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“I have beef,” Jay grumbles. He remains on the door, like he knows his job, and no matter how much he wants to get closer to his girl, doing his job is more important. “You and I have a problem.”
Luc grins as he works. “What did you do to him?”
“I made a business offer. It’s what we do in the real world.”
Luc frowns, confused.
“He offered to buy Soph,” Jay fills in the blanks with snapped words. “Pay her double anything she earns here, put her up in the penthouse right beside him.”
Luc grits his teeth and hisses. “Dude… I think you chose the wrong chick to hit on. There’s hitting on a dude’s girl, and then there’s hitting on a Bishop’s girl. I feel like maybe you forgot to pick up the FAQ pamphlet on the way into town.”
“I didn’t forget shit. I have a company, and that company has positions to fill…” I flash a grin when Soph hides her snicker and Jay growls. “I see someone I think could be a good addition to my team, I make an offer. I don’t take it back; job’s still open.”
Soph shakes her head and pushes off the desk while Luc cleans Lib’s split lip. Reaching into the desk drawers, Soph hums while she works and makes a happy little grunt in the back of her throat when she finds what she wants. With her discovery clutched tightly in her hand, she moves across the room and doesn’t stop until her toes touch Jay’s. She takes his hand and places a candy bar in the center, then she wraps his fingers around it and pulls his face down so she can whisper sweet nothings into his ear.
Despite the short skirt, hooker heels, and the bruised Libby in my lap, none of what Sophia does feels cheap or dirty. She whispers to Jay for a minute, talks him down from whatever homicidal thoughts run through his brain. She caresses his face while he pockets the candy bar and holds her trim hips.
He’s so much bigger than her, but he’s not abnormally large. He and I definitely come from the same gene pool, because all three of Colum’s sons have the same body, same width, same height. But Soph is so delicate, and Libby is shorter than Soph by several inches.
I can’t stop focusing on Jay’s hands on Soph’s hips, because they make me think of my hands… and Libby’s hips.
“She’s going to need supervision tonight while she sleeps,” Luc murmurs. His ocean blue eyes come up and meet mine. “I can have her transported to the hospital–”
“No, I got it. Wake her every two hours?”
He nods. “Did he hit her with a fucking sledgehammer? He knocked her good.”
“I can hear you,” Libby mumbles. My eyes snap down and stop on her dirty green eye – singular. One eye, because the other is swollen. “I’m not out, I’m just sleepy.”
Luc’s lips pull back into a playful grin. “Hey there, officer. You comfy?”
“Yeah.” She tucks her legs up, frowning when they continue to slip, but she relaxes when I reach around and hug them close. “I don’t wanna talk about my current predicament. For as long as we don’t say the words out loud, it’s not as bad as it seems.”
“You mean the bit where you got hit?” Luc asks.
Lib shakes her head. “Nope.”
“The bit where you’re in my arms?” I whisper. I wait for her eyes. “You have a problem admitting you like it?”
Her cheek is already covered in blood, her lip cracked open. But beneath that color, a blush still manages to move beneath her skin. “Yeah, that bit. Tomorrow, the reports will say concussion, and you bet your ass I’ll argue I don’t remember this.”
Luc chuckles, and leans over his bag to take out an antiseptic ointment. “Kari and I play games like this all the time,” he jokes. “Role-playing nurses and doctors is always hot when my thermometer needs to know her internal temperature.”
“Ew!” Libby smacks him on the shoulder, but quickly rolls back into me while Luc chuckles and turns back with an actual thermometer.
“Ew? There’s noewabout my job, Tate. Are you being dirty? Because I was talking literals.”
“You’re a pig,” she grumbles. “And I’m ready to get up now.” Despite my hold and unwillingness to let her go, Libby rolls away from my chest until her feet slap the floor. Her ass remains on my leg for a moment, her elbows on her knees, and her head in her hands. “Jesus, there are bells in my brain. Like those big old church bells of Notre Dame.”
“It’ll be better tomorrow.” Luc tosses his things onto the desk when Libby stands and sways. He grabs her hands and turns her around so she sits on the desk and her legs dangle between mine.
I should back away. I should move and let the medic help her, but I don’t. I bring my chair in closer until, just like when she was a child, she rests her foot on my thigh and our eyes meet.
How have we ended up in one of these offices again all these years later, with her sitting on the desk, her foot on my lap, her face fighting another shiner, and she has no clue who I am?
It would seem Luc is the most flexible dude on this planet, physically and emotionally, because although I’m in the damn way, he works around me and applies butterfly strips to Libby’s split skin. “This’ll all be gone in a couple weeks. There’s no lasting damage.” He works with a pen light and makes Lib scowl when he flashes it in her eyes. “Do you feel nauseous?”
She shrugs. “Not really.”
