Wicked Sexy (Wicked Games #2)(21)

Noticing where my attention is, Connor drawls, “Guess they like hot senior guys,” and chuckles.

“God, you’re like a dog with a bone. Can we be done with that, please?”

Looking at me from the corner of his eye, he only offers a noncommittal “Hmm.”

How are his biceps bulging when he’s not even using them? How is his jaw so sharp, it could cut glass? How are his lashes that impossibly thick and long?

How the hell did all of that suddenly go from irritating to interesting?

“I like this outfit,” he says, eyeing me. “You almost look like a normal human being.”

I make a disgusted noise. “I’ll be sure to never wear it again.”

I’m aware that I’m being a bitch to manage my discomfort over my inconceivable attraction to him, but hopefully he won’t catch on, because I’ve pretty much been a bitch to him from the get-go, so I think this is a safe course of action. It’s the logical course of action, at any rate. Just stay on the bitch train, get through this job, and we can both go our separate ways without him ever guessing I might have once had a wee lady boner for him.

Because honestly, I can’t think of anything more mortifying than Connor discovering that. The “hot” slipup was one I cannot, under any circumstances, repeat.

Connor says, “You’ve got that look again.”

Startled, I glance at him. “What look?”

“The one you get when your brain is tripping all over its own feet.”

I toss my hair over my shoulder and gaze off into the middle distance like a disinterested cat. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He gives me another mysterious “Hmm.”

For a moment, he just examines my face in silence. There’s a strange tension in him, a stillness, like a held breath but in his entire body. Then he abruptly swings around in his seat so he’s facing me, his massive thighs on either side of my barstool, his booted feet planted on the floor.

Trapping me.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I ask, my voice high with panic.

“Got something to say to you. It’s important, so don’t talk until the end.”

He looks dangerously intense. His dark eyes are heated, drilling into mine. His cheeks are flushed from the fire, or from something else, but I don’t have time to think about what that something else might be, because he opens his mouth and starts to speak, and my brain faints dead away, leaving me to fend for myself.

“I want you. Bad. Don’t know exactly why, you’re a complete pain in my ass and pretty much the most contrary, foul-tempered woman I’ve ever met, and you’ve made it really clear what you think about me, but every time I look at you, I have an almost overpowering urge to touch you, kiss you, do a lot of bad things to you, and I don’t know how to manage it. Yeah, it might be more prudent for me to keep this shit to myself, but I know that when you don’t talk about shit, it festers, gets worse, and if the way I feel about you gets any worse, I won’t be able to put my goddamn shoes on in the morning. So I’m putting it out there.”

He takes a breath. Deeply shocked, I stare at him with my mouth open, my heart up in my throat.

“We’re both professionals. We have a job to do. And I don’t mix business with pleasure. Ever. But the way I figure it, we’ve got one more night until the work actually starts, and if I don’t do something to get you straight in my head, I won’t be able to do the job at all.”

He stops abruptly. Then he waits, watching me with unwavering intensity as I attempt to digest what just happened.

I whisper in disbelief, “You’re propositioning me?”

His gaze drops to my lips. When he looks back into my eyes, his own are burning. “You liked that kiss.”

He gives me time to deny it, but I don’t. How could I? We both know I’d be lying.

He adds, “And you called me hot, so I know you don’t think I’m a complete troll, even though you act like you do.”

“That was an accident.”

“Yep.” He nods. “And you f*ckin’ hated yourself for it. Which is why I know it was true.”

Things are happening in my body. My nipples harden, my breath quickens, there is a distinctive throb and ache between my legs. All because this jarhead I hate just told me he wants to do bad things to me.

Bad things. Dear God, were any two sexier words ever spoken?

Connor says tersely, “It’s your turn to talk.”

Staring at him, I bite my lower lip. Seeing that, his eyes flare. He leans closer, and then closer still, until I can smell the fresh, soap-scrubbed scent of his skin, count every piece of stubble glinting copper along his hard jaw.

In a voice like sandpaper, he says, “Tabitha.”

I hesitate for a moment, fighting the simultaneous urges to slap him and surrender to him, hating myself for being intrigued, hating this excruciating disconnect between what my mind insists is logical and what my body is loudly demanding. Ultimately, my curiosity wins out by a hair.

I say, “About those bad things you mentioned…”

He reaches out and takes my wrist in his big, warm hand. He gently pulls me off my chair and toward him, so I’m standing between his open thighs, our chests almost touching. Our gazes locked together, he murmurs, “I want to make you come.”