“Whatever you need. You can give me a report each evening.”
“Where should I set up?” She pressed the file against her chest. The movement pressed her breasts together, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of her cleavage. I forced my eyes away before I could notice anything else.
I gestured to the desk on the other side of the room. “That’s my brother, Cade’s, desk. He doesn’t use it much.”
She moved to the desk and set the files down. I followed, standing beside her as she sat down in the chair. It was a bit too big for her. She couldn’t be over five-five and my brother and I both stood at six-foot-three. I didn’t look, but I knew her feet would be dangling off the floor.
“You’ll need to log into the network and the accounting software.” I leaned over her shoulder to bring up the websites and immediately regretted it. That citrus scent hit me full force—her shampoo, maybe, or just her skin. No cloying perfume. Just clean and female.
Fuck. This was torture. Totally unexpected, and fucking torture.
I was acutely aware of how small she was in that chair, how my body caged hers in from behind. How easy it would be to let my hand drift from the keyboard to her shoulder. Her neck. Lower. How easy it would be to lean down and press my mouth to that spot where her neck met her shoulder, see if she tasted as good as she smelled.
I gritted my teeth against the impulse. I had apparently been too damn long without a woman for release.
She’d gone still. Holding her breath. Was she as aware of me as I was of her? Did her pulse jump the same way mine did?
I forced myself to focus on the screen, but I could see her reflection in the monitor. Those brown eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted.
Fuck.
I typed in the password and pulled up the accounting software. “This is what the last guy used. When I reviewed last month’s paperwork, something seemed off.”
I was close enough to her now to notice details I shouldn’t. The way her hair wasn’t quite as neatly pulled back as I’d thought—small pieces were escaping around her face. The sprinkle of freckles across her nose. The fact that she was wearing very little makeup. She looked innocent. Young. Untouched. It also didn’t escape my notice that she was holding her breath.
I wrote down the passwords on a sticky note and handed it to her. My hand brushed hers. Just a graze of skin on skin, barely a second. But a jolt went through me, immediate and unwelcome. I pulled back as if I’d been burned, but not before I saw her fingers curl around the note.
Yeah, she’d felt it too. Which meant I needed to get the hell out of this room. “Don’t lose them.”
“I won’t.” Her voice was steady, but she still wasn’t looking at me.
I nodded. “You need anything else to get started?”
“No. I’m good.” She was already pulling a laptop from her bag, setting up her workspace with the same efficiency I’d noticed before. She barely glanced at me.
Just like that. Dismissed.
I stood there for a second longer than necessary, waiting for—what? For her to look at me again? Ask me to stay? Smile at me? Women didn’t dismiss me so casually. I was Dalton King, former rodeo champ and owner of the King Ranch.
The fact that she’d already forgotten I was standing there shouldn’t have bothered me. But it did.
I left before I could say anything else or keep standing there like an idiot watching her work. Outside, the February air hit me like a slap. Cold. Clean. Exactly what I needed to clear my head. To freeze out the heat that had pooled in my gut the second I’d gotten close to her.
Thirteen days.
It was thirteen days until Valentine’s Day.
Thirteen days to keep my distance and remember why I didn’t do this anymore.
Why I didn’t let women get close.
Why I didn’t make promises.
CHAPTER TWO
Amber
My hands were shaking.
