Page 33 of Made for You
I laughed despite myself at his ridiculous words. “Correct. And I sincerely hope that’s not what Saint Security actually does, because I would be very disturbed to discover that about my new place of employment.”
One side of his mouth curved up and made his cheek crease in a stupidly charming way. “Absolutely not.”
“Good.”
“Are you going back in?” His eyes slipped past me to Craic’s door a few feet away, then back to mine.
Moment of truth, though I’d already decided. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
He grinned. “I worry that you sound like that’s a punishment and not a pleasure.”
Some odd impulse made me want to tell him. He knew Rosie, and at this point, he’d had to have encountered her stubborn streak. But if she hadn’t told me, I doubted she’d told him. And maybe part of me worried she had told him and finding that out would spoil any chance I had of going in there and trying to get to know Dove and Catherine.
With yet another sigh, I shook my head. “No. I’m just getting my head on straight. I need to do this.”
He nodded once. “All right, then. Shall we?”
I dipped my chin to acknowledge his words and moved ahead. Craic’s door was propped open, so I walked all the way in, then slowed when I reached the small crowd clogging the entrance.
Then, a warm hand settled on my lower back. I glanced over my shoulder to see Bruce eyeing the space from one side to the next, then spotting my friends. He guided me toward the table with his warm palm practically burning a hole through my shirt, and stopped only when we’d reached Dove, Catherine, and two women I hadn’t met yet.
“Ladies. I think Nikki’s joining you?” His voice was all charm and ease.
Nothing like what I felt. My awareness had shrunk to the point of contact on my back. And when he said, “I’ll leave you to it” after each of the women at the table had greeted him, his hand disappeared, and I looked up in time to see him wink and step away.
“Okay, I’m sorry, but that man is…” One of the women I hadn’t met yet fanned herself with the laminated drink menu.
The other stranger smashed her eyes closed and looked something close to miserable. “He really just is.”
Catherine sighed. “He really is. Are you two dating, Nikki?”
My eyes widened, and her question snapped me back into consciousness. Everyone’s attention arced to me.
“No. No. He’s my neighbor and Rosie’s. And now, he’s my boss.” A fact I desperately needed to cling to when the nerve endings in my body were trying to figure out some form of bribery to make his hand come back and touch me again.
The new woman with caramel hair snickered. “Yeah? Pretty sure my boss doesn’t look at me like that.”
The other one sighed. “He doesn’t look at anyone like that. Trust me.”
“Nikki, this is Elise Cordero.” Dove pointed to the woman with dark eyes and what seemed to be a perpetual smirk. “And this is Jo Malcom.” She gestured to the woman with a pained expression and gorgeous, long brown hair. “Elise, Jo, this is Nikki.”
Dove smiled at us as Elise eyed me for a moment before speaking.
“Nice to meet you, Nikki, and welcome to Silverton. How about I buy you a drink and you tell us all about how you ended up with Bruce Camden wrapped around your finger when no one else has managed to get him to give them a second look?”
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
Bruce
Ishouldn’t have touched her.
We’d touched before—handshake, hand on wrist, things like that. But my hand had found her lower back like it was meant to be there, and that wasn’t something a boss did. It wasn’t something a man who was trying not to get tangled up in a woman he liked way too much, because he needed to stay focused on supporting his sister did.
Did I want to touch her? Yes. Very much. Just one fleeting press to the silky fabric of her shirt and the curve of her spine? Absolutely not enough.
The walk to the other side of the pub, where Tristan had slipped in while I escorted Nikki, felt long and uncomfortable, like I shouldn’t be moving away from the woman, but closer to her. The call of her on my mind and body like gravity yet again. Clearly, I couldn’t be trusted.
Dorian had refused the invitation, Kenny would run late since that was his MO, and we’d have a few more trickle in. I always showed up on time because that was me, plus it let me leave on the early side. Tristan tended to head out when I did, and I usually found myself impressed he came at all considering crowds of strangers weren’t exactly his thing. To be fair, that could be said of most of us.
