Page 18 of Bad & Bossy

Godammit.

I pushed the door open, trying to breathe through the warmth that filled my face. “Do you have, like, ten minutes?”

His green eyes went wide as he shut his laptop. “Yeah. I do.”

I wanted to go inside. Truly. But my feet betrayed me and stayed where they’d grown into the ground.

“Do you want me to follow you somewhere?”

“No, I… I’m coming in.”

“Okay.”

He blinked at me. I still didn’t move.

“Dana—”

Finally, my body responded and I made the move into his office, softly shutting the door behind me with a click. What a great way to kick this off.

Silence hung in the air between us, awkward and heavy, and all I could do was fucking stare. As if I hadn’t taken him in enough when he’d shown up unannounced the other night.

A sleek, shaven, chiseled jawline and a muscular neck were always my downfall, but with him, it was almost otherworldly. Maybe it was because I knew how well he knew how to handle a woman in the bedroom, or maybe it was just how attractive he was overall. His button-up clung to his chest, tight against the ripples of his pecs, his biceps, and his forearms. He wasn’t quite as bulky as he’d been last year, but it was still enough to make my knees weak. His dark blonde hair, pushed back and to the side, was neatly groomed in a way I hadn’t noticed last time. All that was missing was that little dimple that punctuated his cheek whenever he grinned too wide.

I shouldn’t have felt the roar of butterflies in my stomach or the sinking heat between my thighs caused by the fleeting memories of his words to me as he caged me in on his bed, his cock ready, his eyes wild. I’m going to fucking ruin you, baby.

Truth is, he would have ruined me regardless, even if things hadn’t ended the way they did.

“Can I ask what this is about?” he looked directly at me, his chin resting on his upturned hand as he leaned forward onto his desk.

I cleared my throat, hoping the heat in my cheeks wasn’t nearly as noticeable as it felt, and sat down in one of the plush leather chairs directly opposite his workspace. The cleaning crew had done a great job—not a speck of dust anywhere. The mountain view outside the window behind him almost snagged away my attention but I forced myself to be present.

“Well, uh, I was wondering if it was okay for me to ask you a handful of questions about… you. I keep getting asked a bunch of shit on the tours and I don’t have anything to tell them other than you have a passion for craft beer and the process of making it perfect.”

A ripple of something that looked like shame crossed his eyes before he spoke. “Oh. Sure, I guess. Though I don’t want you to tell them every detail of my life.”

My throat closed a little. “I won’t, I don’t. Don’t worry about that.”

His mouth turned into a straight line as he nodded once. “Thank you.”

I glanced down at my list of questions. I wished I’d included a few extra ones such as: What happened after that morning? Do you still drink like that? Can’t you just fucking apologize? Now wasn’t the time, or the place, so instead, I started with the first one I’d written down.

“Why craft beer?”

He snorted out a laugh and leaned back in his chair, his body visually relaxing just a bit. “Because I’d done some home brewing and found it fun.” His eyes lingered on me, flicking back and forth between the clipboard and my mouth. Oh, my god.

“Okay.” You’re good. Calm down. Stop, for fucks sake, stop getting turned on. I could work with that answer and capitalize on it. I jotted it down on my paper.

“Why Boulder? Did you grow up here?”

He shook his head. “No. I grew up in Austin.”

“Texas?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I moved to Boulder as a teenager and my aunt took me in. Then I met Brody Harris and he agreed to mentor me on business after I graduated, I wanted to stay close to my new home,” he explained. The way he looked at me was piercing, almost as if he was tearing me apart or fucking undressing me with just his eyes. It was hard to hold eye contact; it felt like a predator staring at his prey.

I swallowed and jotted down his answer as quickly as I could. I threw out an additional question, one that popped into my head. “Did you have an accent?”

“Everyone has an accent, Dana,” he purred, his lip twitching up and flickering the hint of his dimple. “If you’re asking if I sounded more southern than I do now, yes.”

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