He had just finished cleaning the dishes when the buzzer rang. He answered the door and rolled my suitcase and carry-on in. Did he just have someone fetch my bags? I hadn’t noticed a doorman when we came upstairs. There were many things about Hawk that were invisible on the surface, and you only saw them if you paid close attention.
SIXTEEN
hawk
“What are we doing here tonight?”Kendra asked, her eyes wide as I took a seat at the end of the couch. I patted my lap, and she kicked off her shoes, placing her feet in my lap as if this were something we had done many times before.
Everything with Kendra felt like that. Easy. Natural.
“Hanging out?”
She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Hawk. Do you often have women over and make them soup and sandwiches at—” she looked at her watch—“practically midnight?”
“Only when those women dealt with the madness that is flying into Logan Airport.” My answer was a poor deflection, and her deadpan stare called me out on it.
“Okay, fine. I’ve been here for nearly two hours, and we’re still dressed.”
“Did you come over here to fuck me, Kendra?”
“Isn’t that why you asked me?”
Her round eyes met mine, pupils dilated as she swallowed nervously.
“I asked you here because I wanted to feed you?—”
“Bullshit.”
I shook my head, frustrated with all the men who might have taught Kendra, only to expect a fuck when invited back to their home. But no, she might not remember what she said that night, but I knew something fucked up had happened to Kendra, and I wanted to know her before we ended up in bed together. I wanted her to trust me to share that part of her when she was sober. As it was, I felt like I had read her diary and invaded her privacy.
“What’s eating at you?” I asked, not letting her avoid the discomfort. I got the feeling that Kendra was used to distracting from the tough conversations with sex.
She shrugged and stared at the fireplace, licking her lips. She was unsettled, nervous. “We were flirting, right? Did I get that wrong?”
“Yes, we were flirting. No, you didn’t get that wrong. I like you a lot, Kenny. You’re all I’ve been thinking about since the first time we met. At work. You know, the place where I’m your boss. And while I’ve checked with HR, and we don’t have any policies that forbid this, I know well that the line is gray and blurry.”
“I’ve seen your dick, Hawk. I think the line has been crossed, no?”
Every time I attempted to bring a level of seriousness to the conversation, Kendra tried to deflect with a joke.
“You’re not used to this, huh?”
“What?”
“You’re not used to having a man see more in you than what you look like. Fuck, Kendra. Those losers at the bar,you could run fucking circles around them. Neither of them deserved an ounce of your attention.”
I pressed my thumb into the arch of her foot. Her eyes blinked, and her lips parted. A breathy gasp let out that sent a surge directly to my dick. Fuck, I was going to need every last bit of control I possessed to get through this night.
“Do you find me attractive?” Hadn’t I just said this?
I grabbed her foot and pressed it against what had become a painful erection. “What does this say?”
“Oh.”
“Wanting you is not a question. And if this were something I thought was casual, my head would have already been buried between your thighs, and you’d be screaming your way to your fourth orgasm.”
She clenched her thighs together in response.
“So, you’ve thought about it?”
