My whole body freezes. Chicago chewed me up and spit me out. And what she didn’t take from me, my boss, Tucker Ray did.
My heart, my soul, my innocence. He took it all with a sexy smirk and then kicked me to the curb when his wife got wind of what was going on.
The wife that he never mentioned when he asked me for dinner one night. The wife that he didn’t bring to work parties, didn’t even have a picture on his desk.
That would defeat the purpose of him having hunting grounds at his office.
You couldn’t look for women when they all knew that you were married.
So he kept her hidden.
And then he kept me hidden from her. And he kept all of it separate until he got caught.
Then all of a sudden, I found myself kicked to the curb, even though I was a good employee of the firm and he’d never had a complaint.
As soon as his wife had a complaint, I was history.
Oddly enough, doctor’s offices are hard to get into even as a receptionist, when your previous employer manages to make all kinds of crazy claims against you.
He’s an asshole of the first order. And then there’s Jeremiah. The original asshole. The OG asshole.
“Did you tell me whether you’re having headaches or not? How are you feeling, Mari?”
“I’m feeling fine.” Just insanely hot and bothered. And a little turned on.
And some of that is a shock to me. Because if there’s one person I didn’t think I had to worry about feelings for, I’m sure it’s him.
So the hot and bothered part needs to get its shit together because this man is not for me.
He made sure that I knew that ages ago.
“Oh, well, as long as you think you’re feeling fine we’ll just blow off the part where you’re dealing with a head injury,” he mutters under his breath.
Then he heads for the door again. “I’ll be back. I just need one more trip and I think that I can have all your boxes here and safe.”
“That really isn’t necessary, Jeremiah. I’m sure that they’ll be alright in my car until someone can rescue it.”
“I don’t think so. What if it goes over all the way. That mountain is unstable as hell. I’m not sure how long it’s going to hold up.”
Glaring at him, I stand up, letting my body slowly steady itself. I fight the tilt and the breath that wants to stink in my lungs. The pounding in my wrist and my head.
I lean on the wall and eye him uncertainly. He still looks pissed as hell. “I’m sorry if I’m making things difficult for you.”
He glances over his broad shoulder, almost to the door. The scruff on his chiseled jaw and cheeks should hide his face. Make it difficult to see more of those lean features. But instead, somehow the dark scruff highlights how damn handsome he is. It showcases his full, kissable lips and my belly flips, my clit pulsing.
This is not what I need. I already had another man destroy what was left of my life after this guy left.
Men seem to be my kryptonite, blowing up everything I hold dear over and over again.
His dark brow scrunches, his warm eyes locked on mine, something dark and heated flowing through their depths, flashing like silver in the dark.
He tunnels his thick fingers into his dark hair, tousling it like I used to do with my fingers, laughing when he’d get pissed off at me.
The man doesn’t like to get mussed up. Or at least he didn’t.
“You can’t help yourself, Mari. You’ve always made life difficult for me. It’s just your way,” his words are curt and cold but the heat in his golden-brown eyes rocks me back on my heels, pressing at a nerve, a coil of heat in my belly arrowing straight to my core.
He whistles for the dog again and then he walks out the door without another backwards glance, slamming the door behind him.
