“Do you have a fated match here tonight too, PJ?” Ash asked, smiling at my assistant.
I sipped my champagne, wishing I could think of some of the other words that I had once known.
“Yeah,” PJ said, ducking his head. “I’m supposed to. I’m pretty nervous, man.”
How was he able to talk to my giant cologne-model match when I couldn’t form a single word?
“Don’t be nervous,” Ash suggested. “She’s human too, she’ll be just as nervous, I promise.”
Yeah, just look at me.
“She’s really pretty, though,” PJ said.
Ash let out a little breath, and looked down at me, winking and nearly sending me to the floor. I sipped again, words still absent from my mind. “PJ, look at my match. You think I’m not nervous? Rose is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, between you and me.”
Oh. My. God. He said these words, clearly not just between him and PJ but also between him and me. And my cheeks were flaming, and other things were . . . Happening to my body. Inside my body. God, I needed to think of something to say. I swigged the rest of my champagne instead, as his words ran over and over through my head. He thinks I’m beautiful.
I opened my mouth, about to try to respond, when Lulu flounced towards us, wearing a tight green dress that hit just above her knees, grinning madly. “You’re here! Oh, and you met Ash already!” She pulled me into a fierce hug. “You okay? You look weird. I mean gorgeous, but weird.”
“No,” I whisper-shrieked. The hug was becoming unnaturally long, but I felt safe in Lu’s arms. “I’m a mess.”
She released me. “Rose, will you come with me for a minute? I need help with some, ah, some shrimp.”
PJ frowned as Lu took my hand and began leading me away. “Shrimp?” he asked.
“Crabs too,” Lu called back, giggling as she pulled me toward a Christmas tree and around the side of it, out of sight.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “He is effing gorgeous, by the way. What could possibly be wrong with that?”
I seemed to have recovered my ability to speak. “He is,” I agreed. “Maybe too good looking? I can’t even speak around him!”
“Maybe words are not required.” Lu lifted her eyebrows and smiled suggestively.
“Stop that,” I swatted at her arm. “You look amazing, by the way.”
“So do you, and Ash was totally checking out your ass as we walked away.”
“But if I can’t even talk to him, there’s no chance this will ever work.”
“You want it to work?” Lulu bounced and clapped her hands.
“Well, I don’t want to humiliate myself completely,” I said.
“Take the pressure off,” she suggested. “Ask about him.”
“Right, right.” I glanced toward the windows, where someone else had joined PJ and Ash—a young girl in a gold dress, who was fiddling nervously with her clutch as she talked to the men. PJ’s date?
“Go back over there,” Lu said. “And just be yourself. Learn about the guy. And then report back.”
I took a deep breath. I could do this. Of course I could do this. I strode back toward the windows, toward the giant tower of sheer sexiness that was my date. “Sorry about that,” I said, happy to find actual words coming out of my mouth.
“Rose,” PJ said, pulling my attention away from the behemoth of hotness. “This is Becky. Becky, this is my boss, Rose.”
I glanced at Ash as PJ called me his boss and the man’s eyebrows lifted with interest. That was good. “Hi Becky,” I said, greeting the girl. She was pretty, with blond straight hair, a depth of intelligence in her dark-eyed gaze, and pink full lips.
“Hello,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Polite too.
“Would you like to get a drink, Rose?” Ash’s voice was like warm caramel, wrapping around me, pulling me to him.
I turned back to him and managed a nod. “Yeah,” I thought I heard myself whisper. “Okay.”
We left PJ and Becky and headed back to the bar, Ash’s big hand on the small of my back. Heat emanated from the spot where he touched me, and already I was imagining that big hand sliding over other parts of my body.
When we each had a drink and were seated at one of the high-top tables next to the windows, Ash turned every powerful ounce of his attention on me and lifted his glass. “Cheers.”
I was a goner.
Chapter 4
On Behalf of Birds…
ASH
I was going to kill Max.
This woman—Rose—was the whole fucking package. He’d given me what equated to her resume as we’d come over in the car, and I guessed he knew her pretty well somehow. The woman had graduated top of her class at CalTech and gone on to get a master’s degree in computer engineering from MIT. And then founded her own cyber security company, and based on the information Max had about the company, she was killing it.
And now that I’d met her, stood trapped in that keen intelligent gaze and felt the sheer magnetism between her tight curvy little body and my own . . . Well, I worried that was going to make it hard to go back to Alaska. I wasn’t normally away from the boat in December as it was, but this year Mom had demanded I be home for the holiday, and I gave in, hiring another captain for my boat. Taking time off wouldn’t kill me—it wasn’t like I needed the money.
But I did need to be able to get away from San Diego, and getting involved with someone who lived here was not a good idea. I didn’t need one more thing pulling me back.
Rose sat close at my side, the red sequins of her dress glinting and reflecting the light around us. Her long legs were crossed beneath the tall table, and the curve of her calf made me want to reach down and caress it, maybe let my hand slide up a bit higher, feel the strength of her thighs,
