“I didn’t ask you to stay with me,” Kat pointed out reasonably. “I said I would Uber home. Frankly, I should get a car for myself at this point.”
Did it make him a little bit of an asshole that he didn’t like her separating from him? Probably. He wasn’t her manny, however much she liked to say so. She didn’t require his permission to come and go. He was just supposed to mentor her, keep an eye on her. Cut off any disasters in the making.
Which he had, so far, sucked at.
“If you want a good deal on a get-around car, I know a guy. If you can wait until after the game Sunday, I’ll get you hooked up with him.”
She nodded silently but didn’t seem like she wanted to go to her own apartment. So he took a chance and opened the door, motioning her in.
He waited for her to set her folded white shirt down on his kitchen table. She wouldn’t look up at him, which made him nervous. “Kat—”
“Don’t say it was a mistake.” She finally met his eyes, and they were intense. “Don’t tell me kissing me was a mistake. Anything else but that.”
“It wasn’t a mistake.” Unexpected, maybe. But after the second round, he knew it wasn’t a mistake. “It caught me off guard. You came in here—”
“In here?” Kat did a turn, looking at his apartment.
“Into this apartment building. Into Santa Fe.” Into my life. “With this swagger. This tough-girl routine. Too cool for school.”
“Too cool for school.” Kat moaned, but laughed right after. “How old are you?”
“Old enough to know there’s more to you than this attitude you’ve got about life right now.” Michael stepped forward, every cell in his body jumping at being close to her. He cupped her head with both hands, using his thumbs to gently tilt her head up for him. “Let’s clear something up. I don’t want to be your babysitter or your supervisor. I’m not getting paid to mentor you. And I don’t want there to be any weird power play junk between us. There’s no boss here. Now. With this.”
“Can’t I be the boss?” she asked in a husky voice, her eyelids drooping a little. Her body swayed into his as if unable to stand upright anymore. “I’m a good boss.”
He chuckled and kissed her nose, then her eyelids, which fluttered closed. “I’m tired, and you’re probably dead on your feet.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve had to do the whole customer service thing,” she admitted. “I’ll probably regret it in the morning when I go to training.”
“Training?” He slid his hands down her neck, her shoulders until they were cupped under her elbows. She moved with him as if in a trance.
“My coach in Florida found me a trainer here. No more begging to use your facilities. Now I just need a coach to work with and I’m set.”
He realized then he didn’t like the idea of her working out elsewhere. Logistically, bringing her to work was unreasonable at best, against the rules at worst. But still, he’d slowly built up some sort of fantasy world in which he brought her to work with him and she became a type of good luck charm. Caleb had already asked him today if she was coming back again soon.
But she wasn’t a good luck charm, she was a woman with her own training needs. Her job had physical requirements like his. He wouldn’t reduce her to a cute side piece when she was there for a job.
But what happened in the gym and what happened in the apartment were two totally separate things. He kissed her briefly. “We both have to get up tomorrow, and we’ll both regret it if we don’t get some sleep.”
“Sleep. Yup.” She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his chest, as if she could fall asleep standing up. When she went slack against him a moment later, he worried she actually had.
“Kat, I’m going to walk you back to your place.”
“My place?” she questioned. “I thought we were going to…” The words faded as she yawned. “Talk.”
“Since neither of us would actually stay awake for it, it can wait. Until tomorrow, Sleeping Beauty.” He used one arm to guide her, as if she were at the one-shot-too-many point, out his door and over to hers. He took the key card from her and slid it in, hearing the door unlock. “Here you go.” He opened it wide, handed her the card back, and pushed her until she walked over the threshold.
“You could come in.” She smiled sleepily at him, but the effect was ruined by another yawn.
He chuckled. “Get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Sure. Tomorrow. Sleep. Got it.” She made the OK sign at him, then kept walking toward her bedroom. The languid way she moved fired his blood and had him clenching his fist as he reached in to close her door, with him on the opposite side of it.
That… had been hard.