On the Shore (Cottonwood Cove, #3)(39)

Taste her and touch her and wrap her legs around my waist.

Rub my cock against all that sweetness.

Jesus. I was fucking losing it.

“Fine. Harvey Talbert, my old boss, is a misogynistic pig most of the time. He told me to do whatever I had to do to get you to talk to me. So, I did, and he fired me for it.”

“I already knew that. Try again.” There was something more there. Someone desperate for a job doesn’t turn down an offer when it comes unless there’s a reason.

She sighed and looked away. “He never treated me like a reporter. He’d made me uncomfortable a few times.”

“How so?” I asked, feeling something unexplainable build inside me.

Anger.

Rage.

She cleared her throat. “The week before he fired me, I’d gone to him, asking him why my interviews weren’t getting top billing when I knew they were better than some of the articles that he was running. He suggested that I have dinner with him at his place. He let me know that spending time with him outside of work was the fastest way to get more exposure in the magazine. I turned him down, obviously, and then he let me go shortly after. Obviously, I was just someone that he wanted to fuck, nothing more.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I didn’t even recognize my own voice. I was so pissed. “Why didn’t you tell me that in the beginning?”

“First off, it’s none of your business. And secondly, we weren’t exactly friends.” She looked away again, her eyes scanning the water.

My fingers moved beneath her chin, turning her face toward me, waiting for her gaze to find mine. “Well, we’re friends now. I will fucking ruin that man.”

She shook her head and shrugged. “Just leave it alone. It’s probably the reason he only has men working there. And I haven’t told anyone about this, including my family. They’d freak out. So… this is off the record, Captain.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you. But I’m glad I got you fired from that piece-of-shit job now.”

“Well, you’re not completely off the hook. You were still a total jerk to me when you got me escorted out of the press conference.”

“Why didn’t you just wait until I came out of the restroom?”

“Please. I’d been trying to ask you questions for months. But anytime you were in public, there were journalists swarming you. Most of them are men, and I hate the fact that I’m shorter than all of them.” She rolled her eyes. “I’d jump and wave my hands, but you never saw me.”

Something in my chest squeezed.

Something unfamiliar and foreign.

I didn’t just lust after this woman—I actually cared about her.

I wanted to kill that fucking ex-boss of hers for the way he’d treated her.

And I was pissed at myself for not being more aware of her efforts to talk to me in the past.

My hand still rested beneath her chin, my gaze searching hers. Flickers of gold and copper bounced around those dark, gorgeous eyes. “I see you now, sweetheart.”

“It’s about damn time,” she whispered and then chuckled.

“Agreed. So how about today, we change things up?”

“How so?” she asked.

“We’ll finish the workout back at my place, and then I’m going to shadow you today. I want to spend a day in the life of Brinkley Reynolds.”

She smiled. “What? Why?”

“Because I’ve let you into my life, and I want to see what yours is like.”

“Well, I shadow you most of the day, so that may not be very exciting for you.”

I barked out a laugh. “I want you to do what you’d do if you weren’t working with me.”

“Really?”

“Yes. We’re friends, right? That’s what friends do.”

She nodded. “Okay. Prepare yourself. My days can be very exciting. I don’t know if you can handle it.”

I let my hand drop from her face because the urge to kiss her was too fucking strong. I stepped back and reached for the kayak and helped her climb back in. Then I jumped in myself, tipping us over two more times before we finally figured out how to both get in without falling. I’d laughed my ass off as she’d sputtered water every time we’d tipped over.

We were both soaked by the time we made our way back to my place.

I finished my weight workout and took a quick shower. Brinkley left to catch a shower herself, and then I was on my way over to meet her at her house.

Was I nervous?

I spent every day with this woman.

Why was spending a day in her life any different from what we did every other day?

My phone rang just as I pulled in front of her place, letting me know it was Drew.

“What’s up, brother?”

“Have you been on the internet today? Seen a newspaper?”

“No. I’m in Cottonwood Cove. Nobody here gives a shit about what’s happening out in the real world.” I laughed. I knew Brinkley’s story about where I was going to play wasn’t going to break until the end of the week. She’d made a deal with Sports Today that she would break the story in their magazine, and they’d made it clear they’d like to bring her on full time in the future, as they hoped they would get the complete story that she was writing about me.