“Organizing? Blair Hart? You’re right, I don’t know everything anymore.”
She laughs.Fuck me,I want to hear more of it. Sweet and soft, but with a rasp to it. To somebody who didn’t know her, they’d likely assume she was getting over a cold. But I know her voice has had a permanent rasp at certain pitches ever since the winter she came down with a bad viral infection in ninth grade. I love that it’s still there after all this time.
“Only for as long as this hyperfocus lasts, which is why I can’t risk taking a break for lunch.”
“Fair enough. Get back to it, then.”
I slide a box of chicken strips and fries toward her, watching with a smile as she grabs three fries and shoves them intoher mouth without taking her eyes off the paper resting on her lap.
“Want me to feed you while you work?”
Her eyes briefly flit up to mine once she’s finished chewing. “If you could blend this and give me a really long bendy straw, that would be wonderful.”
“Don’t tempt me, Hart.”
We sit across from each other while we eat, and I watch her focus intently on sorting medical records—tapping a pen against her chin in thought, then simultaneously scribbling and reaching for food. I offer once to leave her to her work, but she doesn’t respond, and I assume that’s an invitation to stay. I don’t mind at all; I’ve always loved watching her when she gets in the zone, with laser-focused eyes, a tiny crease between her brows, and a concentrated worrying of her bottom lip.
At one point, she mixes up her hands, bringing her pen to her mouth instead of the chicken tender and smudging blue ink on her top lip. When she realizes the mistake, she cracks up and looks over at me, a smile extending beyond her eyes.
“Tell me how stupid I just looked.” The pen falls to the floor and she rubs at her lip, missing the ink stain entirely.
“I didn’t even question you trying to chew on the pen because you seem like you totally know what you’re doing. Thought it was part of your process.” I laugh and rock forward onto my knees. “But I don’t know if blue lipstick suits you.”
She doesn’t pull back when I reach for her, and the pad of my thumb swipes across her upper lip. I rub delicately at the mark, taking my time because the last thing I want to do is remove any part of my body from her smooth, plump lips.
“Tough stain?” she asks quietly.
“You must use some pretty fancy pens. It won’t budge.”
Without hesitation, her lips part and she slowly licks the pad of my thumb, sending shivers down my spine andarresting my breath. And now I’m fucked, because all I can think about is her doing the same motion to the tip of my cock. How badly I’d love the pen ink to leave streaks down my shaft. I swallow hard and resume scrubbing, unable to do anything else right now. Every thought in my head’s gone, and the blood responsible for keeping my brain functioning is relocating to my hardening dick.
“Better?” she asks.
I reluctantly let my hand fall from her face.
“Better,” I say about the fact that her lip is mostly back to its normal color. But absolutely nothing is better about the situation between us. It won’t be until I feel those beautiful lips on mine, and I find out if her kisses are as honey sweet as they once were.
She takes a sip of her drink, muscles in her jaw tensing in the dim light.
Still leaning into her personal space, I ask, “Can I ask you a question?”
Those big brown eyes of hers are searching mine. “Sure.”
“Do you ever think about me the way I think about you?”
She scrunches her nose with a small laugh. “I don’t know. What way is that?”
And I guess the blood flow still hasn’t returned to my brain, because the next words I say do nothing to help the case I made to her about being nothing more than friends. “Your body wrapped around mine, my cock buried inside you, moans muffled by our kissing, feeling so fucking good we’d both be happy to die right in that moment.That way.”
She shifts in her seat, staring at the patch of floor between us. I’m the world’s biggest idiot.Friends.I asked her to be friends—and then we almost kissed mere seconds later, but that’s beside the point. She’d been drinking the night of the rodeo, and it was late. Now she’s sober and seemingly sitting in combined disgust and shock.
“Blair, forget I said—”
“All the time.”
Her gaze cuts to meet mine, and I’m about half a second from launching myself at her, kissing her until she can’t breathe, and fucking her on the office floor. That half a second is all it takes for my plans to be kiboshed by a loud knock, followed by Dr. Brickham barging in. Blair and I must look absolutely bizarre, sitting on the floor surrounded by paperwork and fast food, our faces flushed. And Brickham does a double take.
Smiling awkwardly down at me, clearly realizing he was interrupting something, he says, “Denny, how are ya?”
