The kind that says something else entirely was going on.
“Where’s your security?” I add to Simon, softer.
“Likely laughing their arses off nearby, conspiring with the universe to make me earn this,” Simon murmurs as I finally get my bra straightened enough to yank my shirt down and head toward the back of the bus.
“I—sorry,” I manage.
He grins. “Oh, don’t be. I enjoy a good challenge.”
How does the man keep getting even more attractive?
I shuffle on weak knees to the back of the bus and unlock the door to let Ryker in.
He’s waiting in his usual overalls and dirt-covered T-shirt and boots, holding a waxed box of produce at one hip, and as soon as the door is fully open, he immediately looks past me.
“Hello, mate,” Simon says behind me.
“Where’s your shirt?” Ryker asks him.
“Did you know the women on this campus and in this town will buy burgers from a man who’s not wearing one?”
Ryker’s gaze wavers from Simon back to me. “You’re peckering out your burgers now?”
“Sorry?” Simon says. “I’m unfamiliar with that term.”
I would laugh, but my vagina is too busy crying over what almost was. “Do you know the restaurant Hooters?” I look back at Simon, who’s flung himself into one of the seats at my chef’s table.
Probably to hide the massive boner I glimpsed when I was panicked and wrestling my bra back in place.
And at that thought, my vagina whimpers once again.
We almost had that boner.
Simon’s brows furrow. “Hooters? I don’t believe I do.”
He’s lying.
The man is lying.
Like he wants to make me say it out loud.
“It’s a restaurant whose main draw is that all of the servers have very large breasts and they wear tight, skimpy T-shirts.” I gesture to my own breasts, realize they’re lopsided because I couldn’t get the damn sports bra back on right, and then cross my arms over my chest before Ryker cares to look close enough to notice.
I can play off every single sweat drop and smell in this burger bus right now as what happens after a long shift on the hottest day of the year, but I can’t explain to my brother why my boobs are crooked.
Or why my lips are probably swollen.
Simon props his elbow on the table, chin on his fist, his thumb brushing his bottom lip, which reminds me once again where that thumb was just a minute ago. “Fascinating. And that has to do with me being shirtless…?”
“Rumor goes around every once in a while that someone’s starting a restaurant called Peckers to compete. Where shirtless men in tight pants serve the ladies.”
That smile.
That smile will live on in my dreams until the day I die.
Because when Simon Luckwood smiles that smile at me, I know he’s thinking about when we can get together again. I know he’s thinking about how much he enjoyed basically getting caught with his hands in my underwear.
I hope he’s thinking that he likes me.
