Page 11

Mary was already shaking her head at Jamie, who just grinned and raised a blonde eyebrow at me, “What are you doing?”

“You see,” I leaned against the front desk, catching Signe’s eye who was giving me some raised eyebrows of her own, not bothering to hide her smile, “I’m starting on a new recreational rugby league, and I can be a bit shy at times—” Signe snorted nice and loud, and I held up a hand to cover her face from my view as I continued to plead my case, “and I would feel much better if I had my dear cousin there to help me break the ice.”

“You just don’t want to look like a loser with no friends.” Mary rolled her eyes and looped her arm through Jamie’s, tugging the smaller woman toward the lift.

“Maybe we can—” Jamie started, but after Mary punched the call button, she cupped each of Jamie’s cheeks and turned her face to look her in the eye.

“No,” Mary shook her head once, “Don’t fall for it. He’s a grown man in his mid-thirties. He doesn’t need us to hold his hand. Do you want to go watch a bunch of men in booty shorts get all dirty and sweaty while they wrestle with each other under the guise of sportsmanship?”

Jamie grinned between her squished cheeks, “Do you want an honest answer?”

“Why do you think I even signed up?” I added.

“Wait,” Signe chimed in, pulling my hand down with her own so I would look at her again, “Are you meeting at Laguna Field?”

I lifted a brow at her, “Yes…”

“Zaid is going tonight,” Signe grinned, “I’ll be there, too.”

“Oh excellent,” I high-fived the office manager, before flipping off my cousin, “Enjoy your date night.”

“I will.” Mary grinned while Jamie giggled and allowed herself to be tugged into the lift.

“Mr. Turner,” a feminine, alto voice echoed towards us, and I felt something zing down my spine from the sound of my name on her lips. I turned, noting the way Signe immediately put her hand up over her mouth to smother her smile as I saw the woman who suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

“Ms. Williams,” I replied, with a formal nod. I was standing taller, a reaction I usually had when Sun Steer’s Director of Human Resources referred to me by my last name.

“Need I remind you that vulgar gestures like that go against Sun Steer’s code of conduct?” Jacqueline raised a dark eyebrow at me as she approached the front desk Signe sat behind, “Something the CTO should know already?”

I took a moment to drink her in because when it came down to it, I was a simple man. A man who still struggled to wrap my head around who was standing in front of me, versus the woman who approached me at a bar all those months ago.

Jacqueline’s hair was up in a tight bun, not a hair out of place. A bun that I immediately wanted to undo because I knew how beautiful her dark brown hair looked hanging loose at her back.

I knew how her deep, dark eyes looked without the shield of her thin gold glasses, hooded and glassy and utterly hypnotizing. I knew how her skin looked flushed and the sounds she made when I angled my hipsjustright. How her eyes widened after she came, looking adorably surprised every single time her body pulsed erratically around me when she reached her pleasure.

I knew Jacqueline Williams’ body intimately, and I was confident those memories would forever be seared into my brain.

Today she wore an outfit that was somehow both my favorite and also my least favorite.

Because it included a pencil skirt.

Even though the skirt was perfectly modest for the workplace, I couldn’t help but get stuck on how each step she took teased the outline of her soft, smooth thighs. Her arse that I knew for a fact fit perfectly in the palms of my hands.

“Mr. Turner?” I snapped my eyes up from her legs, grinning on instinct even though Jacqueline was all but openly glaring at me. Her brows were lowered, her lush lips were turned down in disapproval, clutching an iPad to her chest as if to shield herself from me.

Were those dark circles under her eyes?

I hadn’t seen Jacqueline Williams smile at me since that one night we shared, and every day that I went to work and failed to see her lips pull back in that joyful expression, I felt like the biggest failure.

“My apologies,” I placed a palm over my heart, looking her in the eye, “No more vulgar gestures in the office.”

Jacqueline raised a dark eyebrow at me before turning towards Signe, dismissing me without a word.

I tried not to flinch from her cold shoulder.

“Cheers.” I nodded to the two women and started to walk back toward my office, shoving my hands in my pockets in an attempt to still them. I was always fidgeting, but around Jacqueline, my hands physically itched. The constant restlessness inside me burned hotter in her presence.

It wasn’t until I made it back to my office, leaving my door wide open so that the hum of the other Sun Steer employees in the building would filter in, that I opened my drawer and pulled out another pen to twirl in my fingers.