Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,142

been doing a lot of that lately. She thought about telling him that the project was as good as done, but she had tried variations on this argument all week, and she knew he wouldn’t go for it. “The area rugs are slightly delayed. They’re supposed to come in Friday”—that was two days from now—“and then you can…”

“Then I can what?”

She swallowed hard. “Then you can sign off on everything.”

He leveled an intense look at her—the sexy-intense look had returned since their little chat at her apartment—and she thought he was going to call her on the fact that sign off on everything wasn’t how she’d intended to end that sentence. He didn’t, though. He merely walked over to the sitting area in his office—which was looking really good, if she did say so herself—and said, “Scrabble?”

She laughed. “Yes.” If she couldn’t do what she really wanted to do, Scrabble was the perfect consolation prize.

They chose tiles, and as she assessed hers, she had to laugh again. Did she dare lay down the word that was jumping out at her? Well, hell, why not? They’d basically spent the week eye-fucking each other as they rode the job out, adhering to his letter-of-the-law no-sex-while-working-together hang-up.

So, trying not to blush—and, judging by the rising temperature of her cheeks, failing—she laid down CLIT.

Then she lifted her gaze to him. He was already looking at her, eyebrows raised like she was a naughty schoolgirl.

“What?” She batted her eyelashes. “It was my best option.”

He did not speak, but his nostrils flared. He looked down at his tiles for a moment. Then, slowly, he got up and walked to the door. Was he going to leave? Crap, maybe she’d gone too far. She should have been more sensitive about respecting his boundaries. She should have—

Click.

The sound of him locking the door was, objectively, not very loud. But its reverberations echoed through her suddenly aching body as if it had been a bomb.

He stared at her as he walked back—still at the same measured pace—to the sofa. She felt like she was being stalked. Like they were in a nature documentary where the predator’s approach was being shown in slow motion. Except instead of getting killed, she was going to…get her comeuppance.

In a really good way.

She exhaled a shaky breath.

Once seated, he kept his attention half on her, half on the board as slowly, so slowly, building off her L, he laid down three of his tiles: LICK.

She gasped, which was silly because she had started this.

He was looking at her with a maddeningly calm expression. But the nostril flaring was back, in a big way.

Well, hell, if she was in, she was all in. So she looked directly at him and said, “Yes, please, if you don’t mind.”

She should have been embarrassed to be so bold. She’d never outright asked for anything like that before, but suddenly the idea of him with his head between her legs had lodged itself in her brain, and she was pretty sure it was going to stick there for a good long time.

“Not only do I not mind, I insist.” He smoldered at her. Smoldered. It was the only word for it. “The rugs will be here Friday, you say?”

Well, crap. She’d thought for a moment there, with the door locking, that he was going to give in. But no, he was still hung up on the rugs. “Give or take. You can, ah, let me know when they arrive, and I’ll clear my schedule.”

He nodded, the picture of seriousness. But then his voice lowered an octave from where it had been as he asked, “And then I can lick your clit?”

A strangled cry erupted from her throat as she slumped back against the sofa. “So actually hooking up with me contravenes your personal code of ethics, but somehow talking about licking my clit is allowable professional behavior?”

She’d been kidding, but his brow furrowed. Deeply. “Shit. You’re right. This is sexual harassment territory.”

She held her hands up. “No! I was kidding! I’m the one who started this! Harass me!” He still looked unconvinced. She could practically see him beating himself up. She did not want him to get spooked and shut down the sexy talk. It was all she had to hang on to until those damn rugs arrived.

So she said the first sexy thing that popped into her head, aiming to get them back on track. “But you’re going to fuck me, too, right, not just go down on