The Billionaire Next Door (Billionaire Bad Boys #2)(20)

Was that where her concern was coming from? That he’d find her weak spots and use them against her? That’s what Shaun had done, she thought with a token amount of bitterness.

“How’d I do what?” A puff of air came from Tag’s lips, buried in his beard. She’d never liked facial hair. Until now, apparently.

“How’d you guess my height?” she shot back, feeling peeved more with herself than him. Lack of sleep, or maybe too much, she wasn’t really sure what to blame her reaction on now. “How’d you know I was a businesswoman before? I’m a great bartender, by the way. I was a bartender for longer than I worked in marketing.” She pushed her hands deeper into her pockets, lamenting not bringing her gloves with her. Her hands were freezing.

“Just observant. I’m good with people,” he said.

She absorbed that for a few seconds.

“What exactly do you do in Guest and Restaurant Services?” She air-quoted those words, which brought her bare hands from her pockets. He noticed.

“Where are your gloves? Do you realize it’s February in Chicago?”

“I forgot them.”

Tag stopped walking, a deep sigh working its way from his wide chest as he tugged off his gloves.

“I’m fine.” But he wasn’t listening. Once he’d had his baseball-mitt-sized gloves off, he lifted her smaller, freezing hands to his mouth, cupping them in his palms, and blew on them to warm her fingers. He did this the way he did everything else.

Slowly.

Intentionally.

And looking right at her.

He brushed his lips over her knuckles as a drove of chills shot down her spine and legs. She became fascinated by how soft his beard felt against her freezing skin, and then those chills were replaced with heat. Pooling in her belly, between her thighs, and infusing her face with color.

“Thanks,” she muttered when he let her go. She stuffed her hands into his gloves—they were warm, and after his personal attention, so was she. They finished their walk to Crane Tower, and once they were in the lobby, she put that together with Crane Hotels. “You’re pretty brand loyal aren’t you?”

“Honey, you have no idea.” His voice was low and raspy and the pit of her stomach did that pinging thing. Or was it a zing? Whatever it was, it was unnerving.

She couldn’t shake the idea that she hadn’t wanted to walk home, yet he’d talked her into it. She didn’t want to get played by the player. To get taken advantage of like Shaun took advantage of you.

Since she lived on the floor below Tag, she had no choice but to walk to the elevator with him. Just when she worried about being in an enclosed space with him alone and having nothing to say, another couple stepped into the elevator with them.

Phew.

They pressed the button for the floor three floors below Rachel’s, so they were going to be in here a while. Which meant she and Tag would have chaperones. Before she could let out a breath of relief that she wouldn’t have to force conversation, she noticed the girl’s eyes were kind of glassy and the guy’s smile was a little wonky. Drunk. The second the elevator doors swished shut, the guy lunged and the girl caught him tongue first.

Gawd. Clearly the inebriated couple had no problem with PDA.

Rachel wiggled her hands out of the gloves, leaving them in her pockets, and glued her eyes to her iPhone screen. Which helped, but didn’t shut out the suctioning sounds. She gave up, dropped the phone in her coat pocket, and scooted closer to Tag to avoid the flying arms and legs. Tag was leaning against the back of the elevator, one boot on the wall. She risked a glance up at him when the girl made a mewling sound and Tag looked back down at her, one eyebrow arched into a sexy tilt. When his mouth joined, Rachel looked away.

Looking at him while a couple in front of them sucked face was…awkward. Because it made her wonder what his beard might feel like against her lips.

There were too many rampant hormones in this tiny enclosed space. Too many pheromones per square foot or something. Maybe she’d been infected like some sort of airborne virus.

The elevator stopped and the doors opened, but the two lovers weren’t finished yet. As the doors started to shut, Tag stepped forward and stopped them with a hand. “Hey, buddy, this you?”

The other guy slid his lips away from his girlfriend’s—or whoever she was—and blinked, dazed. “Thanks, man.”

Then they stumbled out, adhering to each other the second they cleared the lift.

Tag looked at the floor, a secret smile gracing his face. He shook his head, which made Rachel wonder what he was thinking, but she didn’t dare ask. Namely because he might blurt out that he was thinking of kissing her and then she’d be powerless to say anything but “Yes!”

In the end, neither of them spoke as they rode the few floors up to her temporary penthouse. When the doors opened this time, she practically ran from the elevator, but Tag followed behind her.

“Care if I say hi to Adonis?” he asked.

“Is that really why you’re following me to the door?” She was suddenly nervous as she pulled her house key from her jeans pocket. “Or did those two turn you on because you’re some kind of pervy voyeur?”

Her comment was supposed to lighten the tension between them, but as Tag’s heat blanketed her side, it intensified instead.

“It’s neither,” he said into her ear, his voice a low rumble that made her close her eyes. “I want to make sure you get inside safely. Then I’ll go.” With that, he stepped away and left a yawning gap of cool air between their bodies. “It was just a walk, Dimples.”