Page 90 of Rookie Recovery

I rolled my eyes, trying—and failing—to bite back a smile. “It must be all your British charm and always-appropriate jokes.”

“Aw, you think I’m charming?”

Behind him, Brady trotted to the living room. Apparently deciding we’d stopped being fun, she selected a particularly decrepit squirrel from her basket of toys and brought it to the armchair to more thoroughly dissect in comfort.

“I never said you were charming.”

“You did.” Bowie lifted the apron over his head, struggling with the ties. Oh, no; he was struggling because he was taking his navy blue T-shirt with it. Purposely or not, who knew with him.

“Is there a reason you’re undressing in my kitchen?” I asked, feigning indignation like I wasn’t staring hard enough to bore a hole in the taut muscle of his exposed side. God, that was a beautiful muscle, the way it cut along his ribs and over his waist. Into that narrow V that I definitely wasn’t—was—looking at.

“Ask me to stop.” He tossed the shirt and apron onto the back of the living room couch, then turned towards me. Giving me a full view of all the beautiful muscles of his chest. And sides. And arms. There were a lot, and I didn’t have enough eyes to take it all in.

“Would you listen?”

“No.” He ambled a few steps closer, drawing my gaze to the sway of his narrow hips beneath his low-slung jeans. “Sometimes, I know what’s best for you better than you do, Jamie Sullivan.”

I couldn’t tear my eyes off him. From the cuts and curves of his honed muscles stretched under taut, golden skin. From the angle of his jaw and cheekbone, that delicate bow of his mouth, straight line of his nose, and those eyes. Those green laser-eyes that always saw through me.

And I knew he was right.

He did know what was best for me. Always had, hadn’t he? From that first night at the bar, when he’d slid his fingers up my thigh and asked me to take him home.

I should’ve listened then.

I was glad I hadn’t, because I don’t know he’d have stuck around until the next morning.

And I wanted him to.

“Well, then.” My words crawled out soft and slow, steady. “Maybe I should start listening to you.”

“Oh, yeah?” He inched forward another step, so close my bent knees brushed his thighs. Reminded me of the bar, when he’d approached me with all that confidence, that cocky grin. All the surety in the world that I wouldn’t say no to him.

This time, I wouldn’t.

“So, Bowman. What’s best for me right now?”

He stepped closer, pushing my knees out to slide between them. His fingertips grazed my thighs through my jeans in the lightest touch, sending shivers of heat surging up my legs, through my torso.

“I can think of a lot of things that would be good for you.” He nibbled his bottom lip between his teeth like he was considering. “I could use my magic mouth on you again.”

Said mouth twisted in a smirk at the insinuation, and my dick pressed against my fly in eager anticipation. Oh, I could be okay with watching him on his knees again, taking me apart inch by inch with that filthy, beautiful mouth.

“That would be very good for me,“ I agreed in a murmur.

He shifted closer, his hands pressing flat against my thighs. The warmth of his touch sent a hum of electricity through my body. Set every nerve afire. I fell into his green eyes, drank in his scent of generic cologne and pepperminty shampoo.

“But maybe,” he murmured, “This time, you tell me what’s good for you. And for me.”

My fingers slid around the backs of his muscular thighs. Pulling him closer, inhaling the soft scent of his skin. “I have some ideas.”

“Tell me.”

Oh, I would. I had a long, long list of things I wanted to do to him.

“First.” I dragged my fingers up the sides of his legs to his hips. Then along that cut line of oblique muscle, which I’d been dying to touch since he whipped his shirt off in the middle of my office. “I’m just going to look.”

So, I did. Like I’d wanted to, ever since he’d walked into that bar. I looked. Admired. Drank in the sight of Archie Bowman, shirtless in my kitchen.

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