“I’m yours. I’m just your little toy—“
The alarm on my phone begins to vibrate, letting me know I’m going to be late for work if I don’t leave now. Normally, by this time, Byron has finished his laps and he’s back inside the house showering and I’m driving to work, legs squeezed together with arousal from watching his back muscles flex. From seeing the water stream down his untouched body.
“Mine,” I whisper, fixing my bra and dress, then pushing out of the back exit of the cabana, my hands closing around the iron bars of his gate. “Mine.”
I take my usual route to work, stopping at my usual bakery for coffee. But it’s not a typical morning because I didn’t see him. I’m restless and everything is moving in a sluggish motion, voices and car engines ringing in my ears, like I’m trapped in a fun house. I’m going through Byron withdrawals, aren’t I? Yes, that’s what this is. And it’s twice as intense because I’ve touched him now. Spent time with him. I didn’t get my daily dose.
Didn’t—
I stop short when I walk into my office.
Byron is…here? Or more likely, my mind is playing tricks on me.
He can’t really be sitting in our client reception area, holding a bouquet of flowers, his mouth moving, as if he’s silently rehearing a speech. What is happening?
I try to fill my lungs with oxygen, but I can only manage a gasping half-breath. “Byron?”
He looks up at me abruptly, dropping the bouquet. And when he bends down to retrieve it, muttering under his breath, his knee bashes into the coffee table.
His wince of discomfort causes denial to tear through me, but I tamp it down.
Act normal. Act normal.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, my voice husky. Shaky.
Byron gestures awkwardly with the bouquet, redness riding up the sides of his face. “I came to apologize.” He takes a step in my direction. Another one. He seems almost transfixed by me, but that can’t be right. I’m projecting. “Jane, I was an awful moron yesterday. I am begging you to forgive me for what I said. You…” With a quick glance at our reception desk, he lowers his voice. “I’m just not used to being wanted like that. Especially by someone so…vibrant. And alive. It threw me and I went hunting for reasons you could possibly be attracted to someone like me—”
“Someone like you?” I let my guard slip a little. How could I not when he’s here? He’s brought me flowers and he’s calling me vibrant. Blushing his way through all of it. I could die happy, right this very second. “Someone like you, Byron? You mean incredible? Tech wizards are a dime a dozen in the Valley, but that’s all they are. Smart. They don’t have generosity with their employees. Empathy and emotional depth and humility.” My heart squeezes out the final sentence. “There’s no one in the world like you.”
He stares at me, looking winded. Bewildered. “Jane…”
Oh my God, I have to be terrifying him. He should be terrified. I was just in his cabana trying to catch sight of him shirtless. “Thank you for coming here and apologizing. I accept, of course. I’m sorry for leaving yesterday on such a dramatic note.” I step forward and accept the bouquet of flowers. Pink peonies wrapped in green tissue paper and cellophane, tied up in a white ribbon. Gorgeous. “These are the exact flowers I would have chosen for myself,” I say, truthfully, causing relief to dance across his face. “Well done, Mr. DeWitt.”
He ducks his head, battling a smile. “I’m glad you like them. Roses seems too obvious.” His gaze tracks down the front of my body and away, his chest rising and falling. “I hope you don’t mind me saying that you’re more complicated than roses.”
I knew it. He senses something about me.
Something twisted.
But…he’s here regardless?
Yes. He’s here. And I don’t want him to leave.
“I had a weird idea for the party,” I say, my mind flipping through an array of images. “Do you want to discuss it in my office?”
Is it my imagination that he looks relieved that I’ve given him a reason to stay?
“Weird, huh?” His lips tug at the corner. “I have to hear this.”
I have to restrain myself from rubbing my face on his big, brawny shoulder to get a whiff of his Tom Ford cologne. “Right this way,” I whisper, leading him to my office in the far corner of the floor.
As we pass by some of my co-workers, they gape at me, one of them mouthing the words hot nerd. But I’m too busy coming up with a weird idea on the fly to acknowledge them. Or stab them with a letter opener, as is my most pressing inclination.
When we reach my office, I close the door behind us. “Would you like something to drink?”