Page 64 of Reckless

Somehow, Sage has gotten under my skin, and into my heart.

But I don’t mind nearly as much as I probably should.

Chapter Thirteen

SAGE

The Next Day

The next day I spend smiling like an idiot.

Not constantly.

That would be ridiculous.

Just at random.

I’ll be halfway through answering an email or making coffee in the break room at Unsilenced when the memory catches me completely off guard. Ghost standing in my doorway, looking like saying goodnight had somehow become the most complicated thing in his life. The way he’d completely missed my attempt to kiss him, buffered for what felt like forever, then somehow I managed to walk straight into his shoulder trying to recover.

I smile all over again.

At the time, I’d wanted the floor to open up and swallow both of us whole.

Now, I honestly can’t imagine it happening any other way.

It was awkward. Painfully awkward. It was also so unmistakably us that every time I think about it, something warm settles low in my chest.

The second kiss helps too. Quite a lot, actually. More than once I catch myself touching my lips without thinking, remembering the way he’d looked at me before he’d kissed me again. It was as if somewhere between the sofa and my front door he’d stopped trying to convince himself to stay away. That thought follows me all day.

Apparently so does the smile.

By lunchtime, Carla narrows her eyes at me from across the conference table before setting her coffee down with exaggerated suspicion. “Okay,” she says. “Who is he?”

“What?”

“Or she. I’m not judging.”

A couple of people laugh.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit,” Ben says from the other end of the table. “You’ve smiled at your laptop three times in the last ten minutes.”

I fold my arms across my chest in defiance. “I was reading an email.”

“You were reading next month’s funding forecast.” Carla points at me with her pen. “Whatever you’re on…” she grins, “… I need some.”

Everyone laughs, and I laugh along with them, shaking my head while heat creeps into my cheeks.

If they only knew.

Whatever this thing is that’s finally happening between Ghost and me, whatever shifted between us last night, I know one thing with absolute certainty…

I’m hanging onto it with both hands.

The only downside is that I don’t actually get to see him.

We’d planned to catch up after work, but a problem at the mine pulled him back to the clubhouse before lunch, and I got stuck at Unsilenced until after eight, dealing with a grant application that refused to cooperate.