I did the rounds, cleaning, feeding, restocking shelves. I’d had a big delivery of live plants while I’d been playing zoologist, boxes dumped in the snake room that I’d instantly forgotten about. They greeted me as I topped up the water in my blue-eyed girl’s tank, and I pretty much wanted to die.
Dramatic? Maybe, but I was so fucking tired.
“Jude?”
I jumped a mile, spilling water all over my hands and the sleeping snake. “Jesus!”
“If you say so.” Isha’s voice rumbled through me, reaching every nerve and synapse. “Though doesn’t that make you my loathed enemy?”
“Bible jokes? Really?” I pulled my hands out of the snake tank and wiped them on my shorts, trying to ignore the instant tremor Isha’s presence induced. Fuck. How had I not heard him come in? There was a bell on the damn door out front, specifically to stop people sneaking up on me when I had a skittish animal out of its tank.
Nervous for reasons I didn’t understand, I spun around. Isha was leaning in the doorway, wearing his usual dark suit and shiny shoes. The suave look didn’t often do it for me, but on him, the impact was insane. His fit, muscular body was poured into his designer threads, and the fact that I knew for sure what was underneath sent an extra jolt through me. “What are you doing here?”
It came out more confrontational than I’d intended. Isha’s gaze flickered, and he folded his arms across his chest. “I was in the area, and you didn’t reply to my messages about Sunday, so I figured I’d stop by.”
Messages. Fuck. I pictured my phone, shoved into a drawer, and winced. “Sorry. It’s been a manic day. I haven’t checked my phone all afternoon.”
“Fair enough. I didn’t imagine you’d be waiting on my text.”
“Why not?”
Isha shrugged. “I kinda got the feeling you were pissed off with me for something, unless your last Grindr message was a request.”
I imagined our fuck-hot hook up reversed, Isha splayed open with me driving into him. “What if it was?”
“I already told you I don’t bottom.”
“I know. I was joking, man.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m a fucking hoot?” I dodged his dark stare and emptied my water jug down the nearby hand wash basin. “Why are we even talking about that shit anyway? I’m assuming you were texting me about your kid’s party?”
Isha was silent a moment, then he sighed. “Mina made me order the world’s biggest cake, and a bunch of balloons. I was checking in that you had the space for it.”
“How big is the cake?”
“Epically big. I’m going to be eating it for weeks.”
That didn’t sound so bad to me, but I wasn’t about to discuss my terminally sweet tooth with a bloke who’d made me beg for his cock. Shit. I’d forgotten about that. How he’d brought me to the very brink of release, and then pulled right back, leaving me a shuddering mess. I’d loved it at the time, but I resented him for it now. Having him in my shop, talking about a fucking birthday cake, when all I could think about was him turning me inside out just one more time.
“It’s fine.” I tried to keep the snap out of my voice. “I can bring an extra table over from the house if we run out of space.”
“The house?”
“Yeah.” I jabbed my thumb at the window. “I live over there.”
Isha’s gaze darted to my house. “Must be nice to live where you work. I spend my life on the road.”
He wasn’t looking at me. It reminded me too much of our last encounter, when his kids had been talking about their mother, and the irrational anger I’d felt then returned full force. “Must make it easier, though,” I quipped before I caught myself.
Isha frowned. “Make what easier?”
“Hooking up.” The masochist in me wouldn’t stop. “Your wife won’t question a sneaky night in a hotel, right?”
Isha’s frown deepened. He unfolded his arms and took a step towards me. “Sweetheart, I’m not fucking married.”
Six