“Are you going to let him outbid you?” she asks, continuing to move around. I keep my eyes fixed on her ass and vividly picture how it would feel to hold it in my hands as she grinds against me.
“You don’t have to keep cleaning,” I blurt out. “Sit down for a minute.”
“Okay?” she asks with a curious smile. Then she pulls up a chair. Thank God.
“And no, I’m not going to let him. If I can help it. Unfortunately, there is something standing in my way that I can’t seem to find my way around right now.”
“No? But you find your way around everything,” she says, and I am not sure what she’s implying. She’s definitely flirting with me, but it’s not over the top and desperate like most girls. Too loud, too obvious, too much. No, she’s subtle, playing a gentle game of cat and mouse, like it’s a dance.
We need to change the subject.
“So, what about you?” I ask, taking another sip.
“What about me?” she asks, biting her lip momentarily. I swear I have seen this girl somewhere else. It’s driving me insane.
“I don’t know. You’ve been working for me in my house for months, and I hardly know anything about you.”
“Oh, really?” She asks, arching one of her perfect eyebrows and curling her lips all in one gesture. “A big shot security man and you didn’t do any digging before you hired me? I find that hard to believe.”
“I ran a background check, of course. But if you’re asking if I dug into your personal life, the answer is no. I don’t use my position to sneak around,” I say. Unlike some people.
“Fair enough,” she says. “Well, you’ve seen my apartment. It’s not much. LA is expensive, so I work three jobs, as you know. I’ve been a bartender and waitress since high school.”
“You never wanted to do anything else?” I ask. “College? A career?”
That seems to hit a nerve because she just stares at me for a moment before saying, “I couldn’t afford to do anything else. Not everyone–” she stops. Looks away. Swallows. Then looks back. “Not everyone’s life goes the way they plan.”
I’m not poking around in that anymore. There’s a wound there that, if I had to guess, hasn’t scarred over. “Family?” I ask.
“No.”
“Husband?”
She snorts. “No.”
“Boyfriend?”
His eyes land on mine hard, and the challenging smirk is back. “No.”
I nod. “Fair enough,” I say, echoing her words. I get up and my phone buzzes. A text from Andrew. “I should get back.”
She gets up too and grabs my glass and the bottle, heading for the sink. But when she goes to walk around me, I sidestep, blocking her path. It’s unexpected, and she almost runs into me. We are standing in front of each other, nearly touching, the whiskey in my exhales filling the air between us.
I don’t know what I am doing or why. But I am just so curious. My eyes trail from her eyes down to her lips, making them part simply by focusing on them. She smells like berries, flowers, and want.
My hand slowly rises up to her face, and I take her chin gently between my fingers. Mila emits the smallest gasps because she knows what’s coming. We both do. I lean down and press my lips to hers, softly, testing the waters, then fully. It’s electric. As her body softens against mine, she lowers her arms to her sides, glass and bottle still in hand. I reach around her to pull her closer.
But my phone rings and my mouth rips from hers. Mila takes a step back, and I answer it.
“Andrew,” I ask, clearing my throat.
“He’s jumping on that job, just like you said he would,” Andrew says, and it pisses me off.
“Of course he fucking is,” I say, turning to head into my office. As I close the door behind me, my pulse races. My chest is pounding. I’m unraveling. I don’t know if it’s because I am angry about what Andrew is telling me, or if the moment was ruined.
Chapter 13
Mila
