“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I muttered. I gave her a look. “Do not encourage him.”
She rolled her lips together and mimed dragging a key over her mouth.
He tucked his hands into his front pockets, and the swell of his biceps rippled under the seams of his shirt. “Need help moving anything?” he asked.
“No. You can go.”
“Yes. Ignore her,” Ness answered for me. “That stack of senior dog food closer to the door can be taken out of the boxes, and the bags can go in the storage closet in the kennel room. Just start with four bags, maybe. The rest can be stacked along the back of the wall in here.”
Archer gave me one last look, his gaze lingering on mine before he ripped open a box and hefted out two bags. He hoisted them over his shoulder easily, walking out of the room as Ness and I stared silently at the shift of muscles in his arms and shoulders.
“God bless,” she whispered. “Whoever is training that man should get a raise.”
I shook my head, brow furrowing as I directed my attention back to the box I was unpacking. “They’re just muscles, Ness.”
“Oh please. Your mouth was hanging open. You could be using that pretty man in so many ways, young lady. What a shame that his time here is going to waste.”
“I am not going to use him,” I hissed. “Even if hewantedto sleep with me, do you think I have any desire to be a notch in some playboy’s bedpost?” I slammed a box of puppy formula down on the table next to me. “I mean, fine, it would be good, I’m sure. Maybe even better than good, if he understands basic female anatomy. Except he probably doesn’t because he’s neverhadto. I’m sure he’s horribly selfish in bed. No kissing and a few grunts, and then he’d smack my ass and leave me unsatisfied.”
Ness chose to keep her mouth shut, watching my increasingly unhinged rant with a purse of her lips.
I yanked out another box. “That’s where my list makessense, Vanessa. Because then youknowif someone’s going to be horrible. You have time to figure it out. I don’t have or want that time with Archer because he’s a dick.” I pinched my eyes shut and pressed my hands to my face before letting them drop on the table. “Except it would be great if he wasn’t actually an asshole, because I don’twanthim to be an asshole. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sleep with him.”
All the blood in my poor little body flooded my cheeks, and there was no stopping it, especially when I clocked the pitying expression on Ness’s face.
“What?” I snapped.
With her mouth set in a firm line, she reached and gave me a condescending pat on the head. “I wasn’t talking about sex, babe. I meant for the shelter. You could be using him for social media reach and it would be amazing publicity.”
“Oh.”
She wheezed. Absolutely wheezed. As my best friend tried to get her cackling under control, I calmly unpacked the rest of the formula and moved it over to the cabinets in the back corner of the conference room.
“Are you quite finished?”
Ness wiped her hand under her eyes. “Yes, I think I am. Holy shit, I wish I was filming. I’d replay that every night before I went to bed.”
“I hate you.”
“No, sweet pea, you really don’t.”
I scoffed, lifting one of the bags of senior dog food under my arm and marching it toward the kennel room. The dogs barked happily at my entrance, and I smiled to see Bandit wagging his tail a little when I came through.
As I turned the corner, I was greeted by the sight of Archer Evans’s exceptional ass just as he straightened.
I tripped over a ledge in the concrete, but with no hands free, I resigned myself to a face-plant on the kennel floor at his feet, and then I’d never be able to look him in the eye again.
Except I didn’t fall.
Because he caught me.
His hands, big and strong, caught me right around the upper arms just as I pitched forward. “Whoa, steady.” Archer helped me up as I got my feet under me, then took the thirty-pound bag of food once they were. “You okay?”
I rubbed my arms where he’d grabbed me. “Yeah, great.”
He set the bag of food on top of the stack he’d already started, his face unreadable as he turned back in my direction. My chest was heaving from the almost-catastrophe, and with the flimsy barrier of my trusted denim shirt gone, I braced myself for his eyes to drop. But they never did.
They stayed right on my face.