Page 18 of Nailed

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Several hours later, my ex was the last thing on my mind. My voice was hoarse and my legs weary from pacing Jamie’s room. He’d made me repeat my presentation about a hundred times. It was good, he said, but didn’t sound like me.

“Do you believe in what you’re saying, Cooper?”

“Yes,” I said, frustrated.

“Show me. Forget about them. Show me.”

We tweaked it together when the food arrived, and then after, too. At one point, I told him I was ready to forget it, and go back to what I had written down.

That’s when Jamie had opened the minibar and poured me a cup of whiskey. “You need to hear what you sound like when it doesn’t matter what other people think.”

The words hit me like a nail to the heart.

In a good way.

He’d pinpointed exactly why it was always so hard for me to feel relaxed when putting myself out there. I worried too much about them and not enough about me.

Our fingers touched when he passed me the glass, and just like every time we touched, heat shot lightning-fast up my arm, this time spreading right across my chest.

My eyes met his.

“Drink,” he said.

I lifted the cup. Without meaning to, my tongue darted out first, wetting my lips before I drank. The whiskey burned on the way down, but I barely noticed, because Jamie’s eyes had gone to my mouth.

For a moment, I pictured water running down his chest at the pool, slipping into the line of hair that disappeared into his shorts.

On your knees.

“Can I have another?” I asked quickly.

Jamie raised his eyebrows but obliged.

He’d been right about the whiskey. By the time I rehearsed my presentation for the last time, I was pausing at all the right moments, leaning forward like the audience was my best friend, and I even cracked a couple of jokes that made Jamie grin.

I sounded like myself. I sounded good.

At the end, Jamie brought his massive hands together in a slow clap.

I downed the last of my second whiskey to hide the silly grin on my face. Warmth rolled down my throat and through my chest, and not just from the alcohol. “Did I nail it?”

“You nailed it.”

My heart leapt. I was so filled with joy that I did, too. I threw my arms around his neck, my lips offering a peck against his cheek. “Thank you, Jamie.”

Jamie’s whole body stiffened under me.

That’s when I realized how deeply inappropriate I’d been.

Knowing this, and feeling the way he’d gone hard against me, I should have immediately let go.

My brain told me to let go.

But I couldn’t. Even as my nipples hardened against his chest, I stayed frozen in place, heat ripping through me like wildfire as I realized he must feel it too.

His scent swirled around me, intoxicating me. Drawing every cell toward him. And as I stood there, my whole body pressed against my boss, my heart thudding against my ribcage, I felt something else stiffen. Something big.

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