I narrow my eyes at him as I realize he might be crazy enough to imagine I’m game for those kinds of shenanigans. If he even thinks about attacking me, I’m going to smash him over the head with my laptop and then make him buy me a new one. What’s his name again?
“Dev,” says the guy, as if he’s read my mind. Giant strides that would take a normal guy twice as much effort put him in front of me in seconds. “You must be Jenny. You look just like your sister.”
His smile is disarming, especially with that dimple he has on the right side and those sparkling blue eyes to back it up. And that body . . . damn. Now this guy . . . he’s my type. I can feel my face flush all over again as I realize just how cute he actually is. And big. His hands are huge. They look to be about the size of my dinner plates. The lonely single woman part of my brain takes over and wonders if certain other parts of his body are also proportional to his height, and I strain to keep my eyes above hip-level.
I have to tip my head back to see his face as he stops in front of me, which is way better than staring at his crotch. Holy sexy time. I hold my hand out automatically to shake his, and he responds by rubbing his palm up and down on his leg.
“I’m really sweaty.”
I take my hand back and rest it on my chest. So much for sexy time. “That’s okay. It’s nice to meet you.” Sweaty hands the size of dinner plates? No thank you, not unless I’m also hot and naked.
Crap, did I just really think that? How embarrassing. He’s introducing himself in his place of business, and I’m undressing him with my eyes. Talk about unprofessional. May will never ask me to freelance for her boyfriend’s company again if I don’t get control of myself. Maybe I should buy a dildo.
There are droplets of sweat all over his head, slowly dripping down the side of his face. He’s completely bald, so the effect is pretty impressive; it’s both gross and sexy at the same time. He has sweatbands on his wrists, and he uses one of them to wipe the salty water out of his eyes. It’s then that I notice he doesn’t have eyebrows either. Why I find that even sexier is a mystery to me. Dammit. Dildo it is.
“You here to help us out with the Blue Marine case?” he asks.
I shrug, glad to have someone here thinking about the business at hand and not sex toys. “I have no idea, actually.”
Lucky speaks up. “I haven’t had a chance to give her a briefing yet. She just got here.”
Dev nods. “Gotcha.”
Lucky turns around to look at a staircase at the far end of the warehouse. “Actually, I need to grab the file from upstairs. Do you mind showing her over to the cubicles and getting her hooked up for me?”
Dev smiles again, making my heart go pitter-patter. “No problem.” He starts walking across the warehouse. “Follow me, Jenny. Let’s get you plugged in.”
I hesitate, wondering where I’m going, what I’m doing, and what this is all about. “What’s Blue Marine?” I ask Lucky’s back as he walks away.
His voice echoes around the warehouse as he answers me while running up the metal stairs, taking two at a time. “It’s a case we’re working on. I’m going to grab a non-disclosure for you to sign and a record of the work I’ve done so far. I’m just stuck in this one spot, and May said you could help.”
I nod, accepting his perfectly reasonable explanation and turning to follow the bald man, who is now almost all the way across the warehouse. Finally, things are starting to make sense. My nerves calm just the slightest bit.
Dev pauses, looking over his shoulder at me, smiling with that dimple again. “You coming?”
Coming? Gah! That word! My face gets hot again. “Yes. I’m . . . on my way.” My heart is speeding way too fast, and my feet feel like they have lead in them. This should be such a simple thing, walking into my sister’s workplace and doing a little job for her. Why does it feel so momentous? She trusts these people, so they have to be good guys, right? I have nothing to be afraid of. Not even the fact that it’s been so long since I’ve had sex that I can’t even have a normal conversation with a guy without imagining all the wrong things and reading sexual innuendo into simple sentences.
A huge boom coming from behind me has me skittering toward Dev faster than I thought possible. And I’m so focused on getting away from the scary sound that I don’t see him running toward me, and we smash right into each other. All the air is knocked out of me and I feel myself falling.
His huge arms reach out and catch me when I’m about halfway down to busting my ass. We look like partners in a really random swing dancing class. Thank goodness he rescued both me and my laptop, because the floor in here is solid concrete, and I don’t think either one of us would have escaped unscathed.