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"Fit for viewing now, Mr. Fussy Pants."
I spin around to face her. My gaze swerves down to the hem of my shirt, which now covers her body, sort of. It hangs halfway down her thighs.
She braces one foot on the bed and rolls her sock down, casts it aside, and repeats the process with the other foot.
My eyes insist on watching her every movement.
Emery crawls under the covers and stretches out on her side with her head on the pillow.
I remove everything except my boxers, then climb onto the bed and move around until I'm situated on my side, facing her, with a gap of a foot between us. Should I move away from her a wee bit more?
She tucks her hands under her cheek on the pillow.
The lass looks even sweeter and more innocent lying beside me that way. I settle a fingertip on her upper arm, trailing it back and forth along her skin. "You mentioned you're a computer programmer. What is it you do?"
"Programming, duh. It's technical and very, very boring."
"I'd like to know. Do you create software?"
"I work for Travellis Games, a company that makes software for everything from the latest Kor the Space Viking game to online poker and digital slot machines." Her expression turns almost melancholy. "I don't really create anything, though. I fix what other people create. Debug code, rejigger scripts, that kind of thing. It's mind-numbing at times and always tedious."
"Why do it if you hate the work?"
"In college, I loved writing code. But the jobs I got after graduation were all programming, not actual creative coding." She withdraws one hand from under her cheek to pick at the seam of her pillowcase. "Being trapped in a cubicle forty hours or more every week, fixing someone else's creation, it gets to be a real drag after a while."
"You could find another career."
"Not that easy for us non-millionaires. Getting the training for something else takes time and money I don't have." She bites her upper lip when I draw an invisible line up to her shoulder. "My last job paid well enough, but I spent most of my income paying off my student loans. When the bosses ordered everyone to work longer hours, having fun became a rarity in my life."
I pull my hand away from her arm, closing it over her fingers to stop her from picking at her pillowcase. "You said your last job paid well, past tense. What about your current job?"
"Don't have one. Got laid off—downsized, as they say." She snuggles deeper into the pillow, and her chin grazes my knuckles. "I'd worked there longer than most of my coworkers, but I was the first to go."
"I'm sorry, Emery." I stroke her chin with my finger. "You deserve better."
"Why?"
I have no answer for her. "Why? Because—You do, that's all."
"What do you do for a living?"
I roll onto my back as if I mean to inspect the bed's canopy. "Nothing interesting."
She taps my nose until I look at her. "If you won't tell me your occupation, at least tell me how many times you've had one-night stands."
"Not often," I say in a measured tone.
"How often?"
"Four times. Including you."
"Only four? I got the impression you do it a lot."
"Why would you think that?"
She shrugs one shoulder. "You were so skilled at seduction, I figured you take strangers to bed all the time."
"No." I pinch the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger. "My brother Aidan has convinced my entire family I travel the world seducing hapless women. No one should ever believe Aidan, though. He thinks it's humorous."
