Tomboy (The Hartigans #3)(34)

“Two more appearances at the clinic, at least one with more of your team,” she said.

Fuuuuuuck. She clamped her mouth shut before she could offer up anything else. That was not what she’d planned on saying.

“Done.” His satisfied grin showed off the never-before-noticed mini-dimple in his left cheek. “What else?”

The self-preserving part of her brain finally kicked into gear. “If I’m working, I’m working. No guilt-tripping me for not being able to be at a home game.”

His jaw squared, and he glared at her. “I don’t like that.”

The glare probably would have worked—he gave great stink eye—but she was onto him. Zach “The Most-Hated Man in Harbor City” Blackburn was a secret softie.

“Too bad.” She lifted one shoulder and then let it drop. “It’s nonnegotiable. Some of us have bills to pay.”

He opened his mouth and then closed it quick, as if he didn’t want whatever he was about to say to come out. “Fine.”

Pushing aside the need to examine what it was that he was trying to keep a lid on—because this was Zach Blackburn, a business acquaintance in this weird situation and not a friend—she picked up the empty guacamole serving bowl. “And I’ll need the recipe for this.”

Up went the eyebrow with the metal bar through it. “I have to marry into the Lopez family to get that.”

“We all have to make sacrifices.” She grinned at him. “And don’t worry, I’ll be your best man.”

That made him laugh. It was a good laugh deep and full. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

“No kidding. Deal?” She held out her hand, which was kind of hard to do in the little booth, since they were already so close together.

His gaze flicked down to her hand, his jaw squared, and his body tensed. The air around them went from being normal oxygen to something heavier that was filled with an electric promise. Then he looked back up at her, something dark, dangerous, and downright delicious in his hard eyes.

Holy shit. Her pulse picked up, and she almost dropped her hand down to her lap.

His larger hand engulfed hers before she could pull it back. “Deal.”

All of the you’re-in-danger-girl alarms went off in her head at the same time that her body was sending oh-yeah-scoot-closer vibes. When she was back home, she was definitely going to have to give herself a stern talking-to about the realities of the situation, which was that this was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Nothing more.

Riiiiiiiight, Fallon.

And that was the moment when she realized she just might be well and truly fucked, which meant there was only one thing to do now. Get the man out of her system so she could do this whole Lady Luck thing without losing her head—or her heart. Her panties, however? Those white cotton briefs were goners.

…

Taking Fallon on a tour of the kitchen so she could see the guacamole being made hadn’t been his idea. Mama had insisted after the two women had started talking about the restaurant’s food. And that was how he’d ended up squashed in a corner with Fallon directly in front of him—her ass practically pressed against him in all the very right wrong places—as one of the line cooks showed them how he made the guacamole.

It wasn’t a fast process. Okay, maybe it was, but it felt like forever when Zach had to keep his hands mostly to himself—and he did. She was Lady Luck. He was a loser with mountains of debt. Remembering that, though, got harder the longer he stood there, his fingers resting lightly on her hips because there was nowhere else to put them in the cramped quarters.

Really, perv? That’s what you’re going with?

Yeah, he couldn’t even lie to himself about it because they might be putting in anchovies and ground-up mouth guards in the guacamole and he wouldn’t notice. All he could take in was every single little detail about Fallon, from the curve of her hip to the fact that her breath hitched every time a busboy walked by and she had to step back closer to him so the employee could get by with his tub full of dishes.

“And that,” the cook said with a final sprinkle of cilantro. “Is how you make Mama’s guacamole.”

Zach hoped Fallon had gotten the recipe because he’d missed all of it.

“Excuse me,” a busboy coming in from the dining room said almost at the same time as another busboy coming from the opposite direction said it.

They met in the sliver of space between Fallon and the prep table. The resulting face-off meant she had to scoot back against him while he tried to make his six-foot-three-inch frame fit in a space so tight a gymnast would feel squashed. And since he was good but not so much so that he could subvert the laws of space and time, there was nothing to be done but try to angle so his dick wasn’t pressed right up against Fallon’s high, round ass.

Still, she brushed against his cock, which was pretty much all the encouragement it needed to start to stiffen against his thigh. Maybe she wouldn’t notice. The fact that this was the first time in his life he’d ever hoped a woman didn’t notice his junk didn’t do his ego any fucking favors.

“You really like guacamole, huh?” she asked as she looked back over her shoulder at him, her voice huskier than it had been moments ago.

Busted. He searched her face for signs of her being offended. Instead of shock or annoyance, though, there was nothing but heated curiosity mixed with lust in her gaze, which made his blood rush south.