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Jack wanted to find a fucking penguin and have a half-naked firefighter stuff it up Madden’s ass. Forcing a neutral expression to stay on his face made his jaw ache, but Derelie took Madden’s belligerence in her stride.
Last night he’d almost messed up with her and when she finally did show him tears, he felt like his skin had been rubbed away and he was nothing more than raw meat and electrical impulses. Tears in Derelie’s eyes made him feel broken in a way no fight did. He had no idea what he’d do if he ever caused them and it wasn’t like he’d been easy to get along with so far.
“There’s no and, Phil,” she said. “They’re two great stories on top of the regular features and syndicated news. If the firefighters don’t hit the top viewed stories list, I’ll eat my pencil.”
Spinoza offered Derelie a high five and Jack unclenched his teeth. Madden was last to laugh. “I’ll sharpen it for you,” he said, but there was no menace in his response, and Derelie wore a nailed-it smile Jack wanted badly to kiss.
He watched her across the table, laughing with Spin, and wondered how much this secrecy added to the thrill of her. Would he be less inspired to find a way to get her alone if it wasn’t a challenge? That was like asking if he preferred his right eye to his left—it was more shortsighted but he didn’t need it any less. He needed Derelie in a way that knocked his breath out.
They both dawdled. It’d become a habit, creating a way to be the last two out of the room. It wasn’t smart. Derelie fiddled with her notepad and he scrolled messages absently on his screen, surreptitiously aware of every movement she made, until they had the room to themselves and he could give himself over to her.
She tapped her pencil on her bottom lip. “Can you get lead poisoning if you eat a pencil?” The question was innocuous enough if overheard; the way she dragged the pencil over her lips not so much. His body read it as pornographic.
“That depends on whether you’re personally oiling any firefighters.” His gut tightened at the thought of that.
“I wasn’t planning on it.” She came around the table toward him, trailing a finger along its surface making it too easy to imagine that finger running over his body. “But if you think it would make a better story...”
He met her at the top of the table. “You’re the story. The front page, the number one read.”
“Is that yes to getting my hands on firefighter pecs?”
She was high on her victory with Madden; he was blitzed on the cheeky glint in her eyes. “It’s yes to whatever you want.” Impossible to imagine denying her anything.
“You say the nicest things.”
There was no privacy in this room with its glass walls. He dropped the volume on his voice. “I want to kiss you. I want to back you into a wall and get my hands under your skirt.” That was the nicest thing he could think of in the moment.
“It’s because of the penguins, right?”
It was because she’d had a win, one of what he trusted would be many; because she was his experiment and the result of them was nothing he’d ever expected. “It’s because you turn me on.”
She waved a hand and looked at the ceiling tiles, affecting boredom, but rosy-cheeked with mischief. “You told me that at breakfast.”
“You’re tired of hearing it?”
That hand in motion flirted with landing on his chest. They were already standing too close for colleagues. He wanted that touch and leaned toward her.
“Haley, the boss is looking for you.”
Jack jerked back as if Spinoza’s words were jabs.
“Huh, what did I interrupt?” Spin came into the room. “You jumped like I goosed you, Haley.”
“Jack’s giving me tips on how to deal with Phil,” Derelie said, dodging like a pro boxer.
Spin’s hand clapped across Jack’s shoulder. “Ah, that’s what he’s giving you.”
Derelie met Spin’s disbelief with an award-winning sigh. “Phil’s intimidating when I’ve only got penguins to throw at him.”
“You could take his eye out with a well-aimed pencil,” Spin said, slapping down on Jack’s shoulder a second time.
Shit, he didn’t buy any of this as innocent. “I wasn’t advocating violence,” Jack said. Of all the people to suspect something was going on, he and Derelie had to be flashing like neon for Spin to notice. But he could be trusted not to gossip.
“Advocating, that’s a big word for a jock like me.”
That didn’t mean it wouldn’t be painful, and Derelie’s concern about being found out was in her angled brows. He bit off a crack about ten dollar words. He was a bastard for not being able to keep his thoughts off Derelie long enough to keep her safe from rumors.
“Guess that means Jack’s being hands-on with his advice, Honeywell?”
