I realize we’re still shaking hands, and his eyes are taking me in. “Uh, Shannon. Shannon Jacoby. Nice to meet you.” I find my voice.
He looks around the room and bursts out laughing, a flash of straight white teeth and a jaw I want to nuzzle making me inhale sharply. That laugh is the sound of extraordinary want entering my body, taking up residence low in my belly, and now waiting for a chance to pick china patterns and paint colors to really consider itself at home.
Go away, want. I’ve banished you.
Want ignores me and settles in, cleaning out the cobwebs that have taken up residence where I used to allow desire and hope and arousal to live.
Squatter.
“Shannon, this has to be the strangest way I’ve ever met a woman.” One corner of his mouth curls up in a sexy little smile, like we’re on a beach drinking alcohol out of coconuts carved by Cupid and not in a ratty old bathroom with a fluorescent tube light that starts buzzing like a nest of mosquitoes at an outdoor blood bank.
“You don’t get around much, then,” I say. My toes start to curl as my body fights to contain the wellspring of attraction that is unfurling inside me. No. Just…no. I can’t let myself feel this. You spend enough time trying not to feel something and all that work gets thrown away with one single flush.
He does that polite laugh thing, eyes narrowing. I decide to just stare openly and catalog him right back. Brown hair, clipped close, in a style that can only come at the hands of the owner of a very expensive salon. The bluish-gray suit, textured and smooth at the same time, shimmering and flat as well under the twitchy light. Skin kissed by the sun but also a bit too light, as if he used to spend a lot of time outdoors but hasn’t recently.
A body like a tall tennis player’s, or a golfer’s, and not my dad with his pot-bellied buddies getting in a round of nine holes at 4 p.m. just so they can have an excuse to drink their dinner. Declan is tall and sleek, confident and self-possessed. He moves like a lion, knowing the territory and owning it.
Always aware of any movement that interests him.
I’m 5’ 9” and he’s taller than me by at least half a foot. Tall girls always do a mental check: could I wear high heels with him? Steve hated when I wore high heels, because it put me eye-to-eye with him.
“What are you doing in the men’s room?” he asks, smirking at me.
#3:
We are in the financial district of Boston, where people like me notice the nearest Starbucks or Boloco, but folks like the vice president for marketing at Anterdec notice which building has a helipad for helicopter landings.
Three suited men are turned away from us as we enter, their heads huddled in discussion. One head is gray, two are brown.
No women. Of course.
“Advantage already. No women,” Greg whispers in my ear. He is the opposite of sexist. He pays all of us, male or female, the same crappy salary.
The office is gorgeous. I’d expected a sleek, black and gray glassed room overlooking the building across the narrow road; the financial district isn’t close enough to the water for everyone to get their sliver of a view of the ocean.
But this. We are on the twenty-second floor and the window looks out over a rooftop terrace next door, covered with topiary filled with…PacMan?
“Is that a PacMan maze on that rooftop, or am I nuts?” I whisper to Amanda, who stifles a giggle.
“Big video-game development company next door. Their IPO just happened. I hear one of the perks of working there is that they deworm your dog or cat on site while you work.”
I open my mouth to say something back, when the three men turn and stand, facing us.
My mouth remains open.
One of the men is Declan McCormick.
His eyes meet mine and five different emotions roil through that chiseled jaw, those sharp eyes, that sun-kissed skin. Most of them are scandalous. All of them make my toes curl.
And then his face spreads with the hottest, warmest, most mischievous smile I have ever seen on a man who has taken over my damn senses, and he says:
“Toilet Girl!”
He looks around the room and bursts out laughing, a flash of straight white teeth and a jaw I want to nuzzle making me inhale sharply. That laugh is the sound of extraordinary want entering my body, taking up residence low in my belly, and now waiting for a chance to pick china patterns and paint colors to really consider itself at home.
Go away, want. I’ve banished you.
Want ignores me and settles in, cleaning out the cobwebs that have taken up residence where I used to allow desire and hope and arousal to live.
Squatter.
“Shannon, this has to be the strangest way I’ve ever met a woman.” One corner of his mouth curls up in a sexy little smile, like we’re on a beach drinking alcohol out of coconuts carved by Cupid and not in a ratty old bathroom with a fluorescent tube light that starts buzzing like a nest of mosquitoes at an outdoor blood bank.
“You don’t get around much, then,” I say. My toes start to curl as my body fights to contain the wellspring of attraction that is unfurling inside me. No. Just…no. I can’t let myself feel this. You spend enough time trying not to feel something and all that work gets thrown away with one single flush.
He does that polite laugh thing, eyes narrowing. I decide to just stare openly and catalog him right back. Brown hair, clipped close, in a style that can only come at the hands of the owner of a very expensive salon. The bluish-gray suit, textured and smooth at the same time, shimmering and flat as well under the twitchy light. Skin kissed by the sun but also a bit too light, as if he used to spend a lot of time outdoors but hasn’t recently.
A body like a tall tennis player’s, or a golfer’s, and not my dad with his pot-bellied buddies getting in a round of nine holes at 4 p.m. just so they can have an excuse to drink their dinner. Declan is tall and sleek, confident and self-possessed. He moves like a lion, knowing the territory and owning it.
Always aware of any movement that interests him.
I’m 5’ 9” and he’s taller than me by at least half a foot. Tall girls always do a mental check: could I wear high heels with him? Steve hated when I wore high heels, because it put me eye-to-eye with him.
“What are you doing in the men’s room?” he asks, smirking at me.
#3:
We are in the financial district of Boston, where people like me notice the nearest Starbucks or Boloco, but folks like the vice president for marketing at Anterdec notice which building has a helipad for helicopter landings.
Three suited men are turned away from us as we enter, their heads huddled in discussion. One head is gray, two are brown.
No women. Of course.
“Advantage already. No women,” Greg whispers in my ear. He is the opposite of sexist. He pays all of us, male or female, the same crappy salary.
The office is gorgeous. I’d expected a sleek, black and gray glassed room overlooking the building across the narrow road; the financial district isn’t close enough to the water for everyone to get their sliver of a view of the ocean.
But this. We are on the twenty-second floor and the window looks out over a rooftop terrace next door, covered with topiary filled with…PacMan?
“Is that a PacMan maze on that rooftop, or am I nuts?” I whisper to Amanda, who stifles a giggle.
“Big video-game development company next door. Their IPO just happened. I hear one of the perks of working there is that they deworm your dog or cat on site while you work.”
I open my mouth to say something back, when the three men turn and stand, facing us.
My mouth remains open.
One of the men is Declan McCormick.
His eyes meet mine and five different emotions roil through that chiseled jaw, those sharp eyes, that sun-kissed skin. Most of them are scandalous. All of them make my toes curl.
And then his face spreads with the hottest, warmest, most mischievous smile I have ever seen on a man who has taken over my damn senses, and he says:
“Toilet Girl!”
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Book sounds great! Good luck on your tour! 💕
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to reading the series! Thanks for the chance ♥️
ReplyDeleteThis looks like such a fun & enjoyable read! Congrats on the tour!
ReplyDelete