Protect Me Not ((Un)Professionally Yours 2)

Okay, she should probably not have confided that she had a gut feeling about Jasper. She’d seen the amused curl of his lip after her admission. To a man like Ty, gut feelings were likely visceral survival instincts. Her “good vibe” about someone could hardly equate to that primal id of his.

“He is nice,” she said, hating how defensive and sulky she sounded.

“I’m sure he is. But I’d still feel better once I hear back from Colby.” He had asked Colby to take a more in-depth look into the guy’s background. “I’d trust her research over your gut any day of the week.”

Insulted, she lapsed into silence and stared out at the blurry traffic. Crap, were those tears? She removed her glasses and gave the lenses a wipe. Even though she knew that the blurriness stemmed from the tears closing up her throat, clogging her nose, and prickling behind her eyelids. This was what happened when you engaged with someone who clearly would prefer to be left alone.

You don’t pet a lion if you want to keep all your limbs intact.

She sensed him staring at her in the mirror, but kept her eyes on the passing scenery, willing herself to get her damned hurt feelings under control.

“So, uh...how many times have you been in love?” His voice was gentle.

Vicki hated that he probably knew that he’d hurt her and was now trying to make up for it. She folded her arms defensively and shook her head, not quite trusting herself to speak.

“Three times?” he prompted, still in that gentle voice, a hint of teasing creeping in now. “Four? Eight?”

“Never,” she confided in a hoarse whisper, and forced herself to look into the mirror again. He was focused on the traffic, but his straight brows furrowed in response to her reply. Once he had negotiated the snarl in traffic, his gaze flickered up, confusion and outright disbelief warring for dominance in those violet depths.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Why?” she asked, tilting her jaw defiantly.

“You’re not the type to have intimate, uhm…times with someone unless you felt something for him.”

“If I like him and am physically attracted to him, I am.”

His brows remained knit as he digested her words. He opened his mouth to respond but shut it again without uttering a sound. Instead, he shook his head grimly as if thinking the better of what he had wanted to say.

They didn’t exchange another word until he parked the car in the closest available spot he could find to Bella and Pete’s Sloane Avenue apartment building in Chelsea. He stepped out and gave the still sunny sidewalk an assessing glance, before turning to feed the meter, and then open the door for Vicki.

He took the plant and bottle from her and averted his eyes when she swung her naked legs out of the car. Vicki was wearing a lacy, white Boho babydoll dress, with a ruched bodice, bell sleeves, and ruffled skirt. She had accessorized the outfit with a denim jacket—it was unseasonably nippy this evening—brown hiking boots and chunky bracelets. Her hair tumbled wild and free to her shoulders, adding to the look. She liked this dress, she felt pretty and feminine in it, but once again, she lamented the shortness of the skirt, which ended at mid-thigh. There was a slight breeze tonight, and she fought to keep the skirt in place during the walk to the building.

Ice white.

That was how Ty would describe the color of that dress, with its minuscule skirt that showed off the wearer’s slender, toned thighs. The color shouldn’t look good on Vicki. Someone with her pale complexion should look washed out and sickly in a white that, well, white. Instead, it flattered all the delicate pink hues of her skin. There was a lot going on with that dress. It had a ruffly skirt, an attractively scrunched up bodice, sleeves that peeked out beneath the arms of her jacket, and a plunging neckline.

A lot…

It should be distracting, especially with the glossy black curls vying for attention with the soft pink lushness of that mouth. But, instead of distracting, all it did was amplify everything. The sweet length of those slender legs, that shallow valley between the small, perfect mounds of her breasts. The luxurious, soft, smooth looking skin…

A mischievous sprite in the wind flirted among the ruffles on her skirt, offering him glimpses of the pert curve of that tight ass.

His eyes flitted back up to her face. So pretty in its ordinariness. He really liked her mouth. He had found himself hopelessly entranced by the way she had applied her lipstick earlier, adding an artificial—but pretty—pink to the already perfect natural color of her lips.

He had crazily fantasized about eating off the color and leaving those lips plump and full, and back to its natural, naked pink shade.