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If it was possible, Bash’s eyes darkened even more. I felt like he wanted to devour me… which was incredibly inconvenient because I really wanted to be devoured against my better judgment.
“No. Not even close.” He pushed a curl out of my eyes, but his fingers lingered on my hair, chafing it between his fingers like he was assessing the texture… and then he stepped even further back, out of touching range. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just… unwise. You’re Sterling Chase, after all.”
My eyes widened in realization. “Oh, god. Oh, I am. I’m yourboss, aren’t I?”
Bash’s mouth opened, then shut. His lips were swollen and shiny from our kisses, and I couldn’t help tracing them with my gaze the way I wished I could with my tongue.
He growled and took another giant step away—at this rate, he was going back himself all the way to Cleveland—but it did nothing to break the thread of purewantbetween us.
“I meant that you have business to attend to, sir. You’re hoping to see Justin Hardy. You wanted me to introduce you to Dev. You were eager to talk to them about an opportunity. Remember?” Bash pressed his lips together and stared at the ground for a beat before looking up at me with fresh conviction. “So we should go do that and not allow ourselves to be distracted by… other things.”
“No, of course,” I said softly.
His hands were fisted by his sides, and I wondered what I could have possibly done to make him look almost angry, but maybe it didn’t matter. I’d gotten the kiss I’d promised myself, and it had been better than I’d ever dreamed. It would be greedy to want more. And Bash was right—I did have a higher purpose.
“Nothing I love more than talking about an exciting new piece of technology,” I assured him with a fake smile.
But for the first time in a very long time, when I said I was excited to talk about my project… I was lying.
SIX
BASH
He was lying.
I’d known it all along, and all along, I’d told myself it didn’t matter—that I could fuck a handsome liar as easily and uncomplicated-ly as I could fuck anyone else. But then I’d kissed the man… and found myself forgetting.
Holding Rowe in my arms had sent shock waves through me. Like an idiot, I’d stood there indulging in the most passionate, incredibly overwhelming kiss of my life with a man who hadn’t said more than a handful of truths in the few hours I’d known him, and every cell in my body had wanted to rub itself up against the tiny fraudster.
Even now, having put several feet of space between us and invoked the name of JustinfuckingHardy, which should have killed off any lingering lust in an instant, tension still saturated the air between us, and my hands ached to pull Rowe against me again.
It was a lowering moment… and an enlightening one.
There had been a small part of me, back when we’d first learned just how big an asshole Justin was and how comprehensively he’d screwed Silas over, that had been almost angry with my best friend. I’d never told Silas that, obviously, and I never would, but I’d wondered how the hell a man brilliant enough to win a full-tuition scholarship to Yale and people-savvy enough that Fortune 500 companies consulted him on their organizational structures could be fooled by a pissant idiot like Justin.
Now, I was starting to think I understood.
Maybe Kenji was right. Maybe sometimes you couldn’t see the danger until it was too late.
Rowe stared back at me, swaying slightly on the balls of his feet. His cheeks were flushed a dark pink, and his hair was even more disheveled than before, like a pair of large hands had raked through them.My hands.A bolt of longing pierced my gut, and my dick, which still saw absolutely no problem with the situation, swelled uncomfortably in my pants.
When Starlight whickered softly, I seized on the excuse to turn my attention to the mare, stroking her head and ears soothingly.
“You’re, uh… you’re sure I didn’t do anything wrong?” Rowe asked hesitantly after a moment.
Fuck, the man sounded nervous as a virgin. Like he’d never actually kissed anyone before today—and, Christ, if I spent any amount of time dwelling onthatidea, I wasn’t going to be able to turn around without embarrassing myself.
“Positive,” I gritted out.
“Good. Okay. Only…” He swallowed so hard his throat clicked audibly. “Only you seem kind of upset? And I wonder if I might, ah, owe you an apology for taking advantage? I swear to you, Bash, I’ve never done that before with anyone. Anyone Iemployed, I mean,” he tacked on belatedly. “And I am truly sorry.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The man was apologizing for taking advantage of me, sounding genuinely, acutely miserable, when it was taking all my self-control not to grab him, shove him into the nearest empty stall, and kiss him until there was no doubt in his mind that he was doing it right because he couldn’t possibly do it wrong.
“You didn’t take advantage,” I assured him. “It’s like I said: we need to focus on the reason we’re here.” Unfortunately for me, it was getting harder and harder to remember what that was.
I’d originally intended to make Rowe squirm all day—to keep him out of his element, feed him ridiculous foods that were “Sterling Chase’s favorite,” flirt with him outrageously, and see whether I could make him confess everything before I got him into bed. Now, being within five feet of him felt like a threat to my equilibrium.
Thankfully, Devon McKay happened to be just on the other side of this barn. And for maybe the first time, I couldn’t even be sad that life had hardened Dev into one of the most suspicious, grumpy men I knew. Thanks to Silas lighting up our group chat with a play-by-play from last night’s gala like he worked for TMZ, Dev knew exactly who Rowe was, and he’d already given me a ration of shit about the situation via text this morning. Dev didn’t suffer fools, he was impossible to con, and he’d have no trouble helping me rebuild my defenses against the sexy little liar… before I decided I didn’t want to get rid of him at all.
