Page 7 of Boss Me Not

“And you’re gone again.” Angie rolled her eyes.

And this was one of those expectations. Women wanted to talk, and they wanted their men to listen. Something I’d been told by many women I sucked at. Paying attention was something even my teachers and my grandmother said I struggled with growing up. It didn’t matter if I was deep in thought about what they were saying, I could still miss entire chunks of conversation.

“Sorry.”

She waved me off. “It’s fine. My sister is like that. My brother sometimes too. I’m used to it.” She smiled. “I’ll try to use smaller words.”

There it was. Her snark was probably going to be the death of me. Admittedly, I expected her to be annoyed. Instead, she was teasing me. She was so different from other women, and I didn’t know what to make of that. Twenty-four hours ago, I’d pegged her as high maintenance. Now, I was sure that didn’t fit.

“I’ll go make some calls and I’ll check back in with you later.”

She nodded, and I headed back through the lobby to my office. But maybe what I needed was to head back to my room to take a cold shower or jerk off. I hadn’t decided which yet because one would involve either having dirty thoughts about her and the other would involve trying not to have dirty thoughts. Neither seemed acceptable.

So, instead, I would work on finding her a DJ, and I’d remind myself of all the reasons I wasn’t allowed to be attracted to her.

Thankfully, the connections I had on social media and in the entertainment world allowed me to solve the problem she’d tasked me with in less than an hour. Which was fine, but why the fuck did I feel so excited about it? Like a damn dog looking for a treat for going outside and pissing in the grass. Typically, I only cared about pleasing women in the bedroom, so why did this feel different?

Jesus, maybe I really did need to get laid.

At least I’d be able to solve that problem. In order to get the names of a handful of DJs from a woman I knew who did event planning, I’d gotten roped in to being her date to some work thing tomorrow night. It was a perfect win-win situation. Natalie would get to show up with a decent date on her arm, and I’d get laid. This had been our arrangement over the last year. Neither of us wanted anything serious, but we got along well enough in and out of the bedroom for our casual meetups to work out for both of us.

I found Angie sitting at a table near the bar with the bride and groom. She smiled as I approached, and my dick jumped to attention. I gritted my teeth and glanced over at the bride, hoping that would crush my growing issue.

“Hi, Mr. Reed,” Angie said as I came closer. “Happy you could join us.”

I had told her multiple times already to call me Wyatt, but she insisted on calling me by my last name in front of guests andother staff. I should be all for being professional, but every time she used it like that, I imagined the wordsirtumbling from her lips as she fell to her knees in front of me.

Fuck.

I blinked and reluctantly tipped my head in her direction. “Ms. Mitchell.”

A smirk pulled at her lips and mine twitched, but fire ran through my veins as I caught the groom eyeing the tits that seemed even closer to spilling out of her sweater than they had earlier in the morning. I understood far too well that Angie’s curves were the stuff of every man’s fantasy, but his soon-to-be wife was sitting right next to him. Shouldn’t he be eyeing her tits?

Wrenching the fourth chair out—startling him and forcing his gaze to meet mine—I joined them at the table. “I solved your DJ issue.”

“That’s great,” Angie chirped.

Both she and the bride conversed excitedly about another problem being solved. I needed to remember to ask her what the other issue was and what they’d ended up figuring out.

But currently I was still silently telling the douchebag across the table to keep his eyes on his wife and off my staff. He had the balls to lean back and cross his arms like I was barking up the wrong tree.

Look, I wasn’t an angel when it came to the opposite sex, but I was always transparent. And if I even had an inkling a woman was in a serious relationship, I stayed far away. Furthermore, if I was out with someone, I wasn’t checking out other women. Just because I had no interest in a serious relationship didn’t mean I thought women should be disrespected.

I couldn’t be happier when the couple excused themselves not ten minutes later.

“Dickhead,” I muttered once they were out of earshot.

“Who?” Angie tilted her head and lines pulled between her brows.

Was she serious? No way she didn’t notice him ogling her.

“The soon to-be-husband who was more interested in you than his fiancée.”

She waved me off. “He was only being friendly.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “I didn’t realize being friendly meant checking out a woman’s tits. But good to know. I’ll have to remember that next time I’m at the grocery store or something.”

I didn’t care that I was being an ass. She couldn’t possibly be that naïve.

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