Protect Me Not ((Un)Professionally Yours 2)

“Did you have dinner?” she asked. They were seated at the kitchen table while people bustled around them. He was across from her, backward straddling a spindly-legged chair. His arms were folded over the back of the chair, and he tilted it forward precariously on its front legs to hear her better.

“Yes.”

“What did you have?” she asked, happily sucking the salty residue off each individual finger. The gesture wasn’t mean to be erotic, but when she looked up it was to find him focused on her middle finger, which was currently knuckle deep in her mouth. The blatant scorching intensity of that look singed her. The heat of it drew color to the surface of her skin, making her feel feverish and prickly all over.

She was torn between really brazening out the sucking and licking, and snatching her hand from her mouth to hide it under the table.

In the end, all she did was reach for another chip. His gaze flickered and dropped, without once making contact with hers.

Good. Great. She would rather he not know how that look had affected her. Her face was still bright red, so was her chest for that matter…She was low-key panting, and her nipples were proudly erect. Again. A perpetual state around this man.

A fact that he did not miss, if the way his gaze snagged on the way down was any indication. Snagged, but didn’t linger. He had noticed but didn’t want her to know that he’d noticed.

“Chicken.”

The word confused her. Was it some sort of challenge? Because she hadn’t called him out on the nipple checking? If anything, he was the chicken, for avoiding her eyes the way he was still doing. “What do you mean? Why?”

Finally, that gaze shifted to meet hers. His eyes were alight with laughter. “I had chicken for dinner.”

Oh, right. So much staring and sexual prickling, and tingling, and tension had happened between her question and his answer, that she had lost track of the conversation.

“Great. Nice. Chicken. I like chicken.”

“I know you do.”

She sighed, exasperated. Because, of course he did.

“I don’t usually have it the way you like it though.” Ooh, elaboration. What an unexpected treat. “Broiled or steamed are my preferences.”

“Bland you mean?”

“It’s healthier than fried.”

She wrinkled her nose. She had seen enough of his lunch preferences over the months to know he was something of a health nut.

“I don’t always have mine fried,” she said, stuffing another chip into her mouth and quite deliberately licking and sucking her fingers afterward. Oh, she had his number now.

Insufferable man.

His pupils dilated, and he swallowed before swinging his gaze to the increasingly rowdy crowd. “I never see the sense in having a housewarming party like this. You’ve just settled into a new place, unpacked everything, cleaned everything. And you undo all of that hard work by inviting a bunch of folks over to pretty much wreck the place.”

She grinned because she’d been thinking the same thing just moments before. “I think this got away from them. Bella is going to hate herself in the morning.”

She shoved the remainder of the paper-wrapped chips aside with a contented sigh, and leaned back with a smile.

“Thanks, Ty. That really hit the spot.”

He stared at the five remaining chips and shook his head.

“You always do that.”

“What?”

“Leave four or five fries uneaten. Why? You do it with every meal. A potato here, a portion of rice or salad there…no matter how much you’re seemingly enjoying the meal, you never finish it.”

“While you probably clean up your plate at every opportunity. Right?”

“I don’t believe in waste.”

“I don’t know why I do it, it just feels greedy to devour everything in sight.”

That wasn’t technically true. It was to prove to herself that she could stop at any time.

Vicki hadn’t always had the healthiest relationship with food. Her satiety response had been out of whack when she was a kid, she had never felt full and had often overeaten as a result. Her metabolism was such that she could eat as much as she wanted without gaining weight, but it had taken a toll on her health, and by the time she was thirteen, she had been on the verge of an eating disorder.

Ty was watching Vicki in his signature focused and alert way. The annoying look he got when he knew she wasn’t being entirely truthful with him. But he nodded—accepting her explanation at face value. He gathered up the greasy packaging from the table and lobbed it into the trashcan about three feet away.

Vicki hooted when he made the shot, stupidly impressed despite herself. The grin that parted his lips was entirely unaffected and beautiful in its spontaneity.

“That was awesome, Chambers. But I could probably have made that same shot with my eyes closed,” she bragged, before doing just that with her empty soda can. It was all the more impressive because the kitchen was becoming crowded, and she made the shot despite the bodies between the table and the trashcan.