Page 75 of A Ticking Time Boss

She chuckles. “It is a little bit dry, perhaps. But not bad.”

I curse and push my chair back. Open the door to my fridge. “You can have… ketchup? Or BBQ sauce. No, it’s expired. It’s ketchup or ketchup.”

Audrey’s voice is soft. “I don’t need anything, Carter.”

“No sauce,” I mutter, taking a seat opposite her again. “Should have thought about that.”

“You don’t do this often, then? Cook for the women you date?”

I reach for my wineglass. “God, no.”

A tiny smile spreads across her lips. “Oh.”

“Very few have been here, too,” I say, extending my hand to encompass the entire room. “It usually feels a bit… I don’t know. It’s rare, anyway.”

“But you do date a lot,” she hedges.

“I have in the past,” I admit. “Less and less, now. Some, like my date to the Reporters’ Ball, aren’t really dates. We’ve been friends for a few years and meet now and then.”

Audrey’s lips quirk, like she’s heard the subtext. That I haven’t had relationships as much as friends with benefits for years. There’s a question in her eyes, but none emerges.

I take another sip of wine and wait. But there’s only silence. “You can ask it,” I say.

“It feels presumptuous,” she says. “Asking where you and I fall on the spectrum. I mean, we work together. Or not really together, together, but… you know.”

I bite my lip to keep from smiling. “I know.”

“We went out on a date last weekend. We text all the time. We can’t tell anyone about us, of course, and yet here we are. In your apartment.”

Ignoring the half-eaten food on the plates in front of us, I reach out to tip her head back. “I’m not looking for another friends with benefit situation,” I say. “Although I would call us friends.”

“And hopefully there will be benefits?”

“There have been plenty already. I would have burned the steak if you didn’t intervene.”

She gives a breathless chuckle. “You make it very hard to keep my guard up.”

“Do you need it up?” I ask. Her eyes are bottomless on mine, like two pools of water where I can’t see the bottom. I think I might die if I can’t have her in my arms soon.

Audrey shakes her head. “Maybe. But even if I did, it’s come down.”

It should scare me, perhaps. The honest confession. And the feelings inside of me do. It’s been a long, long time since I felt out of control. Since words failed me and I couldn’t just laugh something off. But her confession makes something inside me ache.

“Christ, I want you,” I murmur.

She laughs, two spots of color appearing on her cheeks. “Already told you. Guard is down.”

“Doesn’t mean I’ll stop complimenting you,” I warn.

We clear the table and I watch her move through my space, the tight curve of her shirt around her chest, her body’s sinuous movements. The temperature rises inside by degrees.

Audrey notices. She puts her plate in the sink and turns slowly, catching me. “Well,” she says.

I swallow. “What do you want to do now?”

She smooths a hand over her skirt, curving down her hip. “Um, your TV looks gigantic. We could watch a movie?”

“Yes. Sure.”

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