Page 12 of Stripping Bare

“Please don’t try to play shrink with me. I don’t need you crawling around in my head.” And fuck-all if that didn’t make him think about her crawling into hisbed.

Tessa simply took another sip of her wine and slowly placed her glass next to his, allowing her knuckles to brush his. “You’re right. I’m not your therapist. I’m not your priest. I’m just a friend.” With a sad smile, she reached up and smoothed his hair out of his eyes. “And a friend knows when another friend is feeling a littlelost.”

Hell, in one way or another, he’d been stumbling around in the woods since he was seventeen. Since the night he’d failedTessa.

Something he’d been trying to make up for eversince.

He wanted to drop to his knees and ask her to forgive him. He also wanted to drop to his kneesand—

“So, Steele, what’s this new project ofyours?”

Good. Saved from his ownimagination.

Suddenly, a weird feeling crawled up the back of Jonah’s neck, and he glanced toward the bar to find the same guy who’d been scoping out Tessa staring athim.

“I’ve kept all of you away from your conference for long enough,” Jonah told the developers. “Tell you what, I’ll set up a video call next week with anyone who wants to hearmore.”

The man at the bar struck Jonah as familiar, but he couldn’t place him. Maybe the dude was a Steele Survivor fan. That happened every so often. Someone recognized him from a picture on the Internet or some techmagazine.

But then the dude’s attention shifted to Tessa once again and his expression changed. Hardened into speculativeinterest.

Uh-uh, buddy. No one looks at this woman likethat.

Something on Jonah’s face must’ve flashed like a neon light, because Tessa asked, “Are youokay?”

“Someone who looks familiar is at the bar. I should go over and…”beat his ass.But martini dude slid off his stool and into thecrowd.

“I need to leave,” he told Tessa. “Get yourcoat.”

“What?”

“I want to walk you to yourcar.”

“I valet parked. Besides, people are stillhere.”

Damn, he hated to spook her, but he didn’t like the way that guy had up and disappeared. “There was a guy at the bar who has been staring holes through that sexy red shirt you’re wearing. And not in a good way. Now, I’d like to walk you to yourcar.”

Her gaze flickered over to the bar andback.

He set his half-finished drink aside and quickly shook hands and bumped fists with his former employees. “Y’all stay as long as you want. Everything’s onme.”

He helped Tessa into her coat and grabbed his jacket from a nearbychair.

Outside, Tessa handed the valet her ticket, then turned to Jonah. “Something strange just happened in there. You asked people to come out and then you acted like you wanted to be anywhere else buthere.”

Blowing out a breath, he looked down the street where people were spilling out of bars and restaurants just like this one. Their laughter and smiles reminded him of his siblings. Happy, settled, freakin’ content because they were doing something important and had someone to share itwith.

Like Britt with the Steele-Shepherd Wildlife Research Center, and Reid with the law enforcement training center. Grif ran the city and had a great family. Evie was a modern-day Florence Nightingale, and Micki was teaching a cyber warfare class and developing educationsoftware.

He wanted that. A new purpose other than the status of former video gameking.

That was why the app idea appealed to him so much. His initial thought had been to have some of his former employees help him, but maybe he should forget about involving them. Maybe he was trying to re-create something he had no business re-creating.

And the thought of talking with Tessa about his plans, as duct-taped and chicken-wired together as they were, made him feel strangely exposed. Besides, she might not appreciate that a hardship in her life was now giving himpurpose.

The valet drove up in a silver BMW, a symbol of just how successful Tessa had become, and parked it at the curb in front of them. Compassion clear in her eyes, Tessa stepped closer to Jonah and placed her palm on his chest. “What’s going on? For a few minutes in there, I thought you were going to turn andrun.”

He’d wanted to run fromherand she’d seen it. He didn’t need her to realize that how he felt about her made him vulnerable. So fuckingdefenseless.