Before she can question me, I say, “I was bored this morning.”
Nervously, she takes a seat and sets down her plate. After she fixes her napkin on her lap, she glances up at me and says, “Thank you for breakfast.”
“Sure,” I answer and kick my feet up on the chair next to me. I can feel her eyes still on me when I’m opening my protein bar. When I finally look up, I ask, “Can I help you?”
“I’m just confused, is all. It seemed like you were mad at me last night and now you made me breakfast . . . I don’t know how to process this.”
“I wasn’t mad at you last night.”
“You threatened me.”
“Jesus Christ.” I roll my eyes. “That wasn’t a threat, more like . . . a warning.”
“So, you warned me last night. And if that’s the case, then maybe I should warn you.”
This should be good.
“Okay, what do you need to warn me about?”
“Well . . . you shouldn’t be walking around without a shirt on.”
“Uh-huh,” I drag out. “And what’s going to happen to me if I do?”
She stabs a forkful of eggs. “You don’t want to know.”
“I do, actually. I really want to know.”
“Fine.” She shrugs. “If you walk around without a shirt on, I will too.”
A loud laugh escapes me. “And you consider that a punishment?” I glance down at my bare chest and back at her. “My shirt is off now, so please, Kelsey, go ahead and punish me. Strip out of that starchy blouse of yours. Show me the good stuff.”
“Ugh.” She rolls her eyes. “Why are you so insufferable? I’m just trying to make things comfortable for us, but you’re either angry, teasing me, or . . . well . . . you know.”
“I don’t know. Please finish that sentence.”
She pins me with a glare. “You’re . . . well, touching me intimately.”
“That was barely touching you last night. And correct me if I’m wrong, but you seemed to like it . . . a lot.”
“I was faking it.”
That makes me nearly spit out my coffee. “Babe, I tasted you off your finger last night. You can’t fake that.”
“Don’t call me babe.” She scoops up some beans. “Can we just be friends?”
“What did I tell you about workplace friendships?”
“That was some load of bullshit. I’m friends with Huxley and Breaker. So don’t tell me I can’t be friends with you. You just don’t want to be friend-zoned because you want in my pants.”
I smirk at that. “I do want in your pants.”
Her eyes flash to mine as her cheeks blush. Flustered, she says, “Well, that’s not an option for you. So, why don’t we just put that behind us and move on? We can be friends. It’s simple. We just need to do friendly type of things.”
Interested, I ask, “Okay, what are friendly type of things?”
“I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, but—oh, we could go sightseeing.”
“Why does that sound not the least bit interesting to me?”
“It’s totally a friend thing to do. You’ve been here before, clearly, so why don’t we do that after I’m done with my last meeting? You could show me around. I can take pictures in all the obvious places. It could be fun and we could get to know each other.”
“It doesn’t sound fun to me.”
“JP!” she shouts, surprising me. “Stop being difficult, and for the love of God, just go sightseeing with me. Good God.”
Chuckling, I nod. “Okay, no need to get all riled up. We can go sightseeing, but I’ll tell you this—I’ll be a bastard the whole time.”
“It wouldn’t be an evening out with you if you weren’t.” She dabs her mouth with her napkin. “My last meeting is at two today. After I get back, I’ll change, and then we can hit the town. How does that sound?”
“Like a nightmare.” I tilt my coffee cup toward her. “Can’t wait.” Then I stand from my chair and, with coffee cup and protein bar in hand, I head toward my room, only to stop midway. “Kelsey?”
“Yes?” she asks, fork poised near her mouth.
“Just so you know, you can act like we’re friends all you want, but know this . . . I can still taste your sweet cunt on my tongue.”
And then, with a smile on my face, I turn away from her and head into my bedroom. This is exactly what I needed, some more alone time with her. Now, let’s see if I can keep my sarcasm toned down when that happens.