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I smile in return, thankful for the invitation. My hotel room holds nothing but emptiness and a cold bed. A further distraction for a few hours is just what I need.
“Yeah, sure. Let me get my bag.”
Shane nods and begins talking to an employee, giving the guy instructions on how to close up for the night.
Fifteen minutes later, we leave the gym and head out to Shane’s truck, a silver Toyota Tacoma 4x4 with gigantic wheels.As he drives, Shane alternates between singing along to the radio (he’s pretty good) and cursing the drivers who get in his way. I let my thoughts drift, and for once, I focus them on the future rather than on Sin.
Now, if only I can keep up the momentum.
Joyce, Shane’s girlfriend, is everything I like about a woman. She’s petite. She’s beautiful. She has a sunny Texas smile, a body hotter than the weather here, and she loves her man. Their kiss when she met him at the door even had me blushing.
Joyce whips up our shakes as Shane and I sit at the island and talk, pausing our conversation only during the whirring of the bullet blender. Joyce, though, has no problem talking above the noise. She tells me how she and Shane met through her friend Melinda, who works at STS.
I’m usually very good at matching names with faces, but Melinda’s escapes me. I’m sure I’ve met her; I just can’t place which department she works in. She’s probably an admin, as Genesis and Natalie are the only two women managers.
“So, how’s it going at STS?” Shane asks, watching his girlfriend struggle. Joyce is trying to remove the blender from its holder, and instead of helping, Shane stares at her wiggling ass.
I suppress a smile at the antics of the couple.
“Uh, not too bad. It’s a great company. A lot of potential. STS has a good foothold in protecting the data mined by insurance companies and hospitals. It’s an excellent position to be in right now. Did you know that hackers stealing medical data in order to blackmail patients is on the rise?”
Shane tears his eyes away from Joyce and shakes his head. “My parents hate that my sister Crystal and I haven’t taken an interest in the company, but we have our own dreams.”
I wasn’t asking about that, but whatever.
Joyce sets our shakes in front of us. They are brown, frothy, and cold. I take a sip.
Shane is right. Shit is damn good. There is peanut butter and chocolate and the chia seeds make it thick and creamy.
Like Sin’s thighs.
Damn it! Why can’t I get her out of my head?
“So,” Joyce says, mopping up a spot of shake Shane had spilled. “Tell me, Royce, do you have a girlfriend back home?”
Not sure how I should answer that, so I just go with, “No, not really.”
“We should set you up then. I know there isn’t any action at STS, considering every woman that works there is in a relationship.”
Every woman?
“Oh yeah? Like who?” I try to act casual, even though my heart is in my throat. “I thought those managers weren’t with anyone.”
Joyce gives me an impish smile. “Well, you didn’t hear it from me, but the gossip has it that the production manager, Natalie, likes the owner of a bar, and the other one, Genesis, I love her name by the way, she lives with a guy.”
Chapter Five
Bypassing the Expected
Royce
Overthenexttwoweeks, I avoidedherfloor like it was ground zero for the plague. Not actively seeking Genesis was the best way to purge her from my mind.
Or so I thought.
The week after I learned Genesis lived with some man, is when I saw her. She appeared when I least expected it, throwing me for a loop and making a mockery of all my plans.
I’d been doing fine until that point. I didn’t even think about her, at least not a lot. All that changed when she’d walked by the executive conference room during a meeting.
