I squinted back at him. Eventually he smiled.
“Seriously. They’re designed to keep from scaring you away. From advancing things past your comfort zone.” Gingerly he reached out and touched my face with the back of one big hand. “The rules were supposed to stop us from going too fast, Hannah. Or too hard. Or—”
“A little late for that,” I snickered. “Don’t you think?”
“Oh yeah,” he grinned back. “We blew that one, big time.”
He pulled me against him sideways, draping one long arm around me. My body spooned perfectly into his. I felt safe. Protected. I slid one tired leg over his, molding myself to him. Feeling the warmth of his skin, as I pressed my lips softly against his chest.
“With you,” Trey sighed happily, “the rules pretty much went out the window.”
Eighteen
BROOKE
I kept staring at the computer, but nothing would come. No words, no sentences, nothing to get me started on the column I needed to write.
My screen was still mockingly, utterly blank.
“Just get it done,” Chloe had told me over our usual morning coffee. “I don’t really care what you write about this week, as long as you get back to your real work.”
By that she meant the Cosmo article, of course. It was the only thing in the whole office that really mattered.
“Look, if you don’t want to do it I can give it Audrey,” my boss had suggested. “I know she’d jump at the chance to—”
“NO,” I’d said, and probably a little too loudly. I’d even drawn a few stares in our little break room. “No, no, I’ll do it. I promise I’ll get it done before I leave today.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to write my weekly column, it was more like I just couldn’t. I was too unfocused. Too distracted. Too—
Too preoccupied with thinking about the guys.
There, I’d said it. Or silently admitted it to myself, at the very least. The truth of the matter was, every time I closed my eyes to conjure up a sentence… Adam would be there. Or Dante. Or Trey.
My God. Trey…
It was awful. It was awesome. It was everything I shouldn’t be doing right now, yet couldn’t help myself.
In the end though, I had to get it done. I wasn’t about to give up Bring it to Brooke, not even for a single day. Handing the column over to Audrey — even just for a week — was like opening an unwanted door. Besides, Audrey was terrible. A great person, and a fantastic co-worker… but Audrey couldn’t write a shopping list without fucking it up.
I took a deep breath, resigning myself to start. I’d hammer out a sentence. Any sentence. From there, at least I’d have something. I could start taking that sentence apart, restructuring it in a way that—
DING.
The little bell in the bottom corner of my screen went off. An instant message. The little flag icon waving back and forth denoted it as inter-office.
I clicked on it… and saw it was from Chris.
Fuck me.
There was nothing to be done about it, really. As much as I hated communicating with him these days, there were times when my job required it. Resignedly, I clicked and a dialogue box opened.
Hey! How was your weekend?
For a moment I wanted to tell him. To just let my fingers fly, and hammer out every last dripping detail of my unspeakably hot adventure. I envisioned the shock and horror on Chris’s face. The minute or two it would take for him to drop his mouse and come bursting through my door, demanding to know everything.
God, it would be so glorious.
I heard you were on Cornell’s campus yesterday.