“Do either of those ring a bell?” I press.
“Never heard of them,” he says, his tone dry, and because he pairs it with pushing off the railing, his big body looking all sorts of gorgeous in a pair of jeans and tight black tee, I’m momentarily struck silent, any hope of a retort stuck in my throat.
Especially as he comes close, his gaze running over my set up, his eyes dragging along the papers and the document on my laptop screen, the paused video on my tablet.
Then he turns to me, those deep blue eyes searching mine.
“Did you even take a break today, Red?”
The endearment is a visceral stab to my heart and I can’t guard against it, can’t keep my reply in. “I got wine,” I blurt.
His stare flicks to my mostly empty glass then comes back to mine.
“Does that mean you didn’t eat either?”
I open my mouth, this time ready to make some excuse.
But my stomach beats me to the punch.
Because it rumbles loud enough to wake the dead.
EIGHT
Damon
Her little shriekof surprise was cute.
Her listing off the various “crimes” I’ve committed was funny as fuck.
Her befuddlement at me asking if she ate was adorable.
But the way her cheeks go bright pink and her hands clamp over her belly when her stomach rumbles may be the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.
Except for the fact that she’s clearly hungry.
I push down the anger…along with the urge to wind my hand into her hair, tilt her head back, and kiss her until other things turn pink. In fact, the urge to taste her is so intense that the only thing that stops me from taking what I so desperately want is…everything she told me last night.
I’m trying to fix this shit for her, not add to her trauma.
So, instead of doing what I want, I grasp the top rung of her chair, drag it back from the wooden table that looks like it should have been put out of its misery a decade ago. I reachforward, snag her mostly empty glass of wine, shove it into her hand, and then stack all the shit she has out here into one pile.
“What the hell are you?—?”
I lift the pile, thinking it’s a fucking miracle I manage to corral all the pens and pencils, then turn for the house. “Come on,” I tell her as I push inside.
“Damon—”
But I let the door swing shut behind me, cutting off her protest.
I stride through the hall, turning right, moving into her office. The desk and shelves are pristine…something I know is always the case because this woman never wants to work behind a desk. She’s always on her back deck or in the arena, papers strewn around her, the pens and notebooks and laptop and tablet in easy reach.
Gotta be hell for her ergonomics.
I dump the papers, pens, and other shit on the empty desk, plug her laptop into the charger, and turn around.
She’s standing in the open doorway, fury pulling the lines of her face into sharp relief.
Her mouth opens again.
