Page 34 of Crashed
“I have an Alex on the phone for you, sir. Sorry, she won’t give me her last name. She said it’s important.”
He didn’t need a mirror to know a stupid grin had spread across his face. “Put her through.”
He put the phone on speaker and sat back in his chair.
“This is a surprise.”
“Yeah, hey. Um…sorry to hassle you at work.”
Jesus, he loved the sound of her voice—it had a low, husky quality that made him hard just hearing it. But he also hadn’t missed the underlying hesitation in her tone. Even though he was sure it was nothing, he found himself gripping
the edge of his desk, anxiety chasing away the shot of lust like a dunk in the Arctic Ocean. “Don’t apologize. You can call me anytime you want. Hearing your voice has improved an otherwise shitty day.”
Alex was silent for several seconds, and he cringed. Too much? The woman was driving him insane. She was like a skittish foal—get too close and she’d dance right out of reach.
“I have to cancel our plans for tonight.”
He sat forward in his seat. “No.” The word left his lips before he could stop himself.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“I won’t let you cancel, Alex. We have an agreement.”
Not after the small step forward he’d made with her, the way she’d come after him, taken him into her mouth, the teasing, the way she’d looked at him. His chest squeezed. He’d barely resisted telling her how he felt, those three words so close to spilling from his lips when she’d sat back, still on her knees at his feet, and smiled up at him.
No. He wouldn’t let her try to put distance between them again.
“What’s so important, Deke? Do you really need me to sit there with you while you drone on to some old stiff about stuff I don’t understand? Really?”
He clenched his fists. “I thought we could stay in tonight. Just you and me.”
Silence. “Right. So it’s nothing important then?”
“Jesus.” Did she really feel that way? Was spending time alone with him so god-awful?
The phone crackled, the sound muffled, and then he heard her tell someone she wouldn’t be long. One of his sisters, no doubt. “Look, it’s crazy busy here at the garage.
I don’t have time for a drawn-out discussion. How much?”
“Pardon?” he said carefully.
“This whole thing’s about money, right? You want to sell our building to make more money. That’s why you have me at your beck and call. So how much for a night off? I have savings. Name your price.”
He cursed under his breath, struggling and failing to keep it together. “Are you purposely trying to piss me off?”
Because by fuck, it was working.
“Nah, that would require a certain amount of give a shit, and I don’t.”
Whoa. Where the hell had that come from? “You’re angry. Why?”
“Are you serious?”
This was a battle he couldn’t win, not without Alex thinking he was an even bigger asshole than she already did.
So he gave in. “What’s so important that you need to break our plans?”
“If you must know, I’m having a girls’ night out with Rusty and Piper. We made plans before you blackmailed me into being your human sex toy. I’ve been so busy obeying your every command, I forgot to tell you.”
