Hot Under His Collar - Andie J. Christopher Page 0,61

these contracts,” Sasha said, opening the cover of her tablet.

Before she could hand it over, Sister Cortona grabbed it. “Let me look at that.”

“I went over all the pertinent points with Father Dooley over the phone.” Sasha was a little miffed that the nun was acting as more than just a chaperone. She was miffed—at herself—that they needed a chaperone at all.

“I don’t know what you went over with him on the phone, and he doesn’t understand numbers.” If looks could kill, Sasha would be lying there dead.

“Oh—okay.” Sasha wasn’t sure what was going on, so she looked at Patrick. He looked as though he were trying really hard not to laugh. And that made Sasha feel like she was going to laugh. It was like church giggles on steroids—the energy bouncing between the two of them no less potent than the energy between them the other night.

Patrick broke first. His laughter ended the silence in the office and not even a glare from Sister Cortona stopped him. And then Sasha broke, and she laughed so hard that she was doubled over and gasping for air.

When they wound down eventually, the nun was glaring at both of them. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to.

The only thing that saved them was a ringing sound from inside her voluminous robes. She looked down to check her phone, muttering, “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” and stalked out of the room, leaving the tablet teetering on the edge of Patrick’s desk.

After she left, the mirth between them turned to tension. And not the delicious kind that led to a fabulous orgasm and days of tortured guilt. It was the kind between people who were trying to be good and succeeding.

“She’s not normally like that,” Patrick said. “She’s just concerned about me.”

“You told her?” Sasha’s face turned hot. What level of detail did he give? Why would he tell anyone?

For his part, Patrick also looked horrified. “Of course not. She guessed.”

“That we—”

“No. She guessed that I have a thing for you.”

“Are we that obvious?” Sasha rarely let her carefully cultivated façade slip. She’d gotten ghosted more than once by men who—when she ran into them later—told her that they’d stopped calling because they couldn’t tell if she liked them or not. It was usually because she was only pretending to like them until she could figure out if she could actually see herself with them. The fact that she couldn’t hide her feelings for Patrick was an entirely new thing. “Not that there’s a ‘we.’ ”

Patrick grunted. He had to stop doing that, especially when they were alone. It turned her on too much. Dear Lord, she had to get out of here. He must have had the same idea because they reached for her tablet at the same time, causing it to stop teetering and fall.

They both went for the falling tablet, but Sasha caught it. And when she tried to lift her head, her hair was caught in between the metal links of Patrick’s watch. She tried to yank away, but that caused a snap of pain. She stopped struggling when he said, “Stop moving.”

Whenever he told her to do something, her body just did it before her mind could get defiant. It should bother her, but it was for her own good in this case.

“If you move slowly around the desk, we’ll get your hair untangled.”

She got up into an awkward half-crouch, hoping that none of her bits were on display. She skirted the desk in that position until she could stand up with Patrick’s forearm resting on top of her head. It would be laughable if it wasn’t quite so dangerous. It didn’t even matter that they’d started out this meeting chaperoned and six feet apart. And now they were touching—a mere breath away from kissing. If she still believed in God, she would think he was trying to fuck with them. Setting them up to fail.

“Hold on.” Patrick lifted his other hand and tried to disentangle her hair from his watch. It gave her the chance to study him from up close. She didn’t know when she’d have the chance again, so she drank him in. She tried to memorize the way he smelled, the way he quietly talked to himself as he worked.

She loved the shape of his jaw. Some might call it severe, but it read to her as strong. Steady. If she raised up on her tiptoes, she could run her lips over it. What would