“Not at all. I find it extremely easy to say things I don’t mean.” She shifted. “You’re not a very comfortable seat.”
“Keep moving around like that, and I’ll get a lot less comfortable in a hurry.” That was a joke. I was already hard enough to punch a hole through the wall.
Though I supposed it would in fact be less comfortable for her if I tried to stick it somewhere it didn’t belong.
Just having the thought was problematic. I couldn’t think about anything like that without a little involuntary shudder, a groan, a hip grab, a quick, thoughtless grind against the soft heat of her.
She gasped and climbed off my lap.
I grimaced, hand going up to rub at my temple. “I’m sorry. That was out of line and an accident, I swear. I clearly need to get laid.”
“You didn’t get laid at the pool party yesterday?” she asked slowly, moving away. “Isn’t that the point of you inviting fifty females to get half-naked at your house?”
I glared at her. Glared. The pint-sized termagant had a nerve. “Oh, well. I’m so sorry that I was too busy babysitting you to worry about my hard-on.”
I composed myself and tried to get back on track. “I have something to say to you, and I’m going to get it out, goddammit.”
“So say it,” she said with just the perfect amount of quirky insolence to distract me again. “Talk already, boss.”
The way she said boss made it clear who she thought was really in charge between the two of us. “You’re a little brat, you know that?” I told her slowly, trying not to clue her in on just how much she delighted me.
“Let me guess, you’re going to make a short story long; what you do best.” She had the gall to rub her hands together like she just couldn’t wait to see what I had to say because it would prove her right, the minx. “I bet you particularly hate the quote: Brevity is the soul of wit. It’s like a personal diss against your whole career.”
My jaw went a little slack. I was beginning to suspect, with good reason, that her sass was my own personal kink.
“Look at you,” I said slowly, my tone seductive, thoroughly off topic once again, “Even hungover, you’re landing fucking haymakers before noon.”
She got a kick out of that, and the way she tried not to show it, biting her lips, made me want to attack her on sight.
“I want you,” I finally said it.
She froze and stared.
It wasn’t my smartest idea, but it wasn’t my worst one either.
So I wanted to have sex with a female who had developed very quickly into my closest friend. So what?
I stood and moved to her until I was close enough that I had to look down and she had to look up and my erection was almost touching her through my shorts. “I want you,” I said thickly. “I want to fuck you, to pleasure you, and I can’t for the life of me think of one good reason why I shouldn’t.”
She didn’t give me the reaction I was hoping for. I hadn’t been dense enough to assume she would.
I’d wanted a reaction. Period. Any reaction from Ro was foreplay for me.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” She burst out with, moving away. “Don’t you remember the contract I signed? I’m not quitting. I refuse to give up a job for whatever the hell it is you think you’re doing.” Her every word was breathless, and pained, like she had to force them out.
“Listen, I take full responsibility for anything that happens. I’ll put it in writing if you’re really worried about that.”
“What are you even doing, Turner?”
Her saying my name did something to me, and it took me a minute to recover and speak. “Just a few times, probably, then we can go back to business as usual. It wouldn’t affect your job, I’m not letting you go, not ever, it’s not even an option, but I think we need to get this out of our systems.”
“Our systems? Like this isn’t your idea alone?”
I shot her a level look. I was a lot of things, but I wasn’t blind. Not about this. I pointed at her, making solid eye contact. “Go ahead. Try to deny this to my face. You’re trembling. You’re out of breath. I know the signs. You want me. And lucky you, I’m right here.”
And then she said it. The thing that complicated things out of all proportion and beyond all reason.
“I’m a virgin, Turner,” she said quietly, and I froze.
And stared. And stared.
Fuck, all of this was way worse than I could have predicted, because my reaction was the opposite of what it should have been.
That little technicality didn’t turn me off.
Just the opposite.
It drove me wild.
“What does that mean, exactly?” I finally asked. We’d been staring each other down for an uncomfortably long time.
“You don’t even know what a virgin is?” she asked, amused. “It’s that foreign of a concept to you?”
“Don’t make me smile right now. This is serious.”
“No, it’s not,” she said with sheer, confident, frustrating exasperation. “It’s absolutely not. Certainly not to you. You take nothing seriously.”
“What is that supposed mean?”
She rolled her eyes.
I wanted to throttle her.
I wanted to climb inside of her and rut until she was a boneless puddle at my feet.
I tried again. “How are you a virgin?”
She looked at me like I’d just said the silliest thing on the planet, but it was just another bit, the damned little hellion comedian. “Everyone starts out a virgin. Did you not know that?”
She had the nerve to make fun of me at a moment like this?
My brain short-circuited, vision going a little fuzzy for a delicious moment. I thought I might come in my pants.
“How are you still a virgin?” I tried again.
We were both smiling. I had the thought then that she was my favorite person on the planet.
Ever.
It was unhinged. I should have been running away screaming just from the thoughts my own brain was producing in that moment.
“Well, you see, how that works is, I haven’t had sex with anyone yet.”
“Godfuckingdammit, Ro! This isn’t funny!”
I could have mouthed the words with her as she said, “Sure it is, boss.”
I never wanted to let her leave my sight. I wanted to keep her in my pocket for the rest of my life.
Nothing romantic, of course. These were just strong friendship feelings with a dash of healthy, powerful lust thrown in.
Romance was just chemistry plus hormones and once you knew it, it lost half of its power.
I told myself those things, hoping if I said it enough I would feel it. Feel it like I was supposed to if I wanted my life to stay sane and normal and free of that ridiculous, useless L word.
Luckily she helped rouse me out of my ridiculous thoughts.
“I don’t want my first time to be with someone like you,” she said, tone serious and free of irony, for once.
Not gonna lie, it stung when it shouldn’t have. Fucking ouch.
“I’m saving myself.”
My bruised ego was immediately paused. This was too fascinating for me not to explore. “Are you waiting for marriage?”
If she said yes, I thought I might propose on the spot.