Page 27 of Wicked Sexy (Wicked Games 2)
Which he shouldn’t be, because we left each other in the lobby with a “See you at six a.m.”
Feeling self-conscious, I make my way slowly across the patio toward him, weaving through tables. He watches me, his gaze contemplative and intense. The firelight lends his face a soft, pleasing glow. I wonder cynically if that’s why he chose that particular seat.
Yes, I’ve noticed the knot of girls at a table on the other side of the patio who are gaping at him over their margaritas. This fool has groupies everywhere.
“Great minds think alike,” he says as I stop beside him. He gestures to the next seat.
“Let’s not get carried away.” I lower myself to the stool.
He smiles. Catching the eye of the waiter who’s making the rounds, Connor calls him over with a crooked finger.
“Yes, sir?” asks the waiter.
“Johnny Walker Blue and an ice water with lemon.”
The waiter gives a short bow and retreats.
Now my self-consciousness turns to irritation, because if those girls don’t stop staring and whispering, I’m going to go over there and smack the giggles right out of their stupid little mouths.
Noticing where my attention is, Connor drawls, “Guess they like hot senior guys,” and chuckles.
“God, you’re like a dog with a bone. Can we be done with that, please?”
Looking at me from the corner of his eye, he only offers a noncommittal “Hmm.”
How are his biceps bulging when he’s not even using them? How is his jaw so sharp, it could cut glass? How are his lashes that impossibly thick and long?
How the hell did all of that suddenly go from irritating to interesting?
“I like this outfit,” he says, eyeing me. “You almost look like a normal human being.”
I make a disgusted noise. “I’ll be sure to never wear it again.”
I’m aware that I’m being a bitch to manage my discomfort over my inconceivable attraction to him, but hopefully he won’t catch on, because I’ve pretty much been a bitch to him from the get-go, so I think this is a safe course of action. It’s the logical course of action, at any rate. Just stay on the bitch train, get through this job, and we can both go our separate ways without him ever guessing I might have once had a wee lady boner for him.
Because honestly, I can’t think of anything more mortifying than Connor discovering that. The “hot” slipup was one I cannot, under any circumstances, repeat.
Connor says, “You’ve got that look again.”
Startled, I glance at him. “What look?”
“The one you get when your brain is tripping all over its own feet.”
I toss my hair over my shoulder and gaze off into the middle distance like a disinterested cat. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He gives me another mysterious “Hmm.”
For a moment, he just examines my face in silence. There’s a strange tension in him, a stillness, like a held breath but in his entire body. Then he abruptly swings around in his seat so he’s facing me, his massive thighs on either side of my barstool, his booted feet planted on the floor.
Trapping me.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I ask, my voice high with panic.
“Got something to say to you. It’s important, so don’t talk until the end.”
He looks dangerously intense. His dark eyes are heated, drilling into mine. His cheeks are flushed from the fire, or from something else, but I don’t have time to think about what that something else might be, because he opens his mouth and starts to speak, and my brain faints dead away, leaving me to fend for myself.
“I want you. Bad. Don’t know exactly why, you’re a complete pain in my ass and pretty much the most contrary, foul-tempered woman I’ve ever met, and you’ve made it really clear what you think about me, but every time I look at you, I have an almost overpowering urge to touch you, kiss you, do a lot of bad things to you, and I don’t know how to manage it. Yeah, it might be more prudent for me to keep this shit to myself, but I know that when you don’t talk about shit, it festers, gets worse, and if the way I feel about you gets any worse, I won’t be able to put my goddamn shoes on in the morning. So I’m putting it out there.”
