Now my mom lives in a two-million-dollar log shack just outside of Denver because she’s crazy and said she never did like the heat and didn’t want to stick around Florida. She prefers the mountains to the ocean, which I’ll admit has its draw. She has two sports cars, a brand-new truck, and an SUV. Not like she wanted any of it, but I like to spoil her, although she still has and prefers the fifteen-year-old minivan she bought for like two grand all those years back. It hasn’t improved with age, and I’m hoping that one day soon, it will die a hard van death and go to van heaven. By this, of course, I mean the scrap yard.
Bringing my mind back to the present, I wrap up the speech I’ve perfected. I answer all the anxious questions and give reassurance to the people seated around me. Fortunately, there aren’t many questions at all because almost everyone in the room has probably figured out that this takeover is a good thing, I’m not here to crush them to dust, and if they’re honest and hardworking, I’m fair and pay well. There are still a few anxious stares and trembling hands that shake mine at the end of it all, but I’m known for making believers out of the worst doubters, so it doesn’t bother me.
The room empties out.
Except for one. One person who gets a few dubious looks and raised brows from the crowd shuffling out of the room in an orderly line.
Zoe Scarlet Anderson stays firmly rooted in her seat. I’m standing at the other end of the room, but she’s not looking at me. She’s just staring down at her hands, which are folded over the notebook she never once opened. She’s going to make me clear my throat and make the first move. She’s not going to be the one to break the oppressive and incredibly awkward silence. She’s the one who wants to be in control, and I can read that from her rigid posture and body language. If this were a pissing contest, she would have soaked the room already before turning around to ask me how in the fricking-frack—because Zoe probably still doesn’t swear—I could top that.
She wins.
I clear my throat.
But she still doesn’t look up at me.
My stomach cramps up, and a cold sweat breaks out all over my skin, soaking into my three-thousand-dollar custom-tailored suit. My shoes even start to pinch because my feet are getting sweaty.
“Do you have a question for me?” My voice comes out throaty and ragged, and I hate myself for it. I hate how I’m suddenly reduced back to a fourteen-year-old kid in her presence, except the fourteen-year-old version of myself would never have been intimidated by Zoey Zo Zo.
Then, her face tilts up, one slow degree at a time. She makes me wait for it. How in the ever living nine realms of special corporate hell did eighteen years transform this woman into the most practiced frigid ice queen, and why in the ever-living hell is it so hot?
Suddenly, I’m more worried about popping a hard-on, which is going to be very obvious in a suit, than anything else. The room closes in around me, and the air becomes thick as soup. Boner action is happening. Slowly. No matter how much I try to tell my dick to behave.
I think fast, which I’ve always been good at, and frantically pull out my chair. I slam back into it so hard, the thing creaks and barely supports me. I’m a big guy—over six feet and built like what my mom likes to refer to as a “bloody dang mountain”—so that’s a real testament to whoever manufactured this burgundy faux leather thing they call a chair.
“I do have a question.” Zoe’s voice is cool and smooth. It falls like cold rain all over me, but instead of dousing my overheated skin, I find myself engulfed in another round of flames. My cock is now raging underneath the table—the kind of rage that could tear through clothes.
I’m fully aware this makes me a disgusting human being. This is the girl I once took a blood brother sort of oath with. We cut ourselves with a razor blade and pressed our palms together. We promised to be friends forever, a real brother and sister. Because we were that close. Once. A million years ago.
What can I say? I was a stupid kid.
“Yes?” I attempt a shred of composure and probably fail miserably.
My face is probably betraying the fact that right now, I’m about three seconds away from exploding. As in, not spontaneous combustion. No, I’m talking more of a dick snort. I know I do not have any issue with premature ejaculation, and I certainly have never come outside of an actual induced sex act—hand, pussy, mouth. And most definitely never from just a glance and a few wayward thoughts.