Dropping The Ball - A New Year’s Billionaire Romance - Weston Parker Page 0,36
about the other thing first.
She dropped the shredded chicken into the pan, added a dash of olive oil, and turned to me with a serious expression on her beautiful face. “I know you’re working, and I know there are rules against it, but I really like you.”
My heart stopped beating before it sprang back into action at double speed. “You do?”
She nodded, turning off the heat on the stove before taking a step closer and placing her hands gently on my hips. “I do. I know it’s forbidden for us to be together right now, but maybe we could be friends and have a good working relationship for now?”
My stomach sank. “You want to be friends?”
“If that’s all I can get for now, then yes. I’d like for us to be friends.” She locked her eyes on mine. “I really enjoyed our kiss earlier, but I don’t want to get you in trouble or do it again if you don’t want it, too.”
“I loved kissing you, Rylee.” I brought my hands to her neck and stroked my thumbs across the smooth column of her throat. “It’s just more complicated than you think. There’s more than just the rules to consider.”
She stiffened immediately, her brows pulling together as hurt darkened her gaze. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“What? No. Of course not.” I ran the fingertips of one hand across her jaw. “I’m a lot of things, but a cheater isn’t one of them. If I had a girlfriend, I never would’ve looked at you the way I have been and I definitely wouldn’t have kissed you.”
“So it’s not complicated because you’re seeing someone else?” Her relief was so powerful that I felt it radiating from her as she released a slow breath.
“I’m not seeing anyone else,” I said firmly. “Not even casually.” A thought occurred to me then. “Are you?”
“No.” She pressed her body closer to mine, a slight smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “We have the ‘not being a cheater’ thing in common. I think I would break out in hives if I even looked at someone else while I was in a relationship.”
I lifted her arm tenderly and pretended to inspect the skin there, keeping my fingers light as they stroked across her. Tiny goosebumps appeared in their wake, and I wound my other arm around her waist to hold her tighter.
“No hives,” I commented. “You’ve got to be telling the truth.”
She laughed and brought her head forward to nuzzle my chest. “I’m glad we’re on the same page. What else is there to talk about then?” Pulling back to look up at me again, she smiled and put her hands over my heart. “If it’s not the rules and it’s not other people, it can’t be that complicated. Whatever it is, we should be able to work it out, right?”
Fuck. With her looking at me like that, there was nothing I wanted more than to believe she was right. “It’s about my childhood. Where I come from.”
I trailed off, struggling to find the words that were completely evading me. How the hell was I supposed to tell the gorgeous woman in my arms that I was her brother’s best friend from when we were kids and, more than that, that I’d known who she was from the start?
“I don’t care about any of that, Carter,” she murmured. “If you had a bad childhood or if you’re worried about where you come from, you need to know that none of that matters to me. I want to hear about it sometime, when you’re ready to tell me, but all I care about is the man you are now.”
Well, that went well. “It’s not that I had a bad childhood. It’s just that I—”
She silenced me with a finger to my lips. “You don’t owe me any explanations. Just don’t let anything like that worry you or stand in our way, okay?”
Before I could even blurt out the truth, she leaned in and pressed her lips to mine. Every thought I had about coming clean vanished the second she touched my mouth with hers, her fingers tightening on my chest and a soft moan hitting my ears.
I reacted on instinct, giving in to the primal need inside me and hauling her against me as I swept my tongue across her lips. She gave me the access I demanded instantly, parting them and tentatively touching my tongue with her own.