She gives me a look, soft and suspicious at once. “That’s a nice way to put it.”
“It’s the truth.”
I unclip my bag and pull out my machine, keeping my hands busy so I don’t do something reckless—like reach for her.
She sits across from me, so close our knees almost brush. I can feel her attention fixed on me, heavier than any spotlight.
“So what exactly are we trying to find?” I ask, powering up her old laptop.
“Three weeks of inventory tracking. My balance sheet from the last year, plus financial projections for the next eighteen months.” She leans forward on her elbows, sweater shifting low enough to expose the delicate hollow at the base of her throat. “Basically, everything I need to prove I’m not about to crash and burn.”
I focus on the screen, not the soft skin I’m dying to taste. “That should be recoverable. Power surges wipe tables, but the data isn’t truly gone.”
“You sound sure of yourself.”
“I am.” My fingers move over the keys as I navigate through menus. “I’ve been doing this since I was twelve. First recovery was for my mom—she thought she lost her novel draft. Turns out I had a knack for figuring out computers and software.”
Her lips twitch. “A knack?”
“Pattern recognition. Logic trees. Computers make sense when people don’t.” I glance at her before I can stop myself. “The military liked that about me.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “You? Military?”
“Yeah.”
The first notification chimes. Recovered files. My pulse steadies, even as heat burns under my skin from her scrutiny.
I suddenly remember her commenting about Izzy and how a celebrity endorsement could help her business. I make a mental note to talk to Jake to see if Izzy would be up for that.
“There,” I say, looking into her captivating eyes. “Your spreadsheets. Is that everything?”
She stands and leans over my shoulder, her heavy breast brushing against my arm. My cock jerks like she’s touched it directly.
“Owen.” Her voice is low, awed. “You’re incredible. How did you do that so fast?”
“Trade secret,” I tease, smiling at her. “Thank you. This isn’t difficult when you have the right software.”
Her hand lands on my shoulder, warm and steady. Her thumb rubs a slow circle through the fabric, and I freeze. I want to lean back into her, give myself over to everything I’m feeling, and seduce this incredible, driven woman.
But I can’t. I know damn well I can’t give in to my feelings.
“Give me a couple of minutes, and I’ll set up an automatic cloud backup. Even if you don’t save your changes regularly, the software will do that for you,” I explain, because if I don’t focus on work, I’m going to haul her onto my lap and taste her mouth.
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.” The words scrape out harsher than I intended. “I want to make sure you’re protected.”
Her voice dips, teasing. “Protected from what?”
From everything. From stress, from failure, from predatory men like Zane, who would and could never appreciate a woman as singular and captivating as Vivian. From anything that would disrupt her business.
“From losing what matters to you.”
Her eyes stay on me for a long moment. “And what makes you think you know what matters to me?”
“Lucky guess,” I say. “The coffee shop matters to you, so it matters to me.”And because you matter to me in ways that are making it dangerous as fuck to be here with you.
“I’ll make dinner,” she declares, vanishing into the kitchen.
