Page 63 of Fire in You

Brock was my friend and he was also my boss.

I could handle this and not make a big deal out of it.

When he strode in, bringing my pumpkin spice latte, all I could think about was how his hand had felt against me, and I could feel my face burn like the seven circles of hell.

His lips twitched as he placed the cup on my desk. “Good morning, Jillian.”

“Good morning.” I focused on his chest and then thought about how I’d slept on it. I averted my gaze to his hands, and that was the wrong move, because then I was thinking about him using that finger of his. Good God, there was no safe place to look.

He lingered, because of course. “How was your weekend?”

“Good. I just hung out at home.” I stared at his collarbone. That seemed like a safe place. “You?”

“Mostly boring,” he said. “Except for Friday night and Saturday morning. That was far from boring.”

Oh dear, he was going to go there? Sucking in air, I looked up at him. I was going to gloss right over that. “Well, that’s good to hear. I have some phone calls to make, so . . .”

Brock folded his arms, stretching the dress shirt until I feared it would rip right off and slip from his body. “Make sure your schedule is cleared around noon. We’re going to lunch.”

My stomach twisted. The idea of going to lunch with him filled me with a mixture of dread and excitement, but I remembered that I was going to distance myself. I was going to be smart, for once, about this. Spending one-on-one time with him right now wasn’t a smart move. “I have too much to do today.”

One eyebrow rose. “You have time for lunch.”

“I packed it.”

Leaning forward, he unfolded his arms and placed his hands on my desk. “You can eat your packed lunch tomorrow.”

“I can’t,” I said. “It’s a salad. It will go bad.”

His eyes narrowed. “Since when do you eat salads?”

“Sinceforever.”

He was quiet for a moment. “And if I go back into the break room, what’s the likelihood of me finding this salad?”

Oh hell, he wouldn’t, would he? Yes, he would. But there had to be a salad back there. I worked with a ton of fitness nuts. Someone must have packed a salad. “You’ll find a salad.”

“That actually belongs to you?”

I clamped my mouth shut.

Brock smirked. “What if I said, as your boss, you’re going to lunch?”

My hand curled around the pen I held, clenching it so tightly I feared it would snap. “Then I would say that’s kind of an abuse of your position over me?”

He laughed. “That’s a reach.”

I forced a casual shrug. “I don’t think it would be right.”

“And why is that?”

My heart thumped against my ribs. “I just have a lot of work to do—”

“It’s because of this weekend,” he interrupted. “Even though I told you not to let this shit get in the way of what is happening?”

My gaze flew to the door. It was open, but no one was nearby. Still, I kept my voice low. “There isn’t anything happening, and it has nothing to do with this weekend,” I said, and that was a lie, but then I went with a bit of the truth, telling him something that I hoped he’d take as a hint. “Anyway, I’m going out with Grady on Saturday, so . . .”

Brock stared at me for a heartbeat and then said, “The guy you said on Friday had been too busy to take you out and you didn’t care?”

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