Protect Me Not ((Un)Professionally Yours 2)

What! The! Fuck?

He was so screwed.

Oh, wow.

Vicki didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but those words—delivered in his customarily gruff, curt tone of voice—were borderline flirtatious. There had been a spark of heat in his eyes, followed by an instant flash of regret, before his face had shuttered and his eyes had hooded.

If she hadn’t still been so shaken by Cassie’s violent reaction to the termination of her job, Vicki would have pushed him further, just to see if she could get that heat back. But she didn’t think she was emotionally equipped to cope with a reluctantly flirtatious Tyler—Ty, oh my—Chambers right now.

She fought back a blush, feeling awkward and unsure. This was her fault. She had started it with her stupid comment about bondage. Now she lacked the guts to follow through with him. He wasn’t like any other man she’d found herself attracted to before. He was so big and so…male. Vicki recognized that to him she was just a job, a pesky means to an end. That meant she never saw him in anything other than professional mode. Suited, booted, and grim faced.

She felt like she’d been graced with a rare glimpse of the man beneath that stern façade. Again, she considered the possibility that he had a girlfriend—possibly boyfriend—tucked away somewhere.

“Are you seeing anyone?” The question was out before she knew she was going to ask, but she kept her game face on. Reluctant to let him see that she instantly regretted voicing the words.

His eyes widened, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as his throat worked. He opened his mouth, but long seconds passed before any sound emerged. “M-my relationship status has no relevance to this conversation.”

His voice was dark, unyielding, and cold as ice. If not for that stumble at the beginning of his statement, she would have believed him entirely unaffected by this strange conversation. But that stammer—along with the banked heat behind the frigidity of his gaze—told her exactly how disturbing he found this encounter.

Before now, their association had always been clear cut. They had tolerated each other. Nothing more, nothing less. Theirs had been a mutually aloof relationship based upon the necessity of pleasing his boss and her brother. She was his job. He was her unwanted shadow.

But now everything felt new, exciting, different, and she wasn’t sure why. She had always been aware of his attractiveness, but—until this very moment—she had never been so aware of his maleness.

All that big, hulking, masculinity, wrapped in muscle and testosterone, prettied up by gorgeous features and beautiful eyes.

It left her breathless, flushed, and shaken.

Undone.

She kept her eyes trained on that impassive, handsome face, not quite able to look away. His stony gaze held hers with unflinching determination. If not for his tightly clenched jaw, and the ticking muscle just below his left temple, she would have thought him unaffected by her stare.

Her mobile phone chimed, breaking the tense stare off. Her gaze dropped blindly to her phone on the desk.

Oh, my God, what the hell am I doing? She had no answer to that overwrought silent scream of a question.

“I’ll get a cloth for that stain,” Ty said.

Ty…

God, she liked the shortened sexy version of his name. It made her knees turn to jelly just thinking of it, and she had the sudden, urgent need to taste it on her tongue.

“Ty.”

He froze, his back to her, his escape thwarted by the mere breath of his name on her lips. He kept his hand on the doorknob, but there was an air of expectancy in the tense breadth of his shoulders.

“Ty…” It tasted so good, she had to say it again. For a moment, she was at a loss as to what else to say. “You don’t have to do that. The cloth, I mean. Please send Linda in, if you don’t mind?”

Vicki didn’t recognize the purring rasp as her own voice, and she was embarrassed by the erotic husk of it.

Ty didn’t say anything, merely nodded. A curt, unfriendly gesture. So very him.

Before she could blink he was gone, and Vicki’s legs gave way as she collapsed into her wobbly desk chair, nearly toppling it. She righted herself with a palm to her desk, grateful for the distraction the shock of nearly falling offered her.

Lord knew, it was better than contemplating how irresistibly hot she suddenly found the man who was paid to protect her.

Some temptations were just not worth the complication.

The morning dragged along slowly—a snail hitching a ride on a sloth’s back. It felt fucking endless. Ty had attempted to return to his crossword puzzle, but his concentration was shot. He kept replaying the sound of his name on her lips. Over, and over, and over again.

It was driving him insane.

Vicki remained closeted away in her office, and—despite knowing that Mondays were her admin days—Ty couldn’t help thinking she was hiding from him. Not that he minded. While she was in the office he didn’t have to worry about her safety. And he didn’t have to keep her in his line of sight at all times.