Before I could question what I was doing, I reached over the desk and wrapped my palm around the drink. She stilled as she watched me pick it up and bring it to my lips. “May I?”
A beat. Then she nodded.
I took a sip, my lips covering the red mark.
It was sweet, but also bitter and spicy. Surprisingly good. “Not bad,” I said, handing the drink back.
Her fingers brushed against mine as she took it from me. A faint trickle of static electricity passed between us. Just as she’d watched me, I watched her bring the cup up to her lips, her mouth touching the exact spot where mine had just been.
Heat rushed to my cock. Fuck me. Who would’ve thought sharing a fucking latte could be this erotic?
I shifted in my seat. “Is this what you usually get?” I asked, my voice hoarse.
“Yeah.”
“Every morning?”
Slowly, she arched one perfect brow. “Why are you so interested in my drink order?”
I shrugged, trying to play off the weird curiosity that had seized me the moment she’d walked through the door. “If we’re going to do this right, we need to know a little about each other.”
Bitterness slipped into her expression. “You mean like I’ve been trying to convince you to do since day one?”
I twirled my pen. “I told you it’ll be different.”
“Fine. What do you want to know?”
I wanted to know a lot of things. What she looked like when she woke up in the morning. The sounds she made when she came. The flavor of her mouth.
But I settled on, “You got any hobbies?”
She leaned back and crossed her legs. “Pottery classes. I was just at one this morning.”
“You any good?”
She glanced down at something on the floor. “I can show you what I made. You can decide for yourself.” She lifted her purse off the ground, produced a small cardboard box from inside of it, and slid it across the desk toward me. “It’s a mug.”
I took it out. The inside was the color of clay, but the outside was painted. Some plants. A butterfly. Near the bottom, Fabiana had signed her initials.
“What’s this plant?” I asked as I turned the mug in front of me.
“A stinging nettle.”
My eyes snapped to hers.You’re kidding.What were the odds?
“What do you think?” she asked.
I placed the mug down, then inched it with one finger toward the corner of my desk. “I like how it looks right there.”
“You want to keep it?” she asked, sounding slightly confused.
I did. I liked the thought of having something of hers in my office, and I wasn’t going to examine the reasons for that toodeeply. “It’s a good conversation starter. Gives me a reason to bring you up and flaunt the alliance.”
She nodded like that made sense. “Okay. And you? Hobbies?”
“None really. Besides the gym.”
“What do you do to relax?”
