Since when has my hand been an erogenous zone? I can’t breathe, I’m going lightheaded, and all I can see is Gage Reynolds smiling at me as though he’d like to eat me up and then come back for seconds.
This is sonot right. Mortification shoots through me, and I tug my hand free. It’s only a small consolation when he appears as reluctant to release me as I am to escape.
Wait. What am I thinking? Gage Reynolds is the son of the man whokilled my dad. It’s not my fault Gage is hotter than sin, but it sure as hell isn’t an excuse to dissolve into a hormonal mess every time I look at him.
My fingers are tingling from our contact, and I resist the desperate need to wipe my palm on my thigh. It’s bad enough he turns me on. I don’t want him guessing just how much he does, though.
“Sorry I wasn’t around to interview you the other day.” He looms over me, and I step back, until my back hits the wall of the small utility room. Instead of keeping his distance, he plants one hand on the wall beside my shoulder, and I have the terrible certainty he’s going to kiss me.
I want him to kiss me.
No. I definitelydon’t. And if he treats all the girls who work here like this, which, per Rex, he does, then no wonder he can’t keep staff for longer than a week. I tilt my chin and try to ignore the sexy stubble covering his jaw and the irresistible hint of leather and sandalwood that’s turning my brain to jelly.
Concentrate.
“You plan on interviewing me now?” I can’t believe how suggestive that sounds. I didn’t mean it to.
Didn’t I?
His slow grin leaves no doubt that he thinks I’m coming onto him. Shit. This isn’t going to plan atall.
“Guess that’s one way of looking at it.”
I know I wanted to get close to him, but this is crazy. “I’ve already been hired, remember?”
“How bad do you need this job, Amelia?”
The way he says my name kills me. And then his question manages to penetrate the fog of lust that’s trying to overrun my entire body. Is he suggesting I sleep with him to keep the job?
With any other guy, in any other job, my knee would be connecting with his nuts right about now. But even if I didn’t have an ulterior motive for being here, I’m not sure my survival instincts would’ve kicked in. Even though he’s not touching me, I like the way he’s looking at me, and that’s so sick I should probably hand in my cards right now.
Like that’s going to happen.
“Pretty bad.” We might both know what he’s implying, but that doesn’t mean I have to play by his rules. “Rent to pay, food to eat. The usual.”
Which isn’t a total lie, since my last bartending job ended a couple of days before Rex contacted me. Talk about good timing. Even though I have plenty of shifts at a local diner, it’s not enough on its own.
Gage narrows his eyes as though he knows I’m playing him, but he seems more intrigued than pissed off. “You live alone?”
I think of my mom and two younger sisters.Aloneis something I’ve never been in my life.
“No. I share with three others.” As if I’m going to tell him the truth. I don’tthinkso. He’ll reckon I’m weird if he knows I still live at home with my mom at the age of twenty-three.
Not that I care what he thinks.Obviously.
“Guys?”
Huh? “No, girls.” It’s stretching things to refer to my mom as agirl, but whatever. “Why?”
He shrugs. “No reason. How’d you know there was a job open here? I hadn’t advertised it.”
I shrug right back at him. “Word gets around.”
He looks as though he’s trying not to laugh. Why isn’t he a butt-ugly miserable bastard, like I’d imagined him to be?
He leans in close until his warm breath teases my cheek. Goose bumps chase over my skin but not because I’m cold. I fist my hands before I do something unforgivable, like grab his vest and haul him in for a kiss.
Then he speaks. “Guess I need to give you a personal tour. You up for that?”
