Page 12 of Waiting for It

After Chase left, the amusement he’d brought faded quickly. I tried to concentrate on code. Exhaustion, food coma, and lust wanted me to daydream about either Luke or Chase instead. Or both together. Sleep-deprived me lacked a few filters. I had less than a day to get the potent desire out of my system and go back to the passive attraction.

I forced my gaze to my screen. The focus lasted about five minutes, before Luke knocked.

“Do you have a minute?” This time he stepped into my office and closed the door behind him.

No. The refusal froze in my throat. My insides twisted, and my brain grasped how intimately small my office was when the door was closed. How had I never noticed that before?

It only took him a couple of steps to move to the side of my desk. There was no furniture barrier now. “I want to make sure things are all right between us.” His voice was low.

This wasn’t exactly a private place to talk, even closed off from the office. “Fine.” I needed to keep my answers vague. “I just had to—”

“Get home. Yeah. I meant everything I said.”

That he was willing to quit his job to kiss me? That we couldn’t continue what we’d been doing? That he imagined I tasted like peaches? “That’s a lot of conflicting information.”

“It’s all true. I know what I’m saying. If you weren’t under me—” His wince matched my mental one. Did he just get the same image I did? “Things are the way they are, and none of what happened has an impact on your job.”

So he kept insisting, but it very much did. I’d never look at him the same way again. I wasn’t saying that out loud, especially not here. If I was more like Sadie, would I stop thinking about this, and act?

I was me, though. “Good to know.”

“Then we’re all right? I don’t have to worry about you hiding from me, or anything?” The lightheartedness in his question was strained.

I forced a smile. “Yup. Things are great.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’ll take that for now.”

As he left, I sank a few inches in my chair. Things would get back to normal between us. It would take time some time, though.

Did I want my relationship with Luke to go back to the way it was?

It didn’t matter what I wanted. Returning to pretending it wasn’t him was the only choice I had.

---