Page 46 of Throw Down

Derek caught him by the chin and forced him to meet his gaze.His eyes were warm with amusement. Briar flushed, suddenly sweating despite the cool wooden floor beneath his feet.

“I c-couldn’t find my clothes,” he stammered.

“Now, that’s a damn shame,” Derek drawled. His gaze trailed down Briar’s scrawny chest, pausing to appreciate his bare dick for longer than Briar thought it warranted. He was nothing special. But Derek didn’t stop there; his attention slid lazily down Briar’s legs, all the way to the tips of his toes, which he regarded with as much attention as the rest of his body.He was smiling when he glanced back up to Briar’s eyes.“What’ll you give me to tell you where they are?”

Briar was scandalized. “Are you being…playful?” he asked incredulously. “Where’s the grumpy ogre who barged into my clinic and scared me half to death?”

Derek closed the space between them, crowding him back against the dresser, and dipped his head to whisper against his ear, “Were you scared?”

“Of course.” Briar shivered, clutching at Derek’s waist to stop his knees from buckling.“Where I come from, nothing good knocks on the door after dark.”

“Mm.” Derek nuzzled his hair. His peculiar brand of lighthearted seduction was doing funny things to Briar’s heart.“Where I come from, we eat breakfast naked.”

Briar hadn’t gotten more than a bite of his meal the night before, so his stomach was only interested in one part.

“Breakfast?” he asked enthusiastically.“For me?”

“I’ll drive you back to town after we eat.Sabbath must be missing you.”

“Who?”

Derek’s grin vanished. He yanked open a drawer and started riffling through a stack of t-shirts.

“I think I’ve still got some old gym shorts from junior high that might fit you,” he said, tossing Briar a shirt.

“Oh, no. You’re not getting away with that.” Briar elbowed his way into the shirt, so excited he didn’t even stop to appreciate how thin and soft the cotton felt, or how good it smelled.“You said Sabbath. I knew you’d given her a name!”

“She was here for months,” Derek said irritably.“Of course, she has a name.”

“I mean, I kind of expected you to just call her dog or something like that.It sounds like something you’d do, doesn’t it?Don’t lie.”

Derek ignored him and walked away, leaving Briar hopping on one foot as he scrambled into a pair of ridiculously large gym shorts.Even with the drawstring cinched tight, they still threatened to slide to his knees when he booked it into the kitchen.

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” he exclaimed, trailing after Derek’s broad back. “Sabbath is a cute name. What does it mean?Did you find her on a Sunday?”

“No.” Derek had turned his attention to cracking eggs one-handed into a frying pan.He was concentrating so fiercely that Briar knew he was using it as an excuse not to look at him. He’d been caught in the act of being soft, and he hated it. He was probably wishing he could sink Briar into the deepest spot in the ocean right about now. Tough luck. Plenty of people wished Briar would just go away, but he’d never been good at taking hints.

“So, why the name?” Briar asked, hitching himself up onto one of the tall stools at the kitchen counter.

Derek muttered something under his breath.

“What?” Briar leaned forward on his elbows and cocked his head.“Didn’t quite catch that.”

“The band,” Derek repeated irritably.“Black Sabbath was playing when I found her. Someone ditched her in a box of spare parts outside the gate of the salvage yard. I couldn’t just leave her there, could I?”

“No,” Briar agreed, startled by how defensive he sounded.“You did the right thing.”

Derek snorted. “It was stupid.She got hurt because I dragged her to work with me every day. I’ve got no time to take care of her.”

Briar cocked his head. “Seems to me all you do is take care of things.”

“You know what I meant.” Derek rolled his eyes and pointed at him with a spatula.“Now, stop trying to psycho-analyze me.I’ve made up my mind. Even if you could get me to admit I lo—liked—having her around, I’m not taking her back.You should adopt her. She’ll make a good guard dog.”

“Who needs a guard dog?” Briar asked, offended.“I can take care of myself.”

“Sure.” Derek leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms. “Then what were you so afraid of the night we met?”

Briar was distracted by the way his biceps and pecs bulged when he folded his arms like that. It took him a moment to tear his eyes away, and then he wished he hadn’t. Derek was laser focused on him, alert to every minute change of expression.

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