Page 60 of Blue Collar Babes

He shrugs. “Sorry.”

“You don’t sound…wait a minute. This is the women’s restroom. What are you doing in here?”

I glance around, but the bathroom is still blessedly empty, save for the hulk of a man in front of me who smells intoxicatingly of leather and vanilla and something more. Something uniquely Shep.

Hold your breath.

He doesn’t say anything. Just studies me with those dark brown eyes that have haunted me for far too long.

The breath explodes audibly from my lungs, and I have to gulp in more oxygen and more of his delicious scent. One corner of his mouth quirks up. It’s the side with the small scar at the corner—he accidentally hooked himself fishing once at Misty Lake, cussing a blue streak until I offered to play nurse and kiss it better.

Hello! Memory Lane is closed! Permanently.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“You’ve had plenty of opportunities,” I huff and cross my arms over my chest.

“It wasn’t the right time.”

“And the women’s bathroom at our reunion while my date is outside is?”

I try to ignore the zip of a thrill when I see a muscle tics in his jaw on the word “date.”

“I don’t give a fuck about your date,” he growls.

He steps closer, and the heat of his body reaches out to mine in the small distance. I could feel him again with just the smallest step on my part.

This is wrong. What about Brian? Remember him? He’s your date.

Steel snaps back into my spine, and I shift to the side only for him to follow me.

“Excuse me,” I tell him with a glare.

“Don’t go. Just a few minutes. Please?”

He was always hard to stay mad at. Especially when he turned on the smile he’s sporting now and said things like please.

“Maybe we should go somewhere a little less…”

“Public?” he suggests with a waggle of his brows.

“Inappropriate,” I correct.

He shrugs.

“I’m serious. Someone could walk in at any minute—”

“Worried to be caught with me, Jade?” His voice drops an octave, and a pulse starts low in my core.

“N-no.”

“Liar, liar, sweetheart.” He moves closer and I step back, but there’s no more floor space to retreat.

“What do you want, Shepard?”

He smirks.

“My full name, huh?”

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