I bite down on the lid of my pen, watching as Mr. Taylor stands up from his chair at the head of the table. He undoes his cuff links, pocketing them and rolling his sleeves up. I can’t stop staring at his movements; I’m like an old man who hasn’t gotten his dick wet in years watching a stripper.

I can confirm that I one hundred percent have a lady boner.

His gaze floats around everyone at the table, stopping on me briefly. His straight face and guarded eyes giving nothing away, but yet I still squirm in my seat. Jeez Louise, I need to calm myself down.

Today is day two, and there hasn’t been a word said between us since he dropped me off at the hotel last night. I don’t mind though because sometimes people are awesome to look at but douchebags to talk to—maybe he’s one of those kinds of guys?

I need at least forty-eight hours to confirm or deny that.

I for sure thought there’d be gossip about him that would allow me to determine it sooner rather than later but there’s nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Maybe he dazzles everyone with his strong jaw and dimpled chin and they’re put under some kind of spell that has them not saying a bad word against him?

Oh! Maybe he has those kinds of skills all the hip vampires and werewolves have these days. Talking about vampires, anyone else gutted that Damon and Stefan won’t be on our screens anymore?

“—Scott.” My eyes widen as my gaze clashes with Mr. Taylor’s. I open my mouth, about to ask him to repeat himself when he continues on. “She’ll be filling in for Sheila until Christmas. Jayla?” His attention is on the woman sitting three seats down on his right. “Do you have applications for the position filled in yet?”

“Yes, Mr. Taylor.” She bats her eyelashes and I raise a brow, wondering if she’ll take flight like a butterfly with how much she’s going at it. Someone should tell her she’s as obvious as a flashing red sign advertising an adult store. “Get your dildos here!”

“Good, I want the position filled as soon as possible.” He moves his gaze to mine, something flashing in its depths that has me scrunching up my nose. He zones in on the action, his hand clenching into a fist at his side.

I look away, not able to keep the contact going for long. He’s just too… intense.

He continues on, walking toward the wall of windows as he talks about the latest ventures in business. I get lost after the third sentence and flip to an open page on my notebook.

My pen is moving at lightning speed as my mind runs away with me, and before I know it, I’m stopping and tilting my head at my drawing.

There are many different kinds of artists out there, all using different forms and tools. Me? I like to use ballpoint pens. I may not be able to use oil paints or watercolors, but I can draw the shit out of people. Realistic is something I love to do, but my absolute passion is to draw caricatures. Not too out there, I still want people to recognize who they are.

I suppose you’d call what I do comic strips; I call them my fun moments. Anyone else laugh at themselves all the time? Because I do, and I’ll say, I’m freaking hilarious.

The pad of my finger grazes over the head of Mr. Taylor—the one I drew, not the real one.

He’s standing twice the size as the rest of the people around the table, all of them with speech bubbles coming from their mouths. I snort at what I’ve written above Jayla, “Would you like a blow—”

I squeak when a hand lands on my notepad, tips of fingers grazing over my knuckles. My eyes widen when I see the forearm. Shit! I’d recognize that forearm anywhere.

Looking around, I see a guy toward the bottom of the table talking, everyone’s attention on him. Slowly, I turn my head, meeting Mr. Taylor’s gaze. He raises a brow, his blue-eyed gaze looking from me to the paper.

Swallowing, I open my mouth, about to say… what? I don’t freaking know! But he’s looking right at his caricature face and reading above it where there’s a thought bubble saying, “I’ll use my cheekbones to cut through this glass and escape these kiss asses,” as he looks out of the window.

He shakes his head at me, a small movement, before he pulls his hand off mine, his pointer finger dragging over the top of my hand, making me shiver. Jesus, I read about that in those soppy romance books, but I never thought it would actually happen. Am I in an alternate universe?

He backs away, letting me take a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Slamming my book closed, I pay attention as the guy continues to talk. I can’t stop my gaze skirting over to Mr. Taylor as he walks back to the head of the table.

I stutter a breath when I find his eyes fixated on me, his gaze batting down to my lips. I can’t look away, the dark-blue orbs catching me in their web. Why the hell can’t I look away?

“So, I think it would be very lucrative,” the unnamed guy says, not only bringing me out of my head, but Mr. Taylor’s too.

He snaps his attention to him, opening his mouth but closing it again when his cell goes off. He flicks his gaze back to me briefly, only there isn’t an ounce of what was there mere seconds ago. Did I imagine the whole thing?

Of course you imagined it! He wouldn’t be staring at your lips like they were a piece of medium-rare steak—best way to cook it by the way. I don’t want my steak to be a piece of rubber, thank you very much.

He huffs out a breath as he pulls his cell out of his pocket. “I have to take this, we’ll talk more in the department head meeting on Friday.”

He clicks on his cell, walking toward the back of the room as everyone files out like bats out of hell, not allowing me to push back my chair. Jayla sneers at me as she walks past and I raise my brow in return. What the hell is butterfly’s problem?

By the time the stampede stops, there’s only me and Mr. Taylor left in the room.

I swallow, pushing back my chair before I stand up, smoothing down the light-blue blouse tucked into my skinny, ankle grazer pants. I have to say, my ass looks awesome in them, but it’s the kind of awesome where if you sit down too fast, you could rip them—kind of like with my skirt yesterday that’s now sitting in my suitcase waiting for me to try to fix it. Try being the optimum word. Sewing and I don’t go together, but it’s not like I can afford to throw it out and replace it.

“Miss Scott?” I nearly moan at the way Mr. Taylor says my name.

“Yes?” I ask, keeping my attention focused on him, watching as he rolls down his sleeves methodically, his thumb and finger grasping his cuff link as he attaches it to the cuff of his shirt.

“I’d really appreciate if you paid attention in my meetings.” He moves on to the next sleeve. “It is your job after all.”

“I…” Swallowing against my dry throat, I take a small step back when he walks forward.

He tilts his head, stopping a foot in front of me. Holding my breath, I flick my gaze up to him, noting how tall he is. Jeez, why is everyone huge in New York? Or is that just because of my own height? Being a tiny human sucks sometimes.

He holds his hand out to me, and I frown down at it. What does he—

“The tablet, Miss Scott.”

“Oh! Right, yes.” I scramble to pass it over to him, hitting him in the stomach in the process. He grunts, his eyes closing briefly and I panic.

Shit! I just assaulted my new boss! I haven’t been here two days and I’m already in deep doo doo.

“I’m sor—”

“Don’t.” He holds his hand up, straightening and swiping on the screen, his nostrils flaring as his breathing deepens. He’s so close that if I was to reach out I’d be touching— “I see you’ve not been taking notes.”

My eyes widen. “I have, they’re not on there.” I hold up my notepad, waving it in the air like a flag. “They’re on—hey!”

I don’t let the notepad out of my grip as he grabs it. I pull it back, to which he pulls toward him. I yank on the pad again, to which he counters, causing me to stumble a little.

“It’s… private,” I tell him. He raises a brow, his other hand wrapping around my wrist, the pads of his fingers caressing the skin as he skims down to my fingers, relieving my grip on the notepad one finger at a time. “Please…”

He doesn’t listen as he flips it open, seeing my notes written in shorthand before stopping on the airplane I sketched while I was at LAX.

“What’s this?”

“Nothing.” I make a grab for it but he holds it out of reach, flipping the page back one and seeing the Harley I drew on Saturday, along with Jon Snow sitting on top of the beast. I grin at the image because he looks total badass.

“Hmmm, doesn’t look like nothing.”

I grab for it again, only this time I manage to grip the edge and pull it out of his grasp.

“Like I said, they’re private, Mr. Taylor. I don’t come into your… your... hotel and ask to see your… erm…” I bite my bottom lip. “Your…”

“My?”

“Your… ugh.” I spin around, walking out of the room, whispering, “You can be such an—”

“Remember I’m your boss, Miss Scott.” Fuckstickles, he heard me. I turn around, about to apologize, but the slight quirk of his lips catches me off guard. “You may go back to your desk.” His other brow lifts, like he’s waiting for me to say something to him, but I’m completely lost and totally frazzled he’s seen something I’ve never let anybody but Ella look at.

My drawings are mine, not for anybody else’s eyes.

In every other aspect of my life, I’m a complete nightmare to be around, but as soon as I have a pen in my hand and a fresh piece of paper, something clears almost like when the clouds break apart and let a stream of sunshine peek through. I’m the sunshine in that analogy, in case you’re wondering.

I spin around, taking a step out of the meeting room when he calls, “My nose is a little off by the way.”

Shit.

* * *

I look up from my notepad and the drawing of a crazy woman talking to her plants. Smirking as I note that I basically drew myself. I close it, looking up at the barman as he stops in front of me.

“Can I get you another?” he asks.

“Better not, I haven’t had anything to eat yet.” I push down off the stool, wobbling slightly. Shit, maybe I’ve had one too many beers?

“We serve food in that section,” he says, pointing to the other side of the room.

I snort. “Yeah, I’m not paying these prices. I can’t afford to go into bankruptcy.”

His almost black eyes flash with laughter as his lips quirk. He’s kind of good-looking in that All-American vibe kind of way. I bet he was one of the popular guys at high school, the kind who would have laughed relentlessly when I fell over my own two feet. I scrunch my nose up the longer I look at him.

Spinning around, I grip my notepad, stepping toward the door to go back up to my room when a head of dark-blond hair catches my attention.

I shouldn’t go over there, I really shouldn’t. Why are my feet moving?

It’s like I’m not in my own body, instead an alien has taken over, controlling all my movements and thoughts.

“Well hello there.” I inwardly wince at myself as I grip the back of the chair opposite him, waiting for him to acknowledge me. He doesn’t, so I pull said chair out and plonk myself down, watching as he cuts his steak up, bringing it to his mouth.

Oh, God, maybe I should have something to eat because that looks juicy as hell—the steak and his lips.

Placing my notepad on my lap, I lean my elbow on the table, resting my chin on my palm. “Well, hello to you too, Vi. How are you? Good? Oh, awesome! I’m good, too.” I see his brow quirk but he doesn’t make any other movements. “How was your day, Vi?” I lean back, blowing out a deep breath. “Well, I have a boss who is a tyrant and I haven’t stopped all day. Do you know how hard the copy machine is to work? Why the hell does it have two thousand forty settings? Whatever happened to one button to copy the piece of paper you put in there?”

My gaze settles on his hand as it grips the knife. “How was your day, Mr. Taylor?” I wait for him to answer. He puts a forkful of potatoes in his mouth, chewing slowly as he stares down at the screen of his cell. Man, he’s so freaking rude! I’m about to push my chair back and stand up to go back to my room, but something propels me forward to keep talking.

“Me?” I deepen my voice and his fork stops halfway to his mouth. “I had to sit in so many meetings, being all… bossy.” I roll my eyes, puffing out my chest. “It’s so tiring being the big bad boss.”

Yes! Finally, he looks at me.

I offer him a small smile, waiting for him to answer me… but he doesn’t.

Oh, my freaking Lord.

“You know, you’re kind of rude,” I state, picking up his glass of water off the table and taking a sip. He places his knife and fork down on his plate gently as he leans back, watching me. “Talking to you is like trying to get blood out of a wall… wait, that doesn’t sound right.” I frown, looking off to the side. “Stone! Blood out of a stone.” I shake my head at myself, chuckling.

Placing the water back down on the table, I pull the pad of my finger along the condensation that is gathering around the outside of the glass.

“Are you gonna eat that?” I point at his half-eaten steak, waiting for some kind of signal from him.

He pushes it toward me before picking up his cell. I dive for the knife and fork, cutting a piece off and bringing it to my mouth. “Oh my God!” I close my eyes, relishing in the taste. “This is sooooo good!” Opening my eyes, I cut another piece off and shove that in my mouth too. “There must be something in the New York water because everything tastes better here. Or maybe it’s because I haven’t eaten all day.” I continue to eat, not bothering to look at him, knowing he isn’t paying attention to me. “I went to that food place a few doors down from the office today for lunch, and all they had was sushi. Obviously you need to buy your lunch at breakfast time to get something decent. I don’t want slimy raw fish anywhere near me.” I shiver, remembering the way it felt in my mouth. Ack! “All I wanted was a sandwich!” I pop the last piece of steak in my mouth, placing the utensils down before leaning back, resting my hand on my stomach. “I’m so stuff—”

“Do you ever stop talking?” I jump out of my skin at the sound of his voice, not expecting him to talk, and when I look up, I see a slight smirk on his face. Maybe he has been listening after all?

“You were listening to me?” I ask, leaning forward, my voice a mere whisper.

“How could I not?” He leans forward, matching me. “You talk a mile a minute and never shut up. Don’t you get tired of hearing your own voice?”

“Sometimes.” I shrug, bringing my hands forward. I flinch when I knock the knife and fork off the plate, the clanging sounding around us with so much force I’m sure it’s going to break the plate. “Crap on a stick!”

I scramble to pick up the fork that bounces off the edge of the table, banging my head on the underneath as I try to sit back up.

“Jesus,” Mr. Taylor huffs. “Can’t take you anywhere.”

“Well…” I swallow, placing the fork on the table as I push the chair back and stand up, taking ahold of my notebook. “You technically didn’t bring me here.”

“No, you’re right. I didn’t. You decided to accost me while I was eating dinner and talk me to death.”

I grin big and wide before bowing. “You’re welcome.” Straightening my back, I wave. “Catch you later, boss.”

I make it halfway to the door before I hear his deep chuckle and my grin gets wider. Maybe he’s not such an asshole? I still have a few hours to decide for sure, but I’m leaning more toward him not being one, I mean, he did share his steak with me.