call.
“I’ve got the beast,” Claire said. “I took her back to my place, and for some reason, she didn’t even try to bite me in the process.”
Not for some reason.
But for the sunshine inside that house, blasting through the darkness they’d both lived with for too long.
“Gonna tell me why that is?” she pressed.
“No.”
A chuckle. “Figured it was worth an ask.”
He snorted.
“Figured you’d respond like that, too.” A beat. “Which is why I’m telling you, as your new VP, to go . . . play.”
Then she hung up, the pain in his ass.
But he didn’t ignore her order.
Instead, he got out of his car, walked up the driveway, and knocked on the front door.
Chapter Seventeen
Stef
She was gathering her stuff for the beach, intending to make it a longer outing than usual to make up to Fred for her absence the previous night, when there was a knock on the door.
Freezing, remembering what the last knock had brought her to her doorstep, she sucked in a shoring breath and hoped like hell who was on the other side would go away.
The knock came again.
“Fuck,” she muttered, rotating from the small wall unit in the entryway where she kept all of Fred’s various accoutrements, she leaned to the side and peered through the small window on the side of the door.
Like she probably shouldn’t have done in that moment.
Because Ben must have seen the flicker of movement, and his deep brown eyes came down onto hers, and heat boiled in her belly.
He didn’t knock again, just waited and watched as . . . she flicked open the lock.
He turned the handle, slowly pushed the door back so she had enough time to get out of the way, and she did, stumbling back a step as the panel swung wide, landing with a soft smack against the doorstop.
“Going somewhere?”
Fred skidded around the corner, crashing into the wall and running toward them—or rather, toward their new visitor. Stef opened her mouth—
“Wait.”
It hadn’t come from her. Instead, it slid through the air on Ben’s soft but firm baritone, the same voice that had ordered her to “Come” at some point hours before.
She shivered.
Fred plunked his ass on the floor.
They both looked at Ben.
“Going somewhere?” he asked, bending to scratch Fred, whose tail immediately began dusting the floor.
“The beach,” she breathed.
He glanced from the bag on her shoulder to Fred. Then back to her.
She shivered again.
“Okay if I come in?”
Was it?
He hadn’t replied to her asking him for dinner. Maybe he’d been driving and couldn’t? But then he’d been texting fast and furious before, so perhaps he’d . . . gotten a ride with whoever picked up her car, so hadn’t seen it?
Or maybe she wouldn’t have any of these answers unless she let him in.
Nodding, Stef stepped back, turning and catching the bag on the corner of the door, nearly sending it toppling off her shoulder.
Warm fingers caught it, slid it down her arm.
Another shiver.
And she was bustled backward, the door closing, Ben taking the bag and setting it on the ground before he snagged a hoodie off the hook and thrust it at her. Then when she just stared blankly at it, he stepped behind her, tucked it over her shoulders, and moved her limp arms into the sleeves.
“Better?” he asked, when he’d zipped it for her.
No.
Because now she was both burning up with desire and at risk of plunking her ass on the floor like Fred and begging Ben to deliver some of his touches that had made her melt only hours before.
He touched her cheek. “You want to buy me dinner?”
Her heart squeezed. “Seemed like a fair trade.”
“You want to see me again?”
Stef lifted her chin. “You tell me. You’re the one who got all quiet last night.”
“I tend to . . .” He shook his head. “I’m not great with people outside of a business setting. I can make a deal and charm and schmooze, but talking to a beautiful, smart, funny woman is . . . less comfortable.”
Brows lifting, she blurted, “You think it’s hard to talk to me?”
A small smile. “I’m not exactly a Lothario.”
“But . . . you’re the sexiest man I’ve ever seen and—”
His jaw fell open and then he started laughing, bending over at the waist, laughing and shaking his head, and when he glanced back up at her, his lips were curved into a grin that had her heart thumping. “That’s the second time you’ve said that, and now I know you need to get