Oh God, what were the chances he would ever let her live this down?
Derek rolled his eyes. “You need to find a boyfriend, Jilly Parker,” he muttered, shaking his head as he moved away from the window.
Jilly flicked a quick glance at the window. A heavy weight settled in her stomach at the green traffic light she found.
Her biker with his dragon tattoo was gone.
Maybe tomorrow she’d wait outside for him to drive past and flash a sign at him saying Take me. I’m yours.
A wry snort tore at the back of her throat. Even if she did, he wouldn’t. A hunk like that wouldn’t look twice at a girl like her. What with her size-fourteen jeans and curves that had long ago stopped being lush and voluptuous and now bordered on—
“Earth to Jilly.” Derek snapped his fingers in front of her face, expression exasperated. “Come in, Jilly.”
She swiped his hand away with a wave of hers, pulling her own frustrated face. “You need to tell me why you’re here,” she said, stomping away from the window. Tea. She needed a cup of tea. If Derek insisted on being here, tea would need to suffice instead of her vibrator. At least until Derek vamoosed. “I’m meant to be meeting Nadine for coffee in an hour and you’re holding me up.”
A cushion smacked into her back. “Have you not been listening to anything I’ve said since I arrived?”
She snatched up the cushion from the floor and tossed it back at him. “No.” She resumed her stomp to the kitchen. “I’ve been ogling geriatrics on mobility scooters.”
“You haven’t heard about the dragon sighting? Seriously?” Derek followed her, his burly bulk filling the small space before he hoisted himself up on the counter to gape at her. “The whole roof-of-a-warehouse-bursting-out-and-a-dragon-flying-away thing?”
Jilly frowned. “Are you serious? That’s a thing in the news?”
Derek nodded. “The official word is, it was a promo stunt for some TV show about dragons that’s getting a prequel or something. At least that’s what’s being tweeted. From the video footage I’ve seen on Twitter and Instagram, the dragon is freaking amazing. If it is for a show, the budget must be huge.”
Reaching for her kettle, Jilly tried to ignore the flutter of delicious heat in the junction of her thighs at the word dragon. An image of the hunk on the Harley with his dragon tattoo filled her head. Her pulse quickened. Her clit throbbed.
Ah man, perhaps Derek was right? Maybe she did need a boyfriend? Nadine—her friend and co-worker—had been saying the same thing for some time now.
She filled the kettle, set it to boil, and then leaned her hip against the counter and studied her friend. “So you’re here to talk to me about some TV show promotion gimmick? Shouldn’t you be at work?”
Swinging his legs, he snagged an apple from the fruit bowl and bit into it.
Jilly watched him, tapping her foot with melodramatic exaggeration.
He chewed, contemplated, chewed some more.
“Well?” she finally said. The heat in her girly bits thanks to Harley Dragon Hunk had begun to fade. For some reason, she felt angry about that.
Derek swallowed with just as much drama and exaggeration as her foot tapping and grinned at her. “I’ve got a job for you.”
She blinked. “What kind of job?”
A Master’s in Norse Mythology didn’t exactly open employment doors, a fact her estranged mother had pointed out all those years ago before riding off into the sunset with Jilly’s ex-boyfriend.
Derek raised the apple, opening his mouth.
“Don’t you freaking dare,” she admonished, throwing a tea bag at him.
It arced in the air weakly and fell to the floor between them.
Derek burst out laughing, bit the apple and then answered her with his mouth full. “It’s nothing that amazing. Just a temp thing at the pet shop on George Street. One of my clients owns it, and he needs a trustworthy person to look after it while he goes to Perth for a funeral.”
Removing the boiling kettle from the stove, Jilly frowned. “One of your clients owns a pet shop?” When it came to cake decorating, none finer than Derek could be found in Sydney. Nor any as in-demand and successful.
He took another bite out of the apple and nodded. “He bought it for one of his girlfriends to pacify her for not leaving his wife. When the wife found out, he ended up with nothing but the pet shop. Oh, and the vacation home in North Queensland. And the yacht.”
Jilly raised her eyebrows. “For a boring cake decorator, you have some very interesting people in your life, Derek.”
Swallowing the last of the apple, he swung his legs and launched himself off the counter. “That I do,” he agreed. “But none as interesting as you. Now, do you want this job or not? I told Yuggie you were a natural with animals and had no problem dealing with poop.”
Jilly thought of her options. Her current job was at a bookstore where the owner tried to feel her up every shift she worked, which meant she needed to slap Mr. Renner’s wrinkled, veiny, liver-spotted hands away from her butt and boobs twice a week.
Running a pet shop had to be better than that, even with the poop.
“I want it,” she said.
He grinned. “Excellent. Now I’ve fixed this part of your life, I’ll see if I can track down the dude on the Harley for you. You need to get laid ASAP.”
Jilly shoved him in the chest. “Get out of my life, moron.”
He fell back, laughing. “Kidding, kidding.”
Rolling her eyes, she pointed out the door with a smile. “Go.”
Derek grinned. “Enjoy your tea, Parker,” he said, hightailing it out of her kitchen. “I’ll see if I can find out what TV show the dragon is for and snag us a set visit or something. Who knows, they might need a cake for the press party or something?”
Dragon.
The word ignited the fading throb in Jilly’s core, and she sucked in a sharp breath.
She pressed
