“Nope, you want to grope.” Sally tilts her head. “Have you ever thought that maybe under all that moodiness is a nice guy who just needs someone to break through his walls?”
I snort. “You’re giving him way too much credit. And besides, even if I wanted to go there, I won’t because we work together. I have this little rule.”
“What are you talking about? You’re in completely different departments,” Sally tells me.
“We both work for the Vaccination Center, which doesn’t even employ a whole lot of people,” I counter. “I’m not interested in him like that. I just like looking at him, okay? That’s all it will ever be. Besides…” I trail off, staring down at the file in my hands.
“Besides, what?”
“He doesn’t even know my name,” I admit in a soft voice. “After all these months he’s been working here, he doesn’t know I exist. He’s barely even glanced at me, let alone shown any interest.”
Sally’s expression softens. “Wren—”
“It’s fine.” I force a smile. “Really. I’m perfectly content admiring him from a distance.”
“You need to do something to get his attention,” Sally insists. “Say something. Smile at him. Drop something so he has to help you pick it up.”
“No way.” The very thought makes my stomach twist. I’m not that girl. I’ve never been that girl. I’m the quiet one, the one who blends into the background. “I can’t just—”
The front door swings open.
And there he is.
Grim.
Actually, “Grimalicious” is right.
I swear my heart stops beating for a full three seconds. He’s so ridiculously good-looking that it’s almost offensive. Talldoesn’t even begin to describe him, since he’s freaking huge; all broad shoulders and thick muscles that strain against his white shirt. His long dark hair is pulled back in that messy half-knot he always wears, a few strands hanging loose around his face.
But it’s not just his size or his looks that make my knees weak. It’s the way he moves. Like he’s constantly on the edge of violence.
There are spatters of blood on his white shirt, dark stains across his chest and abdomen. It should horrify me. It should make me recoil.
Instead, it does something entirely different.
Something that makes my thighs clench together and my breath catch in my throat.
What is wrong with me? I should run for the hills. Instead…I want to climb him like a pole and ride him like a cowgirl. Sally is right about that.
He’s carrying an unconscious shifter male over his shoulder like he weighs nothing. It’s clear that the guy is enormous, but Grim handles him like he’s carrying a bag of groceries.
“Where do you want him?” Grim growls.
Holy hell, his voice is like gravel and smoke and sin, and it does things to me that are completely inappropriate. My nipples tighten against my scrubs, and I swear my ovaries just popped off several eggs in rapid succession, even though I’m on contraception that prevents such things from happening.
Say something, Wren. Anything.
But my mouth has gone completely dry, and all I can do is stare at him like the complete idiot I am.
Sally clears her throat pointedly.
Right. Work. I’m at work. I can do this. I can string a sentence together.
I force myself to move, even though my legs feel like jelly. I open the door to the clinic and gesture toward the gurney. Apparently, Ican’tstring a sentence together.
Arghhh!
Grim stalks past me, and I catch his scent. It makes my head spin. He dumps the unconscious male onto the gurney with zero ceremony, then straightens and looks at me.
