Page 7 of The Kiss of Deception

Zoe

“If this is a booty call, you could’ve at least waited until I showered.”

My fist twitches, violence running along the ridges of my knuckles like electricity.

“I’ll admit.” Miles leans his slack-pant-clad hip against the doorway. He’s ditched the jacket, giving me a full view of the white dress shirt halfway haphazardly unbuttoned. “When I imagine you screaming my name so enthusiastically—and I have imagined plenty—it usually involves a lot more fun and a lot less clothing.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” That applies to his greeting statement, his actions in Monterrey and his general existence, really.

I don’t wait—or ask—for permission before I brush past him and charge into his home. I’d never been inside, but I expect a mirror of my own.

Either way, I just walk forward unseeing, with thundering steps that bring me to a vast kitchen-living-room open plan. I amble down the makeshift corridor, framed by the marble island and a huge white sectional, towards the floor-to-ceiling window.

Miles follows me, unhurriedly. “I see you were eager to see me, too, my love.”

Silly me, assuming he’d be at least a little concerned with our current predicament. Miles Blackstein is perpetually untroubled, likely the result of having a team whose job consists of cleaning up his messes.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I stop halfway to the window, forcing his abrupt halt with an index finger threatening to stab him in the chest.

In that spot at the base of his throat.

Miles smiles, dimples and all.

I despise those dimples, the evidence of his mockery of me. Every single time he makes me the butt of a joke, there they are, those damn indentations taunting me with all their cuteness.

People like Miles Blackstein do not deserve cute dimples—or chiseled jaws and cutting cheekbones and plush lips. They cause more devastation than any weapons, hypnotizing the masses. Because people trust dimples—it’s one of those weird facts that science can’t explain.

“I intentionally ignored you the first time you asked, love,” he drawls. “Can’t take a hint?”

“What the hell are you thinking?”

His thick lashes droop as his gaze drops down my body, a slow perusal that makes my oversized burgundy pantsuit feel much more suffocating than it is. “I’m not sure you want to know all the things I’m thinking.”

I focus on the Charles River, picturing water sloshes to lower my blood pressure before I do something out of character.

I trip on the duffel he must have dropped on his way in, righting myself with a hand on the velvety couch—and refrain from kicking the bag.

“Can you be an adult for five fucking minutes? This is serious, Blackstein.”

“I’m perpetually serious,” he says.

Something tumbles on the couch while I check the time on my tired phone. Shit. I’ll be late..

“You agreed you wouldn’t say anything,” he says like that explains everything.

I open my mouth to deny his statement-slash-accusation, and close it before uttering a word.

It’s true. I was going to say things I had promised not to speak of—not yet.

I raise my chin. “And I didn’t.”

“Because I stopped you.” He arches a knowing brow, long legs spread as he leans against the back of the sofa.

He’s right. He knows it, he knows I know it. But I’ll be damned if I ever say those three words out loud.

In my defense, I always keep my word. I’m strategic and calculated, deliberating before doing. Impulsivity and spontaneity often lead to problems that can be entirely avoided by five minutes of prior consideration—case in point, Monterrey-gate.

Yet this man seems to possess the uncanny ability to obliterate my good senses and reduce me to an entirely different woman. His words, his actions, and his face scratch against my skin like a match, burning away at my rational control until it’s nothing but cinders.

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