Page 38 of Damaged

“I know you don’t hate fun as much as you make it seem you do.”

“I don’t hate fun. I just have a different definition.”

“Like what?” Sophia asks.

I don’t have an immediate answer. If I told her, she’d think I was crazy.

“You think fun is conquering your enemies and increasing your net worth,” she says, reading half my mind. “That’s not fun. That’s satisfying your ambition. Fun is social. Good times between people. You know? F is for friends…” she says in a sing-song voice.

I stare at her blankly.

“I didn’t expect you to get that one.”

“You have your fun, Sophia, and I have mine. Leave it there.” I can tell she’s trying to open me up. I don’t blame her. She doesn’t want to spend the next week abroad working with a grump. But if it becomes easy to talk to this girl, easy to spend time with her… I might just find it easy to have a taste.

Like an addict, I’ll end up rationalizing one hit. One drink. And that’s what my brain thinks Sophia Simms is—a drug. My fast pulse. My hardening cock. The fire I can feel her watching in my own eyes when she meets my gaze… It all comes alive when she’s near me.

You don’t make a billion dollars without self-restraint. Without sacrifice of the most extreme. I said no to taking a single day off work for two fucking years. I can say no to the voice telling me totastethis girl.

“You mind your business, and I’ll mind mine,” I say as stone cold as I can.

“Of course,” she says, and her lips purse.

My voice isn’t something to be trifled with. I think I succeeded in killing the rest of her want to be on each other’s good sides.

Suddenly, Simon lays on the horn. I can’t see what’s happening out the front window because of the partition, but he slams on the brakes.

German brakes are no joke. The car goes from thirty miles per hour to a dead stop in a second, and Sophia and I both rocketforward. I don’t think when I do it, but I feel my arm go out to try to protect her.

My seat belt locks, and I still nearly hit my head on the partition.

“Fucking hell,” I say. “Are you okay?” I look over at Sophia. My arm is pressed against her chest, and I hold a fistful of her sweatshirt at the far shoulder.

Her mouth is open as she catches her breath. “I’m okay. I’m good.” She looks at my arm. “Thank you.”

“Yeah,” I say and slowly release my grip. I almost don’t want to let go. My hand comes away from her soft sweatshirt and carries her smell with it. Flowery. Sweet.

“Sorry, sir,” Simon says, rolling down the partition a few inches. “Jaywalker.”

“I should break his kneecaps.”

“Being mad at jaywalkers in New York is like having it out for pigeons. Part of life,” Sophia says.

She’s probably right about that, but I’m still furious. I’m so distracted by my anger that I don’t realize my hand is resting protectively on the top of Sophia’s leg.

I don’t even care. She’s under my protection on this trip, and there’s nothing cute about that.

I let my hand rest there until we reach Teterboro. She doesn’t seem to mind.

Sophia

There’s something incongruent about James’s behavior. I’d call him Icy Hot for the way he switches between the two.

But that’s not exactly right, because it’s not always heat. It was warmth today.

Tenderness.

We’re aboard the plane now, but my mind is stuck five minutes in the past when his big hand was resting on my leg.

---