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The man is massive.
And I really, really like it.
Crappity craphole.
Gritting my teeth, I try not to dwell on how his heavy body had me locked beneath him on the mat yesterday during our sparring session.
“Do you give up?” he asked after pinning me.
His warm breath at my ear left me disconcerted and, for the first time, I didn’t have a flippant comeback. His colossal chest pinned me in a Krav Maga hold and the feel of his muscular forearm pressing across my breasts left me breathless. In the best of ways.
And frozen in confusion.
“Sai?”
Instead of fighting back like I normally would have and trying to outsmart him with a quick escape maneuver, I kind of just melted into him. And breathed in his scent deeply– sweat and cedarwood. Mmmm.
If I shifted my body just slightly, I could catch him between the legs and get free. But I didn’t want to hit him with violence. I wanted to explore him with gentleness.
When I didn’t answer, he instantly released me, thinking he’d hurt me. “Are you okay?” He pulled me up into a sitting position, his hazel eyes searching mine.
“Fine,” I finally managed to say. I was feeling completely off-balance and my gaze focused on his angular, rough-hewn face covered in a light stubble. Maddox was unrefined and rugged. Like a chunk of wood before you carved it into something elegant.
The thing is, I liked him exactly how he was and didn’t want to change him into something else.
Well, maybe that wasn’t exactly true. If there was a way to make him less annoying, I’d embrace it.
Feeling his gaze on me, I glance over as we head down the hallway, and pop the sucker out of my mouth. “What?” I ask and arch a brow.
His eyes, army green flecked with gold, dip. When I purposely give my sucker a slow, all-over lick, he grits his jaw and turns away. I’m not sure why I love to tease him so much, but I do. Mercilessly.
When he doesn’t respond, I punch him in the arm.Hello, rock-hard biceps.“What’s your problem, Maddox? You seem grumpier than usual. Did they finally cancelThe Simpsons?”
He tosses me a glare. “That’s the funniest show on TV. They’ll never cancel it.”
“It was funny when I was 15. Now, not so much.”
Once again, his gaze zeroes in on the sucker and I bite into it, pulling it right off the end of the stick. If he’s going to taunt me with that big, muscled body of his, then I’m going to dish it right back. In my defense, I do have a bit of an oral fixation and like to always have something in my mouth. Usually gum, lollipops or some type of hard candy. It’s notalwaysabout him.
As we walk through the large conference room doorway, Maddox snatches the stick from my hand and tosses it in the nearby trash can. Nothing ever grosses him out and I find that fascinating. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to sit here and watch me suck on it for the next 20 minutes until it's soggy. Because I would. Just for him.
Dash Slater, our boss, is already seated so I pull out a leather chair and sit. Maddox drops down beside me and places his muscled forearms on the table’s edge.
“What have you got for us?” Maddox asks.
After hitting a few keys on his laptop, Dash leans back and folds his hands, looking at us with intent teal eyes ringed in indigo.
Dash, a former Delta Force commander, oozes confidence and knows how to run a tight ship. With a set of killer cheekbones and thick, black hair, he’s mysterious, brooding and handsome. He also works too hard and will probably keel over from exhaustion if he doesn’t learn how to loosen up and take some time to play. Secretly, the girls and I have been talking about creating a profile for him on a dating site– without his knowledge, of course– just to see how many bites he gets. The issue is that he would kill us the moment he finds out and I really don’t want to get fired.
But if it would work out and he could find somebody…
“I need you both on security detail for Dr. Enzo DeLazzer,” Dash says, interrupting my matchmaking thoughts. “He’s a Nobel Prize winning scientist speaking at a conference in D.C. tomorrow.”
“Anything we should know?” Maddox asks.
Dash slides each of us a folder. “It all sounds fairly textbook. You’ll meet him at the airport when he lands and take him back to the hotel. Then escort him to the venue for a dinner where he’ll address a crowd of about 200. Afterward, you’ll make sure he gets safely to the airport and on his flight home. No muss, no fuss.”
I nod and peruse the general information in the report. Maddox and I have been teaming up on a lot of security jobs recently, from guarding royalty to politicians. It’s easy, but not very challenging. It seems like all the action lately has been happening to Fallon and Eden. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind a little excitement in my life.
