“Obnoxious in a good way?” I ask while batting my eyelashes.
She stares at me for a few seconds and then answers, “No.”
Sheesh, tough crowd.
“How long has it been?” Dottie’s leg is shaking and she’s looking impatient. Oh shit, does she have to go to the bathroom?
“Thirty-six minutes,” I answer, looking at the time on my phone.
“Only thirty-six minutes?” She groans. “Feels like three hours.”
“Time sure does fly by when you’re having fun, huh?” I say sarcastically, eyes trained on her leg that doesn’t seem to be able to sit still. “Do you have to pee or something?”
“What? No. Why?”
“Because you’re bouncing your leg, and it’s annoying.”
“Oh, I’m annoying?” She points to her chest. “This coming from the guy who doesn’t seem to get a hint.”
“Oh, I get them, I just choose not to accept them.” I nod at her leg. “So why the bouncing? Are you claustrophobic?”
“Not really, but I don’t like being suspended in the air by cables, wondering if we’re going to plummet to our death.”
“Now that you put it like that, you have me slightly shaking in my skivvies. Can you hold me?” I stretch out my arms, giving her easy access.
“You’re pathetic. If you want a piece of me, you’re going to have to try harder than that.”
“You think I want a piece of you?”
“It’s so obvious, Jason.”
There’s a light air about her right now, as if she’s forgotten that she hates me. And it’s funny, watching her almost . . . flirt. There’s still a stiff set to her shoulders and robotic movements with her hands, but there’s a smile that wants to peek through and I’ll be honest, I’m here for it.
Also, yeah, I want a piece of her. She’s confident, sexy, and even though she prefers to keep the fun side of her away from the public eye as much as possible, I see it in her, and I want to expose it.
“And if I asked you out on a date? What would you say?”
“No.”
Oof. If she didn’t follow that comment with a tiny glint in her eye, I would be taking a beating to my ego.
“What if I asked you out with my shirt off, would that change your mind?”
She glances at my stomach and then back up at my eyes. “I’m not really into beer guts.”
Oh, she’s fucking fresh.
“I know what you’re doing.” I wag my finger at her. “You think you’re clever, don’t you? But I see right through you, Dot Dot.”
“Call me that again and I will kick your dick off.”
“Yikes, woman.” I laugh and she smiles back at me. “No nicknames, I get it, but your off-color threat doesn’t distract me from finding you out.”
“What are you talking about?” she asks, exasperated.
“Saying I have a beer gut. You and I both know that’s not true. You’re just trying to rile me up so I take my shirt off. Oh yes, I see right through you, lady.”
“I really couldn’t care less if you take your shirt off.”
“See?” I point at her. “There you go again. Reverse psychology. It’s not going to work on me. I’m smarter than you think. I might be a jock, but I’m not a dumb jock. I was an engineering major.”
“Okay, whatever.”
“You know what?” I stab the floor with my finger. “I’m going to prove you wrong. I’m going to take my shirt off because I want to, not because you told me not to. I’m reversing your reverse psychology.”
She looks puzzled. “Uh, I don’t think that’s a thing.”
“It is. Watch.” From behind, I reach and pull my shirt up and over my head then neatly fold it and set it on my lap. I turn more toward her and give her a good flex.
But when I catch her facial expression, it’s completely blank. No googly eyes, no shocked expression, no admiration. Just blank.
Well, shit.
Chapter Seventy-Four
DOTTIE
If I had cell service, I would be texting Emory right now telling her we’re no longer friends.
Oh, don’t worry, Dottie, Jason won’t be there. He’ll be on vacation.
Lies. All lies.
And now I’m stuck in an elevator with the man, the guy who hasn’t left my mind since that godforsaken email Lindsay sent. Two weeks. Yup. Two weeks of me thinking about Jason Orson in inappropriate ways, of searching his name on the Internet and envisioning what it would feel like to run my fingers up and down his rigid abs. Two weeks of wondering what his voice sounds like in bed. Two weeks of trying to hold back the smile that crosses my face when I see him.
It’s been draining, to say the least. I’m a tough girl, I know that, but I’ve never been . . . nasty. And honestly, some of the things that have come out of my mouth when talking to Jason would horrify my parents. Hell, they’ve horrified me when they’ve come out. They didn’t raise me to be sharp-tongued and vindictive. Quite the opposite if I’m honest. But this man? He pushes my buttons, and not always in a bad way like my behavior would indicate.
So why don’t I just give in and go out with him? Because we are all kinds of wrong for each other. Jason always had a harem of girls around him in college, but he wasn’t one of those assholes that led girls on and then fucked and dumped. As I’ve thought about him—a little obsessively—I recall how kind he was. Funny, idiotic, but not conceited. I mean, I had a crush on him for a reason. He’s a romancer, a gift giver, the type of man you cling on to and never let go.
You know what I’m talking about . . . the kind of man you take home to your parents.
Sounds great, right?
Well, I had that with Nick.
And he screwed me over, broke my heart, and left me in pieces I’ve had to pick up and tape everything back together.
I’m not going to do that to myself. So even though Jason is tempting, I’m not going for it.
But I will say this, Jason with his shirt off in a broken elevator? It’s not a bad end to my day. He’s a vision to behold with his shirt off: tan, not a jersey line in sight somehow, chiseled and sculpted like a marble monument with a tiny splattering of clipped hair in the middle of his chest.
If I did let myself go and give in to temptation, I would start with that chest hair, letting my fingertips glide over the incredibly short strands, then travel over his thick pecs and down his torso where I would spend an almost indecent amount of time fingering his abs. I would glide my digits through the ridges, coming close to his waistline but never close enough. I would enjoy seeing him squirm, watching him ache with need. It would be such a turn-on that I would straddle him and, without a second thought, begin to ride his lap, letting our centers collide and—
“Are you okay?”
“What?” I ask, snapping out of my thoughts.
“It didn’t seem like you were breathing. Are you breathing? Oh wait, I get it.” He dramatically shakes his head. “You want me to give you mouth-to-mouth. Once again, very clever.”