AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I tense. Drag my gaze up to the mirror just in time to see a dark silhouette emerge from behind the row of lockers.
White shirt. Gold collar pin. Carved-from-stone features.
Raphael Visconti strides around the corner, looking at his cellphone. He takes three steps toward the sinks, before his eyes shift to my tight-clad feet and he stops in his tracks.
Click. The sound of his cell phone locking. Displeasure coasts over his perfect features, but by the time he slides his phone into his pocket and lifts his gaze up to mine, it’s dulled with that all-knowing, all-seeing amusement.
We stare at each other for three restless heartbeats, and the ghosts of his hands flare up below my bust like a nasty rash.
“This is the women’s locker room.”
“I have eyes, Penelope.”
“Well, it’s not very gentlemanly to burst into the women’s locker room, is it?”
His stare darkens to a stormier shade, and slowly his eyes carve an electric trail down my throat, across my collar bone, and settle on the pendant around my neck. They snap down to my cleavage for half a breathless second, before moving back up to the four-leaf clover. If I’d blinked, I’d have missed it.
Christ, this time I wish I’d blinked.
“Lucky girls don’t drop eight glasses on their first shift.”
Well, then. I suppose we’re just going to ignore the fact I’m next-to-naked. I’m in nothing but my bra, panties, and a pair of black tights, yet Raphael’s expression suggests he could be waiting for a fucking bus.
Well, two can play apathetic, even if only one of us actually feels it.
Despite my body buzzing with anticipation, I give a well-practiced eye roll and pluck out Anna’s moisturizer and slather it all over my face. “Did you get lost?” I ask, tone dripping with boredom.
He leans against the locker behind me and gives a lazy glance at his watch. “I was looking for someone else.”
Someone else. Annoyance grates my chest like sandpaper, and I slather cream over the area, as if it’ll help soothe the burn. “She’s not here,” I snap.
His eyes spark. “Who’s not?”
Silence. I bite my tongue to stop myself from exposing the chink in my armor of indifference, because I’d hate for him to catch sight of the raging green monster underneath. It shouldn’t even be there, anyway.
Of course, I can only assume he’s here to meet Anna, and the thought of him coming into the locker room in hope of finding her in her bra, panties, and tights, makes the idea of putting her in a headlock all the more alluring.
Seconds pass, each one drip, drip, dripping onto my skin like Chinese water torture. It’s near impossible to feign nonchalance when there’s a six-foot-four man with large, hot hands standing less than a meter away from me.
It annoys me how polished he always looks. It’s nearing midnight; he’s nine whiskeys down—I counted—and his suit jacket is currently stuffed in the back of a kitchen freezer. I know, because I put it there. But still, he looks as crisp as a winter morning. The crease down the front of his trousers is sharp enough to slice my skin, and even with a magnifying glass, I doubt I’d find a wrinkle in his bright white shirt.
Bet he irons his bed sheets. Well, has one of his minions do it for him, anyway.
I pump even morecream into my hands, desperate for something to do. Just as I’m about to conjure up a smart-ass remark, simply to poke a hole in the heavy tension weighing down on my head, a dark shadow shifts over the sink.
Self-preservation kicks in. Raphael’s quick, but I’m quicker, because the memory of him trapping me against the railing from behind is as raw as an open wound, and I refuseto put myself in such a vulnerable position again. I spin around and press my back against the counter, just as his hands touch down on either side of me.
Our gazes clash. His mouth curves. My lungs tighten.
This was a bad idea.
I suck in a shaky breath and a satisfied smirk deepens his dimples. His amused gaze searches mine. “How was your first shift?”
I recoil at the polite and professional tone tickling my nose; it’s at odds with the dizzying warmth of his body brushing against my chest. I can’t say I’ve stood this close to a man while being half naked and had him make pleasantries. Especially not as my breasts graze against the cold buttons of his shirt every time I breathe.
Fuck. Of all the days not to wear a padded bra.
“It was fine.”
