Page 37 of Fever Dream
But we stay standing close. Close enough that I can smell the familiar ginger-scented soap he showered with this morning. Warm and spicy, deeply masculine, and a million times better than the light scent of dust I was sporting as I walked in here.
“You’re a menace,” I murmur.
He shoots me a devilish grin and an aloof shrug. “Maybe.”
I step back. Needing space. Needing air.
I smooth my hands over the front of my shorts, summoning every ounce of professionalism I possess to redirect this conversation into safer waters. “This is the shit you need to pull on camera.”
“I should get a boner on camera?”
He sounds amused, but I don’t give in. “No. I mean the… the…” My hand flips around as I desperately search for the words I want to say. “The shameless flirt routine. It could serve you well.”
He’s still sporting a massive bulge in his jeans with zero shame. Something he catches me looking at.
He quirks a knowing brow.
Fucking hell. I need to dig myself out of this hole.
“I just mean you’re good at it. The flirting. Objectively speaking. And it sounds like you need the money. So just… be yourself.”
“Myself?” His voice is gravelly but perfectly even. He gives nothing away.
“Yes. The smirky, smoldering, hot bad-boy thing you do. Do that.”
A slow smile spreads across his face. “Did you just call me hot?”
For a beat, I can empathize with the women on the show looking so flustered while meeting him last night. His smell, his height. There’s something heady about standing so close to him. Especially right now, just the two of us, alone in his kitchen.
“Yeah. Like…” I roll a hand to the side as I search for a way to cover for calling my beloved brother’s most hated rival hot to his face. “Generically hot. Conventionally attractive.”
Liar, my inner voice mocks me, but I bat away the taunt, not giving myself any room to elaborate.
Emmett barks out an amused laugh, and it catches me off guard.
It’s because he knows you’re full of shit.
I walk away from him and force myself to move at a casual pace rather than sprinting for the door like my instincts are screaming at me to do. “Right, well, thanks for… all this?” I glance back and wave my hand over my ass, not missing the way his eyes devour me as he follows the motion. “I owe you one.”
I turn to face him at the door, but he doesn’t respond. Instead, he tilts his head suggestively. He’s teasing, but the unspoken offer is still there. I don’t have to leave if I don’t want to, if I stepped back inside he’d… god, he’d probably be an incredible way to end my drought.
I run my tongue along the back of my teeth. Silently berating myself for thinking with my pussy for even a second. Then I step out into the scorching sun.
I refuse to be another girl who falls for his antics.
Instead, I bite back.
“See you on set. But you should wait until thatlittleissue has subsided.” I tip my chin toward his crotch and hit him with a chiding look.
The door has almost shut behind me when he calls back, “For the record, I’d get a boner for any woman bent over in front of me. That’s just instinct.”
But I only throw my head back and laugh at that.
Because we both know he’s full of shit.
He doesn’t call meTheo’s Hot Little Sisterfor nothing.
CHAPTER 15
