Page 30 of Owning Emma

“Me?” He raised an eyebrow. “You made this mess.”

I rolled my eyes. He was ridiculous. How the hell was he a supposed leader of men when he threw a tantrum over sprinkles? “You better help me clean this up.”

His eyes roamed over me again. “Oh? You need help cleaning?”

“It’s a damn mess, Roman, and it’s your fault.”

His eyes flickered on me. “I’ll help you clean.”

He leaned into me and my heart picked up. I couldn’t back up, I couldn’t move to the side, there was nowhere for me to escape the intense look in his eye. He was closing in on my space, and it was a struggle to make my breathing appear even when it most definitely was sporadic.

His scent engulfed me as he leaned in, his face a mere inch, maybe two, away from mine. I knew that if told him to stop, he would. If I pushed him back, he would step away. But, I did neither. I waited, staying still as a statue, waiting to see what happened next.

His hand found my waist. “I’ll start here.”

He closed the space between us, causing the air that I had been holding to rush out as his tongue found my cheek, and he licked a glob of frosting off. He licked frosting of my face. I felt my skin heat up, mortification consuming me from head to toe.

I pushed at his chest, his very solid chest. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He grinned, the first real one I’d seen. He was handsome without it, but with happiness on his face, he was devastatingly attractive. “I was helping clean up.”

“I meant the mess.” I put my hands on my hips, trying to make my scowl look serious.

“Sweetheart, have you seen you? You’re probably the messiest thing in this joint.”

I looked down at my clothes, completely ruined by the slathers of frosting and specks of sprinkles. Then I looked at him and noticed his clothes fared better than my own. I stepped forward, using my finger to scoop up a glob of frosting that was about to fall from his shoulder, then held it between us. “You’re not exactly sparkling.”

I brought my frosting-covered finger to my mouth, sucking the frosting off the tip and when I looked at him, he was frozen. His nostrils were flaring, his breathing was shallow, but it was his eyes, eyes filled with heat and fire, that had my finger locked into place.

He reached for my wrist, slowly pulling it until my finger popped out of my mouth and his eyes fluttered. He dragged my wrist closer to himself, opening his mouth slowly, as he eyed the remaining frosting still lingering on my skin. Then his phone rang.

He cursed as he dropped my hand and reached into his pocket, digging out his cell. “It’s Shaw.”

I turned, surveying the mess and what I could clean up while he answered. Shaw’s voice filled the silence around us, “Hey.” There was a pause. “What the hell happened to you?”

Roman scratched the back of his neck. “I umm . . . there was an incident.”

“A fucking incident? Do I need to have some of the men down at the shop?” Shaw sounded worried.

“No. An incident between Emma and me,” he clarified.

“What the fuck happened?” I heard him pushing up from where he was resting.

Roman looked into the screen and bit his lip as if he was trying to decide how he should put it. “Well, you see . . . she wouldn’t let me do the sprinkles.”

“The sprinkles?”

“Yeah.” He paused, “It went too far.”

“I’m sorry. It must be this head, man, because I could have sworn you said something about sprinkles.”

“He did,” I chimed in as I scooped the sprinkles on the counter into the trash.

“Is that Emma, put her on,” he instructed and Roman sighed, but did as Shaw asked. I grabbed the phone from Roman, and he crowded my space to get us both into the screen, “Jesus, Cardigan, you look worse than he does.”

“I’m aware.”

“He was supposed to be your babysitter, not need one himself.” He scowled.

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