Dirty Work - Regina Kyle Page 0,45
she’d slapped me. “Then I’m sorry. I was trying to understand you. Not judge you.”
“Sure seemed like you were judging me.”
She blinks, and I get the sense she’s fighting back tears, making me feel like I’ve been slapped again. Harder.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a guy as successful as you looks down on me and my insignificant little business,” she continues, pretending to be occupied with a loose thread on her sleeve. “It’s not like I’m hitting the Fortune 500 anytime soon, or making the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Hell, even my own parents are ashamed of me.”
“Hey.” I hook a finger under her chin, forcing her to look at me. “Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Talking shit about yourself. It’s not a competition. I don’t look down on you. And I doubt your parents are ashamed of you, either.”
She rolls her beautiful, sad eyes. “You haven’t met my mother.”
“I’d like to.” The words roll off my tongue before I can stop them. But once they’re out, I realize I don’t want to take them back. I want to go all in with her. “I’d like to meet your whole family. I want to get to know you better.”
And I want her to get to know me, too. Which is why I go where I go next, opening a metaphorical vein and spilling a little of my soul.
“I’m sorry I was such a dick,” I say, cupping Ainsley’s cheek. My thumb strokes slow circles on her soft skin. She doesn’t pull away, giving me the courage to continue. “I’m used to work being the center of my life. It’s hard for me to step back. That doesn’t mean everyone’s wired the same way, or that everyone should be.”
“Why?”
My thumb freezes midcircle. “Why what?”
“Why is it so hard for you to stop and smell the daffodils?”
“Daffodils?” I echo, letting my hand fall to her thigh.
“Roses are so cliché.” A faint smile plays about the corners of her lips, one that has hope blooming in my chest. “And you get what I mean.”
I do. But where to start? The dyslexia? My dad’s heart attack? The collapse of his business?
For the next ten minutes or so, it all spills out. My struggles with reading. How I had to work twice as hard as my fellow students to get half as far. How our family lost everything—including my college fund—when my dad’s company went under, and how I swore I’d never be in that position again.
Ainsley listens patiently, understandingly, even giving the hand on her thigh a sympathetic squeeze when I get to the part about watching Connor head off to Columbia while I went to City College. When I’m done, she tilts her face up to plant a quick kiss on my jaw.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For trusting me enough to open up to me. I was wrong to assume you were no different from my pain-in-the-ass parents.”
She flattens a palm against my chest, right over my heart. There’s no way she doesn’t feel it banging around my rib cage like a blindfolded bird. The effect she has on me is impossible to hide. In more ways than one, I think, as my cock picks that exact moment to spring to life, making my cargo shorts suddenly uncomfortable.
I pull her in—with both arms, thank you very much—and fold her against me. “Does that mean you forgive me for being an insensitive jerk?”
She sucks her lower lip between her teeth and looks up at me with those stormy gray eyes, the intensity I see there stealing my breath. “On one condition.”
“That I fuck you until you come so hard you forget your own name?” I ask hopefully, brushing back her hair and kissing her temple.
She laughs, the vibration traveling through me like a warm, smooth shot of Macallan 1926. “Two conditions, then.”
“What’s the second one?”
“That you go twenty-four hours without working. That means no cell phone. No iPad. No computer. Just you, me and Roscoe.”
“Can we spend them all in bed?” I lay her down, covering her lush, lithe body with mine. “Without the damn dog?”
Clothes fall to the floor, but she doesn’t seem to care, all thoughts of packing apparently in the past. “He might have something to say about that.”
“I’ll deal with him later. Buy him off with some of those apple bacon treats he likes. Or a new stuffie. Maybe a duck, since he seems to enjoy tormenting them in the park so much.”
“So is it a deal?” Her hands find their