Page 52 of Dirty Player

I just knew I did the same. I was Beaux Hale’s sister, and with that I was used to putting up walls, not allowing many people to get close to me for fear of being used. Patrick had broken through and then blown it to smithereens. Only Melissa had ever been someone I fully trusted.

Granted, I could walk through malls without recognition or being hounded for autographs, but there were plenty of times my name had been paired with Beaux when pictures of us out for dinner or at the ESPY awards surfaced.

“Okay.” The word was a whisper, pulled from my throat before I could choke it down.

He followed me through the rest of the store while I stalled and moved as slowly as I could. I realized halfway there that Oliver wasn’t following me. He was lingering, looking at every single piece of jewelry I’d made with softness in his eyes. He had an appreciation for what I poured my heart into.

Damn him and his hidden kindness.

I was trying to walk away from him, and he was pulling me closer to him without a word or a touch, just his respect.

My keys jangled in my hand, getting his attention from a selection of leather-wrapped cuffs with silver accents around the edges.

“I have a friend who would love these,” he said, pointing at a pair of braided leather cuffs, gold metal stamped along the border. They were edgy and country and I loved them. I’d made them the other day after walking past a bar where country music had filtered through the doors.

The music, the sudden realization I was in the South now and everyone loved their country down here, had inspired a whole new selection of designs. Those were the only two I’d completed.

“I just made those the other day,” I admitted, feeling something churn in my stomach at the mention of a friend. A female one.

He was allowed to have them, after all.

I turned away and unlocked the back office/workroom before he could see that it’d bothered me. I had no right.

“Holy fucking shit,” he whispered when he walked up behind me. He still wasn’t touching me. I suddenly wanted him to be. “Did someone break in?”

Chapter TWELVE

OLIVER

I didn’t know where to look first as I took in the crowded and destroyed space. Wherever I looked, it was a disaster. Buckets of metal, different sizes and different colors with smaller buckets and drawers pulled open, their contents scattered all over the place.

Tools and paper littered the tabletops. I spied a small area with a laptop, and remnants of takeout and bills and more paper and more tools covered what I assumed was a wood desk. It was hard to tell.

The room looked like it’d been invaded and trashed by someone desperate.

Her laughter pulled my eyes off the space and to her, where a furious red heat bloomed on her cheeks. “No. I’m just…really messy.” She waved her hand out, but she didn’t need to—it was obvious and I had never been so surprised by anything about this girl until this moment.

And why this was what shocked me, rocking and knocking something hardened loose inside my chest, I had no idea. “But you’re always so put together.”

I was baffled and I couldn’t hide it.

“Beaux’s made fun of me for it, for like ever, I think.” She shrugged and walked toward what I assumed was her desk. She picked up a pile of papers and set them down again. “I’ve never been good at cleaning, or picking up, and my mind works better in the chaos. Does it scare you?”

Strangely, my dick twitched and hardened beneath my shorts. I saw her guarded and careful, quiet and held back, almost too proper and perfect in the few times I’d seen her. This…this rattled me…made me see her in a different way. A woman who was frantic and hurried and creative, someone who lived inside her head more than out of it.

“No. It doesn’t scare me.”

She caught the gravelly tone in my voice and quickly glanced away. “So this is it. This is where the magic happens.”

She picked up a set of pliers and tossed them into the bucket. From the top of it, I saw handles to other tools. Behind it, some sort of table saw and a handheld circular saw.

I thought of her wielding it, slashing through metal, and my dick hardened further.

This wasn’t sexy. It was a disaster and messy, but I wanted to be making a different kind of magic.

Her jewelry was incredible. Beyond what I could have possibly imagined. I had pictured tiny jewels and flamboyant rings. Typical charms on silver and gold chains.

Nothing I thought of came close to the creative magnitude that had stolen my breath as soon as I saw it.

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