The Wrong Kind of Compatible

by Kadie Scott

  She shifted in her seat, then lifted her stunning eyes, pinning him with a look that smoldered, and sucked the air from his lungs. “Your points are frequently valid,” she said.

  A huge admission, and he knew it. “Thanks,” he managed to choke out.

  Cassie’s lips tilted. “I’m not saying you should argue for the sake of argument, but the exchange of ideas is…”

  “Stimulating?” he supplied. This time the dual implications had been deliberate, and her eyes widened as the word lingered in the air between them.

  “I was going to say exciting,” she murmured. Other than a slight twitch to her lips, she held in her humor, but clearly couldn’t resist tossing the innuendo back in his court.

  Thank god for the table, because if she glanced down, there’d be no way she could miss his growing reaction. Fuck. What was he thinking? He was supposed to be riling her up for info, not seducing her.

  Although the idea was damn tempting. What had that stupid 92 Ways book said about eye contact again? He shoved the thought away. No seduction, Kerrigan. That’s an order.

  Clearing his throat, he sat back, refusing to allow himself to miss the contact. “Maybe motivating or thought-provoking are better terms.”

  After a second, she followed his lead, picking up her cup. “More boring terms,” she muttered under her breath.

  Frustration hollowed out his insides. Definitely more boring.

  “What?” She turned her head to look at him closely.

  Had he said that out loud? “I didn’t say anything.”

  She jerked a little and splashed some coffee on her hand. “Oh fiddlesticks,” she hissed as she grabbed a napkin and dabbed at the spot, lower lip caught between her teeth.

  His dick twitched in response. Man, was he screwed. To distract himself, Drew asked the first question that popped into his head. “Do you never use common swear words?”

  She glanced up, eyebrows raised. “Sure. But I have six nieces and nephews, and making up alternative swear words has become a bit of a game with my brothers and their wives.”

  Drew did smile at that. Of course Cassie would do something like that. “By game you mean competition, don’t you?”

  She scrunched up her face, and he knew he was right. “Maybe. My family tends to make a competition out of most things.”

  “Is that why you’re always trying to out-code me?” The question popped out before he could call it back. But it got him back in the groove of the op, of keeping her off balance.

  She scowled. “I’m not—”

  “No?” That’s it, Kerrigan. Challenge her.

  “I know I just said I liked arguing, but this is not what I meant,” she pointed out.

  “Then why do you give me your code to examine?” he asked.

  She opened her mouth, then shut it.

  Seeing that she was listening, he pressed on. “You know your code and analytics are flawless. You don’t need a second set of eyes to check your numbers.”

  Again, she pursed her lips, something he’d noticed she did when thinking through something. “I haven’t worked with someone else like this before. I wasn’t deliberately trying to shove my code in your face.”

  Drew shook his head. “You don’t need to try to impress me, Cassie. I already think you’re the smartest, most capable woman I’ve ever met.”

  Too far. You’re going too far, the logical voice in his head warned. How would he justify arresting her if he took things to the level he wanted?

  Cassie gazed back, like she was trying to figure him out. No surprise there, given how his signals were all over the fucking map. “Thanks,” she finally husked.

  Time to focus on something other than the way she made him feel. He bent down and retrieved his computer from his backpack. “Speaking of code… Ready?”

  Rather than answer, she scooted her soup bowl away, and dug out her own computer. Already knowing they both needed to see each other’s screens, he came around to her side of the booth, nudging her to slide over.

  Shit, these booths are small. Cassie was flush against him from calf to shoulder. He absorbed her heat and inhaled the jasmine scent of her shampoo. Maybe finishing the project tonight wasn’t such a stellar idea after all.

  Drew pinched the bridge of his nose to relieve a pounding that was starting to gather at the back of his eyes.

  “Headache?”

  He kept his eyes closed and nodded. “I get them a lot lately thanks to—” He cut off mid-sentence. Apparently, he was catching Cassie’s habit of stating every thought in his head. He’d been about to say thanks to late nights, stress, and blue balls. Good thing he’d stopped himself.

  “Here. Let me,” she murmured softly.

  The red pleather booth squeaked a protest, and he opened his eyes as Cassie twisted to face him. The move put a tiny amount of breathing space between them, but before he could inhale, she took his hand.

  “What are you doing?” He tried to tug it away.

  She didn’t release him. “My first roommate in New York was a masseuse. She taught me a few things.”

  She flipped his hand palm up, and, with firm but gentle strokes, proceeded to massage the area. She pressed into the muscles, pulled on his fingers, and pinched the pressure point between his thumb and forefinger. Every stroke, every brush of her fingers against his skin turned into sheer sensual torture.

  Done with his right hand, she placed it in his lap. Drew clamped his lips shut around a groan at how close she was to a part of his body that would love some similar attention. Instead, she picked up his left hand and gave it the same treatment.

  “Is the pain gone?”

  His headache was, replaced by an entirely different kind of ache. “Not entirely.”

  “Okay. Let me try one more thing.” She let go of his hand. “Close your eyes.”

  He did as she asked, but immediately regretted it, because now his mind could supply all sorts of inappropriate images as she touched him. He should put a stop to this, but found he couldn’t. Didn’t want to.

  She gently ran the pads of her fingers over his face, smoothing over his brows, his forehead, his cheekbones, his temples. Needing to see her, he slowly opened his eyes.

  She smiled, eyes dark with an answering desire. “Helping?”

  Help was a relative term. Drew didn’t answer, instead, he ran his gaze over every nuance of her face, eventually locking on to turbulent turquoise eyes, unable to pull his gaze away. He reached out and touched a strand of her silky, pale hair that had escaped her pencil restraints.

  Cassie’s lips parted on a sweet little gasp that teased his ears. Unable to stop himself, Drew closed the small distance between them and brushed his lips over hers. Just the briefest kiss to relieve the need to touch her like this, to feel her soft lips against his.

  “Drew?” she whispered against his lips.

  Lord he could become obsessed with the husky timbre to her voice and the way she said his name. Lose himself in her. He pulled back just enough to see her expression. “Yeah?”

  She swallowed. “Maybe we should finish this tomorrow?”

  Why not tonight? The words trembled on the tip of his tongue until he realized she was talking about work.

  Fuck. What the hell was he doing? If he was doing his job right, she should be the one all hot and bothered, and he’d be cool, calm, and extracting information from her.

  Slowly, he dragged himself away, and leaned back, giving them both some breathing room. Shit. How could stunning eyes and a sassy mouth make him lose sight of his integrity and his sanity, not to mention his job?

  He scrubbed a weary hand over his face. If he was going to complete his mission, he needed to form a more solid strategy. At the moment he was stumbling around like a moron, led by his dick instead of his brain. “It is getting late.”

  And he had a meeting with his team in an hour. He hoped their surveillance of the partners had turned up something.

  Chapter Six

  The man w
as running scared. A fact that should annoy Cassie, but strangely gave her some comfort because she wasn’t the only one with mixed up feelings. Stupidly, she’d been the one to put on the brakes in the coffee shop, although it had been on the tip of her tongue to suggest they go to her apartment.

  That kiss… Like an appetizer at a fancy restaurant, it was not nearly enough. She wanted the main course, thank you very much.

  Thank the sweet Lord that, for once, her thoughts remained safely contained in her head, because Drew had run away like a scalded cat. Hustled them out of the coffee shop, loaded her in a cab, and was walking in the opposite direction, hunched over and hands stuffed in his pockets, before the driver had even pulled away from the curb.

  He’d been pretty quiet ever since.

  An odd bit of code flashed across the screen in front of her. She frowned. “What the fedora? This isn’t right.”

  She checked the notes and timestamps associated with what she was looking at.

  “This can’t be right,” she muttered again.

  “Something wrong?” Drew piped up from his desk.

  Now he wanted to chat? “It’s nothing.”

  “That didn’t sound like nothing.”

  “Just a piece of code popping up I don’t remember writing.”

  “Maybe it’s something I added.”

  She shook her head despite the fact that he couldn’t see her behind the partition. “This is on my local machine. I haven’t checked it into the system yet.”

  Silence greeted that comment.

  “What on earth is going on here?” she muttered. She leaned forward. This wasn’t the first time she’d found something odd in the last few weeks. This was just…bigger.

  Or maybe being flustered about the kiss had her forgetting things she’d already done? She was pretty sure she didn’t write it, and yet, her brain was as fuzzy as month-old cheese given the sleepless night she’d just had trying to rid herself of the sexual tension generated by the blue-eyed nerd on the other side of her cube wall.

  “I could come back if you want some alone time with your computer.”

  Cassie jumped as Drew’s deep tones sounded from right behind her. She spun around in her chair with a glare, and froze. All her hard work tamping down her lust during the wee hours of the night had been a waste of time. The sexual tension came roaring back, every erogenous zone coming to sharp, aching life. And if the look in his gaze was anything to go by, Drew felt it, too.

  “Stop sneaking up on me,” she snapped. The words came our harsher than she intended, but that couldn’t be helped right now. Her code was wrong.

  He raised his eyebrows, but made no comment. Instead, he stepped closer, leaning one hand on her desk and one on the back of her chair. She was surrounded, and her body was like Hey there, Airman, while her mind was like Quit it, already.

  “Sometimes a second set of eyes helps.” He nodded to her computer screen. “Shall we take a look?”

  “I don’t need help. I just don’t remember writing it.”

  He grabbed her mouse and clicked to see the comments and time-date stamp. “This says you did.”

  “I already checked that,” she pointed out with a calm that belied her impatience.

  “But you still don’t think you did.”

  His tone implied the mouse in her head had taken a vacation, but she wasn’t crazy. She was right. She just couldn’t prove it. Yet.

  “Don’t worry about it, Kerrigan. I’ll figure it out.” Now she was muttering through clenched teeth. The man had her emotions on a stinking seesaw. Up one minute, down the next.

  For once, rather than pushing it, Drew shrugged. “Your call.” And he actually left the cube.

  Cassie sucked in a long, silent breath. Only the air still smelled like him. How could freshly starched laundry smell so…hot?

  “Hey, when you’re done, can you take a look at this?” his dark-chocolate voice floated over the top of her partition.

  Sighing, she closed off her screen and headed his way. She’d revisit her code issues later. “What’s up?”

  “I’m working on the Debuke account right now.”

  “Okay.” She’d asked him to check her analysis for any flaws a few days ago. “And?”

  “Your numbers checked out fine.”

  That was all? “Great. The team meeting is in a few minutes, so that helps.”

  Drew grabbed her arm before she could turn away. She glanced down at his large hand against her paler skin, his fingers wrapped around her arm. Warmth from his skin seeped into hers and spread outward. Cassie’s brain short-circuited.

  His expression remained inscrutable, as always, but she got the distinct impression he was bothered by something. Please don’t let that innocent little kiss be the reason for his new brand of awkward.

  “I have more to show you,” he said, his voice all gravely.

  “Okay.” She moved back beside him, looking over his shoulder, then she frowned again as she absorbed the code. “This isn’t my analysis.” Seriously, did she have amnesia?

  “No. It’s mine.”

  Any trace of lust vanished with a comical pop. “I didn’t ask you to do separate analysis.”

  “I know, but your analysis discounted something important.”

  Her hands curled into the back of his chair. “Excuse me?” she asked through gritted teeth. “You just said my numbers checked out fine.”

  He didn’t seem to pick up on her rising temper, his gaze still locked on his screen. “Your initial algorithms were fine, but you ignored the current customer base in your assessment.”

  “I based my criteria on Marnie’s diagnostic analysis.”

  “Which only took into account what Debuke has done so far. It didn’t factor in other methods of reaching their current customer base.”

  “Hence my recommendation for increased social media presence.” If she spoke any more staccato she could audition to be a beat boxer.

  He glanced up, then back to his computer. Was that a smile? What did he have to smile about? “That addresses new clientele, but not their current clients,” he said.

  Cassie put a hand to her head. “If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.”

  He ignored her sarcasm. “I decided to run a slightly different algorithm, and I came up with—”

  “Drew.”

  His name came out like a blast from a shotgun, and Cassie was vaguely aware of several heads in cubes turning her direction.

  He stood up to face her, blinking in seeming innocence. “Is there a problem?”

  Cassie wasn’t sure whether she wanted to laugh at the question or bop the man over the head.

  “Yes,” she said in deliberately slow cadence, each word dripping in sarcasm. “There’s a problem when you go off on your own, when all I asked you to do was check my numbers.”

  Drew held up his hands. “I’m sorry if I stepped on your toes, but this is worth a look.”

  God. She really had found the male version of herself. “You’re right.”

  He cocked his head. “I am?”

  “Yes. You’re stepping all over my toes. They’re practically black and blue thanks to you tromping around.”

  Drew actually looked down at her feet as if he’d see her toes all bruised up for real, then glanced back up, an oddly assessing light in his eyes. “But if you’ll just take a moment…” He pointed at the screen.

  Irritation hijacked her common sense, and she stepped into him. Because Drew was already standing close, they were now practically chest to…well, she was short…so boobs to abs. She still managed to squeeze her hand between them and poke him in the pecs with her finger. “Knock it off, Kerrigan. My recommendations are what we’re going with.”

  Drew’s unnatural stillness filtered through her annoyance and she took a mental step back. His blue eyes blazed with burning need. And they were laser focused on her.

  Sweet baby Jesus. The nerves in her body, already revved up, jumped right back to hot, lusci
ous life as blood flooded every erogenous zone, including a few she hadn’t been aware she had.

  “Cassie, Drew… You guys ready?”

  Drew jerked his head up, straightening away from her at the same time, and Cassie whipped her head around to find Kevin at the end of the aisle waiting.

  “Be right there,” she called, and hoped to high heaven Kevin hadn’t noticed her choked voice, how close she’d been standing to Drew, or the tension practically radiating off them both.

  Drew snapped up his laptop and pivoted on his heel and left without a word. Fine by her. She needed the moment of privacy anyway, taking a calming breath and her time gathering her own things.

  This couldn’t go on. She’d break her new favorite nighttime toy at the rate they were going. That poor little bunny had been working overtime. The fact that they were coworkers, and that she still didn’t entirely trust his intentions when it came to Data Minds and her job, put her in an untenable position.

  She could hear her mother saying workplace romances were a bad idea. What if it didn’t work out? She loved her job. And she refused to put it in jeopardy.

  The question was, did she take the risk with him? Maybe letting her guard down to explore whatever this thing was between them would be worth it? Could she let in this too-smart-for-her-own-good man who made her laugh and seemed to truly see her? His own signals were all over the place. But maybe she could find out if the computer whiz could push all her yes buttons.

  …

  Drew sat in the Debuke meeting—a final walk-through of the analysis that the team assigned to the account had completed before the results would be presented to the client next week—with only half a brain attuned to the discussion. The other half was scrambling, trying its best not to listen to the other brain in his pants that wanted to hijack his entire system.

  The fact that sparking off each other tended to result in his going home every night with a raging hard-on was an issue. When she’d poked him in the chest a minute ago, he’d had to keep himself from tugging her down onto his lap and finishing what they’d started with that kiss last night.

  After the coffee shop, he’d spent a loooooooong night trying to relieve the tension with his hand—a useless endeavor as he’d be turned on again as soon as he pictured Cassie’s face when he’d kissed her. He’d been fighting every instinct he had where she was concerned. He glanced over, secretly smiling as she listened to the meeting all serious and proper. Wanting to see her come undone was starting to become an obsession.