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I hit the intercom button again. “Oh, great, thanks so much. Do you want to come up or should I come down for it?” I wasn’t wearing pants but I could rectify that quickly enough.
“I can come up.”
I closed my eyes briefly. This was such a bad idea. But then again, so had auditioning for Chicago when I absolutely can’t dance but that hadn’t stopped me. I had fake-kicked my way into the Bad Audition Hall of Fame, if there was such a thing. I hit the buzzer.
“What?” I grumbled at Scott, who had briefly paused in his licking to toss me an expression of disdain. “You don’t understand. You’ve been neutered.”
That seemed to offend my cat. He jumped out of his bed and did a leg stretch, then regally went over to the window ledge. I loved that furball. He was my constant companion and my number one cockblock. He did not like men. At all. He’d been known to inflict some serious flesh damage to my dates.
The thought of Sean getting a swat to the nose or a nip on the ankle was more satisfying than was healthy. I really needed to let it go. So Sean wasn’t hot for me. That wasn’t the point anyway. The point was to secure my job.
I glanced around my apartment as I unlocked my interior door for Sean. I wasn’t a messy person and tried to keep on top of tidying up, so it didn’t look bad. I lacked Savannah’s talent with decorating, defaulting to the easy route of ordering from Ikea and calling it good, but at least the space was clean. Not wanting to have my bed do double duty as my sofa, I had both crammed into the studio space. My closet had to act as a pantry because the kitchen cabinet space was so paltry, so my clothes were in a chest of drawers and in bins rolled under the bed.
Normally, that worked, but it also meant that there was no quick grab and go of clothing items. Everything was elaborately folded and jammed into the drawers. I tried to rush grabbing a pair of joggers and succeeded in pulling out four other pairs of pants with it. I tried to shove them back into the drawer and close it, but it popped back out a couple of inches. There was no time to fuss with it further. I bent over and stuck one foot in my pant leg.
“I have fantastic timing,” Sean’s voice said from behind me.
I spun around and lost my footing. “Shit.” I clipped my hip on the corner of the chest of drawers and tumbled partially onto my bed. “You could knock.” I sat down and blew my hair out of my eyes. “How do you know where I live anyway? Stalker.” When uncomfortable, go on the offensive.
He moved into my apartment and shut the door behind him. “I didn’t know it was a state secret. Besides, I’m your boss. Nico gave me your address when I showed him your phone. You left the door cracked open. I thought that was an invitation.”
“I wasn’t wearing pants,” I said, stating the obvious. I still wasn’t, if you wanted to get technical. My foot was in a leg, but if I pulled them up I would have to raise my knee and then Sean would get a view he hadn’t earned the right to see. “So no, it wasn’t an invitation. I came home and wanted to relax.”
“No doubt. You’ve been
wearing skintight pants all week. Your legs were probably in desperate need of air.”
So he had noticed my outfit choices. Interesting. “I wouldn’t say skintight. They’re stretchy material.”
“Skintight,” he said, tossing my phone back and forth between his palms. “Unbelievably skintight.”
I narrowed my eyes. I couldn't read his expression. “I didn’t realize you were that aware of my fashion choices.”
“Oh, I was very, very aware of them. And you wanted me to be.”
That outraged me on every level. One, because he was right. Two, because he had figured it out.
The hell with my pants. I kicked the leg off my foot and stood up in nothing but an oversized T-shirt that I’d stolen from a burly boyfriend I’d had for six weeks in college. It hung like a sack on me, which was its charm. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, with great dignity. “Can I have my phone, please?”
Which was a miscalculation. I should have just gone up to him and reached for it. Now I had to stand in front of my bed and watch him walk toward me, slowly, the corner of his mouth turned up, his steps more stalking than strolling. There was nowhere for me to go, so I stood my ground, refusing to feel intimidated by his ridiculously masculine movements. I put my hand on my hip, then dropped it because that felt too much like a pose.
The neckline of the T-shirt was so enormous it had shifted so that my entire left shoulder was exposed. I shivered from the cool air coming from the window I had opened a crack. I was in a constant battle with the temperature in my studio. The radiator cranked out way too much heat, but the nights were too cold not to run it.
It was entirely possible the breeze wasn’t the only reason I was shivering.
Sean got very, very close to me. He took my hand. His calloused fingers stroked over my palm. I shivered again, staring into his pale green eyes. It was really rude that he had such pale and enigmatic eyes. It gave him an air of mystery I wasn’t sure he deserved. It was pretty obvious what kind of guy Sean was.
The guy everything came easily to. The guy who had it all.
He put my phone into my hand.
“Thanks,” I murmured, waiting for him to back up.
He didn’t. His gaze dropped to my lips, which parted in invitation for him like the Red Sea for Moses. Annoyed with myself, I pressed them together again.
“Is there something you need?” I asked him, when he didn’t back up. He was firmly in my personal space and I wasn’t wearing pants. I was starting to feel desperate. He looked like he was going to kiss me and I really wanted him to but I also knew that was a very bad idea.
It was one thing to confirm that he was attracted to me, it was another to allow him to act on it.
