“No! Shit!” I blamed my lack of experience in sharing my feelings for why I was handling this so badly. But it was important to get this right, so I pushed forward no matter how uncomfortable I was. “You’ve got it backwards, beautiful.You’rethe best thing that happened tome.”
“Really?”
“Fuck, yeah.” I pressed a hard kiss against her lips. “Without a doubt.”
She melted against my chest, her head falling on my shoulder. “Then I guess that I can’t really be sorry it’s taken this long for me to mention my class. If I’d said something the first day, then we might not have had to come to your cabin. And if we hadn’t spent the last week together, then we would have missed out on the chance to discover how much we mean to each other.”
“Nah, we would have become a couple no matter what. I was just biding my time until you were more comfortable around me. This situation just sped the process up a little bit.”
And damn but if I didn’t want to thank her stalker for putting our relationship into overdrive...after I kicked his ass, of course.
She jerked upwards, her spine stiffening as she looked up at me with a glare. “What do you mean you were biding your time?”
“You were always so flustered around me. I was waiting until you were a little more comfortable, and then I was going to ask you out on a date.”
Her dark eyes narrowed. “Since when?”
“About a minute after I walked into the office, around the time when you stammered out a hello and almost fell out of your chair.”
“All that time!” Her forehead dropped against my chest. “I’d finally gotten used to being around everyone in the office, but then you came along and I was always so awkward because I liked you. But I didn’t need to be because you were interested.”
I chuckled, but it turned into a groan when she pinched one of my nipples. It pebbled underneath her fingers, and she shot me an irritated look.
“Don’t get all sexy when I’m mad at you! It’s all your fault I have a stupid stalker.”
“How do you figure?”
“I would never have taken that stupid class if it weren’t for my reaction to you; that’s why. If you’d asked me out on a date any time during that first week before I enrolled, I never would have done that stupid post in the first place.”
I flashed her a smug grin. “I thought you said you signed up for it improve your receptionist skills?”
“Whatever,” she grumbled. “It’s not like we both didn’t already know that you’re the reason why I did it.”
“I promise to make it up to you.”
“It might take a long time,” she warned with a pout.
“That’s okay, beautiful. We’ve got all the time in the world.”
“We do?” she whispered as my cell rang.
“Fuck yeah, we do.” Now that I had her, I wasn’t ever going to let her go.
9
JESSA
Just when our conversation was getting interesting with talk that sounded an awful lot like forever, his phone had to ring!
“Worst timing ever,” I mumbled.
I heard the masculine rumble of a deep voice coming from the phone, but it was too low for me to catch what was being said. I knew it was good news, though, when Roman heaved a sigh of relief.
“Thank fuck. You sure about the threat assessment?” He offered me a reassuring smile when I sent him an inquisitive look. “Yeah, I agree. Let me know what you think after your visit. If it goes well then I’ll let both teams go tonight, but Jessa and I will wait to drive back up until the morning.”
“Was it Xander? What’d he say? Did they find the guy? Was it someone from my class?” I asked as soon as he disconnected the call.
“Yes, it was Xander,” he confirmed. “They were going to trace the identities of each of the male students who commented on your post, but they didn’t have to go that far. The first one they pulled up was a face Xander recognized from the security footage of the office building. They dug a little deeper and caughthim on a street cam driving past your grandmother’s house a few times.”
