Melt for You (Slow Burn #2)(9)

“What did the maxi pad say to the fart? You’re the wind beneath my wings!”

“Denny, it’s eight o’clock on Sunday morning, and I haven’t had my coffee yet. I’m not mentally prepared for fart jokes.”

I enter the elevator at work with the enthusiasm of someone ascending the steps of the gallows and slump against the wall, bleary eyed. I had approximately two hours of sleep last night, thanks to the rap concert going on in Kellen’s apartment.

Twice I picked up the phone to call the police to make a noise complaint, and twice I hung up before going through with it. Despite my threats to Cameron, I really don’t like being cast in the role of the grouchy, fun-hating spinster who’s out to ruin everyone’s good time. Even if they are selfish idiots. So instead I slept with a pillow over my head, promising myself I’d invest in a pair of good earplugs in the morning.

I had more fitful dreams of Scottish warriors in battle, only this time they all wore tiny white bath towels around their hips.

I don’t allow myself to consider why all those bath towels had conspicuous bulges in front. I suspect that’s a topic for a trained therapist.

“What do you get when you eat refried beans and onions?”

I heave a sigh and close my eyes. “Denny. For the love of God.”

“Tear gas!”

Denny cackles like a crone at his own joke, while I stand with my eyes closed, pondering the life choices that have led me to this moment.

“Why don’t little girls fart? Because they don’t have assholes until they’re married!”

“Okay, that one’s a little funny,” I admit grudgingly, but only because I’m in a special man-hating mood.

“Yeah, that’s one of my wife’s favorites, too.”

Poor Phyllis. The woman is a saint.

The elevator spits me out on the thirty-third floor right in the middle of another fart joke, this one involving the pope. I say good-bye to Denny and trudge to my desk, expecting to be the only moron at work at the crack of dawn on a Sunday, but to my great shock, I’m not alone.

Michael Maddox stands at the wall of windows across from the cubicle field, gazing out into the gray December morning with his hands shoved into his trouser pockets and his proud shoulders rounded with an invisible weight.

I stop dead in my tracks. My heart leaps into my throat. All my nerve endings sit up and holler rr-ow!, like Mr. Bingley when he wants his dinner.

Michael looks like he might’ve slept in his clothes. His hair is rumpled, his shirt is wrinkled, his normally crisply pressed trousers are distinctly uncrisp. A shadow of stubble darkens his square jaw, and holy hell the man is beautiful.

I must make a little gurgle of lust, because Michael turns and sees me standing there, staring at him in a hazy, hormone-fueled stupor.

“Oh,” he says, startled.

Oh, indeed. How much drool must be coating my chin?

Flustered, I stammer, “I . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean t-to disturb you. I just . . . just . . .”

My lips aren’t working right. My brain is refusing to coordinate with my tongue, which sits inside my mouth like roadkill, trampled to death and gathering flies.

“You’re working again today?”

The universe, taking pity on how utterly pathetic I am, finally allows me the power of speech. “Yes.”

Michael draws a breath, squares his shoulders, then smiles. It’s forced but gorgeous nonetheless. “We can’t be paying you enough for this kind of dedication.”

Take off all your clothes and I’ll consider us even.

I laugh. It sounds unhinged, like I’ve recently freebased cocaine.

He blinks at me as a wave of heat rises from my neck to my hairline. I send him a pinched smile, wrench my gaze from his, and scurry over to my desk like some nocturnal rodent in search of food. I collapse into my chair. It wheezes in protest and deflates six inches on its pneumatic cylinder, leaving me boob-high to the desk with my bulky handbag shoved up under my chin.

Which is how Michael finds me.

“Oh dear. Are you all right?”

He peers down at me from his godlike height, genuinely concerned by the ridiculous predicament of the silly mortal girl in the puffy down jacket the color of rancid pea soup that her mother gave her when she moved to New York a lifetime ago and she was too cheap to replace.

Ah, hindsight. You are one giant, ruthless bitch.

“Fine,” I manage, cheeks blazing. With as much dignity as I can muster—which isn’t much—I push the chair back, stand, set my handbag on the desk, and readjust the chair, all the while acutely aware of Michael’s presence.

He must think I’m an absolute train wreck of a human being. He must think I’m a stuttering, clumsy fool who doesn’t have the coordination God gave a one-legged goat. He must think—

“I think we need to replace that chair.” He frowns at the object in question as if it has offended him by refusing to more stoically bear my weight.

I take that as evidence of his chivalry and nearly swoon. I catch myself before my knees give out and try to casually steady myself against the desk, but I’m too far away, so my casual lean turns into a highly awkward sideways stagger until my thigh collides with the edge of the desk with a thunk that topples the jar of pens next to the computer and sets the calendar of Grumpy Cat swinging from side to side.