Not Suitable for Work by Skye McDonald 💕 Book Blitz & eBook Giveaway 💕 (Contemporary Romance)

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The competition is stiff. The stakes are high. And what happens on Halloween night is definitely not suitable for work.

Celeste Greene and Ben Addison didn’t realize the internship-to-hire opportunity was actually a contest, but neither of these talented web designers can afford to walk away.
After betrayal destroyed her fabulous life in New York City, Celeste moved home to Nashville, Tennessee broke and broken. Restarting her career is her only goal. An ice queen who drove her partner to cheat can’t even think about friends or fun. Celeste’s talent and desperation should make the competition an easy win—if only she could stop gawking at her rival long enough to concentrate.
Ben Addison doesn’t want to be a corporate climber or live in a high-rise downtown. He just needs a steady paycheck after foolishly investing everything in a pretty face and a shot at a music career. He has no business fantasizing about his competitor, even if she is the most stunning—and guarded—woman he’s ever met.

This contest can’t rival the chemistry between these two, but is the risk worth the reward? With a haunting past and her future on the line, Celeste must decide what she wants, what she needs, and what her heart is really worth.

My venom had zero effect on him, and that made everything worse. Determined to save face, I stalked over and stamped my foot. “We are not friends.” Very mature, Celeste.

He snorted and turned to me. “I caught that, thanks.”

“Exactly my point, but you keep teasing me. You—”

Oops.

The light caught his eyes as his pupils grew larger. He dragged his teeth over his lower lip with a long breath, and every nerve in my body tingled. “You think I’m teasing? You don’t get teased often, do you? All we’ve done is talk, but believe me—if you want to be teased, I can do that, too.”

“You think you could tease me?” I thrilled to whisper the tempting word myself.

He smirked, slow and deliberate, his look telling me I’d asked the world’s dumbest question. “Who’s teasing now?”

Tension sizzled between us, undeniable, unprofessional, and exciting. The desire to touch him made me dig my nails into my palms. “Don’t you get it? I’m a jerk, like you said.” I wanted it to be a defense, but the wobble in my voice undermined me.

A low chuckle rumbled in his throat. “I get it. It’s pretty funny.” My brows knitted, and he stepped closer. “There’s no way you’re this much of a jerk by default. You work to make me hate you. Must be exhausting.”

I rubbed my neck. “It’d be a lot less so if you’d get the hint.”

His eyes flicked between mine intently. “I like making you work hard. I think you like working hard, Ms. Greene.”

“I’ll work as hard as I have to.”

“I’m sure you will.” He smiled again. “You know what I see when I look at you? Walls.”

“As well you should.” A decent recovery, given that my tongue was a knot.

He bent to my ear. “I bet behind those walls, you’re not nearly the asshole you pretend to be.” He inhaled deeply, and I nearly fell over, just like when he’d pulled that move at the bar last week. “I’m not afraid of you, Ms. Greene, no matter how hard you bite.”

Good god, I wanted to bite—to twist my head and sink my teeth deep into his bottom lip, to hear him groan when I did—but I clenched my teeth and kept my sanity. Eyes narrowed in what I hoped was an icy glare, I spun around and put several paces between us as I gripped my aching shoulders and dropped my head.

“Are you in pain?”

“That’s not your business,” I grumbled.

His shoes appeared in my line of sight. “Your neck, Celeste. I’m asking if it hurts. You’ve been rubbing it the last two days.”

I glanced up. He wore a neutral expression, but his brow twitched. “Maybe you’d be less of a jerk if you took care of it.”

“Maybe.” I hesitated, unsure if I was crazy to hear the unspoken implication behind his words. “But I tried working it out last night. It still hurts.”

“Hmm. Hold up your hand.” I did, and he mirrored me. “Yeah, see, your hand is small. You probably need someone stronger to do it for you.”

His expression sparked with unveiled amusement, his tone overly concerned, clearly enjoying this game. Meanwhile, my pulse pounded with what felt a lot like fear. We can’t do this. “Are you offering, Benjamin?”

Amusement darkened into something far more potent. He walked behind me. “Only if you’re asking, Celeste.”

My nerves were strung out. I worried I couldn’t speak, or that I’d convulse the moment he made contact, but, good god, I didn’t care.

“It hurts. Can you help?”

Warm, strong hands came to rest on my shoulders. He brushed my hair aside, and I stilled from brain to toes. Nerves and the knots of tension dissolved as his thumbs rubbed circles along my spine. His fingers worked into my shoulders with the perfect amount of strength—the kind of strength and pressure that made it impossible not to think about what else those fingers could do.

“You are melting,” he murmured. “And it is hot.”

Skye spent a lot of her adolescence dreaming about living in a hip, urban town full of adventures that occurred outside of the local mall. (Hers was Rivergate, in case you know Nashville well!) Now that she’s been living away from Nashville for years, the once sleepy Southern city has become just that place, and she returns to visit whenever she can. Her seven-novel-and-growing Anti-Belle series is centered in her hometown, partly as a homage and partly because these days Nashville is too hip to ignore.

In the real world, Skye is an English teacher in Brooklyn, New York, and has lived there long enough to consider herself a true New Yorker—even though she proudly cheers for the Tennessee Vols (her alma mater) and loves being a GRITS (Girl Raised in the South).

Skye's philosophy is to live with your heart and mind open. She believes in the beauty of this world and seeks adventure and joy as a daily practice. If "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans," as John Lennon said, then she'd rather leave the schedule open and let life happen.