“The usual. You know how these things go. He didn’t bring out the handcuffs, but trust me. It was on the table.” I gazed off into the distance. “I suppose I should count myself lucky he didn’t throwmeon the table the minute he got me in his lair. Bend me over it. Start screaming at me to give it up. He is not a subtle man when he wants something from you.”
Adam’s jaw clenched so hard I saw the muscles jump.
“Safe to say, after that unpleasant encounter, he has been deleted from my dating app.”
“Did he hurt you?” Adam said in a low, vibrating voice.
I’d entered my passcode wrong while ranting. “Hmm? He did hurt my feelings a bit. There’s no need to be rude about these things.”
Adam stared at me. “I’m gonna kill him.”
“Mm-hmm.” I got my passcode entered, and checked my app. “You shit,” I said, seeing the cancelled payment. My phone had dinged in my pocket an hour ago. I’d ignored it. I hadn’t been in a phone-checking mood. I’d been in a fantasizing-about-throttling-Liam-Nash mood.
Adam held up a finger, eyes blazing as he grabbed his own phone.
“Could you at least try to be professional?” I sighed. “For once in your life? Like your cousin? Li-”
“Liam, what the fuck did you do to Ray!”
Woah. I blinked at the fury rolling off Adam.
He snarled into the phone, “Because if you’re going to date him, you can’t treat him like one of your hook-ups, he’ssensitive, and—what?”
“I am not sensitive,” I protested. “What are you talking about? And hook-ups? Dating?”
“Are you serious?” Adam said to the phone.
“I’m empathetic,” I said. “I’m an artist. Well. Graphic designer. Also, what was that about Liam’s hook-ups?”
“Shh, Ray. I’m not talking to you.”
I slapped Adam’s hand out of the air when he went to lay a finger on my lips.
“Good grief,” I said.
Adam leaned over the desk and put a hand over my mouth. And, yes. I could have stepped back. But I didn’t.
“Right,” he said. “Okay. Got to go.” He hung up. He moved his hand slowly, ghosting his fingers down the side of my neck before getting out of my personal space.
I wasnotdisappointed.
“Liam arrested you?” he said, for some reason sounding amused.
“No! How dare you, he—”
“When you said he took you to his lair and worked you over hard, my mind went somewhere else entirely.”
It took me a second. “Oh, ew. No.”
Adam laughed. “Ew? I’m telling him you said that.”
“I doubt he’d care. Your cousin and me? No. Never. Turns out he’s as much of a dick as you are.”
“Ah. We’ve circled back to the insults, have we?” Adam said mildly.
“I think it must be genetic. Your general dickishness. That’s my theory, anyway.”
“Uh-huh.”