Love in the Time of Conversation Hearts (Holidays in Heartsong #1)

B MINE

“May I just mention one more thing about improving the road systems, and then I promise to forever hold my peace?”

I’m not sure what’s more annoying—the fact that he’s bringing this up again, or that he sees me searching my purse for the room key but makes no attempt to retrieve his from the wallet he has stowed in his back pocket.

“I would have let you win if I knew I’d have to endure this.” I finally relent and drop the purse to the ground, crouching beside it to deepen my search.

Adam looms over me, his presence like an unwanted umbrella. “It’s more of a question than a lecture, I promise.”

“Oh, goody.” There! The damn thing had slipped to the very bottom of my bag. I dust off a few crumbs and hold it up to the keypad, which buzzes its approval. With a heavy sigh, I gather my bag and rise to my feet. “Go ahead, if you must.”

He holds the door open for me to enter first, and I politely accept. And by politely, I mean I cock an eyebrow in his direction, then lob my heels one after the other across the room.

Adam clicks his tongue. “So she’s beauty and she’s grace.”

I pause at the edge of the bed, still as a statue. A creeping heat that I blame entirely on my best friend for planting ideas in my head stings my cheeks. He didn’t mean to call me beautiful, surely.

“What was your question?” I croak, keeping my back to him while I wait for my skin to regain its composure.

His footsteps thud against the low-pile carpet, each one carrying him closer. The door snicks closed behind him, sealing all the air out of the room. When he finally stops, he’s so close that it leaves me sweating in my winter coat.

“May I?”

I glance over my shoulder to see that he’s holding out his hands to help me shuck my coat. I let him, though I’m no cooler for it.

He skirts past me, laying first my coat and then his on the chair in the corner of the room. When he turns, the light from the lamp on my side of the bed coats his skin in a yellow glow. I swallow hard, willing myself not to pay the carved hollows of his cheekbones any notice. And failing. Miserably.

“Why does it bother you for me to bring it up? You won the grant, and I fully support that. But of course, it’s something I feel passionately about, just as you feel so strongly that beautification is the way forward. If I’d won, do you think that’s the last you’d have ever mentioned it?”

My lips cinch tightly, forming a flat line of displeasure. He’s got a point. As much as I hate to admit it.

“I don’t like it when you’re right,” I grumble.

The corners of his mouth twitch. His hands move to the buttons at the top of his shirt, which he begins slowly unbuttoning, one by one. “The feeling’s mutual, Cora.”

He’s said my name plenty of times before. Usually disdainfully, or with sarcasm dripping from the vowels like soured honey. I’m not sure if it’s Lauren’s fault for putting the thought in my head, or that heady red wine at dinner, or mine alone—but this time, when he says it, a shiver rips through me. Where did all this painful awareness come from? And how do I make it stop?

“I’m going to shower.” I force the words out, praying they sound steadier than I feel.

He finishes with the shirt and strips it from his shoulders. His white undershirt leaves very little to the imagination. It’s come untucked from his pants, riding up just enough to show a flash of that dark trail of hair. I drag my gaze upward, finding his trained on me with the kind of intensity I’ve always attributed to him. Only this time, it’s turned up to eleven.

“I appreciate that. If you’re going to end up on top of me again, at least you’ll smell good.”

“I was not on top of you!” My jaw slackens. I have to resist the urge to let it hit the floor. There’s an indignant flare of heat burning in my chest, and I let it fuel me. At least I’ll have it to blame for the flush on my cheeks. “And I told you not to bring that up again.”

“Just out of curiosity, how’d they feel?” He quirks a brow and gestures to the washboard of his abs showing through his shirt. “I’ve been working hard in the gym. Would love some feedback.”

I yank my pajamas off the bed and take one step toward the bathroom. “I’m sure you have plenty of women offering you feedback. ”

“Even if that were true,” he says, voice dropping an octave. He takes a step, closing what little distance I’d managed to create. “I don’t want theirs. I want yours.”

He’s teasing me. That’s the only explanation. He lied about not hearing my phone conversation today, and now he’s taunting me because of it. I let out a half-growl, half-whimper kind of thing and march the rest of the way into the bathroom. “You’re insufferable, Adam. You should’ve just admitted you heard me today instead of taunting me like a man-child who gets his rocks off at knowing the coworker who despises him found him attractive for a split second. Don’t worry, you’ve cured me.”

I go to slam the door behind me, but it slaps into something solid. Adam’s hand, I realize. He crossed the room in a flash and caught the door, and now he’s staring at me with a wild yet cautious look in his eyes. “I’m sorry, did you just say you found me attractive?”

“Just stop, all right. I know you were listening to my conversation. The jig is up. Now get out so I can shower and forget this day ever happened.” I have nothing else at my disposal, so I throw my pajamas at him. The cotton slaps him pathetically in the chest then lands on the floor in an unceremonious heap.

He stands so still that for a moment he looks more like a stone carving than a man. Hands braced on the doorframe, jaw taut, gaze boring through me. I wring my hands at my waist, because I’ve thrown the only thing I had to hold onto.

“Cora, can you please explain to me in great detail what exactly you said on the phone today? Because, despite what you think, I didn’t eavesdrop. But now I’m desperately wishing I had.”

My stomach has grown so hollow that when my heart drops into it, the thud reverberates through my whole body. “You didn’t hear what I said to Lauren?”

He pushes off the doorframe and steps into my space. I focus on the cold tile beneath my feet, the fluorescent light flickering overhead. Anything but his face. Or, God forbid, his body.

“Not a word of it. So please, enlighten me.”

There’s true longing in his voice. Raw desperation. Like whatever I may say could hold the key to his deepest desires. I’m not sure if it’s Lauren’s words playing tricks on my mind, but when I dare to meet his gaze at last, she’s fucking right. His eyes are glinting.

“I, uh, may have admitted to being attracted to you. But it’s like a stomach bug. Or too many burritos. You know. It’ll pass.”

He presses his lips together to keep from smiling. I can tell by the way his eyes crinkle at the corners. “I’m not so convinced.”

“She said you like me,” I blurt out. I’m immediately chastising myself internally, but there’s nothing I can do now. The words are out there, echoing against the overly fancy herringbone tile on the shower walls.

“And did you believe her?”

“No,” I say too quickly. After a frantic heartbeat, I add, “Though your lack of rapid denial has me questioning things.”

“Good. I want you to question them.” He lets his gaze rove over me. I feel its path distinctly, from the way my throat burns to the tingles in my toes when he finally makes it there. My olive pantsuit is nowhere near as fancy as the dress I wore last night, but I like to think it hugs my curves in all the right places. From the look on his face, it would seem Adam agrees.

Logic tugs at my brain, holding me back from the brink of a full-blown spiral. “What are you doing? What are we doing? We’re coworkers, for fuck’s sake. This is a very bad idea.”

His spine straightens. He’s cool and calculated when he meets my eyes. Nothing like the inferno of lust filling me inside.

“Cora, I would never ask you to do something you weren’t fully on board with. I’m a lover of enthusiastic consent. But if you want this…” He licks his lips like he can’t help it. Like whatever this is, and I’m beginning to get some ideas, it is irresistibly delectable. “We are two grown adults. We work together, not for each other. There is nothing in the employee handbook that says this is off limits.”

A rush of breath leaves my lungs vacant and yearning. But I don’t want any more air that doesn’t smell of spice and man. That doesn’t taste like Adam. “They made you sign a handbook?”

His laugh is tight. “That’s the part you latched onto?”

I nod. Just a little jut of the chin, but it’s all I can manage.

“If you want me, I need you to say it out loud.” He locks eyes with me, the normally smoky haze of his irises suddenly impenetrable. “If you want me out of this room right this instant, say the word, and I’ll go.”

I draw in a breath so short it barely fuels the words I need to say. “What happens if I want you to stay?”

I watch as the column of his throat works through those words. The corner of his mouth ticks upward in a wicked grin, and he takes a step closer before catching my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Then I’m going to kiss you.”

“In the bathroom?” I squeak.

His lips bend into a half-smile. “Unless you have any other ideas.”

“No, no. The bathroom’s good.”

“Is that a yes, Cora?”

My lashes flutter. Every inhale is laced with him. The cologne that warms me from the inside out as well as the scent that is all him, all Adam. I want to curl into him like a cat and purr. With the way I’m arching toward him, I already practically am.

Am I really going to do this? Do him? The man I’ve despised since the day we met?

No, not despised. The truth is, Adam challenges me. And I challenge him right back. It’s why, despite our teasing, we work so well together.

I bet we’d work really well together in other ways, too.

“You’re killing me,” he says with a groan.

“It’s a yes,” I let out on a sigh. “An enthusiastic yes.”

A hum vibrates his chest. “My favorite kind.”

And then, without a second more of hesitation, Adam Sullivan sweeps his arms around me and hoists me onto the countertop. Then he captures my gasp with his lips.