Page 31 of Resisting Her Playboy Boss

‘Well, that’s best, right? Because I don’t want us to lose all contact. I like hanging out with you.’

‘I don’t know whether to be pleased or insulted. You want me to be your buddy?’ His unbelieving smile became positively evil. ‘How about buddy with benefits?’

‘No benefits. Too messy. It would never work.’ She was adamant on that.

He stared at her. ‘You really want to be friends more than you want to have sex again?’ he asked, utterly incredulous.

She inhaled deeply. ‘Yes.’

‘I don’t believe you. In fact I reckon I could get you to change your mind in about a minute or less.’

‘If you put your mouth to that task, then I’d probably have to agree with you,’ she admitted. ‘But then I’d walk out of your life and that would be that. I don’t want to have a fling with you. But I do want to be a friend.’

‘You’re giving me an ultimatum?’ He sat an inch from her, clearly astounded.

‘Think of it as a challenge.’

‘Why would I put myself through that kind of a challenge?’

‘How many friends do you have?’ she asked, deadly serious.

‘I have hundreds of friends.’

‘I mean real, true, deep friends?’ she asked.

‘Friends are friends.’ He shrugged off her skepticism. ‘I like lots of them.’

‘Then this should be easy, right?’ she teased.

He sighed. ‘You really don’t want to be friends with benefits, or even just little perks?’

‘That way lies mess and complication. This way lies companionship.’

‘Companionship.’ He all but spat the word.

‘I know there’s no such thing as commitment from a guy like you, Ruben.’

He turned into a statue before her eyes.

‘To be honest, that’s not what I want in my life at this stage either,’ she reassured him with a smile. ‘Things are exciting for me. I’ve got this great job with awesome opportunities...’ She wanted to focus on succeeding with that.

‘Do you really think we can get past the physical attraction?’ Ruben really wasn’t sure that was going to be possible.

‘Sure we can. We’re adults, not animals.’

‘You like it animal,’ he taunted softly, pleased that she still blushed for him.

‘You’ll forget that, eventually.’

He doubted that very much.

‘Are you afraid you’re going to fail at this, Ruben?’

Oh, she thought he would, didn’t she?

‘What do you get out of it?’ he asked softly. ‘Surely you have other friends already, right? So what is it you get from me that you get from no one else? If it isn’t going to be stellar sex, what is it?’

Her flush deepened and she looked away.

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