Chapter 6Oh my god. I have a thing for Miller. #2
What am I fucking saying? I’m just all screwy in the head from that asshole Rock. Miller’s just a concerned coworker. After all, Atti is concerned too.
“What happened?” he asks. The weight of his hand on mine sets off some series of reactions inside me; a flurry of nerves in my belly, my spinning heart… and… my clit pulsing in my panties, swelling and aching.
For Miller.
“I’m fine,” I say, sliding my hand out from under him. This is too much out of nowhere. This isn’t real. This is “ am I doing this right for my future wife? ” and yeah, maybe that's what I agreed to. But just for confidence. Not for all these other things.
This is too much.
“I believe you’re fine. I just wanted to know what happened,” Miller says slowly, watching my face process each and every syllable. He’s paying me such close attention, and I don’t know why I don’t just tell him what happened with Rock.
That’s a lie.
I know why.
I view Miller as someone above me. Out of my league, out of my pay grade. I’m quirky, curly-haired, curvy me, and he looks like he’s about to lift his shirt, turn to the camera, give a thumbs up and say, “thanks, NutriBullet.” Seriously.
And I tend to have a little attitude. The girl with the attitude punching someone? I nearly shiver with cringe at the thought. That’s not who I want to be known as, especially not to a guy like Miller.
“I just don’t want to talk about it right now, though, okay?”
He tugs on the bill of his cap. I love his hair, but he always wears a hat at work.
Occasionally he’ll take it off and run his fingers through all that thick silk he’s hiding up there.
I liken his hair color to strawberries on the vine in the utmost sunshine.
Mostly golden but laced with light red. It’s gorgeous.
I love that after a few days of not shaving, a reddish blonde stubble takes over the strong curve of his jaw, making him look… very good.
Oh my god.
I have a thing for Miller.
“Okay. Will you have lunch with me, though?”
I nod, wishing his offer was something physical I could grab and hold close. “Yes. Then we can plan tonight.”
He looks puzzled but not necessarily in a bad way. Happy puzzled. “I thought we weren’t getting together until closer to the end of the week?”
I wiggle my head. “Well, the next few days are busy, and I just never expected a date on a Monday.” I stop myself, and correct course before my cheeks get hot. “Not a date, but, you know, a lesson thing.”
“Lesson thing,” Miller nods, wearing that crooked grin that suddenly makes my body burn a bit brighter.
“But I need a distraction tonight.” I pause and wince a little. “That sounded like a bad line from a 90’s soap.”
He shrugs. “Don’t know. Never seen a soap. ”
I pull my head back a little, shocked. “Seriously?”
He nods with another casual shrug. “Yeah. I’m catching up on TV and movies now but still haven’t seen a lot of it.” His smile is so effortless and genuine. “I don’t have much else to do, so yeah, I’m catching up.”
I like the idea of Miller not having much else to do. I like it a lot.
“What time can I come over?” I ask, a little ashamed of my lack of humility.
The smile is back, and my toes curl in my sneakers. “Anytime. I get home, well, you know when I get home. I leave here at five.”
I want to touch him, but it’s not appropriate. Instead, I smack his chest playfully. “I gotta eat dinner first. And grab the MB.”
His head jerks up in a sudden nod. “Yeah, we’ll need that.”
I arch an eyebrow at him playfully, but my heart pumps fast as he grins down at me. Why are we grinning at each other? Ugh. “You didn’t forget you owe me something, too, did you?” He totally did.
“Yep,” he nods. “I did. I was just thinking about what you’re going to teach me.”
I think of the heroine of the novel I’m listening to. She’s never one to run out of ideas. And she rebuilds men. That’s kind of what I’m doing with Miller, right? Rebuilding him into a strong, more confident version of himself?
I can’t even believe he’s lacking confidence. He has all the attributes to be arrogant, yet he needs me to show him basic female interaction.
Suddenly, I have an image of Miller trying as hard as he can to hold back an orgasm, and it makes my lower half burn. Imagining him having an orgasm is… new to me and so mething I like very much. So much so that I would not pass a dry panties test right now.
The idea for tonight comes easily; I’ll tease him. It was hot when I heard it.
“Likewise. My mom’s drive shaft needs replacing.” I smile and so does he. The way we ping-pong between what feels like flirtatiousness and then back to friendly playfulness so easily is… nice. “Text me your address.” I pull my phone from my pocket and hand it to him.
He laughs, and I hadn’t noticed the depth of his voice until now. It sounds like it comes from somewhere deep and dark, yet he’s so light and kind. It makes me tingle, wondering where else that dark side might be able to come out one day.
“I have your number, Laney. We’ve texted before.”
“Oh.” I’m puzzled. I wrack my brain as I shove my phone away. “Really?”
His face droops a little, like snow beginning to melt. “Yeah. A couple of times. It’s cool.” He gets his phone out and starts doing something on it. “I’ll text you.”
“Thanks.” A moment later, my phone buzzes. I look down, and sure enough, his name appears on my screen. “There you are.”
“Told you,” he says, smiling despite the fact that I’ve just proven myself to have not really thought about him at all until now.
And I’m about to apologize, but he snags a set of keys from the drawer and heads out front.
“See you at lunch,” he calls over his shoulder.
I watch him slide into the courtesy car out front, and then all I’m left with are taillights and confusion.
I don’t have a second to think because Atti is back.
“Tell me now that he’s gone,” he growls, leaning toward me, the countertop squealing under the weight of his upper body as he pressures me with his close proximity.
“Jesus, back up, Atti. I don’t know how Goldie puts up with you,” I groan, attempting to shove him away, but because he’s like a trillion pounds of hair and muscle, he doesn’t budge.
He does, however, take two steps back. Still, he’s close enough that I know he had cream in his coffee this morning. “I can smell your breakfast.”
“Well, take long enough tellin’ me what happened and you’ll get to smell me digestin’ breakfast, too.”
I shake my head. “You’re so gross.”
“Everyone is gross,” he deadpans. “Now explain the knuckles.”
Sighing, I turn toward him on my stool and start.
“You know how Mara does karate, right?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose with two filthy fingertips. “Here we go.”
“Here we go, what?” I question because he’s the one forcing me to tell him.
“Women always start their stories, like, five years before the event.” His hand drops to the Plexi as he refocuses his attention on me, face stoic.
I push a finger into his chest. “This is part of the story.”
“Just keep tellin’ it.”
“Anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him because, god he’s getting on my nerves today.
He’s like a bossy older brother I never had and never really wanted.
“She’s been doing it for years. So I've been going there for years, you know, to watch her competitions and practices and stuff.”
He rolls a finger forward, and I want to sock him in his face, but my hand can’t take another blow.
“I’m getting there, Jesus Atti.” I huff a little, irritation causing me to perspire. But I’d rather be rage-sweating than PTSD-sweating, so I guess I have Atti to thank for that. “Since I’m here and there and basically nowhere else, my contact with single guys is obviously a little light.”
“ Obviously .”
“So last year, I dated one of the karate instructors from Mara’s studio. He wasn’t her instructor, and thankfully he won’t ever be, but anyway, I only saw him a handful of times over the course of two months.” I tip my head forward and drop my voice. “He was a complete dud.”
“Obviously.”
“Why is that obvious?” I put my hands on my hips, defensive over my bad choices. I can call them bad, but I don’t need Atti calling them bad; he’s only been happy for a millisecond.
“Because you’re single,” he offers slowly, still deadpan.
“Oh.” Yeah, that makes sense. “Well, anyway. He still wants to date, I guess. But the reason I called it off aside from the fact that he was a complete dead-end was that… he wasn’t a good listener.”
Atti arches a brow, wordlessly commanding the details.
I shift on my feet as my nerves come alive a little. “He didn’t like hearing no.” Before Atti gets the wrong message, I hold up my palm in the universal sign for halt. “He took the no but didn’t like it. So I called it off.”
Atti’s face softens a little and his demeanor shifts. “Good girl, Laney.”
I smile, but it’s short-lived. “Anyway, he was getting handsy at Mara’s practice competition Saturday morning.
I mean, nothing crazy because we were in a studio full of people, but still, he was handsy, and the last time I saw him, he made a comment about my body that was totally creepy and rude.
So this time, putting his grubby hands on me after I told him no…
I just… snapped.” I take a moment to calmly replay what happened with Rock and feel the need to alter my words.
“I panicked, I think. I’d gone to the lobby for a drink from the fountain, and I was alone, and he found me, and he just…
I didn’t know what else to do, so I hauled off and socked him.
” I think about how shaken up I felt over the weekend and how hard it’s been to hide my healing hand from my family.
“Where’d ya get ‘em?”
I tap my eye. “Eyeball.”
Atticus extends a fist for me to bump, and I do. “Good girl, Laney.”
“You’re not going to tell me it was stupid?”