Coldhearted Boss(83)

He holds up his hands in innocence. “All right, but I’m your boyfriend, Taylor. It’s not a crime for me to care about you or want to provide for you. I respect what you’re doing and I’ll honor your boundaries, but if you ever feel like you’re in a place like you were that night at the bar, I want you to come to me. Don’t let that stubborn streak of yours stand in your way. Why are you smiling like that? You should still be scowling.”

“You said you’re my boyfriend.”

“I also said a lot of stuff after that—important stuff.”

“I wasn’t listening.”

He growls, reaches over, and hauls me toward him so I collide with his chest. I expect my weight to topple him over, but he stays right where he is, with the post at his back and the golden hour casting him in a warm glow. He’s beautiful.

“You’ll have to repeat it,” I continue, my attention on his lips.

“I can’t, not now that you’re on my lap,” he says, moving his hand to cradle my chin and tilt it up. His thumb brushes across my bottom lip and I shiver.

“Sorry,” I tease. “No time for seduction these days. I’m a college student now. I have books to read, papers to write, tests to ace.”

He smirks. “If you had been in my classes in college, I would have failed every test.”

“Really?” I shake my head, sure I have a more accurate representation of what the two of us would have been like in college together. “I think we would have developed a healthy competition. Who could get the better grades…that sort of thing. I’ll have you know, I’m actually smarter than I look.”

His grin widens. “Believe me, I know.”

With that he scoops me up and stands, carrying me across the threshold of the cabin like we’re husband and wife. It still feels like we have so much to discuss. We have crazy weeks ahead of us. I want to head back to Oak Dale for my mom’s graduation, and when McKenna is ready to go to camp in Austin, I think it’d be fun if we drove her there. That way, she and Ethan can get to know each other a little better.

I don’t start classes for a few weeks, but I’m eager to order my textbooks and start prepping. I want new pencils and a fresh planner and the course syllabus and my reading schedule, and mostly I just want a chance to be the kind of student I could have been if my life had been different in high school.

Ethan pushes the door closed, and that’s when I notice something’s different about the cabin.

Very different.

“When did you do this?!”

He’s grinning. “After I finished the roof.”

“How?”

“It was easy. The bunks each had a twin bed frame supported by posts. I unscrewed the post supports, separated them from the frames, and viola…”

Now, there’s just one big bed shoved against the wall of the cabin, across from the desk. It’s totally impractical. The cabin is small and now there’s hardly any room to walk. We’ll have to shimmy around the bed to get to the bathroom and the dresser, but somehow, I love it, and I wouldn’t change a thing about any of it. That’s the desk where I’ll study, and that’s the bed where Ethan will distract me, and this is where I’ll start taking the steps to change my life.

Forever.

“Ethan?”

“Yeah?”

“Did I ever tell you how crazy it is that we ended up together? Me and you, the most coldhearted boss I’ve ever had. You, the man who drives me crazy. You, the person I think I’m starting to fall for.”

“Starting to?”

“I don’t want to scare you.”

“Scare me,” he commands.

“I think I’ve developed deep feelings for you,” I say, chickening out.

“This from the woman who marched across the mess hall and mauled me today,” he drawls with all the arrogance of a lion.

“I didn’t maul you!”

“Just say it and put me out of my misery. I know how much you hated me, now tell me how much you love me.”

“Okay. I really, really lo…ok forward to continuing to work on your crew. It’s been a great experience.”

“Try again.”

“I really lo…se myself in your eyes. They’re really pretty. Like chocolate, or poop.”

He laughs and tosses me down onto the bed then crawls up over me.

He gives my hip a little love bite and I squeal.

“I’ve never heard such overtures of love before. I’m going to swoon.”

He’s working my t-shirt up and over my bra. Soon, it’s yanked over my head.

“I really—ah!” I yelp when he unbuttons my jeans and tugs them roughly down my thighs. “Well I don’t love you when you’re doing that!” I tease, glaring down at him.

Then he tosses my jeans off the bed and settles his chest between my thighs so his mouth drops easily to my stomach, kissing the sensitive skin just below my navel, swirling soft circles just above the hem of my panties with his finger.

I’m sorry, what were we talking about…?

“It’s fine,” he says confidently. “You’re not ready to say it…but I can be persuasive.”

“Oh, really?”

He lowers his lips to my skin. “I made you a bed today,” he says, as if that was part of his persuasion strategy.