“Rath is a sucker for pastries,” Charlee says, so familiar with me. “Lemon curd Danish is his favorite.”
“Oh, I do love a lemon flavor,” Grandma says, taking a seat at the table. “It’s an older flavor. I don’t see many young people loving it as much.”
“My mom got me into loving lemon.” I shrug. “I’ll pretty much eat anything with lemon in it but Danishes are my favorite.”
“A man who loves sweets and has a smile like yours, that’s deadly.”
Charlee rolls her eyes and pokes her grandma. “Can you stop hitting on Rath?”
“Don’t tell her to stop,” I say. “I like the compliments.”
“Of course, you do.” And then she smiles her beautiful smile and forgive me for sounding like Bram—a sap—but my heart feels full. Not seeing her all week and then seeing her so sad . . . was just so wrong. But her smile . . . nothing compares.
“Yahtzee,” I say, tossing my hands in the air when the die rolls to a five.
Charlee groans while Grandma tosses her pen. “How is that possible? You have four Yahtzees; that’s unheard of.”
I blow on the tips of my fingers and say, “It’s all in the roll, ladies.”
“You’re cheating.” Charlee points at me. “And when I find out how you’re doing it, you’re going down, Westin.”
“Oh yeah? What are you going to do?” I ask, enjoying my very unexpected and entertaining afternoon. When I tried to leave after we ate, Grandma grabbed me by the arm and brought me to the board games where she told me to pick out a few. So far, we’ve played Life, which I won, Scattergories, which I also dominated, and now Yahtzee, which has proven to be another winner for me.
“You know those smoothies I make for you? I’ll put extra kale in them so it’s one thick chunk of kale that you have to slurp up.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, I would,” Charlee says animatedly. “I will pile kale into that smoothie, like it’s salt, and then sprinkle some dried kale on top just for the hell of it.”
Grandma looks between the two of us. “Wow, that’s a lot of kale.”
“Well, I don’t have anything to worry about, because I’m not cheating.”
“You have trick dice, some kind of magnetic device that turns the dice at the right time, like in Ocean’s 11.”
“Is it Ocean’s 11?” Grandma asks. “Or is it one of the other ones?”
“Doesn’t matter. What matters is that I will find you out . . . son,” Charlee says with a deep voice, causing me to laugh.
“Pry all you want, I’m not cheating.”
“You know”—Grandma taps her chin—“it might help if he lifts his shirt and pulls his pants down so we can examine for any kind of magnetic device. Strip down, Rath.”
“Grandma, my God, he’s not going to—”
I stand with no intention to strip down, but the look on Charlee’s face is priceless. I start to lift my shirt to the waistline of my jeans and Charlee closes her hand over her eyes while Grandma claps and makes a poor techno beat.
“Take it off. Take it off.”
“Oh my God, Grandma. Stop.”
“Please, as if you haven’t dingled his dingy yet.”
I pause, recount what she just said as Charlee does the same. Dingled his dingy . . . the term plays on repeat in my head until I can’t take it anymore, and I fall into my chair and burst out laughing. Charlee’s face is red with embarrassment.
Through clenched teeth, Charlee says, “I have not even noticed he has a dingy, Grandma.”
“You haven’t noticed the bulge in his pants? That’s hard to believe.”
Charlee slinks in her chair, mortified.
I keep on laughing.
Leaning forward, Grandma whispers, “Are you circumcised, Rath? My husband wasn’t and even though I was fine with that, it still makes things difficult on my end. Are you”—she makes a scissor motion with her fingers—“snipped?”
“Don’t answer that,” Charlee says, shaking her head.
But just to curb Grandma’s interest, I say, “Yes, I am.”
“Oh, you see that?” Grandma nudges Charlee with her elbow. “Easy access when doing the blowies.”
“And . . . I’m dead.” Charlee slinks under the table, and that’s where she stays while Grandma and I continue to play Yahtzee.
I just hope she’s not under there staring at my “bulge” because right about now, my cock is pressing against my jeans from the thought of Charlee giving me a “blowie.”
Charlee walks me to the door. Grandma is getting ready for bed and has already given me a hug. Because I brought so much Chinese food, we had some for dinner and polished off the rest of the Danishes for dessert. Once Charlee felt she could rejoin the group, we played a few more rounds of Life, this time Charlee and Grandma taking the wins.
“I need to apologize.”
I hold up my hand as I step outside her door, the hallway empty and lit up by lights. “No need to apologize. It was a great night, and I had a lot of fun. You guys didn’t have to invite me to stay.”
She folds her arms over her chest and leans against the doorframe. “Technically, my grandma asked you to stay for games, not me.”
“Yeah, but you did the initial inviting in.”
“Are you really going to keep track of every last detail?”
“That’s part of my job.”
She shakes her head and presses her finger to my chest quickly before pulling it away. “No, that’s my job.”
“So, does this mean you’ll be back to work on Monday?”
“Miss me that much, boss man?”
Not wanting to hide it, I say, “Yes, I did. I missed you a lot.”
A grin of amusement passes over her lips. “Got you with the color coordination, didn’t I?”
“I have a hard time looking at the color green without wanting to start working my ass off.”
She laughs and rests her head against the doorframe and in a matter of seconds, my aching body has this uncontrollable urge to reach out and take her into my arms. I want to feel her warmth again, the softness of her body pressed against mine. I want to rub my hand up and down her back, going low enough that I almost touch the swell of her ass, causing her nipples to harden. I want to feel those pebbled nubs against my chest again, flick them with my thumbs, see how hard I can get them. And I want to cup her jaw in my large hand, pass my mouth over her cheek, her eyes, her nose, and then settle on her lips where I’d finally steal a kiss from her, a kiss I’ve wanted ever since I hired her.
My body pulses with the idea, with reaching out, closing the space between us and taking what I want. It’s so potent, so heavy in my veins that I have to mentally reprimand myself and tell my legs to take a step back before I make a colossal mistake like kiss the best assistant I’ve ever had.
“Thank you for tonight,” she says. “For listening to me and my stories.”
Steadying my breath, I say, “It was nothing, but I will tell you this, if I ever run into your ex, he’ll be making a grand introduction to my fists.”