Page 10 of Personal Disaster

ChapterFive

Marcus

I’m still notsure how I ended up standing outside Poppy’s hotel room wearing a buttoned-down shirt. She called me a pervert. I kicked her out of my truck.

But then she waited me out, put on jeans—yes, I noticed—and chowed down on my tomato and cheddar sandwiches while she revealed that she can see right to mysoul.

She might be magic.

She definitely deserves an interview.

And I’m not done with her in all the other ways she occupies my brain, too.

Add in the disturbing but not surprising fact she needs to take self-defense workshops just to do her damn job, and I’m definitely in a weird state. The thought of anyone hurting her for asking questions makes me seered.

I knock again, since she didn’t answer the first time, and the door swings open on the thirdrap.

She’s breathless, and her hair swings loose around her shoulders. “Hi,” she says, waving me in. “I’m running a little late. Was writing. Just getting changednow.”

I try to tell my dick not to take that the wrong way, but it’s toolate.

She’s decent—she’s wearing another dress, this one longer than the one that drove me to distraction, and it’s zipped up and everything.

Still drives me to distraction. And it’s only almost zippedup.

As she spins around in a slow circle, looking for…something…I notice that the top inch of her zipper—the part that would be hard for her to reach on her own—is gapingopen.

My fingers itch to fix that forher.

Maybe she’llask.

And maybe you’ll be appointed the next Secretary of the Interior.

That thought does a good job of killing my boner. Fuck.

“Can we walk somewhere from here?” Poppy asks, interrupting my internal rant. She’s holding up two different shoes, one with a heel, the other without.

She came to Colorado with at least three pairs of shoes, none of them really appropriate for the mountains.

And I don’t care, not even a little bit. “Yeah, we can walk, if you’d like. But I can drive us somewhere if you want to wear the otherones.”

She gives me a sly smile. “That was a trick question, Ranger Boy. I’m not risking being stranded somewhere I might need to hike back from again. Flats itis.”

I wince. “Right. I apologize for that. And I promise it won’t happen again.”

She laughs. “I’m going to hold you to that promise, but honestly, the walk was good. Churned my story around in my head, didn’tit?”

She grabs her bag and slings it across herbody.

“Your…um…” I move closer, my fingers reaching out. “Zipper.”

She turns again in a slow circle, and stops with her back to me. “Is it down a little?”

“Yeah. I could—” I cut myself off as she reachers behind her and fixes it. “You’regood.”

“Thanks.”

Here’s the thing. I’m a man of a decent amount of experience with women. So there’s no reason why it should surprise me that she’s blushing as she turns around. That I’m feeling weird in my chest, like that blush is a gift she’s givingme.

---