Page 79 of Power Play

“No?” I said with a self-deprecating laugh. “You’ve been working two and a half shitty jobs, living on the rough side of Portland and putting aside your dream of being a fuckingteacher, in order to pay me back money I keep in a fucking drawer.”

She glared at me. “You really should deposit that money.”

I laughed. “Kit! I’ve been an asshole to you. Get mad at me.”

“Well, truthfully” she said, her lips curling. “It made things easier.”

“To punish yourself for what you thought was your fault. Oh, and can I say that shit deserves some legit therapy by the way?”

A bittersweet smile flirted at the edges of her mouth. “No, to not like you.”

It was as if the sand beneath my feet opened and sucked me in. “Wait? Are you saying you like me?” I grinned at her like I’d caught her in a major confession.

“You once told me, if I looked you in the eye and told you the truth about that night, you would let me go,” she said, looking down at her hands, dusted with fine sand, like sugar. She tried to brush it off, but it clung to her skin.

“And I also asked you, why you came back to my room with me.”

She shrugged. “Because I wanted to. Because I’d never been attracted to anyone the way I was attracted to you.”

“I knew it!” I said with a victorious fist pump. She smiled, which had been the point.

“Cool your jets, Locke,” she said.

Cool my jets? Impossible. My jets could never be cooled. I wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t crazy. Our connection had been mutual.

“You know what has to happen,” I said.

She looked at me with surprise. “I have no clue what has to happen.”

“I have to fire you.”

She blinked at me and reeled back. “Are you’re kidding me?”

I held my hands out like it wasn’t up to me. “I can’t sleep with my employee. That’s not cool.”

“All those girlfriends you gave jobs to?”

“Yeah, I never gave them jobs while I was sleeping with them. That always came after.”

“Well, then we’re fine, because not sleeping together,” she laughed.

“But we’re going to. Eventually.” It was as obvious as the freckles on her face.

She put her hands on her hips, in that way women do when they’re about to make a point. “Let me get this straight, it’s okay for you to parade yourself in front of me wearing nothing but briefs-”

“Yeah, that wasn’t cool. Sorry again about that, but I liked you looking at my junk.”

“I didn’t!”

I gave her my best smile. “You did, though.”

“And bargain a kiss out of me, all while you thought I was some lying traitor working off my debt, but now that you know I’m innocent, you have to fire me?”

“I don’t make the rules, Kit.”

“Stop,” she said. She laid a hand on my chest and I clapped my hand over it. Holding her to me. I knew she could feel my heartbeat and I could feel the grit of sand against her skin. Her fingers were cold and I curled them into mine. Holding onto her for as long as I could.

She seemed mesmerized by her hand in mine. The way our fingers looked against my shirt. My chest.

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