Page 16 of Forget

Thanks for a fun night. Let’s do it again soon…like every night for the next two weeks.

Or,Tonight was great, so how about we catch up outside the office?

Or,You are a stud in the sack and I want to do you repeatedly for however long you’re in town.

She cringed. Lame.

‘What are you doing in here?’ His deep voice rasped across her frayed nerves and she whirled around to find him standing in the doorway, freshly showered and way too sexy.

Damp curls skimmed the collar of a faded grey polo shirt hanging loosely over faded denim that slung low on his hips. He propped against the doorframe, the epitome of sexy casual.

‘Hey,’ she said, gesturing at the machine. ‘Hope you don’t mind but I needed a caffeine fix.’

His eyebrows rose in disbelief. ‘At this time of night?’

A pathetic ‘yeah,’ was all she could manage as he stalked towards her, all long legs and confident ease in his body.

‘You could’ve stayed in bed.’ Her heart gave a betraying leap as he stopped in front of her. ‘Don’t you trust my coffee-making skills?’

‘I trust you,’ she said, unable to read the flicker of emotion in his impenetrable stare before realising how that sounded.

Like a woman thinking beyond tonight, the perfect segue into broaching the subject of a fling, but she had to keep this light. ‘Besides, can’t a friend make an espresso without being interrogated?’

Her flippancy didn’t work as his shrewd stare made her want to squirm. ‘Friends, huh?’

She picked up her coffee mug and headed for the sofa where they’d swapped banter earlier, studiously avoiding looking at the bedroom. Yeah, like that would eradicate the erotic flashbacks: the way he’d lavished attention on her clit with his talented tongue, the way he’d held her effortlessly against the wall, the way he’d plunged into her, filling her in a way she craved.

‘That’s some blush you’ve got going on,’ he said, sitting way too close to her on the sofa.

The heat in her cheeks intensified as she placed the mug on the coffee table. ‘Do you have to be so blunt all the time?’

‘That’s me. Take it or leave it.’ He shrugged, his nonchalance infuriating.

Couldn’t he bring up what had happened between them and make this easier on her? Then again, it wasn’t his fault that for someone who projected a confident image she was a marshmallow on the inside.

She might have learned from a young age how to dress to flatter her curves and how to apply contouring makeup and how to style her hair to slim her face, but all the stylists’ grooming lessons in the world meant nothing in the face of Brock’s directness.

‘What if I take it?’

Surprise flickered in his eyes. ‘What does that mean?’

‘You’re a smart guy.’

His eyebrow arched. ‘That’s not what you thought back in uni. You treated me like an idiot’

‘I did not.’ She puffed up in outrage. ‘You were one of the smartest guys I knew.’

‘Then why did you look down on me?’

‘I didn’t,’ she said, hating herself for lying, but she couldn’t tell him the truth: that the only reason she couldn’t interact with him back then was fear. Fear that he was so damn smart he’d see right through her.

She’d been a bubbly, popular extrovert all through uni. Classmates had flocked to her, though she knew that for many her wealth had had a lot to do with it rather than her scintillating personality. She’d basked in the attention, knowing she got little of it at home.

Back then, she’d been nice to everyone but had ensured she kept her interactions with smart guys like Brock to a minimum. The last thing she needed was to be called out as a phoney. She’dbeen terrified of that, of having her inner secrets exposed: that she’d dragged her fat ass out of bed most days, reluctant to face anyone let alone go through the rigmarole of donning her ‘mask’ of dark, slimming colours cut to skim her figure and spending forty-five minutes using bronzer to sculpt her face just right to give the illusion of cheekbones and a jawline.

She might have grown more comfortable in her skin over the years but back then she’d been petrified that this guy with his all-seeing stare and skyrocketing IQ would see right through her.

He folded his arms and eyed her with blatant speculation. ‘You were condescending and uppity at uni, admit it.’

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