Page 21 of A Labor of Hate
I paused in my tirade, hands on my hips.“No I don’t.”
“Twelve times in the last twenty weekdays.”
“That’s—no—how did you—” I straightened my shoulders and tipped my chin up.“It hasnotbeen that often.I eat all the time.”
“Yeah, snacks from the vending machine don’t count as meals.”
“They have sandwiches in the vending machine, too, you know.”
He shrugged.“True, but you don’t like lunch meat, so we both know you won’t eat those.”
How on earth could he possibly know that?Maybe I was wrong.He wasn’t just a cyborg.He was a cyborg who could read minds.
Just in case, I made sure to beam all my thoughts about how annoying he was in his direction.
I narrowed my eyes and took a step closer in challenge.“Who says I just don’t trust vending machine sandwiches?”
“Because we both know you’d eat someone’s family pet if you felt like it.Your standards aren’t exactly high.”He pressed on before I could argue.Or stomp on his foot, which I was seriously considering.“And, you sit further away whenever I bring cold cut sandwiches, but lean in closer to smell whenever I bring anything else.Ergo, you don’t like lunch meat.”
I scratched at my neck, willing the blush raging up it to subside.His lunches typically smelled heavenly, even if I couldn’t stand the man who brought them.So yeah, maybe I made sure to catch a whiff so I could pretend I’d packed something more than a couple of protein bars.And maybe I’d already picked out which meals in his rotation smelled the best.So sue me.
“Maybe sandwiches just don’t smell as good,” I mumbled, but the fight was long gone from my voice.
He knew I sniffed his lunches.I hadn’t even had dignity to lose when I’d rolled around the closet.
Great.Just freaking great.
He leaned down, his voice as controlled as always.“You can’t fool me, Lex.”
I scoffed, altogether unsettled by how close we were.Aside from our tussle by the coffee maker last week, I’d never voluntarily stood this close to him.And, wouldn’t you know it, his faint cologne actually smelled good.Great, even.Not at all like disinfectant like he should’ve.And it took all my willpower not to take a big whiff of it, since apparently he could tell whenever I did that.
“Then it’s a great thing you already know I don’t like you.”I smiled sardonically at him, tipping my head to the side to really sell how much he didn’t deserve my genuine smile.“I only have to fool everyone else.”
He huffed softly, his unfairly rich eyes narrowing.“I hope you’re a better actress when it really counts, because that show in front of Liam wasn’t selling anything.”
“It was a perfectly normal interaction, Colt.”I tipped my chin up further.“What do you want me to do, huh?Roll out the red carpet wherever you step?Glue myself to you every chance I get?If you’re looking for someone to worship you, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.”
His gaze lingered on my mouth, which sent a spike of electricity through my heart for some stupid reason.“Not worship.Respect.”
“Irespectyou plenty.”At his scoff, I elaborated.“I respect your capability as an agent.”
“That sounds more accurate.”
The corner of his lips tipped up in the ghost of a smile, and I found myself fixating on them.Like the majority of his face, freckles dotted his fair skin, including his lips.He had two small freckles on his bottom lip and a larger one on his upper one.The asymmetry had to drive him crazy, but for entirely different reasons than it made the general female population froth at the mouth.
Not me, though.I was immune to his looks, and Heaven knows I was immune to his charm, since he’d have to use it on me in the first place.I never wondered what those lips could do or fantasized about what kind of kisser Colt was.
Ever.
And I certainly wasn’t thinking about any of that now.
As if snapped out of a daydream, I realized with a start how close I’d gravitated toward him.I backpedaled with a vengeance, thrown off-kilter by both my new tummy and how claustrophobic the walk-in closet suddenly felt.Unfortunately, I backpedaled straight into my open suitcase and the pile of clothes I’d pulled out of it.
Under normal circumstances, I’d wobble a bit and quickly regain my balance.But I also normally didn’t have a silicone blob strapped to my midsection and throwing off my center of balance.
Instead, my arms pinwheeled like a drunk helicopter before I gracelessly fell flat on my butt into the half of the suitcase that I’d just emptied out.AKA: the empty half.The half that probably just bruised my tailbone and my pride.
As if I had any left anymore.
