Page 32 of Off-Limits

I could never have Damon.

The thought sours my mood, so I turn away from him to face Harry. He seems oblivious to the encounter, and that’s the way I want and need it to stay.

“Arrie, her fiancé, and friend are meeting us there.”

Harry’s shoulders drop, and I don’t miss the small smirk on Damon’s lips.

What is he playing at?

“Harry, back to work. I’m not paying you to chat up my niece.”

Niece.

Way to throw cold water on the inferno blistering inside of me, Damon.

Straightening his spine, he issues a quick nod at him and turns around to head back to the workshop.

“See you tonight, Dottie!”

I allow my eyes to close, my head falling to the back of the seat.

“Why are you going, if you don’t like him?” Damon asks, reminding me he’s still here.

Opening my eyes, I let my head loll to the side to look at him. His tattooed muscles bulge in his arms, and I can’t help but trace the tattoos down to where I know they are on his stomach.

“Don’t look at me like that.” He grunts, and it comes out sounding like crunching gravel.

“Like what?”

“Don’t play coy.”

I grin at him.

“Because I can.”

“Can what?”

“Go out with him, even if I don’t like him.”

“And you think that’s fair?”

“Is what you’re doing right now fair,Uncle Damon?”

“Dottie,” he chokes out. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Starting something, we can never finish.”

Pushing out of the seat, I close the distance between us.

The air crepitates between us, the tension so thick I can barely swallow. I lick my lips, and he follows the motion, his teeth grinding at the action. My body feels like a livewire, thrashing all over the damn road, loose from its structure.

We stare at each other, lost in whatever is happening right here for us. Then I lean forward, unable to stop myself even though I know what I’m doing is reckless.

But he started it, so one of us has to finish it.

With my eyes on him, I look him up and down one last time, cataloguing his dark eyes, the salt-and-pepper three-day growth, his defined muscles, the ink on his skin.