I looked back at my laptop and started typing, mostly so I didn’t have to look at her because looking at her made my chest warm in a way that made me feel like I might be on the verge of a cardiac event. It also made me horny. “I don’t talk like that.”
“You should,” she said. “I don’t take orders from you.”
“We can do it another time,” I said.
Her sigh was more exasperated than resigned. “It’s fine. I’m here now.”
“Have a seat.”
She looked at the chairs arranged around the iron table, like she was looking for some way — any way — to avoid sitting next to me.
“Sit.” I said it without looking up.
“I’m not a dog.” She took the chair across from me and I leveled my gaze at her, hoping I looked more controlled than I felt.
Because right then all I really wanted to do was walk around the table, kneel at her feet, and spread her legs. I wanted to bury my face between her thighs, make her come with my mouth, show her that Noah and Beck weren’t the only ones who could make her moan.
Had they made her come already? Together or separately?
I shifted on my chair, trying to tamp down my hard-on. “Closer.”
She swallowed hard enough that her throat rippled. “Why?”
“I assume you can’t see my laptop from over there.”
She hesitated, then stood and walked around the table to claim the chair next to mine. “I didn’t know you were going to show me stuff on your laptop.”
She sat stiffly, like she was trying not to sit too close.
Like she was afraid to sit too close.
I caught a whiff of fresh apples and my dick got harder.
Jesus fucking christ, Jiminy cricket, and jesus fuck.
I was in real trouble here.
“I’m not going to bite.” I avoided her eyes as I tabbed through my spreadsheets, looking for the one that listed the household expenses. “Not unless you like that sort of thing.”
Her breath caught just the slightest bit, a hitch I wouldn’t have noticed if she’d been sitting farther away.
But I did notice it. And now I knew that she wanted me too.
24
AVERY
I’m not goingto bite. Not unless you like that sort of thing.
Dane’s words echoed in my mind as I left the house for the bakery the next morning. In fact, they were pretty much all I’d thought about since he’d said them on the terrace the night before.
That and the way his knee had bumped mine under the table. I was mesmerized by every part of him, from the musky smell of his aftershave to the shaved line of hair around his ears to the heavy silver links of his watch wrapped around his wrist.
I’d tried to keep my distance — every nerve in my body screameddangerwhen it came to Dane Calder — but the laptop had forced me to lean in. I’d been buzzing with desire by the time we finished going over financials for the house and bakery, and I’d spent another evening avoiding my three hot roommates, this time with my laptop in my room, digging into Hearthstone’s board of directors.
But I couldn’t dodge Beck, Noah, and Dane forever.
“Good gravy I’m in trouble,” I muttered.