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But when Liza had left me with a peck on the cheek, a stack of signed divorce papers, and three girls I felt unequipped to care for on my own, I’d had to admit the truth to myself: no matter how much I enjoyed being in a relationship, I simply… wasn’t very good at it. I was too focused on work, with barely enough time to be a good dad, let alone a good partner.
Besides which, for the past four years, I’d had… Brody.
We were not in a relationship—god, no—which was why he’d put up with me as long as he had. But he was so…there—a constant, sunshiny presence in my life, whether he was talking to me about his classes and his friends, or flailing his arms and twirling around the living room to Taylor Swift at top volume, or helping me decide how young was too young for a teenager to have a cell phone—that italmostdidn’t matter that we weren’t officially together or that I was the exact opposite of the guys he wanted sexually.
Sex was overrated, really. And sex with Brody, no matter how compelling he was, would be—
I swallowed hard, and the vision popped into my brain of me, stalking across the floor and pressing Brody back into the bookcase. Of his green eyes widening with heat at the hardness of my body against his. Of his breaths coming shallow and fast. Of him smiling at me in welcome so I could press my tongue to that perfect dimple, lick the salt from his skin, and—fuck.
I moved my gaze to the carpet at Brody’s feet and twisted my hips to hide my rapidly inflating cock.
Frontal bone, temporal bone.
Deflate, I told my dick sternly.He is not for you.
But my skin prickled, and my empty hands ached.
Sphenoid bone. Hyoid bone.
You’re his boss, for god’s sake.I gripped the edge of the desk behind me.Stop being weird.
Maxilla. Mandible.
“Gr—Dr. Brighton?” Brody pressed.
I darted a nervous glance up at him.
One of Brody’s toned arms was wrapped around his stomach protectively, but the other was raised so that he could more efficiently tug at his hair. He looked so angry and… andhurt, maybe, that I wanted to haul him against my chest comfortingly and vow to protect him like a knight in shining armor.
Which was ridiculous, of course. Brody was the strongest person I knew, and I wasn’t a person anyone turned to for comfort. Not to mention, I was the person who’d upset him in the first place.
“Are you okay?” Brody demanded, frowning at me worriedly, his anger temporarily on hold. “You look like you’re going to throw up.” He closed the distance between us, bringing his hand up to test the temperature of my forehead like I was one of the girls. “You do feel a little feverish.”
I jerked my head away from his gentle, electrifying touch. “M’not feverish.”
“Do you think it was the pizza?” He moved his hand to my cheek and then to cup the back of my neck, almost like he was pulling me in for a kiss, and I swear I could feel the tiny electrical charges jumping from synapse to synapse beneath his fingertips. “Because I feel fine, but I didn’t try the pepperoni— “
“It’s not the pepperoni,” I groaned, suddenly, shockingly breathless.
“It could be an allergic reaction. Do your lips feel tingly?” He brushed his fingers over them lightly, and damn if they didn’tstarttingling right then.
I licked them instinctively, right over the place he’d touched, and every muscle in my body locked. “Brody—”
“You’re breathing funny,” he pronounced. “That’s it. I’m calling an ambulance. I know you’re a doctor, but there’s a reason everyone says doctors make the worst patients.” He started to move away like he was going to find his phone.
With a speed and strength I didn’t know I possessed, I grabbed his wrist before he could take a single step.
“I’m not sick,” I said roughly.
Brody froze, his gaze pinging from my face to my hand, where it was clamped around his. “Dr. Brighton…”
“Grant,” I corrected in a whisper, aching to hear my name on his lips so badly that I couldn’t remember any of the very compelling reasons why it had been important to maintain that formality, to put distance between us.
Like the fact that he was ten years younger than me.
Or that I was not the kind of guy he wanted.
Or that Ipaid his salary.
