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I chew on my bottom lip. Is it appropriate to go for lunch with your boss? I guess we’re not really going for lunch; we’re just going to get lunch. Ugh. Is there even a difference? I should say no.
“Fine. But I’m paying.” I give in after a few seconds and shoot him a look that says don’t test me, releasing a breath when he doesn’t.
“Awesome. Let me just go put Willow’s stick away in my office, and I’ll meet you by the front doors in a few?” he asks. I nod, and he heads for the exit, sending me an easygoing grin over his shoulder before disappearing through the door.
There’s a knot in my stomach, and I hate that I can’t tell if it’s from nerves or excitement.
I’m being ridiculous. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that does is filling my stomach before these hunger pains send me falling to my ass on the ice.
Adam would love seeing that, I bet. It would give him something else to tease me about.
10
SCARLETT
Adam’s car smells like leather, expensive cologne, and the evergreen air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror. It’s very similar to how he smells on a daily basis, minus the air freshener. His scent screams, “I’m a well-put-together man,” and despite that I know I shouldn’t, I keep taking it in in lungfuls.
He smells like a man because that’s exactly what he is. A grown man. It’s impossible not to notice the differences between him and the majority of guys I know. Not only does Adam carry himself with a maturity that comes only from age and life experience, but there’s a kindness to him that shouldn’t be such a rarity but is. I’m finding that it’s beginning to grow harder to deny the surprising effect he has on me as the days go on.
It will be a cold day in hell before I do anything about it, though. For now, I’ll continue to keep him stuffed behind the Do Not Think About door and pretend he isn’t one of the best-looking and genuinely kind people I have ever met. Getting caught up in a mess of sexual fascination for my boss is not something I need or want in my life right now.
“Are you a big comic book fan?” I ask as a way of forcing myself to think about something else. “Or do you just like collecting them and keeping them in your back seat?”
He glances over his shoulder and laughs at the box of superhero comic books on the seat behind me. “Right. Those are my son’s.”
I nod. “Does he have a favourite?”
His eyes beat into the side of my head. His next words are sure, confident. “Leo told you about Cooper.”
“He did,” I confirm and chew on the inside of my lip. We turn onto a paved road and pass the new housing district starting to be built on the outskirts of town. “But if he hadn’t told me, I would have heard it from someone else long before starting at WIT. Hockey players are worse than teenage girls when it comes to gossip.”
He taps his fingers on the steering wheel, and his jaw twitches. “Good point. Cooper isn’t a secret by any means; he just hasn’t come up before now.”
“I didn’t think he was. You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
His lips part on a small, appreciative smile. “Thank you. And he does have a favourite. It’s Thor.”
I smile at that before replying with a nod, unable to think of anything to say. Instead, I prop my elbow on the base of the window and press my palm to my cheek. The mood has shifted to something a bit awkward, but neither of us seems to be eager to bring it back to what it was.
Instead, we sit quietly for the next couple of minutes. The steady purr of the engine and low murmurs flowing from the speaker break the silence. We’re in a part of Vancouver that I’m very familiar with, having gone to school only a few blocks away from the cathedral and newly renovated playground we just passed.
I clear my throat, and Adam pulls his sickeningly expensive car—if the elaborate seat stitching and the letters AMG on the steering wheel mean anything—into a busy parking lot, stopping a car length in front of what looks like the only free space. He throws the car into reverse and grabs the corner of my seat in a tight grip, the tips of his fingers brushing my shoulder, making me shiver. He doesn’t pretend to miss my body’s not-so-subtle reaction to his touch because a second later, he’s glancing at me, and whether it was his plan to look away quickly or not, our eyes lock and hold of their own accord.
It’s impossible to ignore the tightening of the air around us as I focus in on the deep green flecks around his irises and the slight downward shift and dilation of his pupils when I lick my suddenly dry lips.
Drawing in a shaky breath, I slowly, and almost greedily, slide my eyes over his face. I make note of the old, pale scar on the jut of his bottom lip and the perfect line of his nose that shows he’s one of the few hockey players who never wound up breaking theirs. Smile lines are sunk deep beside his eyes, beneath the ends of two thick, fluffy eyebrows.
We’re torn out of the moment when a car horn blares from behind us. We break apart, my heart thumping in both surprise and embarrassment.
“Shit,” Adam mumbles, sounding a bit breathless.
Yeah, shit. I don’t say anything as I scoot as close to the door as I can, and he drops his hand to the centre console, quickly reversing into the parking stall. The tension from moments earlier has been replaced with an awkwardness that has me pushing open my door and rushing out of the car to get away from it.
I place a hand on my chest and suck in a few deep breaths. My heart thumps frantically against my palm, and I scowl at the traitorous bitch. Adam is not someone I should be reacting to this way. There might as well be do not touch written on his forehead in bright red ink. A warning my body seems to not give a flying shit about.
My nipples are stones inside my sports bra, and I grit my teeth at the buzz of pleasure that comes to life each time my chest rises. It’s too easy for him to turn me on. That much I know for sure. For God’s sake, he only brushed my shoulder. Something he’s done multiple times during therapy. Yet now is the first time it’s had this effect on me.
Fuck.
