Page 30 of Welker

“Me?” Now Moira was really confused.

“Uh, huh,” Callie confirmed with a grin. “Big bro has it bad for you, Moira.”

There was no way…

“Uh, I think you two are mistaken. Welk and I are colleagues, and not even particularly close ones. He treats me like he does the rest of the team.”

She clearly wasn’t discouraging the pair as they beamed.

“I beg to differ. He talks about you more than he does anybody else he works with,” Callie offered.

What?

“No. You’re reading things wrong,” Moira assured them with a shake of her head.

“Are we?” Sabira asked. “Why then, would we know that you’re generally first to every call-out, and that you never take your hair out of its braid? Present situation, the exception,” she clarified, indicating Moira’s fly-away locks.

Moira pondered.

Being first to call-outs wasn’t so unusual. Welker could admire her professionally for that and perhaps mention it in passing. But the braid…?

“Let me ask you something,” Callie asked before Moira could find words. “How do you feel about my brother?”

Moira spluttered. “I, uh, haven’t really thought about it?” Dammit for her voice squeaking, and for her statement inadvertently becoming a question.

Callie rolled her eyes. “Okay. Let me rephrase that. Do you think Welk is cute?”

Moira’s mouth went dry, and she tried to conjure spit, but couldn’t. When she answered, her voice sounded raspy, even to her own ears.

“I, uh, acknowledge that he’s good looking, but so are most of the guys on our team,” she demurred.

“Okay,” Sabira said, pointedly. “How many of them do you stare at when they’re not paying attention?”

Callie piled it on. “And do you glance at their lips while licking yours, like you were all during lunch?”

“That was…the syrup,” Moira lied, then moaned, dropping her head to her hands.

In actuality, she’d had a hard time ignoring Welker’s mouth since they’d come so close to…

Dammit.

These two grinning women had her dead to rights.

CHAPTER TEN

It was one thing to have his sister and sister-in-law tease him privately, but it was another to air the dirty-laundry of his active-past in front of Moira.

He didn’t want Moira to see him as a player; a man whose dick was one to be verbally bandied about by women he’d slept with. Hell, Welker didn’t even know if that was really a thing, but if it was… Yeah. He was going to have to do some serious damage control, getting that picture out of Moira’s head. Starting by being honest with her about where his private life was at the moment, and about his conflicted feelings toward her.

Conflicted. Welker snorted.

Right. He needed to get his head on straight. Because…what, exactly, did he want from Moira? It was time to examine the facts…as if they hadn’t been rolling around in his head like pinballs over the past several months.

Taking a deep breath, Welker listed her finer attributes, again…

The woman was intriguing.

Her mind was a steel trap, and she wasn’t easily swayed by other’s opinions or edicts. Hell, she was tenacious even in the face of dissent.

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