Page 34 of Velvet Vaughn

“I did not.”

She closed the laptop.

He stopped in the middle of his own living room and watched her come toward him. The detached part of his brain doing inventory observed that she’d unzipped her jacket at some point and that the tee underneath fit her in a way that would be a problem if she got within arm’s reach.

She got within arm’s reach.

“Sit down.”

“I’m—”

“Leo. Sit.”

Damn it, he felt like a chastised puppy. He plopped onto the arm of his couch.

She studied him with the same methodical attention she’d given his foyer two hours earlier. Whatever she found in his face must have confirmed what she’d already concluded, because her expression eased ever so slightly at the edges.

“Here’s what we’re doing,” she informed him. “Tyler’s finishing the imaging without us. The drive isn’t going anywhere. The fundraiser isn’t for another fifteen hours. You’re going to get five hours of horizontal, and then we’re going to get up and work the dossiers fresh.”

“Anja—”

“You crashed twenty minutes ago. You haven’t noticed yet because you’re a stubborn man. If you try to work the rest of this drive tonight, you’re going to miss something I need you to catch. Plus, I am not going to walk into that ballroom tomorrow night with a principal running on three hours of nothing.”

“Five hours.”

“Followed by a proper breakfast and the rest of the eggs in your fridge. Then we resume.”

He opened his mouth to argue, and what came out instead was a yawn so deep his jaw cracked.

Anja’s wide grin transformed her face. “Persuasive rebuttal, De Luca.”

“That wasn’t an argument. That was reconnaissance.”

“Bed.”

“Anja.”

“Bed.”

He almost said he’d go if she came with him, but that was a Pandora’s box he didn’t have the energy for tonight. Instead, he pushed up off the arm of the couch, and his knee, the bad one that had ended a career and started another, gave him a familiar warning. He caught the back of the couch with one hand to ride it out.

Anja gripped his elbow before he’d registered her crossing the floor.

She didn’t make a thing of it, just held his arm until he straightened up and then let go. The spot where her palm had been kept on telling him about her for several seconds after she’d taken it back.

He cleared his throat.

“Guest room’s down the hall on the left. Bathroom’s across from it. There are clean towels on the top shelf of the linen closet. The thermostat’s by the front door if you run cold, and help yourself to anything in the fridge.”

She watched him. “You’re putting me in the guest room.”

God, he didn’t want to. More than anything, he wanted to lose himself in her arms and, eventually, her body. He wanted to forget about everything that had happened in the last ten-plus hours. Leo vividly remembered how incredible she felt, the sexy sounds she made when he was buried deep inside her. But he was dead on his feet, and falling asleep on top of Anja Johansen wasn’t something he wanted to experience.

“I’m putting you in the guest room.” He almost tacked on “for tonight only,” but held back.

She tilted her head a quarter inch, waiting for him to elaborate. He didn’t, because if he had, he would have spouted something he was too tired to clean up afterward.

She let him off.