Page 18 of Have To Be Mine

I waited to see if he was going to listen or make this a much bigger deal than it needed to be. He walked away, to my relief, and I moved to the spot that I had picked out to commune with Athena. The heat was oppressive, but I barely noticed. From where I stood, I had a nice view of the city. I took a couple of pictures of that too and headed back down.

I stopped at a little stand, bought myself a cold drink, and made my way back to the hotel. I was already composing the daily report I would send to Adrian Blackwell. I promised to keep him updated. I believed in transparency. And he and Briggs needed to know things were not off to a great start.

The room across from mine was suspiciously quiet. I paused with my door open and listened. Nothing. Was I expecting moans? Laughter?

I didn’t want to think about that too hard. I walked into my room and let the door shut behind me. I sat down at the small table positioned in front of the window with an amazing view of the city, opened my laptop, and pulled up my email.

I believed in keeping things short, sweet, and fact-based. They didn’t need my opinion or an essay about what a pain in the ass Dash was.

Dash and I went over the schedule. He’s not happy I’m here. We are not on common ground. I expect more pushback over the coming days. I will keep you updated if there are any major issues.

Krista Hedley.

I sent it and closed the laptop. I hated being a narc. I would prefer to be someone collaborating with Dash instead of tattling on him, but he didn’t want to play nice. All I had asked him to do was sit down with me and discuss the schedule. We could have talked through his plans and then we would have spotted any pending issues that need to be resolved. An ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure.

But Dash seemed to prefer doing things in the moment, on the fly, to be reactive instead of proactive. And that was why we would never see eye to eye. I liked to overprepare. He liked to be a dumbass.

I had left that line out of the email.

Dash wasn’t my boss. His family was. I had a contract and a professional obligation. I also had a one hundred percent success rate that I had built over years of exactly this kind of work. None of that changed because the subject in question was stupid handsome and cocky in a way I found as intriguing as it was infuriating.

I took a shower to wash away the day and hated that I loved the luxury products that had been provided. God, I could get used to being pampered. When I stepped out of the shower, I couldn’t resist putting on the lotion that made my skin feel like silk. My hair smelled like I’d been rolling in strawberry fields.

Damn, I might have to indulge and buy myself some of these products. My dad would never let me live it down if I showed up for our weekly breakfast smelling like strawberries, but the rest of the time, I was golden.

I pulled my hair up, dressed in another pair of cargo pants and an Army T-shirt, and collected my phone and room key. I was starving. The hotel had several restaurants and I planned on taking advantage of the extremely generous per diem the Blackwells provided.

I opened my door just as the door across the hall opened. The models from earlier spilled out of the room. I felt my stomach clench and then heat flood my cheeks. Embarrassment or anger, I didn’t know which.

They saw me and the laughter softened into something more private, and they moved past me toward the elevator with the unhurried ease of women who were embarrassed by nothing. Not even stumbling out of a man’s room drunk before dinner.

The door across the hall had not closed, and for some unknown reason, I couldn’t move. I stood there staring. Waiting for what? I didn’t know. I should close it for him.

And then he was there all half-naked and gorgeous like one of the Greek gods I’d been thinking about all day. He was my Dionysus. The god of indulgence and pleasure.

Thank God Athena didn’t fuck with anyone. Like her, I will not fall for the charms of anyone, definitely not him.

The man knew he was gorgeous. He leaned against the open door with his hand against his bare chest. I swallowed hard because his pinky finger was either intentionally or unintentionally pointing to the happy trail that disappeared under the low-riding waistband of his sweats. Gray. Fucking. Sweats. Does he know what those damn things do to a woman?

Of course he did.

I had worked alongside special operations units. I had done physical training with men who treated their bodies like weapons of mass destruction. Very careful. Very strategic. I was not a woman who was easily impressed by a man’s body. But fuck me, it wasn’t fair.

When I tore my eyes away from below his waist, I found him grinning at me.

“See something interesting?” he said.

I quickly pulled myself together. “I see you’ve got a lot of nerve talking shit about my cargo pants when you walk around in sweats like that.”

Dash grinned. “I wear a lot less in private than I do in public.”

“So you’re a different person behind closed doors?” I asked.

“Aren’t we all?”

“Not me,” I said, shrugging. “What you see is what you get.”

Dash shook his head. “Oh, I bet there’s a lot going on behind that pouty little face of yours.”