Shade(91)

“Fine. The doctor said it was healed.”

“When does school start back?”

“In a month.”

“How many classes are you taking?”

“Four. They’re pretty simple ones. I already completed the coursework in my major area. The only courses I have left are just to give me enough credits to graduate.”

Shade continued eating his food silently. He almost grinned, relieved her college days were almost over.

Clearing her throat, she played with the food on her plate. “I know you and Razer are friends, and I appreciate the club giving me a job for the summer, but I—you don’t have to eat lunch with me every day, Shade. I can eat outside with the rest of the workers.” She released a deep breath, as if she was proud of herself for getting through the obviously rehearsed speech.

“Don’t you want to eat lunch with me?” Shade questioned, his gaze steady on her. He wanted her to learn to be honest with him about her emotions.

“No. Yes. I don’t want you to feel like you have to keep me company because of Razer and Beth being your friends.”

“Do I seem to be the type to do anything I don’t want to?”

“No.”

“Good, then that’s settled.” Let’s see her get out of this one.

Unless she came out and said she didn’t want to eat lunch with him, she was stuck, and Lily hated hurting anyone’s feelings. The beautiful woman didn’t understand he didn’t have any feelings to hurt.

After asking about job applications, Shade took a step further and insulted Lily’s lack of taking care of herself and getting into situations that could have gotten her seriously hurt, or even killed. He was setting her up and she was falling right into his trap.

“I can take care of myself just fine,” Lily snapped.

“You could if I taught you how,” Shade said, leaning back in his chair.

“What? How?”

“I could teach you self-defense. That is, unless you change your mind about being a social worker.”

“I’ll make a good social worker. I—”

“Good, that’s settled. Monday, when you come to work, bring some workout clothes. I’ll work with you an hour every day at the end of your shift.”

“But—”

“If you’re finished, could you ask Train to come here?” He wasn’t going to give her an attempt to get out of his trap.

Lily stood up, going out the door and closing it behind her. Train came in his office minutes later.

“What’s up?”

“I want to know why the orders to Darrel Finley were late.” Shade hated managing the factory, but Viper had asked repeatedly for him to take on the position full-time, and if he took the job on, he was going to do it right.

Train pointed to the spreadsheet, explaining the difficulty in getting some of the products on time for the shipment due to the high volume of orders. For the next hour, they talked over which items to increase production of.#p#分页标题#e#

When they finished, Rider came in, leaving his door open as Train left. Rider gave him the spreadsheet of the orders which had been filled for the day, then talked about the new bike he was thinking of buying as they waited for Lily to finish her last order.

As they saw Lily struggling to place the large order in the mail cart, Rider stood and said, “I’ll go help her.”

“Let her do it. She needs to regain her strength in that arm.”

Rider nodded before going outside to wait while Lily cleaned down her workstation.

Meticulously cleaning his desk, he saw the time. Closing the desk drawer, he stood and stretched, loosening his taut muscles.

Going to the door, he saw Lily reaching down to pick up a pair of scissors. Her perfect bottom pointing in his direction had him wanting to stride across the room to bend her over the table and fuck her from behind.

When she turned at feeling his gaze on her, her fingertips grazed over the red rubber band on her wrist; however, she was smart enough not to snap it with him watching. Anytime she felt sexual interest, she would go for the fucking rubber band. In a sense, it was a tell, showing when she was feeling desire she didn’t want to feel, because it frightened her.

Her trembling hands smoothed down her knee-length dress instead, and Shade almost praised her, though he didn’t think she would appreciate it. Yet.

“I’m done for the day, Shade.” Her eyes avoided his, going to Rider who was sitting on one of the tables nearby.

The other factory workers had left over a half hour before, yet her speed hadn’t increased by much since her cast had been removed earlier in the week. Beth had told him it would take time for her to regain the dexterity and strength she’d had before.