Page 60 of Loving You

He chuckled and shook his head. “Oh, wow, thank you. I’m honored.”

“Second,” I said, setting my own lunch aside before standing up and moving between his legs, “I have about thirty minutes before I have a call with a client, and I’m not telling you what to do or anything, but just in caseyoufeel like telling me to show you what I’m wearing under this skirt, I’m willing.”

“Mm, as tempting as that is,” he murmured, running his hands up the outsides of my thighs and leaving heat trails that burned through the fabric of my pencil skirt, “I already know what you’re wearing under this skirt.”

I scowled. “How?”

“Because you got dressed with the door open, and I happened to look up when you pulled this skirt over those insanely hot red panties. I spilled my coffee and burned the fuck out of my hand.”

Swatting his shoulder, I laughed. “Ew, perv. You watched me get dressed?”

“You left the door open. See what I mean about how we’re doing this backward?”

“We’re not doing anything backward, Eric. But now I only have twenty-seven minutes, so if you want to do somethingelsebackwards—”

I shrieked as he picked me up and tossed me on the bed, reveling in the sound of his husky laughter as he rolled me onto my stomach.

Yep. Lunch-break sex was averygood idea.

18

ERIC

Jake typed at his tablet after looking at a gauge on one of the tanks in the brewhouse. He had a hat pulled low and headphones in, so when I tapped him on his shoulder, he jumped about a foot.

“Do not sneak up on a man listening to a true crime podcast.Shit,Eric, I thought you were a murderer, and I was about to have to defend myself with this iPad.” He lifted a shaking hand to his head and adjusted the brim of his hat.

I rolled my eyes. “I’m deeply sorry for gently tapping you on the shoulder and making you think I was a homicidal maniac. Now, do you have a minute?”

He huffed, then pulled his other earbud out. “I mean, I guess I do now. My entire life flashed before my eyes, and I’m realizing I need to make more time for family.”

I chuckled, but when I caught his expression, I reared back. “What?”

“It’s just, maniac or no, you seem really happy. It’s good to see.” He patted my shoulder and turned to walk with me toward his office.

“Thanks. Itfeelsgood.”

He grinned, and a pang of gratitude hit me hard enough to make me stutter step as we arrived at his office. Jake was genuinely a kind person, and he’d found the love of his life in a woman who was already like a sister to me. Pride swelled in my chest, loving how great of a man he was and the fact that he and Ellie were about to get married and would be an incredible couple.

He took a seat behind his shitty little desk—I’d tried to replace it a few years back, but he’d refused since it was Dad’s, so I’d never pressed him on it again—and smiled at me as I sat. “You don’t have your folder, so I have a hunch this unexpected workday lunch is personal.”

He and Sammy loved teasing me about my leather folio. Maybe it made me stodgy or old-fashioned, but my brain worked best with pen and paper, and I wasn’t about to carry around a legal pad and monthly calendar haphazardly.

Whatever.

He and the other two could keep their fancy gadgets for work. I loved technology and embraced it fully, just not in the first draft when I needed to sort out my thoughts or remember things.

“It is.” I shifted in the chair, suddenly a little uncomfortable. “April and I are—”

“Boning like rabbits? Knew it!” Sammy’s voice pulled our focus as he leaned in through the doorway.

“Don’t say shit like that, you idiot. She’s going to be your sister-in-law someday,” Jake said, fully disgusted with our youngest brother.

Surprise hit at his words, but I couldn’t deny them, nor did I want to.

Sammy’s eyes widened and his smile blazed. “Oh yeah? Congratulations, man. That’s amazing. But seriously, you proposed to her already? It’s a little soon, don’t you think?”

“We’ve known each other forever, been working closely for several years, her best friends are married to my brothers, and she’s been living at my house for coming up on a month now, so no. Not especially soon. That said, I have not proposed to her; we’re not there… yet.”

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