Devastated (Anger Management, #1)(55)

“Miss Hague,” Hunter said with a heavy sigh as he dropped down in the desk chair so that he could keep an eye on the woman that wasn’t getting out of this.

“Don’t you ‘Miss Hague’ me, Hunter O’Mallery” Kylie bit out with an adorable glare as she tried to move further away from him, but there was nowhere to go and they both knew it.

“You’re not getting out of this,” he said, deciding to get comfortable as he waited for the stubborn woman to make her next move.

“I quit,” she said with a firm nod.

“No, you don’t,” Hunter said with a bored sigh because this was getting really fucking sad.

“Oh, but I really do,” she said with a determined glint in her eye that dared him to argue.

“Uh-huh,” Hunter murmured, propping his elbow on the arm of the chair as he pressed two fingers to the side of his temple and waited to see how she was going to try to get out of this.

For a moment, she simply glared at him and then, the glare was gone, and she was nervously licking her lips and-

“I lied,” Kylie said, letting her shoulders slump in defeat.

“About?” he drawled.

“Swimming.”

“I see.”

“I can swim.”

“I’m sure you can,” Hunter murmured thoughtfully as he watched the small woman trying to bullshit him.

“I just pretended that I couldn’t swim to help distract you from the anguish of being on house arrest,” Kylie said with a helpless shrug and a softly drawn-out sigh.

“That’s really considerate of you,” he drawled, debating between dragging her out of there or letting her drag this one out.

“I try my best,” Kylie said with a sad shake of her head that had his lips twitching.

“Then you wouldn’t mind going for a swim,” he said, pushing his chair back and gestured for her to come out.

“Well, I would, I really would, but I don’t think that would be such a good idea,” she explained, clearing her throat before giving him a tentative smile that bordered on hopeful.

“And why is that?” he murmured, watching as she struggled to come up with an excuse to save her.

“Because I need to finish organizing the desk,” Kylie said with a firm nod, as his gaze flickered to the meticulously organized desk.

“Looks like you’re done.”

“I meant make lunch,” she quickly amended.

“We already ate.”

“Which means that I have to do the dishes,” she said with a sad shake of her head and a disappointed sigh.

“Already did them,” he reminded her since doing the dishes was his job.

“I see,” she murmured as she worried her bottom lip while she tried to find another way to get out of this.

“You’re getting in that pool,” Hunter said, determined to see this through so that there was one less thing that Kylie was afraid of.

“Okay,” Kylie suddenly said with a careless shrug as she climbed out from beneath the desk, dusted herself off and headed towards the patio doors.

“Okay?” Hunter repeated back slowly, his eyes narrowing as he watched her go.

With another shrug, she headed out the door. Knowing better than to trust the woman that would do absolutely anything to get out of this, he followed after her even as he considered every possible escape route that she might try to utilize and felt his mind go blank as he stepped through the patio doors just in time to see Kylie wiggle out of her skirt and panties and toss them aside.

“I was hoping that we could spend the rest of the afternoon doing that thing that you seemed to like so much, but I guess this works too,” Kylie said with a shrug as Hunter ran his eyes over her, taking in the curve of her ass peeking out beneath the hem of her shirt and decided that the swimming lesson could wait until later.

Much later.

---

“I don’t want to hear your fucking excuses!” Hunter snapped at some poor unfortunate soul on the phone as Kylie stood there, wincing in sympathy as she watched the large man that she couldn’t seem to get enough of as he stormed past her and headed towards the office where he would most likely reduce another poor soul to tears.

Deciding that she should probably work in the living room for now, Kylie grabbed her iPad and the stack of files that she’d been working on from the hallway table and headed to the living room. She glanced at the large clock on the wall as she sat down on the couch and wondered if she should remind Hunter that he had a phone conference in ten minutes.

Probably, she thought with a sigh as she sent him a quick text that he most likely wouldn’t see. She should probably look into getting a whiteboard to make her job easier, she thought only to immediately dismiss the idea since she knew that Hunter would take it upon himself to make changes.

That man really didn’t understand the importance of time blocks, she thought with a sad shake of her head as she reached for the file that she’d been working on only to sigh when the move caused her to drop her pink highlighter on the floor. Setting aside her iPad, she stood up only to realize that it must have rolled under the couch.

She carefully pushed the coffee table aside so that she could kneel down on the floor and-

“I canceled the meeting,” Hunter said, as she felt her skirt pushed up.