Page 38 of Bite Marks & Broken Hearts

The thought speared ice through my own chest.

“That’s hardly a helpful attitude,” I snapped, before storming ahead. Which wasn’t childish at all.

Kit jogged to catch up. “Aye, understood,” he conceded. “I apologise for raising the matter. Don’t mistake me—he seems a decent lad. Sweet, even.”

He was sweet. Cinnamon-sugar sweet. As well as disarmingly earnest and rather attractive.

I banished the thought immediately. Flynn was under my protection, and I was more than capable of maintaining professionalism.

Even if he was the most exquisite temptation.

Even if every fibre of my being ached to taste him.

The scratch of my fountain pen against paper was the only sound in my blissfully quiet office. Well, that and the soft hum of the laptop that Felix had foisted on me—the laptop that now displayed nothing but a frozen screen mid-sentence.

Annoyance swirled inside me.

“Felix,” I barked into the intercom system, holding the button for his tiny room. “Your stupid machine has frozen again.”

It crackled back, and for a moment all I heard was laughter.

“What?”

I could barely hear Felix’s voice over the raucousness.

“What’s going on?”

“Oh, it’s just Rory and Flynn.”

“What?”

More distorted laughter.

“Huh? What was that?”

My annoyance curdled into anger.

“Felix, have you considered telling them to be quiet so that you can listen to the instructions of your superior?” Before he could attempt to reply, I said, “I give up. I’m just going to bring it down to you.”

I disconnected the machine, gathered my possessions, and stomped down to the basement.

By the time I’d gotten down there, Felix must have tipped Rory off to my mood, because he was sitting on the sofa, blond hair chaotically disheveled, typing away on his own machine, face perfectly straight.

Flynn sat opposite him, eyes darting between Rory and me, biting down on his bottom lip.

Rory didn’t glance up, not even when I moved to stand right in front of him.

I glared at Rory, who continued typing with exaggerated focus, his fingers tap-tap-tapping away at his keyboard. The sound instantly grated against my nerves.

I coughed.

Tap-tap-tap.

I coughed again.

Tap-tap-tap.

Flynn shifted in his seat, his gaze bouncing between us in time with his hands twisting in his lap.

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