Free Deeper by Blue Ashcroft Page B

wall until I can’t feel it anymore. I’m not supposed to feel this anymore.
    But he’s so tall, so gorgeous, so serious in the dark, looming over me, all bridled sexual power. Maybe I’m not as immune as I want to be.
    “Knight.” I put a hand up to his chest, give him a slight shove to move away.
    He steps back and drops his hands. “You can dress how you want, but you’ll have to deal with how the guys perceive it.” He bites his lip, looking troubled and sexy. Oh no, I’m not falling for it. I move to leave once more and he grabs me around the waist and pulls me back, turns me to the wall again, this time more gently.
    “Don’t go.” He braces his fists on the wall above me. “You look so beautiful tonight. I don’t want you around anyone else.”
    I stare up at him, mesmerized by his aqua eyes, intense under long, dark lashes. I can’t look away.
    “Is it okay?” he asks. I don’t know what he’s asking, till he leans in and I can feel his breath on my neck, sending pleasurable tingles down my spine. He’s close enough to whisper in my ear.
    “No one’s watching.”
    “We shouldn’t.”
    “Rain,” he says, pulling a stray wisp of hair behind my ear in a way that tingles a nerve all the way down my back. “You knew this would happen.”
    “No.” I shake my head, even though I know he’s right. There’s been this magnetic tension between us, pulling me ever closer to him, and now that he’s here, so close, so focused, it feels right.
    He leans in until his mouth brushes my ear. “You and I, Rain. You and I are inevitable.”
    My mouth falls open in shock. He’s right but it’s so wrong. I should pull back but I sigh lightly and run my hands over his shoulders and down his arms. So solid, so hard.
    Why couldn’t I have found him before everything went crazy? Why couldn’t I have found him before we were both damaged?
    Right now he’s not my surly coworker. He’s just a gorgeous guy, pinning me in the hallway and telling me we’re inevitable. I run over the rules in my head, searching for loopholes. No sex. No love. But nothing about making out, right? I tilt my head up to his, but he jerks back as someone comes around the corner.
    “Knight?” someone calls, and Knight backs up and away, as if he were never there. He gives me a look, bites his lip again, and looks over at me with regret and want in his eyes.
    “Sorry Rain, don’t know what came over me.”
    I should stop him, let him know I want him, but the moment is over and he’s withdrawing. He looks me over one last time and then turns to Chad, who has just turned the corner, juice in his hand.
    “What are you two doing in a dark corner together?” He eyes us suspiciously.
    “Nothing.” I walk past Knight and take Chad’s cup. “Show me around.”
    Chad smiles, winks at Knight, and takes my arm to guide me. I won’t look back. Knight pulled back and it’s better he did. Hanging out with him outside of work is dangerous.
    Chad is warm and pleasant. He shows me through the living room, then into a room upstairs where the lights are off except for a few party lights and the light coming in from the streetlights. People are scattered around the room on beat up couches and folding chairs. He leads me to a couch and lets me sit, then perches on the arm with his glass, which he downs in one go.
    “That was fast,” I say, looking warily at his cup.
    “Only my second,” he says, heading to the table near the entrance where more booze is stocked. He gets another, drinks it, then fills up his glass and come back.
    I take a sip of my juice, then look up at him. He’s starting to sweat, and his hair is beginning to stick to his forehead and the sides of his face.
    “Some kind of race there, kiddo?” I ask.
    He grimaces at me. “Kiddo? So now you’re patronizing me?”
    “No, I’m just a nerd who uses weird words.”
    His face softens and he leans back and sets the drink on his leg, holding it there. His mood changed