Page 25 of Incoming Layne Shift

Gage’s past experiences in dealing with seedy businessmen weren’t just limited to cash transactions. During the infancy of Cassidy’s Cave, he couldn’t afford bouncers and had the pleasure of removing rowdy patrons himself and keeping his girls safe. Even outside of that scope, he had a few stints watching some spoiled brats with pervy stalkers—and fucking a few of them, too. The spoiled brats, that was.

Layne rolled her eyes; these De Lucas and their goddamn rules. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “How do I make this easy enough for you to understand? I am not a wilting flower that some underboss has hired you to follow around while she gets her nails done. I am the fuckin’ be-all and end-all of my damn business. You don’t make the rules here, I do.”

It took a hell of a lot of restraint on his behalf to suppress the laugh that was tugging inside his ribs. From his perspective, Joey had no problem setting rules for her. He wondered how well she followed them. She had a damn firestorm of an attitude that stirred excitement in his pants at the challenge it presented. “You this bossy in bed, too?” He gave a devil’s grin at her.

Today was going to be a long one if he kept this up. “Too bad you’ll never find out.”

“Are you sure about that? You seemed to be quite content when I had you in my arms at the Cave.” He leaned in making his words softer, “Admit that you enjoyed being so close.”

Refusing to admit to anything, her arms dropped down from her chest and her hand shoved his arm out of her way. It didn’t take much effort; Gage allowed her to make a path for herself. “McGregor’s is first on the list.” This man was going to drive her insane before the day was over. She led the way to the garage where her car was parked.

Gage smugly smiled to himself as he trailed behind her. It seemed little Miss Be-All and End-All could submit when led down the correct path.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The office that stored all the administrative crap for the Irish pub, McGregor’s, was located directly above the bar on the second floor. It could barely be called an office though, it was merely a cramped room the size of a walk-in closet with hardly enough room for one person, let alone two. It had a vintage wooden desk with rickety drawers underneath it, a miniature window to allow a small rectangle of light inside, a short stool that often remained tucked under the desk, and creative storage solutions cluttering the area.

Now that O’Reilly Enterprises had a decent amount of workers, she could have left the more menial tasks like checking books to some of the guys further down the chain. However, there were a few long-time supporters whom Layne liked to keep the relationship strong with. McGregor’s and its owner, Sean, was one of those VIPs.

Layne stood in front of the worn desk. Her finger flipped to the next page of the book that contained all the cash records. Slowly she ran her finger over the line of each transaction, mentally calculating the incoming and outgoing cash flows for the past month. Nearly every transaction was appropriately labeled.

At her back, Gage was squeezed in behind her. He was close enough that she could feel each breath he exhaled while he hovered over her. The scent wafting off of him, spicy and warm vanilla notes, suffocated her senses so that she no longer noticed the musty smell of the ancient building that was strongest there on the second floor.

Not taking her eyes off the numbers written on the page she spoke up, “You could stand right outside the door instead of hovering over me like an assassin is going to pop out from one of these drawers.” She shifted uncomfortably as she tried to find herself more space.

Sure, he could have given her the extra two feet of space, but where was the fun in that? He grinned as he watched over her shoulder as she continued her financial examination. “Can never be too cautious, ya know? I gave my word that I would protect every part of your body from suffering any harm.” The deep register of his voice quieted as he spoke slower, “Every. Last. Inch.”

She slapped her palm down on the current page of the accounting records she had been reviewing and turned her head to glare at him. “Can you not?”

His lips curved into a smirk that suited his face, drawing his mouth up in a way that she was sure had girls everywhere ruining panties. “Just doing my job. You’re all mine to watch over today.”

Layne gave an exasperated sigh as she spun around to fully face him, doing her best to still leave a little room for the grace of God. “You can do your job damn well while not invading my space. Just because you may have a history of playing nicely in the sandbox with Joey, doesn’t mean it automatically makes you entitled.”

His face shifted to one of delightful surprise. “So, he finally told you about Rose?”

As Gage leaned toward her, his hands planted themselves on the edge of the desk on either side of her. Layne did her best to keep her back rigid while holding her ground as her eyes stubbornly stared at him. “We talked about it.” She prayed that the sound of her racing heart couldn’t be heard.

“That sounds promising.” He nodded to himself, seemingly impressed at this new development.

She scoffed at his ability to feel so full of certainty. “Get over yourself.”

Finally, her hand made contact with his chest. As her hand applied pressure to try and give herself some space, she could feel the strength of the muscles tensing just beneath his shirt. When her thoughts strayed to pondering what his broad chest looked like without his shirt, her hand immediately recoiled like she had been burned by a lump of hot coal.

The sudden jerk of her hand off his chest had him casting a quizzical look at her before it faded back to the amusement of her reactions to him. His hand captured hers and placed it back on his chest, dragging her palm down between his pec muscles. He didn’t stop there; he moved her touch further down over his rippling abs.

With her breath caught somewhere between her throat and her heart, at the last moment, she jerked her hand back before it made it down to his belt buckle.

Quickly she spat out, “I don’t have time for this. Please, get the hell out of my way.” Layne was now impatiently waiting for him to decide if he was going to take his foot off the gas pedal of flirtations.

Gage held his stance there before her for another heartbeat before he took two steps back, dropping his arms down at his sides. “Sure thing, lucky charm.” He could still feel the ghost of her touch along the center of his body and it sank even lower to his cock.

He still managed to grate on her nerves with his snarky little nicknames for her despite complying with her request. Layne knew she needed to get some space to douse the flames he had stoked inside her with some water instead of pouring more kerosene on it.

Before heading back downstairs where Sean was restocking the bar, Layne grabbed this month’s accounting records off the desk. When she arrived on the main floor with the book in hand, she dropped it on the bar top in front of him. “The numbers are off.”

For as long as Sean had owned the Irish pub, she had never known his books to show as much as a penny difference. However, this month his books were reflecting a discrepancy of precisely six-hundred and eleven dollars and twenty-four cents. The entry in the book had her initials, ‘L.O.’, next to it in the accounts payable column with no detailed description.

Thankfully, McGregor’s wasn’t even open to the public yet for another hour and a half so there were no prying ears to overhear this rather sensitive topic. Sean ran his hand over the back of his neck trying to look ignorant of the oversight.

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