What. The. Hell?
Trey's eyes darted from Dex to me, and then back again, before he smiled pleasantly and nodded. Why the hell he nodded, I have no clue. “I got’cha, man.”
What did he have exactly?
I tipped my head up to look at The Dick standing over me. His face was tight, his hold even tighter.
"Yeah," was the last thing that came out of his mouth.
Trey looked back at me and winked. "Maybeanother time."
I had to be the only one who heard Dex mutter, "Over my dead body," under his breath.
What the heck was all that about? That standard annoyance I'd come to associate with being in Dex's company kissed the nape of my neck. Now it was me who was stiffening while The Dick relaxed.
The first chance I got after Trey was out of eavesdropping distance, I looked back up at my hot boss. "What are you doing?" I hissed at him. Well, maybe that wasn't the question I'd been preparing myself to ask, but it had just come out.
Those longer fingers dipped gently into the soft flesh underneath my shirt. "Nothin'."
Nothing? Threatening to fire me if I accepted a date was nothing? I started to shake my shoulders under his hold. "Why are you being like that?" It wasn't like I was planning on accepting the offer but still. I didn't want anyone else making my decisions for me. Especially not when it was something within my control. Something that only affected me. This wasn't a matter for either of my brothers or anybody else to get involved in, dang it.
Dark cobalt blue eyes gazed down at me. His expression switching from distant to pissed by the way he started grinding his teeth.
“Don't be dense," he snapped.
My jaw dropped. “You have no right—”
He snapped his fingers together."You wanna talk about this? My office, right now."
The look on my face was organic what-the-fuck. In a month, I hadn’t had a man approach me at all. You couldn’t really count the men who’d come in that were natural born flirts because those kinds of guys flirted withanyonethat could possibly have something shaped like a vagina between their legs. And I didn’t think Trip counted either. With experience, you learn to smile and shrug off the winks and the flirts. This was exactly what I’d done. What I’d been through in front of a wordless Dex many times. And now he was going to intervene?
Maybe it was a little immature, but I ground my teeth together and attempted not to stomp my way toward his office. I didn’t need to turn around to know that he was following after me. Unfortunately, I’d developed this sixth sense of being too aware of him. I kind of thought it was because of how often we rode on his bike together. Kind of like how some women start menstruating around the same time when they were around each other often. It wouldn’t surprise me if Charles Dexter Locke had been able to throw my hormones out of whack.
If anyone could, it would be him.
Dex who I’d quickly learn to gravitate around. The Dex who woke me up every day. The same one that every morning made our coffee and poured my orange juice while I made breakfast. Dex who sat at night with me, watching Firefly while we folded our laundry on the sofa. Dex Locke who wished me goodnight before we went to bed.
When exactly I’d started looking forward to spending time with him, I had no idea. When I started eating up those little smiles at Pins and those little secrets we shared… I have no idea either. But I had. I'd grown to accept the fact that I had a massive attraction to someone who might not be capable of liking me in return.
At that moment though, I forgot all about that. The Dick had just cockblocked me.
He closed his office door and leaned against it, palms flat on the wood behind him. Dex’s eyes were strangely tight above his flex jawed. He looked mad or annoyed, or maybe a little of both as he stared at me in silence.
“You didn't have to do that.” I told him after a minute, trying to ebb away my own annoyance with him for blocking something I would have done on my own in a classier and less embarrassing way.
Helooked at the ceiling, discarding my question. His fingers started tapping on the door. "Do what?" he asked sharply.
"You know what." I rolled my eyes. "You told me to stay here and work for you, and then you're going to threaten my job in front of everyone just because some guy asked me out?"
Dex licked his bottom lip but didn't say anything. His silence was a big, fatyeahthat had me stomping right up to him.
"Are you kidding me?" This guy was out of his friggin' mind.
"No, Ritz. I'm not fuckin' kiddin' you."
My head was going to start hurting in like ten seconds. "Dex, I don't see why that's any of your business. You already tell me what to do half the time, and I know you're stuck with me staying at your place until this mess with my dad gets straightened out—but my dating life has nothing to do with you, okay?"
"Yeah, it does, Ritz," he gritted out.
