He held on once they were in the elevator and Mati and David were discussing the logistics of getting them to the hotel. They were to take David’s car, and Chance would bring Reese’s car to them later if they needed it. Mati, always prone to speaking with her hands, gestured without releasing him. He shut his eyes, leaned his head back against the wall, and listened, wise enough to know where he wasn’t needed.
Mati was a natural project manager. In the blink of an eye, she could juggle more schedules and details than anyone he’d ever met. Reese was good at strategy and negotiations, and even building relationships when he felt like it, but he’d be lost without Mati to help him execute and ride herd on his ideas. He’d been maintaining what his father had left him until he’d hired her. Now they’d grown it into something else altogether. Sure, he’d been alarmed by her color-coded filing systems and project charts when she’d first started, but now he found them, and the sound of her voice detailing everything that would need to be done in the next four minutes, soothing.
They went straight from the elevator to their car to retrieve their luggage. David managed most of it as if it hardly weighed a thing and led them in the opposite direction to one of those big American cars that were a modern homage to the classic muscle cars.
Reese grinned.
“What’s so funny?” David asked, eyeing him as he popped the trunk and threw in their bags.
“This car suits you perfectly,” Reese observed.
David looked over the sleek, sexy lines and shiny chrome that somehow emphasized the sheer power under the hood. “You think?”
Reese gave David the same look, seeing just as much sleek beauty and power. “Definitely.”
“Wow,” Mati said softly.
David held Reese’s gaze, his dark eyes unreadable in the dim light of the garage, his lips curling into a shamelessly satisfied smile. Reese wanted to run his thumb over David’s full lips to see if they were as soft as they looked.
Mati yanked open the car door and held it for Reese. “Okay, everybody into the car. We need to go to the hotel, and then I need to sleep, because I think I’m starting to have delusions or something.”
David chuckled and slid behind the wheel.
Reese climbed into the back seat, concerned when Mati sat next to him and rubbed her hand across her forehead.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m sure everything will make sense once I’ve slept.”
Reese wasn’t convinced that was true, since he’d practically just propositioned a virtual stranger, aman,in the middle of a parking garage. Was that ever going to make sense?
Nope.
He wrapped his arm around Mati’s shoulders, and she snuggled into his side and closed her eyes.
David watched them in the rearview mirror.
Reese had no idea what was happening, betweenanyof them, but his gut told him to keep going. To follow the path.
Reese pressed his lips to Mati’s hair while staring into David’s warm brown eyes.
“It’s going to be okay,” David said softly.
Reese nodded. He’d make sure of it.
Mati sighed as Reese kissed the top of her head. She didn’t knowwhatto think.
David was definitely flirting with them.Bothof them. Individually, simultaneously, any way he could. She suspected it came as easily to him as breathing, but she didn’t think it was purely for amusement, either.
His dark gaze heldintent.
And, unless she was crazy, Reese was flirting back. Hell, he’d stood by the car and eyed David like he was the dessert buffet at the Four Seasons—which she totally understood. Every single timeshelooked at David, she wanted to put her mouth all over him, too.
But Reese was straight. Or he had been until this morning. Of course, things could change,peoplechanged, and sometimes people had exceptions, but all that was hard to wrap her head around right then.
Once they were moving, Mati couldn’t keep her eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time. It was bright outside and the traffic was stop and go, but she was only dimly aware of any of it in the brief moments she’d resurface from sleep.
She couldn’t have said if the drive was five minutes or five hours, but it was definitely too soon when they rolled to a stop and the door on her side of the car swung open.
