Seducing Helena by Ann Mayburn Page A

better look, but wasn’t ready for her visceral reaction to the image of the man on the screen. Her breath froze in her lungs. The hair on her arms stood up. Then a warm tingle washed through her, and every cell and atom in her body began to buzz with excitement.
    The guy on the screen was amazing, everything she found attractive in a man all wrapped up into one masculine image. He had a distinctly American badass look about him she loved. In the modeling world, everyone was a “type,” a brand to be marketed and sold. While Helena’s type was considered seductive-ethnic, the man on the tablet would be called ruggedly handsome. And his eyes…. God, he had killer baby blues.
    His sandy-blond hair was cut very short, shaved to his skull on the sides, and her gaze traveled down the harsh planes of his face, past his kissable mouth, to the dimple in his chin. She imagined kissing that dimple and had a sudden flash of heat, low in her belly. A silver chain hung around his neck, and she leaned over to study the two rectangles of metal dangling against his rock-solid chest. They were dog tags, and as she examined him further, she could detect scars on his body, some old and some new, along with a nose broken more than once. As her gaze wandered lower, skipping over the dents of his well-developed abdominals, she noticed the fatigue pants the model wore and wondered if he was in the military or if wore them because he was fucking sexy as hell in camouflage.
    The good Lord knew she adored a man in uniform.
    Leo gave her a gentle elbow to the side. “Mind not climbing over me to drool over Seth?”
    Flushing, she sat back in her seat and made a show of smoothing her dress. “Who is he?”
    Now it was his turn to look a little flustered. “He’s a buddy of mine.”
    “Annnndddd?”
    After blowing out a harsh breath, he turned to face her, excitement warring with a tinge of sadness. “You know my brother was killed overseas, right?”
    She nodded. Everyone knew about Leo’s loss. For as vain, fickle, and utterly self-absorbed as the fashion community could be, they also had enormous hearts. The passing of Leo’s brother had struck them all.
    “Well, I decided to do a charity calendar for a group called the Fallen Warriors Family Fund. They help the widows and extended families deal with the loss of their loved ones, including financial support. While the widows do get some cash from Uncle Sam, it isn’t enough to do more than barely get by, you know what I mean? So I’m doing a beefcake calendar to try and raise some money for them.” He turned back to the tablet and tapped the screen. “Seth is one of my models.”
    “He’s delicious.”
    Leo’s lips curved into a grin she knew meant nothing but trouble. “He’s overseas right now with the Marines. I’m sure he’d appreciate a hot new pen pal.”
    “I’d love to.” She cleared her throat and tried to regain her poise. “Is he married? Or does he have a girlfriend?”
    “Nope. No girlfriend, either. You may find this hard to believe, but not many chicks want to date a guy who is gone nine months out of the year.”
    Pretending to examine her nail polish for chips, she had to resist the urge to grab the tablet from Leo so she could stare at Seth some more. Her unusually strong reaction bothered her, but she’d always been the kind of person who went with her gut, and in this case her gut was telling her to go for it. Her body agreed and moistened at the thought of touching Seth’s hard, unforgiving muscles with her tongue. She wondered if he was the kind of guy to take charge in bed.
    “Do you think he’d like to correspond with me?”
    He laughed and patted her knee. “Baby, he’s gonna think he died and went to heaven.”
    “Do you think you could keep it on the down low about who I am?”
    “Why?”
    “I’d like to talk to him like a normal person.” She stared out the window as they passed through Times Square and watched the tourists take