Free The Darkest Joy by Marata Eros Page B

involved.
    And here I am, hiring this beautiful, fragile, emotionally vulnerable girl, just to keep her close to me.
    I don’t even know why I feel this need to protect her. I don’t even know what I’m protecting her from. Maybe I can’t protect her from herself?
    Not okay. I stand there indecisively for a minute and then Brooke gives me those big doe eyes and that’s when I see her, really see her. God, her eyes are some kind of purple , lashes like black lace setting them off like jewels of tanzanite.
    I stuff my hands into my pockets to keep them off her.
    Then, suddenly, all I want is to feel my lips on hers again. Without thinking, I move in for the kill. I place both hands on her face, looking into those deep eyes and feel my own close as I barely brush her lips and Brooke gasps and flinches away. My eyes pop open and I drop my hands from where they’vecaptured her. I see emotions flow over her face, but the one I don’t want to see is there in living color.
    Gravity. Like a slow-moving avalanche her face shuts down. “I can’t,” she says in a breathy whisper and I feel like kicking my own ass. Of course she doesn’t . . . she just tried to kill herself and here I am, her boss . . . trying to, I don’t even know. I straighten, raking a hand through my hair, and back the fuck off. I shouldn’t have done that. Knowing it didn’t stop it from happening though. What the hell is wrong with me?
    I struggle to recover. “I’m . . . I’m sorry . . . I really do want you to feel . . . like you can work these eight weeks of the season without . . . fear of, whatever,” I say, scrubbing my face, trying to wipe it clean of my lapse.
    “It’s okay, Chance,” she says and I see a flinty sort of resolution in her eyes. It replaces the soft desire I’d seen before and I miss it as I watch it slide away. But I’d set the tone and she’d followed it.
    “I never really said thank you,” she says so quietly that I lean forward over my cluttered desk. Brooke isn’t looking at me and misses my unguarded expression. I’m glad, since it sorta belies my words when I say back off and my face says I want you . And it does. My body wants her, the desk being more of a barrier than she knows.
    No relationships , my mind reminds me like a threat. No entanglements of any kind . I exhale loudly and her eyes snap to mine.
    Then I remember what she just said instead of struggling to tamp my awakened libido like noxious weeds. “You’re welcome,” I reply, shrugging.
    There’s a beat of awkwardness between us, a clock’s tick ringing out in the silence. Then I say, “So, the job . . .”
    “Okay,” Brooke replies, her shoulders slumping a little. Her expression makes something unexpected constrict in my chest. Feels like my give-a-shit meter just came online. I don’t want to care.
    The hell with it . “Do you want to talk about what the problem is?” I feel my brows rise, my hands resting on the thick wood desk.
    Brooke shakes her head, that black hair sliding around her shoulders like watered silk.
    I remember what it felt like between my fingers. I pause, collecting my shit.
    “No,” then her gaze locks with mine, “ever.”
    Okay. Broken I don’t need , I decide. The phrase rings false even when I hear it in my own head, but I power through my bullshit.
    Fine, it’s all business. “I need you here at 4 a.m.” Brooke just nods and I continue. “We put in about ten hours of flat-out, balls-to-the-wall fish time then we hightail it back to the harbor, clean our catch, pack . . . clean the boat . . . then you go home.”
    I watch Brooke’s eyes get wider with each detail of the hard life of a deckhand.
    Here’s the breaking point. This is when the weak will jump ship.
    I wait.
    Then Brooke surprises me. “Okay, I’ll be here.” I watch her small hands clench the armrests of my ancient oak chair.
    We look at each other. So many unspoken words remain unsaid.
    “Good,” I say