a few hundred times or so. And, dammit, why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut when this woman was in the room? Maybe I needed therapy. A 12-step program.
“If I were a man and wore the same thing every Friday, you wouldn’t have a comment. Karen from accounting wears the same black pants and black sweater every other day. Yet you insist on paying special attention to me?” She fluttered her eyelashes at me. “What did we say about special attention, Dominic?”
She was fucking teasing me, and I loved it. Almost as much as I hated it.
“You’re annoying me. Go away,” I said dismissively.
Instead, she perched on the edge of my desk, kicking her feet as if she had all the time in the world. If I rolled my chair a few inches to the right, I could push her knees apart and bury my face between her legs.
Any blood left circulating my body gave up and headed straight to my cock, which now throbbed like it had a migraine.
“Sign the paperwork, and I’ll be gone from your life for the rest of the morning,” she promised. “And, if you must know, I have a date tonight.”
“A date?” I was surprised the pen didn’t snap in half in my hand. I felt something dark and oily spread through me. “Don’t you have to work?”
I couldn’t identify the feeling that grew inside me.
Rage? Fear? Blinding hate directed at a man I didn’t even know?
“Just because I’m not your type doesn’t mean every other man feels that way,” she teased. “Payday is Friday, so I’m giving myself an actual night off.”
I didn’t trust myself to say anything. So I signed the contracts, pen tip scoring the paper. Her dress rode high on the thighs, and I couldn’t help but notice. Inappropriate didn’t even begin to describe the feelings stirring in me.
“You’re wearing that on a date?” I hated myself for wanting her to feel insecure. Wanting her to change her mind so she wouldn’t go.
She looked down, not remotely concerned with my opinion. “What’s wrong with it? Linus approved.”
Everything was wrong with it.
My chest felt tight, and why the hell was it so hot in this damn room?
“Depends. What kind of date is it?” To torture myself, I leaned back, changing the angle of my view. It was just a glimpse, and then I was averting my eyes. But it was long enough for me to know she was wearing underwear that matched that damn dress.
She raised an eyebrow at me. Like a silent challenge. Go ahead and look. Tell me you’re not interested. Lie to my beautiful, cocky face.
Goddammit. I shouldn’t have messed with her by wearing the vest yesterday. She’d outgunned me.
“First date. Drinks,” she said.
“Drinks? That’s it?” I was offended on her behalf. Nothing said “hook-up” like just drinks. Not that I wanted her landing in a long-term relationship with someone. I also didn’t want her enjoying a hook-up.
I was not a good man, but as long as I wasn’t dragging Ally down to the floor and fucking her, I was still better than my father.
“That’s all I’m mentally prepared for at this point. I’m so rusty I feel bad for my next sex partner,” she confessed.
Somewhere along the line, she’d started talking to me like we were friends. As if that moment of honesty in the bar, those emails exchanged, had somehow made us friendly. And while I craved her next confession, I also couldn’t handle the intimacy. I was ripped down the middle. Torn between wanting to know everything there was to know about this woman and wanting to forget she existed.
Something caught her eye, and she slid off my desk, wandering across the room.
I hated it when she walked away from me. It always felt like she took the light and heat with her.
I added that to my Hate List.
Unable to help myself, I got up and followed her to the lightboard, where she studied the series of shots for an inside spread. I’d pulled two that I thought might work with the intent of dragging Linus in here to tell me which one made the most sense to show my mother.
“These are fun. I love that dress,” she mused and pointed to a model in a gold silk gown. “Do you have one with her in motion?”
She scanned the subsequent shots, and I leaned in with her, just wanting to be closer to her. There was something about her that lured me in like a