There were distant cheers, laughter and atta boys, but I pressed against his chest to stop the public display of affection.
“Holy shit, babe,” he breathed, holding me in his arms as he pulled back to take it all in. “You’re a bombshell.”
“Can I borrow your shirt?”
He chuckled like I was joking, pulling me into his chest with a kiss to my forehead before he started walking me toward the pool. “Alright, alright,” he called. “Enough gawking over my girl. Let’s get back to the party!”
That earned another round of cheers, and then the music blasted once again, and blessedly, all eyes were off me.
Well — all eyes except for two very intense ones behind the bar.
Joel walked me right in Theo’s direction, and I felt the weight of his stare like an anvil on my chest. My feet were heavy lead, dragging behind me as I fought the dizziness a look like that brought on.
“What do you want to drink?” Joel asked me when we made it to the bar. He winked at Theo. “Boss man is actually serving us tonight, if you can believe it.”
I didn’t know how long I was quiet, how long I stood there pinned by Theo’s gaze. His eyes didn’t move from mine, didn’t trace my body, didn’t take in the swimsuit or my body.
And still, I felt naked as the day I was born.
“Babe?” Joel asked.
I shook my head, croaking out water as best I could.
Joel chuckled, throwing his arm around me as he faced Theo. “She doesn’t drink,” he explained. “Never has. My little good girl.” He kissed my cheek. Then, someone called his name from the pool. “Come join us in the pool once you’ve got your water, yeah?”
I think I nodded, because he patted my butt below the bar where Theo couldn’t see and scampered off toward the pool. I heard a big splash and a chorus of cheers a moment later, but I just stood still, watching Theo watching me.
His nose flared. “Sparkling or still, Miss Dawn?”
Those words seemed to snap me from the spell, and I shook my head a bit, dusting off the remnants. “Still,” I said, surprised at how steady my voice was.
Theo reached into the cooler below the deck for a bottle of water and poured it into a cocktail glass over ice. Then, he added a sprig of mint and a couple raspberries before sliding it across the bar.
“Thank you.”
He nodded, watching me as I took my first sip. I turned toward the pool, watching Joel and Ace play some sort of game that involved a lot of thrashing and wrestling. Instinctively, I positioned myself behind the corner of the bar, crossing my arms over my middle.
“I have to admit,” I said after a moment, not taking my eyes off the scene in the pool. “I’m surprised by all this.”
I hoped the comment landed in the easygoing, I-totally-didn’t-notice-you-had-a-hard-on-the-last-time-I-talked-to-you zone.
“By the party?”
I nodded. “You’re a billionaire, and you hired these people to work for you for the summer. Dealing with guests and difficult circumstances is part of their job. And yet, here you are, rewarding them for what they were hired to do.” I arched a brow when I finally looked at him. “And serving them alcohol to boot.”
The corner of Theo’s lips tilted. “My father taught me a lot of things when I was younger, especially when I first started Envizion. And one thing that always stuck with me was that you should treat every employee, regardless of position, like a guest in your home.”
“That’s a really kind and generous way of looking at things.”
Theo shrugged. “He always said running a business should be similar to being the head of the family. You work hard as a team, you go through hardships as a team, and you celebrate as a team. You have each other’s backs — always.”
“It sounds like you two are close.”
Theo swallowed, busying his hands with one of the bottles behind the bar. “He’s my role model. Always has been.”
I felt the urge to inquire more, to ask question after question until he told me everything about himself. But before I could, Theo’s eyes found mine, and this time, the intensity with which he watched me walk in with was back.
“You know, you aren’t the only one surprised tonight.”
I cocked my head.
He gestured to where I was hiding behind the corner of the bar. “You look radiant.”
Theo’s words were soft, subtle, his eyes genuine where they watched me. I looked away on a blush, smiling and shaking my head in disagreement. “It’s just the makeup. And the suit. Neither of which are mine.”
“I disagree.”
I rolled my eyes, turning to face him, but when I saw the way he was watching me, my attempt at playfulness slipped.
“It’s you,” he said. “No matter what you wear.”
I swallowed, my neck burning like a hot iron.
He made his way over to me, leaning his elbows on the bar until his face was just inches from mine. He lowered his voice, the bass of it echoing through my chest like a kick drum.
“However, if you were mine?” His eyes traced their way over my collarbones, down the line of my cleavage, to my waist, my hips, my thighs, and back up again. “You wouldn’t have even made it to that top stair before I was dragging you back to the room for my eyes only.”
My lips parted of their own accord, shock buzzing low in my stomach at his forwardness. “Theo…”
“Don’t say my name like that, Aspen,” he warned, his eyes flicking to where I’d pinned my bottom lip with my teeth. “Not unless you want to unleash a part of me you haven’t seen yet.” His jaw tensed. “A part of me I can’t tame once it’s loose.”
All those warning bells I’d silenced over the last few weeks rang in tandem, dinging and screaming inside my mind as I tried to convince myself he couldn’t have possibly just said what I thought he
