“Sweet,” he said, pressing soft lips to her hot temple.
Somewhere on the wall a clock ticked, the second hand going tock-tock-tock. Rebecca’s breath gusted out on a reluctant sigh. With every tock, sanity returned.
“Sorry,” she said. “I swear I didn’t sleep with you so you’d give me the job.”
Trey pushed back slightly to look at her. “I swear I didn’t sleep with you so you’d take it.”
He sounded annoyed. In her experience, guys who just came were in good moods. “Are you angry?” she asked.
“Are you really sorry?” he retorted.
“Well, that was enjoyable—as I’m sure you noticed, but if you’re planning to hire me, you have to agree it wasn’t smart. Bosses and employees shouldn’t sleep together.”
His expression was a study in irritation, perhaps because he couldn’t dispute her point. “Damn it,” was all he finally said.
Taking this as her cue, Rebecca pushed gently off of him. Her shoes were halfway across the kitchen, her trousers caught on the edge of a lowboy refrigeration drawer. Shoving her legs back in them, she did her best to hide her disappointment that he didn’t argue more. Calling what they’d done enjoyable was an understatement, to say the least.
She took comfort in him muttering to himself as he stood and yanked up his pants. The word idiot peppered his diatribe.
He waited to speak to her until she was buttoning her shirt. She noticed he’d smoothed his hair back into its ponytail.
“I am hiring you,” he said grimly.
Rebecca’s heart gave a little skip. “Truly?”
“Truly. Full pay from the start and no arguments. I—” He paused to grind his teeth. “I reluctantly agree we shouldn’t do that again.”
She smiled in spite of herself. Reluctantly agreeing was sweet of him.
~
Watching Rebecca dress in her borderline frumpy clothes was an exercise in frustration. Could Trey have backed himself into a worse corner? After all those years of fantasizing, now he knew how amazing real sex with Rebecca was . . . and he’d conceded they shouldn’t do it again. She was right of course. Sex in the workplace led to messiness and complications—neither of which he’d have shied from if his workplace weren’t already complicated from loving Zane.
One quickie with her on a cold hard floor had worsened his longing by a gazillion times. He couldn’t wish it hadn’t happened; he wasn’t smart enough for that. He did wish it hadn’t been quite as earthshaking.
There was something between them, some out of the ordinary emotional chemistry. Trey was willing to bet she’d never come like that with another man. Her eyes in those final moments had been too damned surprised.
When she laid her head on his shoulder, he’d nearly asked her to marry him.
Knowing he’d lost his mind for certain, he handed her the thick-soled shoes he’d taken from her earlier. While it was true restaurant work kept people on their feet, surely she could do better. Telling himself not to be a fashion snob didn’t kill his urge to toss them in the trash.
“Thanks,” she said. Dropping the hideous things to the floor, she braced on the worktop to push her cute feet into them. He’d rushed through stripping her, though he had noticed her legs were nice—lent charm by muscles as well as curves. He was sorry they’d disappeared into her uninspired black trousers. Honestly, she had to be trying to look dowdy.
“Do you even own a dress?” he blurted.
She straightened and looked at him pinchily. “I don’t see how that’s your business.”
It might be his business. Being named The Lounge’s executive chef could conceivably involve a photo op or two.
He clamped his mouth on the words. Being in the right wasn’t always strategic. “I’ll have Elaine email you a contract to look over.”
“Elaine is your assistant?”
“Yes.” Stubbornly, he didn’t pass Rebecca her tan jacket—yet another supremely boring garment—but held it up for her. Though she grimaced at him playing gentleman, she turned and slid her arms into it.
When she would have moved away, he dropped his hands to her shoulders, once again as tense as before they’d worked out their kinks on the kitchen floor.
“Don’t be sorry about this,” he said, his frustration creeping into his tone. “If you’d just eaten a great meal, you wouldn’t regret it afterward.”
She turned to him, and he let her. Her features were delicate—extra pretty with flushes from sex and kissing staining them. Ten heaps of boring clothes couldn’t hide that her lips were luscious, her elfin hair improved by tousling. Clearly ignorant of her gorgeousness, she cocked her head to one side. “You’re not sorry for what we did?”