Page 9

Lorelai

Oh God, she was late.

Late.

Normally, that wouldn’t matter. Her boss, Heather O’Keith didn’t really care what hours her engineers kept, so long as the deadlines were met. The trouble was that today she had a meeting.

With her boss.

A meeting she was going to be late for.

“Shit,” she muttered, shrugging on her backpack and snatching her phone from the charger. She’d somehow turned down the volume on her cell and hadn’t heard the alarm until it had been going off for forty-five minutes.

That was why she didn’t stay up all night anymore.

Her sleep-hangover was deadly when it came to hearing alarm clocks.

“Fuck,” she hissed, stubbing a toe and hopping around on one foot for a few moments before throwing on her “fancy” sneakers. Sneakers, since no one in her department dressed in anything more formal than jeans, tennis shoes, and a tee, but nice because she still had a meeting with her boss.

Classy, she was.

Okay, so backpack, check. Phone, check. Jacket, check. Clothes on all pertinent portions of her body because she really didn’t want to live her nightmare of showing up at work pants-less, check. Coffee . . . she wanted. Badly. But she would have to wait.

Ugh .

Regardless of her inner, ugh-ing, Lori hurried to her front door and fumbled through it in her daily struggle of heavy wooden panel meets a bulky jacket and a giant backpack with a phone in one hand.

It wasn’t pretty.

Ever.

And also why she didn’t realize that her new neighbor was standing in the hall, thoroughly entertained by the process until a hand landed on the door above her head, stopping it from swinging closed on her leg.

“Thank—”

She glanced up and every single muscle in her body locked in place. It was—

She shook her head, tried to clear it, because it couldn’t possibly be . . .

No. No fucking way.

Warm fingers wrapped around her arm, tugging her gently forward so the door could shut. Absently, Lori checked the knob to make sure it had locked.

She reached for the fingers on her arm, not necessarily to push him away, but to flip over his palm and see—

“Are you okay?”

Hot sunshine burning into her skin, drifting down her spine, slipping between her legs. Her pussy clenched . . . because she knew exactly what this guy was packing.

“What’s your name?” she whispered.

A pause then, “Logan.”

“Are you still jet-lagged?”

“Um. Yes?” He stepped back, head tilting and drawing her focus to deep brown eyes and sun-kissed olive skin. If he’d told her the reason he was jet-lagged was because he had just stepped off a yacht in the Mediterranean then Lori would have absolutely believed it.

“It’s not a 1,” she murmured.

And waited.

Luckily, it didn’t take long.

His eyes went wide, and he took another step back, gaze flicking from her apartment door to her neighbor's—or well, now his apartment door.

“When did you move in?” she asked.

Logan blinked, focused back on her. “Yesterday.”

“Cool,” she said, suddenly realizing that she should be feeling awkward because she’d seen this man’s business parts and not focusing on how much her body was telling her that it had been a really long time since she’d seen said business end of a man.

Oh, and that there wasn’t any time like the present to remedy that fact, might not be the best strategy moving forward.

But he has a great cock—

Focus.

Great. Now she was mentally arguing with herself.

That was the surest sign of sanity. Totally.

She turned to leave.

He snagged her arm. “What’s your name?”

Figuring she owed him that much based solely on the fact they were neighbors but also reinforced by the fact that she’d seen his penis, she said, “Lorelai. But mostly everyone calls me Lori.”

“Lori,” he murmured.

Her phone buzzed, and she glanced down at the reminder that she had five minutes to make it to her meeting with her boss.

“Shit!” she exclaimed, dashing toward the elevator. “I’ve got to go.”

“Wait—”

“I’m late!” She jabbed at the elevator button, thankful that, for once, she didn’t have to wait forever for the doors to open.

“Lori—”

“I’ve got to go!” She pressed the floor for the garage repeatedly. “My boss. I need to go.”

“Can I—”

The elevator doors shut before he could finish his question