B9 Hometown Lover

by Love, Annabelle

  He chuckled—it was his turn to be satisfied. “Thought you’d just love that.”

  “Fuck.” I ran a hand through my hair, rumpling the already rumpled locks.

  “You can’t tar all Jessicas with the same brush, Max.”

  “Can’t I?” I grumbled.

  “So what,” he stated magnanimously, “you got screwed over by one. Lightning doesn’t strike twice, my friend.”

  “You obviously haven’t read the statistics on that. It totally does strike twice.”

  He heaved out a sigh. “You know what I mean.”

  “Maybe.” I twisted my lips, then, flickered my gaze from his ugly mug and back to Jessica.

  Jessica. Cut me some slack, Lord.

  I rubbed my chin as I stared at that gorgeous head of hair—it was like a siren’s call. My eyes were glued to it like a magpie would be focused on a shiny piece of aluminum foil on the ground. I hated the simile but it was terrifyingly apropos.

  I’ve never seen hair like it. It made me want to press my face into it, rub it against my lips. Feel it trail over my chest, pool in my groin as she did wicked things to my body.

  Feeling said body start to respond from my thoughts alone, I gulped.

  Derek clicked his fingers in front of me, making me grimace and scowl at him. “Was that really necessary?” I demanded.

  “Very. If she looks through the glass, you look creepy as fuck. What’s wrong with you, man?” he asked, staring at me.

  I wrinkled my nose. “Nothing.”

  Watching as she got to her feet, I felt my head tilt, of its own volition, as I took in the ripe curves of her body.

  Damn, she was fine.

  Derek heaved an aggrieved breath. “I think we should talk about work now.”

  “Why?” I switched my gaze to him. “Hardly necessary. We’ve finished, haven’t we?”

  Because I knew I was right, and when wasn’t I right when it came down to work? I got to my feet. Buttoning the lapels of my suit coats together, I slid my hands over my front to get rid of any lint or dust. Scrabbling through my desk drawers, I found a brush and quickly ran it through my hair. Rubbing my cheeks to get some color into them—I didn’t know why, but talking about work always washed out my skin, like it sapped at my energy levels in a fundamental way or something.

  That being done, I began to stride toward the door.

  “Max! What the fuck are you doing?” Derek sounded amused, outraged, and shocked. “Get back here.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from laughing at his demand. “Woof,” I barked, then shooting him a grin, headed out into the outer office, totally ignoring him otherwise.

  Confidence wasn’t a problem with me. Not because I was a schmuck, although Derek would probably disagree with that, Alex, my best friend and his brother, would too. But mostly because it just never concerned me.

  If Jessica didn’t want to flirt with me, then she didn’t have to flirt with me. It was as easy as that. No harm, no foul.

  Striking up a conversation would be easy considering where we were…

  “Would you like some coffee?”

  Big blue eyes peered over the file she was reading. And boy, were they blue.

  What the fuck was it with this woman?

  Hair like a shampoo commercial and eyes that belonged on a National Geographic cover.

  Wow. They were like sapphires. As cool as an azure pool I wanted to dive into, or as fresh and sparkling as the Mauritius Ocean.

  She took me in lazily, then, when she’d finished and she realized who I was, she stiffened. Her shoulders dropped and her eyes widened as she put two and two together.

  “Sir? You want coffee? I can run to Starbucks if you’d like?” Her shoulders were ramrod straight now. Such a perfect line that I could have set a ruler on them.

  “No, not for me. For you.” I smiled at her, charmed when she blushed. “You looked busy.”

  Her gaze darted from me to the office opposite her where I’d been sitting a few moments ago and where my PA, her boss, was undoubtedly gawking at the show in front of him.

  “Is this a joke?” she asked, after she’d nibbled at her lip a second.

  “No. I’m going to get some coffee and wondered if you’d like some too.”

  She frowned, seeming stymied by my logic. “But you said you didn’t want coffee.”

  “I did?” I thought about that a second, then shrugged it off. “I meant, I do want coffee, but I don’t need you to get it for me. I want to get some for you.”

  When she looked even more confused, and I started to wonder if all that hair and those eyes were to make up for a deficient IQ, I just sighed. “Coffee? Yes or no?”

  Another blink that shielded those diamond bright eyes from me.

  She was just so incredibly beautiful.

  Her face was round like a pixie’s and that fucking hair swirled over her shoulders in a way that reminded me of a woman’s hair underwater. It seemed to ripple, which I knew was impossible, but still, each slight movement of her head made it appear that way.

  Her nose was as cute as a button and had freckles on it to boot.

  She wore a white shirt, a neat black skirt, and low, smart heels. All in all, temp clothes for a job in an office. Inoffensive, unremarkable, but still, they missed rather than hit because to me, she was totally remarkable.

  That she could look sexy in the blandest outfit I’d ever seen? Hell, it was like a miracle gone wrong or something.

  Once again, my thoughts skewed to the bedroom. What would she look like underneath the bland wardrobe-equivalent of a paper sack? I couldn’t help but wonder. Couldn’t stop myself from picturing the shape underneath all the baggy fabric.

  More than anything, I saw those clothes on my bedroom floor.

  Hell, I’d totally sleep on my mattress and not my sofa if it meant she was between the sheets with me too.

  “Was there something else, sir?” she asked, her voice a low whisper, but still, loud enough to jerk me from my heady thoughts.

  I pursed my lips. “Do you want a cookie?”

  Now, she scowled. “Is this some kind of dare? Or a bet?” She peered around me to glare at Derek. I shot a glance over my shoulder to see how he reacted to that and had to bite back a laugh to see his pout—Derek wasn’t used to being scowled at by hot chicks.

  “It’s the beard,” I mouthed at him through the glass, laughing when he flipped me off. “Shave it,” I continued, grinning before I instantly sobered up when I turned back to look at her.

  I batted my own baby blues, trying to look as innocent as possible. “No. It’s not a dare or a bet. Why would you think that?” I was kind of surprised by the question.

  I was considered a maverick in financial circles, but that was it. Playful wasn’t something I was renowned for, and ever since I’d floated Avalon and had made a shit ton as well as having turned the heads of some financial bigwigs, there’d been a shit ton of interest in my character.

  I’d had exposes and articles written about me in everything from Forbes to the New Yorker. That made people think they knew me; they didn’t. The reporters who’d interviewed me, every single one of them, had all pissed me off. They’d made insinuations I didn’t appreciate, and had talked over me because I process things a little differently—that hadn’t put me in their good books, and had made me a difficult subject to interview.

  Well, fuck, there had to be some perks to the job!

  “Then it has to be a joke,” she declared crossly. Blunt, too—I liked that. Jessica wasn’t afraid to say black was black just because I was in charge here. “The boss does not get coffee for the temp administrative assistant. It just isn’t done.”

  I shook my head pityingly. “Then you’ve been working in some barbarous places.”

  I could tell she didn’t want to, but she laughed nonetheless. I knew, from experience, that my humor could be disarming.

  I usually processed things a little differently to most. Another man might have seen her
hair and thought it was beautiful. I, on the other hand, thought it was mesmerizing.

  I only wasn’t gaping at it because I was restraining myself from reaching out and touching it.

  That really would freak her, and Derek, the fuck out. But the temptation? It was there. I wanted, so damn badly, to slide the locks through my fingers and trail it over my cheeks and jaw, feel the tickle, sure, but mostly, just have that silk against my skin. It took all I had not to focus on it, to stare her in the eyes.

  “I don’t understand, and I really need this job, sir.”

  There was a plea to her voice that rankled. I sat on the edge of her desk, not missing the look of despair as I didn’t scurry away at her words. “Why do you need this job?”

  She frowned. “Who doesn’t have bills or need to eat?”

  I shook my head. “No. Most people work for that. You’re working for something else.”

  Her mouth tightened. “Have you seen my file? Is that it? You think I’m game?”

  “What?” I blinked in surprise and inadvertently noticed that the strands of gold in her hair were as bright as hay.

  “My resume. You’ve seen it?”

  “No, I haven’t actually.” I wasn’t sure why she was being so aggressive, but from her tone, sensed that it came from a place of desperation.

  Desperation…

  My brain processed that and didn’t like it.

  “Would you like coffee?” I repeated, unsure why she’d mentioned her resume, and her head jerked forward, her chin jutting out.

  “No. Thank you.”

  I got to my feet. “Fine.” And like that, I strode off, making a mental note to read her resume and to see what the hell had gotten her all fired up.

  Chapter 2

  Jessica

  That was weird.

  Hell, that was more than weird.

  As I watch Max Greene, the stock exchange’s latest whiz kid software developer stride off out of his office, I have to admit that, yes, he’s gorgeous as hell. But he’s also strange.

  What was that even about?

  What gazillionaire tycoon offered to grab a coffee for the new temp in their office?

  I’d been here three days and the guy hadn’t even seemed to see me. Now he was offering me coffee?

  As a temp, I was used to being ignored. A part of me, the new part who’d had her life turned on its head, appreciated how invisible I was now. In a way, it made me feel invincible. But Max Greene had gone from totally ignoring me to wanting to get me a hot beverage…

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