Page 75 of His Good Girl

“You are very expressive when you think no one is looking.”

“Unfortunately, Benjamin is always looking.”

“So am I.”

My breath caught.

He seemed to hear what he had admitted at the same moment I did. The room went silent except for the faint hum of the HVAC and the distant office noise beyond the door.

Callum’s gaze dropped briefly to my mouth.

This time, he did not look away fast enough to pretend it had not happened.

I felt myself soften under that look, the air leaving my lungs in a slow, careful breath. I had been wanted before. This was different that any of the bumbling boys I’d messed with prior to this. Callum’s wanting did not reach for me. It held itself back with strength that made me feel my weakness. That restraint should have made me feel safer. Instead, it made me wonder what would happen if he ever let go.

“Callum,” I whispered.

His name sounded different in the office. More reckless than it had at dinner. More like stepping over a line that had been drawn between us when neither of us were looking.

His eyes lifted back to mine. “Don’t.”

I went still.

He closed his eyes for half a second, then opened them again. “Not like that.”

“Like what?”

“You know exactly like what.”

“I’m sorry,” I replied with downcast eyes, but even that sounded too breathless and far too aware.

Callum exhaled and sat back, dragging one hand over his jaw. The movement made his rolled sleeve shift higher on his forearm, and because I was apparently committed to self-destruction, I looked. His hand lowered and he caught me looking.

Neither of us spoke.

The look that passed between us then was not confused. It was not accidental. It was not one-sided, not anymore. We both knew. I wanted him, he wanted me, and the knowledge had entered the room without knocking and taken a seat at the table.

For one wild second, I thought he might stand.

I thought he might walk around the table, close the distance, tip my chin up with those capable fingers, and make every forbidden thought I’d had since the charity dinner suddenly real. I might let him. I thought, with a shameful little rush of heat, that I might do more than let him, like rise to meet him, or put my hands on his shirt and find out whether his restraint had a pulse.

Then his phone buzzed and the sound cracked the moment clean down the middle.

Callum looked at it. The change in him was immediate and brutal. His eyes scanned the screen, and whatever he saw pulled him back into the crisis waiting outside the door.

“Damn it,” he rumbled.

“Is it bad?”

“It’s irritating.”

“That sounds like executive for bad.”

“That sounds like me choosing not to discuss an active company matter with a first-day employee over lunch.”

The words should have stung, and they did, just a little, but I heard what was underneath them too. It was a return to proper structure, to our roles as boss and employee.

“Right,” I said. “Distance.”