Page 26 of Below Deck Billionaire
Her voice was quiet and stilted and Theo glanced in her direction to find her head down, sorting chips, stacking methodically, denying him eye contact, denying him the hunger he knew still lurked in her pragmatic hazel eyes. And it felt like a spike was being driven into the base of his skull because he wanted her to look at him, he wanted to see that hunger again now they were alone.
Even if he couldn’t touch. Even if he could only look.
Taking a sip of his drink, he lounged against the bar as he’d done that first night, arms spread akimbo, the glass dangling from his fingers asTiffany’sfingers sorted and stacked. Sorted and stacked. Sorted and stacked.
They were quick and nimble, obviously accomplished at the activity. As accomplished as they’d been at other activities that had created havoc across his body. His belly heated at the memories and he was instantly annoyed at his lack of control where she was concerned, the nail driving in a little further.
‘Just leave them,’ he said testily. ‘Go to bed. It’s late and the equipment doesn’t have to be returned until tomorrow afternoon. You’re officially off the clock.’
Her chin lifted and she pierced him with a haughty glare. ‘I’m a grown adult, Theo. I decide when I go to bed, not you.’ The frost in her voice belied the fire in her eyes. ‘It’s stacking chips, not digging ditches. It’s hardly difficult. And it’s part of my goddamned job. On or off the clock, I’ll leave when it’s done.’
Theo blinked at her outburst. Was this tension between them getting to her, too?
If he’d been another kind of boss, he could have chided her over her insubordination or for defying a direct order, but he was too busy revelling in the fire that had flared like brimstone in her eyes.
Fire that lit an answering flare in his body, licking heat to every inch.
He held up his palms in ado as you likegesture, and she got back to the task, the blur of her fingers and the clink of chips keeping him company as he sipped his whiskey.
‘Must you watch?’ she asked after a minute, interrupting the wild churn of his thoughts.
She didn’t look up from the table, but the thick thread of exasperation in her voice was clear. Theo almost laughed. Her question implied he had some control over this thing when he decidedly did not. He couldn’tnotlook at her. But he wasn’t about to admit to that, so he settled for answering her question with another.
‘Can I help?’ He hadn’t asked last time but her mood hadn’t been so hostile and the tension between them hadn’t been as thick and knotted as it was now after six nights of this tango. ‘Two hands are faster than one, right?’
Her head snapped up, her eyes flashed. ‘Why don’t you go to bed?’
Theo, unperturbed by her irritation, shrugged. ‘Not tired.’ Which probably made him sound like a petulant child, but he knew another long night of thinking about her in that uniform awaited him and if he was going to be haunted by it, he’d rather see the real thing.
Finishing his whisky, he straightened and half turned to pour himself a second, adding three fingers to the glass before sliding the stopper into the neck of the decanter. Taking a sip, he placed the tumbler on the bar then shrugged out of his jacket and threw it around the back of a high-backed stool. Between the fever in his blood and the brimstone in her eyes, he was too damn hot for a jacket.
When he glanced at Tiffany again, she hadn’t returned to her chip sorting. She was just standing there, her eyes roving over his chest like she was trying to decide where might be a good place to take a bite.
And fuck if that didn’t feel like a sledgehammer to his dick.
There was nothing for it now as the devil took hold. The frankness of her gaze only made him hotter and there was no way was he stopping at his jacket. Casually, he reached for his bowtie and pulled on a tail, a surge of very male satisfaction flaring through his body as her eyes bugged.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, her voice a breathy thread of air suspended between them.
The entire bow came undone with that one movement and he left the tails hanging down to look all James Bond and badass as he reached for the top button of his shirt. It felt like a noose around his neck as a well of desire flushed from his groin to his belly to his chest, surging like a tsunami to flood his throat.
‘It’s hot in here, don’t you think?’
‘No.’ She shook her head as her gaze fell to the twist of his fingers.
The button popped and he huffed out a breath. Her eyes were hot on his throat as he stretched his neck from side to side. ‘That’s better,’ he murmured.
Then he started on his cuffs.
Her eyes rounded again as she tracked the movement and Theo’s body pulled taut as a bow. He wasn’t sure what the game plan was here; maybe it was just a tease to counteract the prolonged torment of that indecent uniform. But he sure as fuck wasn’t going to stop.
He couldn’t stop.
Not when his pulse thrummed through his body and her intense focus on his every action constricted his breath and throbbed through his balls, making him hyperaware of how good they’d been together and how long it had been since they’d burned up the sheets.
Had he been a monk in that time? Nope. Not until the celibacy thing, anyway. But no woman he’d been with since – or before – had held him in such thrall.
The silence built as the buttons on his cuffs ceded to his fingers, and he rolled his sleeves to mid-forearm, watching her watch him the entire time. And Theo made damn sure he put on a show, not rushing it, conscious of Tiffany’s gaze glued to every minute twitch of his fingers and turn of his wrist.
