Page 63 of Most Eligible Billionaire

I want that not to feel amazing.

I lean in closer, stealing what doesn’t belong to me. My head isn’t exactly on his shoulder—it’s difficult to do that when you’re wearing a hard hat. But it’s close.

He brushes a lock of hair over my shoulder. His knuckles graze my jawline. His touch is featherlight. Barely there.

But the energy of it hums over my skin, spreading outward in a burn, like fingers of heat warming cold, remote parts of me.

I fight the urge to turn my face to his hand.

“You look hot in the hat,” he says.

“You’re just saying that.”

But when I do turn my head, his eyes are dark. Serious.

His voice lowers to a rumble. “I'm not just saying that, Vicky.”

Oh, I want to kiss him. And, if anything, an elevator shaft that looks like a well should be reminding me why I have an allergy to rich, powerful men. It’s not.

His eyes drop to my lips. My heart pounds.

The elevator grinds to a stop.

I’m shaking when we step out into wide open space, twelve stories over Brooklyn. And it’s not about fear.

Open blue sky soars above us and massive pillars of concrete surround us, stretching upward. Chains with links bigger than my head are coiled in piles, and there are stacks of wood and massive metal things like strange Legos.

I stroll to the far side, near a squared-off column. There’s a brightly spray-painted scribble on the concrete surface. Not from the 1970s, but new. Everything up here is new. Raw.

I toe the orange scribble like it’s more fascinating than the royal babies of England, but really I need to be apart from him, because I'm reeling from the goodness of his arm on my shoulder. The forbiddenness of ever falling for him. Of thinking he’s falling for me.

He comes up next to me.

I act like the operation of tracing the squiggle with my toe is of urgent importance. “Somebody went Jackson Pollack with the spray paint up here.”

“That’s actually a message. It’s there to show the electricians the alarm conduit placement.”

“How can you even read it?” I ask.

He kneels next to me, and his dark suit jacket stretches over his thick, solid arms as he points to different parts. “This is orientation. Right here is just a measurement. The fact that it’s orange means any kind of telecom, but this’ll be an alarm, of course.”

Of course,I think.Such a construction nerd.

I stand, biting back the urge to run my hands over his shoulders, to get in on the tautness of fine fabric over solid man muscles.

He twists and looks up at me, chin stubble glinting in the light. My heart is in my throat.

I force my gaze back to the scribbles. “The colors tell you?”

“Just like you see down on the street.”

“You’re all secretly communicating with each other?”

He stands. “Yellow’s natural gas. Red’s electric. Blue is water.”

His nearness affects me like a drug. My eyes fall to his lips, and I shiver.

“You cold?”

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