Page 70 of No Interest in Love

I pull Shay up against me, stand us up, slam her ass down on top of the ice machine and rub against her. Shay tosses her head back, wet hair hitting my hands around her waist. She locks her ankles together over my ass, digging her heels in, urging me forward, faster, harder, moremoremore. She mutters a Korean curse under her breath, and when her eyes meet mine, I stop moving my hips for a second. Just for a second. To pull off those glasses.

They get a little caught on her ears, but I get them off and fold them up. I push them on top of the ice machine without dropping her gaze.

Shay is adorable.

She’s cute.

Sexy.

Gorgeous.

All of the above.

I push her hair back, fisting it in my hand, watching her almond eyes drift over my flexed muscles. My thumb escapes her hair to stroke her cheek. I’m in absolute awe of this woman who’s been in my life seven years and I’m only justnowseeing.

She reaches up and pulls at my hair. She thrusts up against me. Her legs squeeze my hips tight. I ignore the request for hard and fast and continue to use the soft touches across her face.

Her eyes narrow, and the corner of my mouth quirks up. My fingers travel down to her beating heart, and it pumps against my palm. I count the beats, then realize that my own heart is alive in my chest, beating in the exact opposite tune. Together we’d sound like one continuous sound. I kinda like that. I like how romantic these thoughts are. Maybe I should say them out loud…you know,directly tothe girl who’s twisted me inside out. Tell her about that twitch in the corner of her mouth that I like. How adorable she is. How I like that she’s tough and can take care of herself. That fingernail. How I’m digging that chewed-up fingernail. And confess that I’ve been waiting for an excuse to grab that sweet ass of hers.

Well, maybe that last one isn’t as romantic, but hell, I may say it anyway.

I lean down and kiss her slowly, and laugh when she tries to move her mouth in a faster rhythm. She lets out an impatient sigh, which makes me grin wider, and then I link my fingers with hers.

“I’ve…” I whisper, eyes drifting from her kiss-swollen lips to our woven fingers. “I’ve never held a girl’s hand like this.”

Shay quietly watches me as I tap her soft knuckles. I’ve accepted other girls’ hands when they’ve given it to me, but I’ve never wanted to reach out, link fingers, hold on tight, and never let go. It’s a feeling I’m so unfamiliar with that it makes the heated air around us shift. It washes over me, stops my heart, and I’m sucked in with a pleasure and satisfaction I’ve never known before. So much so that I have to press my lips to the palm of the hand I so desperately want in mine for much longer than one night.

Shay’s eyes pop open wide, staring at our hands, my lips, and like she had no clue what’s been going on for the last ten minutes, she shoves on my chest.

“Oh…oh no…” she mutters, and I let her slither off the ice machine. “Wait, wait, wait.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask, but something tells me I don’t want to know the answer.

She fixes her shirt as she puts a fair amount of distance between us. She paces the room, pointer finger out as she scolds…herself.

“No pen in the company ink.”

“Um…what?”

“No shitting where you eat.” She’s still not looking at me. I try my best to adjust myself without her noticing, then head over to her.

“Hey,” I say, wrapping my hands around her tiny elbows. She stops pacing, stands in front of me without looking up. She’s muttering in Korean to herself under her breath, and I start laughing. “Am I that bad of a kisser?”

“I can’t do this,” she says, ignoring my joke. “Not with you.Especiallynot with you.”

She wiggles from my hold, and I let her go.

“It’s ’cause I’m an ass, right?” And I say it without a trace of humor. Her eyes lock with mine briefly and she makes a move toward me before stopping.

“This whole week…foryou…has been about another woman,” she answers. I catch that she doesn’t call me an ass—though she doesn’t refute it either. “You want no strings. The one night. And we can’t do that.Ican’t do that.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that we do.”

“Seemed pretty clear what you wanted.” She nods to Woody, who has now drifted off a bit but obviously not enough. But my brain’s starting to work better and I still…Man, I still want to take her in my arms and spout off sonnets.

“We work together,” she says, turning toward the door. The humping dogs are gone. “You’re my client. I can’t ever be a one-nighter because you can’t get rid of me anytime soon. Even if I do get fired, I guarantee we’ll run into each other, because some funny guy running the universe keeps placing you in my way.”

A grin quirks my lips. “That’s what I’ve been saying too.”

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