His Temporary Assistant

“C’mon, you don’t think so?”

“She’s my assistant while April is on vacation.”

“She’s sitting at her desk, but not sure she’s really assisting you. She’s reading Cosmopolitan.”

I waved it off. “Whatever keeps her busy and not bothering me.”

Frowning, she leaned over the desk and touched my forehead as if she was checking for fever. “You okay?”

At that instant, a knock sounded at the door.

It opened before I had a chance of answering in the affirmative. Not that I would have. I was much safer when Ryan stayed on the other side of the threshold.

Now she was glaring daggers at me as Colleen leaned precipitously across my desk and pulled her hand away from my face.

One part of my brain logged Ryan’s reaction as fascinating. The rest of me decided the better part of valor was to dig deeper into my metaphorical hole.

“I’m okay as long as you’re here,” I said to Colleen, who was not moved by my shenanigans. Then I cocked my head and acknowledged Ryan. “Can I help you, Miss Moon?”

“You sure can, boss.” She sailed in and gave Colleen a thin smile before she snatched the bakery bag off my desk. “I know we have lunch soon, but I’m just famished. And you took my fritter.”

I was about to tell her to take the bag and go, but she didn’t want the bag itself. No, she just withdrew one plump pastry, positively dripping with glaze and caramel. And proceeded to bite in, sending a spray of crumbs into the vee of her dress like roadmap leading to a not-so-buried treasure.

She might as well have said checkmate.

Damn, she was beautiful. With her flashing blue eyes, smirk around her mouthful of pastry, and sex dungeon scent, she was dangerous in more ways than I could count.

Probably because watching her eat had sucked all skill at mathematics—and everything else—out of my head.

“Lunch soon.” Colleen blinked innocently. “I should hurry up and fix that pesky issue with your computer then. You know, why you called me down here.”

I grunted again. I wasn’t one to outright lie, especially when I had no clue what the hell I was doing right now.

“I’ll just get back to work.” Ryan’s smile was as close to a non-verbal fuck you as I’d ever seen.

It was obscenely hot.

“April needs to come back from vacation,” I said as soon as Ryan vacated my office. Which was not fast enough to suit the stiff column in my trousers.

I hid it by walking over to my mini bar while Colleen tinkered with my desktop. I had another half glass of bourbon since it was there, and my head was about to explode.

It was up for debate which head of the two would combust first.

“She’s been gone, what, half a day? You’re in deep.”

“This is only my second glass, and a half at that.”

“I wasn’t referring to your alcohol consumption, although that says plenty.” Colleen spun around in the chair to face me. But I didn’t do the same, since I was currently willing the pole in my pants not to embarrass me. “Why can’t you just ask her out?”

“What?” I sputtered and tried to swallow. “Why would I do a thing like that?”

“Other than you swallowing your tongue as soon as she walked in here, you mean? She sent you so many nice emails too. My favorite was ‘your brother is cuter than you.’”

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“She did not say that.”

“Okay, that’s true. She said your brother was sexy. Didn’t mention you at all.”