Jeez. Smoking hot.
And I shouldn’t be ogling him.
Ugh.
I manage to tear myself away and check our promotional materials like Donna requested. Business cards, flyers, bookmarks, both ours and sent to us by publishers and authors, all need to be catalogued and counted before we order or request any more. Outdated ones need to be sent to recycling, and I need to make sure we have received the most recent ones for the upcoming signing event Donna is organizing.
Hm… How many bookmarks were in that box? I stop and blink, my mind a blank.
Crap.
Still can’t concentrate. At this rate, I won’t have any more trouble because Donna will fire my lazy ass for not getting my job done.
Bonus points, though. I’ve managed not to drape myself all over Jethro and suck on his neck like a vampire, despite seeing him for hours every day. It’s a small victory, but I plan to celebrate by getting drunk tonight. It’s a Friday.
Perfect timing, right? It’s a plan. It’s a closed deal. I’ll drag Brylee with me and have her drive me back home. I’ll even dress up, if that’s what it will take to convince her. Maybe I’ll even meet a guy to have wild sex with and rewire my brain into not wanting J&J anymore.
Ha. If only it were that simple.
I grab the next box from the storeroom—flyers, according to the label—and turn around to deposit it onto the small table in the corner, when I crash into something and I hear a faint “oof.”
Into someone, in fact.
“Fuck.” Jethro looks down at the box I just slammed into his crotch, his jaw clenched.
“Oh. Cr
ap. Sorry.” I step back at the same time as he grabs the box. “I’m sorr—”
The box tears. Flyers spill and flutter to the floor.
“Crap.” I sink down to my knees to gather them. He makes a funny noise in the back of his throat and I look up.
Which brings my face level with the top of his muscular thighs and his crotch. With the bulge there, the zipper straining over it, and the scent of warm cloth, and musk.
I freeze, a crumpled up leaflet in one hand. My mouth is actually watering.
Mmm.
He curses again, softly, then reaches down for me and grabs me under the armpits. “Candy.” He lifts me to my feet easily, and damn, that’s hot, too.
We are standing on top of the flyers and leaflets, and the only thing I can see is his face, those dark eyes with the long lashes, those beautiful lips. His hands slip down my sides, grip my waist.
He bends his head, and I lean into him, and our lips are so close his warm, minty breath washes over me. His hands smooth down my hips, slide to the small of my back, and he pulls me to him, holding me flush against him.
He groans, his eyes closing, and I struggle not to make a sound—because that bulge at his crotch? It’s hard. He is hard, and the realization drives the air from my lungs. Desire slams into me, a hot bolt straight to my core, turning my knees weak.
I lift my arms around his neck, holding on. I want to kiss him so badly. It’s been days since our first kiss, and I’ve been trying to resign myself to the fact there won’t be another, but now, with him right here, his hard chest crushing my breasts, his hard-on trapped between us, his eyes burning like fire into me, I can’t remember why kissing him is a bad idea.
How can it be bad? His mouth is hypnotizing, soft, the upper lip slightly plumper, his stubble fine like charcoal dust smeared on his chin and the line of his jaw.
I want to lick that line, feel its coarseness on my tongue, lick the salt of his sweat.
But he walks me backward, until my back knocks into the only free wall of the storeroom and pushes his thigh between my legs, startling a gasp out of me. His muscular flesh presses right where I’m throbbing with need, and a whine leaves my throat.
“God, we shouldn’t—”
“I want you, Candy. Fuck, you don’t know what you do to me.” He slants his mouth over mine, a quick, searing brush of lips and breaths, then leans in and eats up my mouth, licking and sucking, his body a hard wall of muscle, keeping me trapped.