“Shh!” she replied angrily and looked down the hallway again before grabbing him by the arm and dragging him into the thankfully empty room behind her. “My goodness, I don’t remember you being so exhausting.”
“And I thought you didn’t remember anything,” he said sourly.
“That was the deal!” she reminded him, surprised. “To forget. We agreed to forget.”
“Yes, but the deal didn’t include behaving stiffly or unnaturally in each other’s presence.”
She widened her eyes in disbelief. “You should talk! Who was boring holes into me the entire time? And then that stupid question. As if it was important what I did for a living before I ended up here.”
He shrugged and folded his arms in front of his body. “It only seemed fair now that you know what I do for a living.”
She raised an eyebrow. “All I know…” she said in a lowered voice. “…is that you acted extremely strangely, and you have to change that if we don’t want to be found out.”
He sighed theatrically. “Yeah, I think it’s going to be harder than I thought. I didn’t realize a week ago how much you could piss me off.”
“And I thought the great Jack West didn’t get mad. Didn’t you say you were proud of your control?”
Jack narrowed his eyes. “Oh, I am. You wouldn’t want to be a participant in this conversation if I hadnocontrol.”
She snorted before saying in the most disinterested voice possible, “Empty threat. You know what I think? You have a problem with me being your boss now.”
He blinked at her, irritated. “Well, yes!”
“Because you’re used to having the upper hand and it’s a problem for your ego,” she concluded.
Jack stared at her for a few moments. Then, he asked quietly, “Are you high?”
She blinked. “What? No. I know I dress like a hippie, but…”
“Penny, I don’t care if you’re in the executive suite or not!” he quietly interrupted her, leaning forward almost imperceptibly. “I don’t care if you’re richer than me, if you’re smarter than me, if you’re more sophisticated, or even better at mini golf than me. I’m not angry because you’re a woman who occupies a higher position than me. I’m angry becauseforgettingdoesn’t mean treating the other person like thin air. It means treating theother person as if nothing happened. With respect and a friendly smile, not a cold shoulder.”
She swallowed. He was standing too close. She felt his warm breath on her cheek. She inhaled his scent of pine forest and man, bathed in the pleasant warmth he radiated… Naturally, he was right. And she would like to behave exactly as he had asked her to, but she couldn’t. She had no control over her expressions, her feelings, or her body. She had tried, but she had been unable to forget. In fact, she had dreamed about Jack every night that past week: his lips on her neck, his fingers between her thighs, and his laughter in her ear. There was plenty of other annoying, stressful stuff that should have infested her dreams, but Jack and his stupid grin and his stupid big hands had trumped all of that.
However, she couldn’t tell him that. It would give him too much power. Make being his boss even more difficult. So, she buried her thoughts and feelings, took a deep breath, and looked him straight in the eyes. “Jack, could you please stop being so dramatic? It wasn’t that bad in there. It’s not like I could make eye contact with all the players at the first meeting. Do you know how many of you there are?”
Jack snorted. “Of course,” he said, his sarcasm dripping so thick it practically coated Penny’s feet.
She rolled her eyes before smiling sweetly up at him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you. You should have an extremely easy time forgetting what happened because, if your teammates are to be believed, you don’t have sex during the season, anyway.”
Jack sighed heavily. “How did I know you would bring that up?”
“Maybe because it’s the stupidest rule – not to mention lie – I’ve ever heard?” she suggested kindly.
“It’s not a lie.”
She laughed. “You realize who you’re talking to, right?”
“Yes,” he replied softly, taking a step toward her, his eyes narrowed. He was so close now that her breasts were brushing against his chest. “And if you hadn’t come on to me like that, I would have stuck to my principles.”
She opened her mouth in disbelief. “Icame on toyou? Now who’s high? You admitted you were flirting with me. You wanted to know if I was single. You drove me home, you walked me to the door…”
“You invited me in!”
“Only because you were acting like that! It was the challenge. I myself wasn’t…certain at all.”
“Oh, youwerecertain,” he whispered against her ear, his lips brushing the sensitive skin behind it. “Your touches were certain and all the scandalous sounds that came out of your mouth were certain. Your whole body wascertainit wanted exactly what I gave it.”
Her mouth went dry, her chest heavy as her abdomen tightened sweetly. Oh God, he had to stop talking like that. She took another hasty step back before bracing her hands against his chest, keeping him at arm’s length. “Well, that was a week ago. A lot can happen in a week. And it’s not like I was totally unprofessional today.”
