“What?” I ask, a little confused by the consternation creasing her forehead. “Do I have something on my face? Cheesecake?” I rub the side of my thumb down my cheek. A shmear of food might explain why Amie’s always looking at me oddly.
“No. It’s…aren’t you embarrassed at all about how you’re so obviously into our new office manager?”
I shrug and turn back to the ammo shelf. “No. Why should I be? Being in love with someone doesn’t make your dick smaller.” If anything, my pants feel about two sizes too tight. Every time she’s within touching distance, my cock tries to leap through my zipper.
“You’re in love with her?” Kayla shrieks. “You’ve known her for five minutes tops. How can you love her?”
“Because when you know, you know.” I tweak Kayla’s cheek. “You’ll figure it out when it happens to you.”
Kayla raises her hand to pull my fingers away when we hear someone clearing their throat. We turn to see Amie standing at the doorway with her arms folded across her chest and a perturbed expression thinning her lips into a flat line.
“Am I interrupting something?” she says.
I let my hand drop to my side. “Never.”
“We were just, ah, doing inventory,” Kayla offers.
Amie rolls her eyes. “If that’s what you’re calling it, fine, but remember that this is an office and your PDA can make other people uncomfortable.”
“We’re not—He’s not—I’m not—“ Kayla protests.
I place a hand over her face since her flustered comments are doing nothing to dissuade Amie from her belief that I was two seconds from throwing Kayla on the floor. “Kayla’s like my sister and the only woman’s skirt I’m interested in getting under is currently shooting daggers into my chest so I think PDA is on hold for the time being, but I’ll remember that for when you start liking me.”
I pluck a Glock off the wall and stuff a couple of magazines into the side pocket of my cargo pants. “I’m off to shoot a few rounds. Feel free to come and admire my form. I won’t mind,” I say with a wink.
“That is inappropriate, Mr. Greyson,” Amie huffs. “This is an office.”
“I didn’t say you had to do it. Just that you can. Or you can look out the window.” I point to the large floor-to-ceiling window that I’d earlier fantasized about fucking Amie up against. “Whatever works for you. Kayla, you watch the phones if Amie needs to take a break.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.” She salutes.
Amie throws up her hands. “No wonder your last office manager quit. You two are a menace.”
“I’m innocent. He’s the bad influence,” Kayla protests.
“Damn. Thrown to the wolves by my own family member.” I shake my head in mock dismay.
As I’m leaving, I hear Amie ask, “Are you really related?”
“Nah. But he treats me like a sister so you don’t have anything to worry about.”
I pause to listen for Amie’s response.
“I’m not worried,” she snaps. “I’m not interested and never will be interested. Let’s get to work.”
What’s that saying? The lady protests too much? I grin, heft the gun in my hands and head down to the range. We’ve got three recruits we’re testing out. Every member of the security team has to be proficient at weapons, hand-to-hand combat, and situational intelligence. Most of the time if a prospect flames out, it’s because they fail the last one. It’s easy to be physically fit and a lot harder to read a room.
Take Amie, for example. She’s not really angry with me. If she was, I’d leave her alone because I’m not forcing myself on any woman. That shit’s not acceptable. But her body language tells a different story than her words. She leans toward me, not away. She smiles to herself after I make some stupid remark and then tries to shake it off, as if she’s disappointed in herself. Add that to what Sokolov said about taking care of her because she’s tender and it’s safe to conclude that some dickhead hurt the girl and she’s suffering now.
She needs some steady attention, a sliver of space, and a whole lot of patience. I’m fine with two of them—it’s the space thing that’s gonna kill me. I know I’m going to end up jerking myself raw before I get to dive into her pussy, but a man’s got to take care of his woman. And, yeah, she’s my woman even though she thinks she’s got to hate on me.
I didn’t make it through two deployments, countless enemies, and a bullet in the back of my quad to lose now. In fact, I’m pretty sure all the hardships I’ve suffered have trained me for my most important mission—winning the heart of one bruised flower.
Chapter 6
Amie
“You can go out there, you know.”
“Ahhh!” I scream, dropping the folders I have in my hands. I turn to see Kayla giggling at me. I smile because damn she’s infectious. Her moods can bubble right over onto you. I’m really starting to enjoy her company and can see us having a friendship outside of the office. It would be nice to have someone here to confide in. I will have to be careful, though, since she and Greyson seem close.
“I was just taking a look.” I bend down to pick up the folder I dropped. Luckily none of the papers slipped out because I’d finally gotten them all organized.
“They can be fun to watch.” She walks over toward me, taking the folders from my hands. Whenever I’m done she files them away. We have already worked out a system together. I’d be a liar if I didn't admit to the small amount of jealousy that has swept into me a few times today when I’ve seen her and Grey together. I am pretty sure their relationship is exactly how they’ve described it. The green-eyed monster that reared its ugly head caught me off guard when I walked in and saw Greyson touching her cheek. Okay, he was only poking it but still. It’s not as though it was some soft caress, yet it still bothered me.
Even when I found out my mom had been banging my ex, I’ve never felt jealous. Hurt. Broken. Confused. There have been many things I’ve felt over it, but oddly jealousy was never one of them.
“Grey is the best shot. I’ve seen a lot of men with guns and no one can match him. He is an expert marksman. I know he received all sorts of recognition when he was in the service for his shooting skills. He’s not reckless like some of the other guys I’ve seen in the business. He has high standards. One mess-up and you have to spend a whole weekend in a basic gun safety class.” This doesn't surprise me. One of the things I’ve picked up about Grey is when it comes to protection he isn’t messing around. He takes the safety of the people who work here seriously.
He is definitely a lot of bark, like Kayla said. I’ve noticed that as I continue to steal peeks out of the window to watch him with some of the men. He seemed to lay into them one minute and the next he’d be at their side guiding and teaching them. As much as I don’t want to like Grey I do. He doesn’t hide who he is. He puts it out there and you either like it or you don’t.
“You should go down. He can teach you some self-defense stuff.” There is no way that I’m going down there. “Plus look at all the yumminess down there. You might not be feeling Grey but there are a lot to pick from around here.” I glance over to her. She wiggles her eyebrows at me. She isn’t lying, that’s for sure. This looks nothing like my ex and his cop friends. If they were even cops for all I know. The man apparently lied to me about everything. These men are all built l
ike freaking tanks. Still, my eyes keep going back to Grey. I really shouldn't enjoy the tone of his voice when he barks at someone. I think it’s supposed to scare people but scared is not what I feel when he issues one of his orders. My hard nipples could attest to that. So could my wet panties. I thought my lady parts were broken. Obviously they’re perfectly fine. It only took a few words and a couple of touches from Grey to have every part of me coming back to life. Now I have to figure out how to shut them off. They are the parts that I don’t want resurrected right now. As I’m having these thoughts, Grey turns to look up toward the window where I’m staring down at all of them. He winks.
I jump back, knowing I’ve been caught staring at him. Kayla bursts into laughter so hard she almost drops the folders I gave her. “I’m sorry.” She fights to get it together. I don’t think it’s that funny. “He can’t see you. That glass is bulletproof and reflective. It’s like he knew you were staring at him.” Somehow she gets all that out through her laughter. I know without looking that my cheeks are a little pink, some of it from embarrassment and some because I’m slightly more turned on now. The thought of him sensing me watching him has me all hot and bothered.
I walk over to my desk and sit down. She keeps on giggling and finally I give in and let out a small laugh because dang it, she really is infectious.
“God, it’s going to be so fun having you around here,” she tosses at me before taking off to file folders again. My smile drops a little at her off-handed words because they feel too good. I really have been lacking attention. Inside I’m this lost puppy that wants any attention it can get. I need to be careful because I know how easily I could slip right into Grey’s hands if I let myself. My body is screaming for me to. I think my heart is nudging at me too. I’m not going to let that happen. This time I am going to be smart and listen to my brain. No men, I remind myself.
I continue working and getting organized for the rest of the day. I dive into my paperwork, putting all thoughts of Grey aside. I haven’t seen him since he assumed I was staring at him through the glass. I’m never going to admit to looking down at him so as far as he knows his wink went unnoticed. My only hope is that Kayla doesn’t say anything.