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Ignore it.
You don’t need a distraction.
But the pull is too strong, so I slide open the preview.
Max: I see you got a delivery.
My neck turns hot. I want to just rappel down the cave oftexting him. Enjoy some flirty banter, but instead, I shove my phone out of reach before I’m tempted to answer.
For the next few hours, I dive into work to take my mind off Elias. In the late afternoon, there’s another knock on my open door.
Is my office a train depot today?
I spin around. Goosebumps rise on my arms. I’m hot everywhere as Max rests his forearm against the doorway. He’s wearing a Sea Dogs workout shirt and basketball shorts. His blue eyes lock with mine and his voice is deep and raspy as he says, “Hey.”
One word, and I melt a little. “Oh, hi,” I say, feeling far too fluttery for my own good.
“Do you have a second to talk about…that thing next week?”
He sounds so believable that no one could know he’s here for any other reason.
But I know. I know because of the way he rakes his eyes over me, like he’s undressing me, like he’s checking to see what I’m wearing underneath my clothes. “Sure,” I say, feeling a little hypnotized under his stare. “Don’t you have a game?”
“In a couple hours. Gonna work out first,” he says, and that’s his pre-game ritual. He steps inside and locks the door. “Are you coming tonight?”
I almost always show up at games. I’m about to say yes but wait. Is there a double meaning to his question? I shouldn’t ask. I really shouldn’t. But I tilt my head coyly as the flirty words take shape on my lips, “To the game? Or did you mean something else?”
His nostrils flare. His eyes darken. “I know the answer to that.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re so cocky.”
He strides closer to my desk, resting his firm ass against it, then bending closer to me. Midnight Flame drifts past my nose. My eyes float closed for a second.
When I open them, he’s smirking. “You sniffed it when you opened my suitcase. My cologne.”
He says it like he’s busting me. And he is.
“What?” I furrow my brow like I have no idea what he means.
His smile deepens. “Rosewood, you’re even hotter when you act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” he says. “But I know you like it. And I know you opened the bottle.” In a stage whisper, he adds, “The cap was a little loose.”
Damn him, and damn me. I clench my jaw then breathe out hard. “Why are you so infuriating?”
He ignores the dig. “Want to know how I can tell you like it?”
“No,” I say crisply.
“I’ll tell you anyway.”
“Max,” I say, shaking my head. “Did you get the memo? You are extra infuriating.”
But we’re having two different conversations evidently, and he’s not taking the foot off the gas on his. “Because you have the most expressive eyes I’ve ever seen. Those big brown eyes are a window to all your thoughts. I like to look at your eyes and read what’s going on with you,” he says, and my throat tightens. His words are terrifying. I don’t want to be an open book. I don’t want to wear my emotions on my face. He leans closer, the nearness making my skin thrum. He reaches for my hair, cinched back in a ponytail. As he runs his fingers along the ends of it, he adds, “And I could tell from the look in them when you’d get close to me. When you’d smell me. I could tell.” Iwant to jerk him close and smack him until he adds in a tender, sensual voice, “Your eyes are my undoing.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I’m trapped in this swirl of heat and emotion as he does that thing he does—swings from aggravating me to adoring me. I swallow past the desert in my throat, trying to find some kind of words, but all I can manage is a bare question.
“You want me to wear them to the game tonight?” I ask it even though I’m one hundred percent clear on what he wrote on the card. But I want his answer. The truth in it.
He gives it with a long, slow nod and a certain, “I really do.”
