I forced my gaze back on my computer.
It’d been a few days since I’d put his stories out of my mind, trying to return to normal like it had never happened at all.
But it could never be the way it used to be again.
I wasn’t angry.
I wasn’t offended.
I wasn’t anything.
But I was surprised that a drop-dead gorgeous piece of man like him would want me like that. I mean, this guy liked women way younger than me, famous lingerie models like Fleur. Why would he sit there and write those things, when he could live a much greater fantasy?
And I also couldn’t brush it off because every time I looked at him, I noticed things I hadn’t noticed before.
The way his arms had so many muscles, not just sexy biceps and triceps, but all these other bulges because he was so strong. The way his forearms were defined by his veins under his skin that stretched from the top of his hands all the way to his fat biceps. The way he carried himself with a strong posture, his shoulders back and his spine straight. The way his jeans fit his waist low because he had narrow hips. The way he was so tall, the way his hair got messy by the end of the day because he sometimes fingered it when he was overwhelmed with the cataclysm of thoughts inside that big-ass brain. The way his full lips were surrounded by that sexy shadow, that masculine look men hardly ever had. The way his dark eyes showed his intensity, the way he so focused on every task he accepted.
I mean…he was fucking gorgeous.
I’d always known he was. When we first met, I saw him in shirtless in his penthouse, and his body was so chiseled and tight that he could be a fitness model if this engineer gig didn’t work out.
And the first time I met him, I thought he was the sexiest hunk I’d ever seen.
I had no idea who he was at the time, that he would be my boss, that he would make my life miserable for a while until I’d finally earned his respect.
And now he wasn’t Derek, my boss.
He was…something totally different.
The door opened, and Derek stepped inside. An extra shirt was in his hand, and he pulled off the dirty one so he could put on the clean one he held.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I whispered.
He stilled after he got his head through, his hard chest wide and powerful, his eight-pack so tight, it looked like it was flexing even when he wasn’t. He had a vein underneath his belly button that snaked into the top of his boxers and disappeared. “What?”
“What?” I echoed back.
“It sounded like you said something.” He pulled the shirt the rest of the way, hiding his nakedness from view.
“No…not me.” I shook my head, like that would make my answer more convincing.
He moved to the coffee machine and poured himself a cup, as if that was the original reason he’d come in here, not just to give me a striptease. He took a drink then approached the desk.
“You want me to move?” I closed the laptop.
“No.” He drank from his mug again, looking at me over the rim.
Whenever he gave me that intense eye contact, I pictured one of the scenes he’d written about me, wondering if that was what he was thinking about.
I was certainly thinking about it.
He set his mug on the edge of the desk. “I already asked you this and you gave your answer, but I feel like there’s something wrong. I’m not good at this sort of thing, and the only way I know how to deal with it is to be blunt about it. So, are you sure there’s nothing bothering you?”
I felt guilty for making my reaction so obvious. I wanted to return to normal and pretend it never happened, but I couldn’t. I thought about it every time I looked at him. I thought about it even when we weren’t in the same room together. What was I supposed to do when the sexiest man in the world wanted to fuck me in a way I’d only dreamed about? I wanted to remain professional, because this job was important to me and so was our friendship, but I was letting this sexual tension destroy it.
“Because if I did something, you can tell me. The last thing I want to do is make you uncomfortable or give you a reason to leave…because I want you to stay. So, please be honest with me.”
I bowed my head for a moment and seriously considered just telling him the truth, that I’d read his stories and now I couldn’t look at him the same. My eyes had a sexual lens, and instead of treating him as a person like I used to, he was this sexy hunk I wanted to dig my claws into.