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“Austin.” I gulp, feeling a flush of awareness. Because now, it’s impossible to look at him and not remember how he felt, holding me tightly in his arms. Running his hands down my back.
Sliding his tongue into my mouth.
“Hi!” I yelp, cheeks hot and my head spinning. Did I drink too much sangria? Or is this 100% Austin’s pheromones sending my world tilting off balance? “What…? How…? I mean, what can I do to you?Foryou. I mean, for you.”
Kill me now.
Austin shifts, looking supremely uncomfortable. “I, uh, came to apologize.”
“Apologize?” I repeat, a little disappointed the answer isn’t an ‘in vain I have struggled’ declaration of ardent admiration.
“For what happened. Before.” Austin clarifies. “It was totally unprofessional of me to… For us to…” he coughs. “I’m truly sorry. The last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable, in the workplace or… Out of it.”
Oh.
My heart thuds back down to earth. Because while I’ve been swept up in a haze of hormones and pure, unadulterated horniness since our kiss, it’s clear, Austin has… not been.
No, he’s been thinking of sensible things like workplace conduct and boundaries.
“It’s fine,” I say quickly, adopting an easy breezy tone that should win me cover girl of the year. “I was perfectly comfortable,” I add, trying to joke. “Toocomfortable. So, please don’t apologize. It wasn’t your fault. We were both… active participants.”
Active, willing, lusty as hell.
Austin’s tormented expression eases as he realizes I’m not about to bring a harassment suit against him. “Are you sure?” he checks, searching my face. “After the way you ran off, I thought I’d misread everything. In the moment, it felt like, well… Like there was a signal…”
“There was,” I assure him. Like, basically a chorus of angels screaming for me to fling myself into this man’s arms. “I’m sorry I bolted. I got… A little freaked out, and then fight or flight kicked in.”
“Well, lucky me that you picked flight,” Austin says, smiling. “I’ve seen you throw a punch.”
I laugh, relieved that we can talk about this lightheartedly. Worse things have happened, right? Two single adults kissed once. Nothing to write home about.
Except… Thatkiss.
“So, we’re good?” Austin asks, looking hopeful.
“Great,” I insist, even though it’s getting harder to figure what’s going on. When he first started talking, I thought for sure he regretted the whole thing, but now with his talk of signals and misreading things…
Did hewantthere to be a signal?
“Do want a cup of coffee?” I blurt, gesturing inside. “Decaf. There’s some left from my knitting club.”
“Aw man, I just missed knitting club?” Austin jokes. “Now I’m definitely having the coffee because I want to hear more about it.”
He takes my invitation, and follows me inside, and I’m glad I had already done my ‘fit for company’ sprucing, so I know there’s no dirty laundry piled on The Chair, or smutty books laying open at incriminating pages.
“How do you take it?” I ask.
His head snaps around.
“The coffee,” I add quickly, heart pounding. Because oh my god, that flash of heat in his eyes has just about incinerated my panties. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Black is fine.” Austin sounds strangled.
“Great!”
I busy myself with fixing drinks. Coffee for him, and chamomile tea for me, to try and calm my raging hormones. When I join him, he’s browsing my bookshelf, admiring my collection of cookbooks.
“Have you really read all of them?”
