Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 111980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
“You bet I fucking do.”
She gives me an I’m waiting look. “Fine. What is it?”
I take my sweet time before I say, “If you juggle the ducks for me sometime.”
She rolls her eyes, then says, “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
Esmeralda swings by with our drinks, and I thank her, then lift my glass to Chloe. “To blackmail.”
“It was soft blackmail,” she corrects.
“Still blackmail.”
“But you liked it.”
She has no idea how much. We clink glasses, and I knock back some of the drink. When I set it down, I nod to the menus on the counter. “Mango salad? I hear it’s the special.”
I might have scanned the menu online on my way over.
Chloe’s eyes pop. “Yes!”
“See? I’m not fighting you on it,” I say, a callback to her earlier ode to the tropical fruit.
“You need to get one too. They’re amazing. It’s only on the menu a few times a year.”
“When in Rome.”
She waves Esmeralda down again and places the order. When she’s gone, Chloe turns back to me, clears her throat, then says, “There’s one more thing. Regarding the fundraiser.”
I groan. “Chloe.”
“There’s a short thirty-second-long dance number at the end.”
“I told you—I don’t dance.”
She licks her lips and lets her gaze drift to my arm. My sleeves are still down all the way, cuffs buttoned. But Chloe reaches for a cuff and slowly, deliberately, undoes the button.
I fight off a shudder as her fingers coast lightly over my skin. She keeps going, her gaze returning to my eyes as she folds back the cuffs till she reveals the temporary tattoo. She traces the rose with her finger, reverently, like a caress.
Her touch scrambles my brain. It melts my bones. It knocks all the sense out of me. “I can dance,” she says in a sexy promise. “It’s an easy number. A little swing, a little jazz, then you dip me. And there’s a dance studio in town across from the community theater. We’ll take lessons.”
Dance lessons with the woman I’m fighting like hell to resist? Sounds like a bad idea. And since bad ideas are my stock-in-trade lately, I find myself saying yes.
Pretty sure I can’t say no to Chloe Troublemaker Rivers.
25
A BODY-CONTACT THING
SAWYER
On my Saturday-morning run with Banks, I replay in my mind the dancing videos that I watched last night. And again this morning while doing laps in the pool at the gym. I try to remember the moves now as we pass the horse farm, where a majestic chestnut creature nibbles on grass.
We’ve reached the part of the run where silence cloaks us, and that’s fine by me.
I picture taking a step forward, a step back—then what’s next?
My thoughts are interrupted by a loud bark.
Banks laughs affectionately. “Hudson, he’s twenty times bigger than you,” he says to the black-and-white dog he’s running with—Ripley’s dog. Though maybe it’s his dog now too.
Hudson barks again at the horse, who whinnies and wanders off in his pasture, even though we keep moving.
“Twenty? Not sure if your math is mathing,” I say.
“It’s artistic license. Deal with it,” he replies, then nods at Hudson. “Right, buddy?”
Hudson offers a hopeful look at Banks, who pats Hudson’s flank as they keep running. Yup. I was right.
“So, safe to say Hudson’s yours now too?”
“Fuck yes,” Banks says, no questions asked. Then he shoots me a serious look. “And what about you?”
I blink, unsure what he means. “Is…Captain my dog?”
Banks nearly stumbles. A rare sight—the man is fast on his feet. But he slows at the street sign, Hudson slowing, too, and turning to look at Banks with doggy concern.
“I was thinking more about whether you were going to get a dog, not whether Chloe’s dog was yours…but way to connect the dots, bro.”
Ah, shit. That was a Freudian slip. “Sorry. Morning brain,” I mumble, trying to cover it up, stat.
He scoffs—or maybe it’s a laugh. Probably both. “Or…wishful thinking?”
But those are things I can’t want. Can’t wish for. I wave a hand. “Just got dogs on my mind.”
“Yeah, you should adopt one. But more to the point—are you and Chloe a thing now?”
No. That can’t happen. I won’t date a co-worker. That’s asking for trouble. But even if I was okay with it, there’d be that whole love never works out thing. “No. I’m not dating her or anyone. Love sucks, and then it chews you up and spits you out,” I say.
“Not always,” he says, and sure, easy for him to say. He didn’t almost get married to someone who cheated on him. But I’m not going to compare heartbreak. Especially with a man who’s very happily attached.
“Most of the time,” I say, then swallow my pride—and man, does it taste bitter going down. But I better own up to what the thing with Chloe really is. “Anyway, I said that because…I have to do this whole…thing with her.”