His mouth quirks. "So you haven't slept with him?"
My eyes fall to his hands. His right thumb is tracing tight circles over his left palm. I tilt my head to the side, contemplating not only what I'm seeing but what he just asked. "I don't think that's any of your business. I also don't think it's an appropriate conversation for us to be having during work hours."
"Consider yourself off the clock." His fingers thrum over the face of his watch. "You officially have the rest of the day off."
"No," I say with an exaggerated sigh. "Don't do that. Don't influence my job because of something personal between us."
"You admit that there's something between us?"
I can deny it. I should deny it, but I don't. "I'm attracted to you, Nolan. I'm sure most of the women who work for Matiz are, but that doesn't mean anything has to happen between us."
"You're right." He crosses his arms over his chest. "It doesn't mean anything has to happen, but it will. How long do you think we can resist each other, Ellie? I'm a strong man, but you're the type of woman who can weaken a Herculean resolve."
Words. They're all just words meant to seduce and tempt. They roll off his tongue as leisurely as the comments about the weather he directed toward a man in the elevator with us on the ride up to his office.
I look down at the necklace I'm wearing. It's a cheap piece I picked up at a flea market in Las Vegas. It has no sentimental value. The significance of it is non-existent. Once it breaks, as thin silver chains often do, I'll toss it away without a second thought. It's just like his words, pretty in the moment, but once they've served their purpose, quickly forgotten.
"I'll have dinner with you, Nolan."
"Tonight," he says, not asks, in a tone that reeks of victory. "I'll pick you up at eight. There's a place in Hell's Kitchen that I know you'll enjoy."
I rise to my feet at the quiet rap on his office door. "No, not tonight. Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" He ignores the tapping as he stands. "You're canceling your date with Liam for me?"
My stomach knots at his blatant arrogance. "No. I want you to come over for dinner tomorrow too. Around seven o'clock would be good."
"With Liam?" He scowls.
"Yes." I glance at his office door. "Are you going to get that?"
"No, I'm not." Confusion etches his brow. "You want me to come to your place tomorrow to have dinner with Liam? With you and Liam?"
"Liam will be there," I begin as I rub my forehead. "My roommate Adley and Randy, Liam's friend, will be there too."
"I'll be the fifth wheel?"
"Or sixth." I shrug. "Depending on how you view her."
"Who?"
"The woman who wrote on your palm. I assume she drew the cute heart too." I turn back as I reach the door. "Bring her with you. I'd love to meet the artist behind that masterpiece."
He mumbles something under his breath, but I don't stop to ask him to repeat it. I swing open the door and almost knock the file folder from his assistant's hand as I breeze past her on my way to the elevator.
Chapter 15
Nolan
"There's no way in hell this is happening." Crew looks right past the woman who opened Ellie's apartment door just as I was about to knock. "Talk about a roleplay. Are you seeing what I'm seeing, Nolan?"
Unfortunately, I am. I see all of it. It's being imprinted on my retinas so every time I close my goddamn eyes from this point forward, I'm going to see this in front of me.
Ellie is wearing a bikini top. The most perfect bikini top ever to grace a female body. Two small triangles of black fabric and some thin black string are all that cover her breasts. The black very short shorts she's wearing sit well below her belly button. Her hair is pulled back and high in a ponytail. She's standing near an open window with her hands on her hips, her skin glowing with a mist of perspiration.
She turns to the side, and I swallow back a moan born from somewhere deep inside me when the profile of her gorgeous ass comes into my view. The thin material of her shorts leaves nothing to the imagination, and suddenly my cock is hard as steel.
The bastard standing next to her is hard too. I'm clear across the room from him but the outline of his dick through the faded jeans he's wearing is obvious to anyone within a mile radius. The tool belt he has on does nothing to hide his arousal.
He flexes then, drawing his arms up over his head. His biceps tense, his abs ripple, and Ellie's eyes are glued to everything but the T-shirt, that I assume is his, bunched in a pile at his bare feet. She's practically naked. He's half-way there and I'm staring at it all with a bottle of wine and a gallon of melting cookie dough ice cream in my hands.
"What the hell is going on here?" I snap.
"The air conditioning stopped working," Ellie's friend says. I remember her from Las Vegas, but apparently not well enough to recall her name. "The building manager told us the repair guy wouldn't be here until tomorrow afternoon, but he showed up fifteen minutes ago."