Hostile Takeover by Hill, W (best novels to read for students .TXT) 📕

of his club subs, or some trainee groupie so overwhelmed by him she’d be driven away by that formidable exterior. Be who you are. Jon’s voice was in her ears, giving her enough courage to really fuck this up.

“When my brothers and sisters were little, you acted like a clown with them, wrestling, playing games. Matt and all of you took us to carnivals, ren faires, things like that. They loved it. But in your own life, you don’t really go for relaxed fun, do you? I mean, you go out with the K&A guys, drink, do the male-bonding thing, but have you ever gone to a carnival and held your girlfriend’s hand? You seem really focused on your career, the next goal, the next project. You play hard, but you don’t play fun.”

He raised a brow. “Is this based on your burgeoning career as my stalker?”

“You’re not denying it.”

“I’ve never had a girlfriend, Marcie.”

Noah returned then to top off their wine, give them the status on their dinners. His hair was smoothed once again, his lips no longer glistening with her juices, but it was impossible not to remember what he’d been doing to her during the appetizer course. He gave her a slow smile when their eyes met, but he deferred to Ben on whether they required anything else at the moment, not asking her preferences. He knew how this game was played as well, and it was as distracting as all the rest of it.

But she wouldn’t be distracted from this. No girlfriend. Thirty-two and he’d never sought a long-term relationship with anyone but the men with whom he worked. Even the women with whom the society column paired him for short durations were superficial, brief hook-ups with physical benefits for them both.

His mother had abandoned him in an alley outside a church when he was three, old enough to remember her. After that, he’d been in and out of foster-care situations, most of them bad, as if he’d been born with an unlucky star over his head. Before he hit puberty, he was on the street. It was then that star finally changed. He’d picked Jonas Kensington’s pocket and gotten caught in the act by Matt’s savvy father.

Even though things got better for him after that, his childhood hadn’t been the kind where he kissed the pretty girl in his third grade class by the monkey bars, or hoped someone would ask him to the Sadie Hawkins dance in middle school.

She cocked her head, making sure her face didn’t reflect the compassion she felt toward that boy. The man before her didn’t need pity, not like that. He’d overcome, made something of himself, yet it had come at a cost. The cost was the wall she kept hitting, she knew that. She didn’t have a psychology degree, only her intuition and her determination that she could love him like no one else—if he would just let her.

“I’ll be your girlfriend then,” she said lightly. “You can take me to a carnival. We can share a broken coin necklace, pass notes during work. I’ll even take you to prom. If you promise to put out. Won’t be worth my time otherwise.”

Crossing his arms to lean on the table, he considered her at an intimate distance. The curve of those lips, the warmth that entered his gaze, eased some of her trepidation that she was treading dangerous waters. “What kind of notes would you pass me at work? Ones with Xs and Os, a lipstick mark pressed to the paper?”

She gave him an arch look. He hadn’t let her bring her wallet, but she’d balked at not bringing some toiletries. Fishing her lipstick out of her small bag, she freshened her lips, cognizant of the way he watched the soft give of her mouth against the color. Then she pressed it to one of the extra napkins Noah had left by the bread basket. Pulling out a pen, she put a couple Xs and Os around it with a flourish and pushed it over to him. “There. We’ll have to do the coin thing another time.” She paused. “Do you still have the collar you took off me?”

“Do you want it back?”

“Yes, but only if you’re putting it on me.” She raised her chin.

“Not our agreement.” His impassive expression returned and he sat back to sip his wine once more.

She pressed her moist lips together. She couldn’t make this dinner about that. So she looked over the potted plants to gaze at the mural painted on the building across the street. It was of a trio of black musicians, blue and white dogs dancing around them. As whimsical as it was, her eye was caught by something much closer, on the rail, screened by the fern. “Ben, look.”

He leaned forward. She started to rise to shift out of his view, but his firm touch on her elbow kept her sitting, reminding her of her exposed state from the waist down. Instead, he stood to look over her shoulder as she twisted around for a better view.

It was a pair of bright green salamanders. They’d been mating, or perhaps still were, because their lower bodies were connected. The much larger male was curled around the female in a tranquil, resting state, limbs and tails twined. Their tiny pulses rose and fell in their throats, and they seemed somnolent, relaxed.

“It’s like they’re spooning,” Marcie said, keeping her tone quiet, not wanting to startle them. “Aren’t they lovely?”

“Only you would notice that.”

“No. You would have too. I was just blocking your view of them.” She was aware of his chest pressed against her shoulder blade, his lips close to her ear. When she turned her head, they were close to her own mouth. She glanced up. “Kiss me, Ben. Please?”

Curling her hair around her ear, he studied her face. Then he bent, teasing her mouth with his own. When she sighed into his mouth, he turned it into a warm, lazy