I shift in my seat, my pulse thrumming in my throat.
Seriously, vagina? Snap out of it!
I should not be this close. Him and his stupid tight shirts and whiskey scent scrambling my focus. This is how he keeps winning! By turning me into a horny mess.
“Well,” I say. “My gut was right. Record donations. And this time?I’mtaking the credit. Hope that monumental ego of yours can handle it.”
“You’re mistaking instincts for ego. I can see the crash before the screech, know the room’s gonna burn before the match strikes.” He cocks his head, eyes dark with challenge. “You call that luck. I call it skill.”
“Oh, spare me. Your gut is a crystal ball now? Next, you’ll tell me you can whisper to the algorithm and make videos go viral on command.”
“Foam rave? You really gonna sit there and call that luck?”
“You gamble, Hartwell. You throw darts in the dark and call itstrategywhen one hits.”
His chair slides closer, caging my knees between his legs. My pulse detonates.
“Instinct isn’t gambling, Stopwatch.”
“It absolutely is.”
“No,” he says in a low, gravelly register, and my toes curl in my sneakers. “Reaction is gambling.”
I narrow my eyes. My argument is losing ground fast. Mostly because I can’t stop staring at his jawline and imagining exactly how it would feel to bite it. Or lick it. Or worse (God help me), to feel his scruff rubbing up my inner thigh as he reaches that place I’m aching for him to touch.
My self-control has abandoned ship. It has officially swum to shore, gotten an Uber, and checked into a shady hostel for the night.
“And what was I doing today?” I say, inching toward him.
A mistake to be sure.
“Reacting,” he says, his gaze dropping to my mouth for a second before locking back onto my eyes. His warm breath skims my cheeks, and that is new information my body does not need. “You said yes to Blaze because you wanted to beat me to the call. Not because you thought it would work.”
“Not true.”
Except, it’s painfully, embarrassingly true.I hate that he knows me so well.
“You didn’t read the moment,” he says forcefully, and my clit picks it up like a microphone. “You reacted to me.”
Cole’s palms settle on my knees, easing them open a fraction.
Fuck.Heat doesn’t just climb my neck; it’s a full-body flashover. My skin is two sizes too small. I’m pissed off and vibrating with need. I squeeze the armrest, manhandling the leather to keep from reaching out and fisting my hands in his shirt.
I try to swallow, but my throat is desert-dry.
“This whole weekend I’ve been playing janitor to your ‘instincts’. Disaster after disaster. This event would be running so smoothly if you weren’t here. Deny it. I dare you.”
Cole raises an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
“I’d be executing the agenda, hitting every mark, and you’d be back home with your mind blown, wondering how I did it.”
“Keep telling yourself that. You’d be totally screwed without me here watching your blind spots,” he murmurs, blue eyes fixed on me. His fingertips work that hyper-sensitive spot on the curve of my knee, moving with slow, agonizing strokes.
The air between us vanishes. The silence is quicksand. The magnetic pull of his mouth is unbearable.
He tilts his head. Slightly. He’s about to kiss me. Close the last half-inch and ruin my entire life.
God! Just do it already.
