time when we emerged quietly from the bedroom. I had brought my personal laptop as well and downloaded the pictures there next and we took her laptop to the table and sat close as we started going through the images to see how they came out. Jo was overly critical of many shots I liked and we both started laughing at the ones where she was goofing off making faces.

"Do you know what a look-book is?" She asked.

"Yes, it's sort of a photo resume for a model."

Jo nodded with a smile. "I was thinking of putting one together, ten or so pages of images and mailing them out as gifts for my fans. I think they would hold up better than single photos, and I'd likely see fewer of them online than if I just shared the digital images." She pointed at the picture of her staring back at us. The image of her emerging from the water like Venus.

"When I saw you in the shower I wished I had my camera." I shook my head. "You do look terrific when you're wet." I saw her grin.

I'll take that as a compliment, on both counts." She leaned over and kissed my cheek.

"You could go up a couple pages and add a blooper reel of images too. I think they really convey your personality. Relaxed, playful and not taking yourself too seriously, at least with regards to your looks."

"They'll fade one day and you could wake up next to an old hag. Are you prepared for that?"

"I don't buy it, you're going to be stunning forever. You're the epitome of beauty not being skin deep."

She looked at me for a moment, a little surprised.

I smiled. "What? Truth is I've measured every woman I've known for the last seven years against you. None of them have quite measured up." She reached up and turned my face and kissed me deeply. She turned and straddled my lap in the kitchen chair and leaned my head back and kissed me again. Her hands worked their way up the back of my head, fingers running through my hair as we kissed. The sound of the front door closing brought her head up fast.

"Hello?" She called out.

Scott walked into the doorway and leaned against the door jamb. Maggie came trotting into the kitchen. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I just let Maggie out and didn't want to come through here to go out the back." Jo looked as sheepish as I felt and stood and sat back in the other chair. Scott started laughing. He walked over and laid a hand on our shoulders and gave a squeeze. "Relax." He added softly. "Wow, you took that this morning?" He said looking at the computer screen.

"Yes." Jo looked up over her shoulder at him. "Do you want to see the rest?"

"Of course I do." He smiled. I got up and made him sit down and they went through the albums again. I mentioned the idea of the shower shoot and he wondered if there would be enough light in the master bath. "It's good sized but I'm not sure it's big enough to set up lights."

"I was thinking we might wait until we get to Montreal, see what the hotel bath looks like."

"If that doesn't do it we can check some local resorts nearby, they're likely to be a little more opulent, maybe have a nice bathtub too." Scott said sounding excited by the idea. "We'll need to get you a rubber duck for that shoot."

Jo bust out laughing. I looked on a little confused. They let me in on a joke that had come up in her cam session one day about playing with a rubber ducky as a euphemism for hand jobs.

"Of course everybody in the chat started in with that kid's song." She hid her face as she laughed. Jo got up and said she was going to start on lunch. I went around and helped her as Scott kept flipping through the photos. He made a quite a few positive comments as he went through them and Jo accused him of being biased by the subject matter.

Scott was a little more animated after the nap, having overcome the hangover at least. Jo mentioned the idea of the look book to him and he liked the idea. He wanted to make sure we had our plans straight for the trip. He also admonished me that despite his mostly retired status he was still responsible for the purchase of this aircraft so I was not to forget what I was supposed to be focusing on, at least for the first couple days of the trip. I laughed at that and old him that maybe Jo should come up on Friday night then.

"How's this for a deal. You bring this sale in under the fifteen million budget and I'll make sure you get ten percent of the difference as a bonus."

My eyes popped open at that. "The jet I'm looking at is only about twelve million, I'm sure with amenities and everything it will top thirteen."

"So you could stand to make a six figure bonus. Just don't get us the base model with the cheap fabric seats." He smiled. "I look at it this way, you're trying to save us money that we're trying to get rid of before Uncle Sam comes to collect his due. If I give up more of it, then you get a cut and so does he, but a smaller one."

"I don't know what to say." I didn't and I hoped the offer hadn't been born of anything in our personal lives.

"You've worked hard on this and it shows. You could have just put out a bid request and bought from the first company that gave you the numbers you were looking for but you didn't do that. You know our business needs pretty well and you've tailored your work around them and that says a lot about you and the company you work for, and that's why I recommended you again. I remember a couple years ago that first plane got grounded in Denver due to something going wrong and you got us a charter within two hours rather than us jumping on a commercial flight. We had the plane back in service a few days later."

Jo looked at me with a smile plastered across her face. The conversation veered away from work after that. I packed up my gear and made ready to leave them for the day. While I was putting my things in my bag Jo came into the guest room and sat on the unmade bed.

"I'll get this made back up if you have some clean sheets." I said. She just waved her hand dismissing my offer.

"Don't sweat it, I'll take care of it and get this place whipped into shape by Monday so I can get back on cam." She was quiet for a minute as I coiled up a cable. "Are you coming over tomorrow?" She sounded hopeful.

"I don't know. Are there any other ideas you had or wanted to try out?"

She shrugged. "We could go over the pictures and see which ones would look best, maybe put together a demo and see what it would look like."

"Scott doesn't want you to himself for a few days before we go?"

Her smile was strained. She nodded. "I was planning Monday and Tuesday for that. He doesn't go into the office any more, he works from his office downstairs mostly."

"If you want me to."

"Do you want to?" She shot back instantly.

"Very much." I responded without hesitation. Her smile went from strained to genuine. She stood and turned me to face her, wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me again. "Why does it feel like I'm sneaking around behind your parents backs?"

Jo buried her face in my shoulder and laughed. "I know. I nearly jumped off your lap when he came into the kitchen. I was afraid I'd flip the table over."

"I'll come over tomorrow. I can even bring lunch so you won't have to put yourself out."

"Oh please, it's not as if I work that hard at it, or at all, in fact."

I went back on Sunday and we sat around playing with photos and making slide shows to see how the images would flow. I'd brought some clothes and put them in the drawer in the guest room which left me feeling a little odd. Jo showed me the alarm system at the front door and gave me a spare key as if I were going to house sit for them sometime soon. A thought that I might at some point to help them out surprised me. At this point there was little I wouldn't do to make this whole tragedy go as painlessly as possible for everyone. I sympathized with both, Scott for not wanting to prolong the suffering, and Jo for keeping it together as well as she did.

Jo walked me to the door late in the afternoon. I'd declined her offer of dinner saying that she should relax and spend some time with Scott. I needed to get some things ready for the week since I'd be spending most of the week out of the office. She kissed me deeply and seemed genuinely sorry to see me leave.