Page 4 of Wright Together

I choked on that word out of his mouth. His eyes moved to my lips, and desire shot through those baby-blues. I definitely hadn’t meant to vocalize that reaction.

I cleared my throat, hoping to salvage this conversation. “I thought you missed Seattle.”

He was silent for a moment too long as he visibly collected himself before taking a seat across from me. “I thought I did, too. Turns out, I just missed my mom.”

“Is she going to move down here?”

He chuckled. “No. She’s lived there her entire life, and she loves her work. But she was glad to have me and Harley there.”

“I bet.”

I had no idea what that would be like. My family was…complicated. To say the least. They were the real reason that I couldn’t seem to catch a break. It was hard to get ahead financially when half of every paycheck went home to make sure my little sister had a roof over her head and food in her stomach.

Real estate had seemed like a way to make some easy money. I’d only been doing it for eighteen months at the insistence of my now ex-boyfriend. When our relationship ended, my entire life went up in smoke. He’d fired me from his company, blacklisted my ass, and kicked me out of the apartment he had me in. No wonder I still wasn’t ready for a relationship. I couldn’t afford to lose everything again.

I’d finally managed to find another company that would take me in but building clientele had been a slow and painful slog. Even a year later, I had to take every new client that came my way. Steady work was hard to come by.

I wasn’t about to blow it with the Wrights.

“So, this job,” Whitt said. He rifled through a file on his desk. “I assume Jordan filled you in on it?”

“He hired me. We’re surveying a new build in Midland.”

“Yes. Working with Dorset & King.”

“Ah, the Kings. Midland royalty,” I mused.

“You know them?” His eyes found mine over the top of the file.

“Sure. Everyone knows them. They’re a big presence in the city. Plus, I was in the same year as Nate King.”

I managed to keep my face neutral when I mentioned him. Not that Nate and I had ever been together, but his girlfriends sure thought we had been. Apparently, girls couldn’t be friends with guys. That had been one of my first lessons that I wasn’t like other girls. And they made it blatantly clear that they didn’t want to be friends with me.

I was still adjusting to the fact that the girls in Lubbock weren’t like that. I’d been waiting for the shoe to drop for months with my roommates, Piper and Blaire. Kept expecting my friend Nora to wake up one day and decide I wasn’t worth the trouble. After all, I had only become friends with them after they replaced Nora’s cheating ex. I could be easily replaceable as well. No matter that they’d never given me that inclination, my little-girl shit circled me like a vulture after carrion.

“Well, excellent. I’ll have you make introductions when we meet with them.”

“Of course.”

The Kings were a little out of my league. But hey, so were the Wrights, and that had never stopped me.

In fact, Mr. Out of My League was sitting directly across from me. I’d never seen him in his office before. Now, all six-plus feet of him dominated the space. He loomed over the desk, a giant in his realm.

My eyes traced the lines of his shoulders. Had he been working out? He seemed even broader than I remembered. I was a taller-than-average woman, and he made me feel dainty. Like a little pixie, like the rest of my friends. As if he could take one of those large hands and circle it around my waist with ease. Or perhaps my throat…

Could I imagine Mr. Tall, Dark, and Controlled releasing enough to choke me while he fucked me?

I dispelled that thought. I shifted my legs together, the heat rubbing up to the apex of my thighs.

Whitt had made it clear that he wanted a relationship. The night of Jordan and Annie’s wedding, I was perfectly positioned to see exactly how good he was in bed. I’d basically thrown myself at him, only for him to reject me. The last thing I wanted was another relationship that could fuck up my entire life if it didn’t work. No matter how broad those shoulders or how it’d feel for him to use his perfect control in the bedroom—

“Eve?”

I cleared my throat. “Hmm?”

“I asked if next weekend worked for our survey trip to Midland?”

“Whenever you’re free. I can move my clients around.”