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This man is so freaking oblivious.
Just as he’s oblivious to how being close to him makes my skin prickle as I slip past him and into the seat. He waits to make sure I’m settled and fully in, then closes the door gently behind me and strides around to the driver’s seat.
As he settles in and starts the engine with the smooth, purring growl you’d expect from a car this expensive, I fasten my seat belt and settle to watch him as he steers the G80 into traffic with familiar ease. At least he’s not one of those rich boys who can’t drive because he’s so used to someone else doing it for him.
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask,” I say. “Did Rick pick this car out, or you?”
“Me,” August answers, glancing at me with the same amusement that’s messing with me so badly. “Surprised? Since I have such a stick up my ass.”
I let out a startled laugh. “A little, yeah. I almost thought someone else bought this for you. Like Debra, maybe.”
“I suppose it does suit my sister’s flash.” But it suits him, too, I realize. He looks casual and sexy behind the wheel, one arm draped against the window, pulling the muscles in his forearm taut. He scans the road in front of us, now and then glancing at me as he handles the wheel one handed with lazy ease, his legs rakishly spread and tight against his slacks. “Hot Wheels.”
“Hm?”
“It wasn’t video games,” he murmurs. “The brats who shunned me were playing with Hot Wheels. I wanted to play too. Always did like fast cars.”
. . . oh.
I realize what he’s giving me.
A crumb of himself.
I don’t even know what to say, but it warms me.
I smile as I settle in to watch the traffic in comfortable silence. It’s scary how easy it is to just be with him, without needing to fill the space with sound, with noise, with anything but the quiet of us.
There is no us, I remind myself sharply.
And that’s okay.
For now, this moment is enough.
That’s why I’m not expecting it when August breaks the silence again. I almost don’t notice.
He’s so quiet tonight, his usual authoritativeness softened.
Intimate.
Close.
Inside me, every word.
“I don’t expect you to singlehandedly save Little Key Publishing, you know,” he says.
I glance over at him. The nightscape of Seattle and its traffic around us is dappling soft hints of color over his face, turning him into a portrait of pensive artistry, handsome and heart stopping in this weird grace where he doesn’t seem so ice cold and unapproachable at all.
Not when those lights paint liquid color in his eyes, softening them from chips of ice into pools so clear and deep you can see all the way to the bottom.
I pull myself up from staring and this weird feeling like tonight could mean something.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper.
“Mmm.” Again that little curl of his lips, subtle but captivating. I’ve never thought of men as beautiful before, but August Marshall is so darkly, devilishly sculpted that every expression on his face captivates me. “I know the burden I’ve dumped on you, no matter what benefits you might gain from it. Salvage my reputation to salvage the company. That’s a big fucking ask. Let alone working with my aunt to see if her muse ever wakes up, just so we can keep her from surrendering her life’s work to Marissa Sullivan and her little schemes. It’s a hell of a lot to have dropped on your shoulders, I know. All because you fell into the wrong man’s arms in a terminal.”
I laugh. “I’ve been trying not to think too hard about it,” I admit—and maybe, if I’m honest with myself, that’s part of the reason for my jitters tonight.
Every step I take, I have to try not to screw things up for August and his family.
