Inhale, Exhale (6 page)

Grant’s eyes widened at my admission and quirked his head to the side, as if in thought. Then he shook his head and smiled, almost in relief, as he packed up his things.

“It was very nice meeting you, Jillian.”

I nodded, but didn’t say anything. I felt stupid for blurting that out. Clearly, I was losing my mind.

As Grant exited the cubicle, his chest brushed against mine and I jumped away, already feeling my nipples harden and thanking God I’d worn a padded bra. His arm reached out and caught my elbow to steady me. His touch was like striking flint: hot, explosive and all-consuming. I lost my balance again, stumbling forward to try and sit in the chair.

“Are you okay?” Grant asked, helping to lower me into the seat. He leaned in close, and I got another whiff of his amazing scent. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“I’m fine. Sorry. I am not used to these heels yet. I’m more of a sneakers kind of girl.” I don’t think he bought the lie. I was mortified. I had made a complete fool out of myself.

“Well, just be careful. I wouldn’t want to see that pretty face get hurt.” I kept my head down, nodding as I bit my lip. I hoped the pain would distract me enough to not cry—at least in front of him.

“I’ll see you around, Jillian. Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, reaching for my headphones to answer the barrage of blinking lights. Even if I sucked at it, I needed the distraction from replaying the disaster that just happened over and over in my head.

“Thank you for calling the Allegro Corporation. This is Jillian in sales, how can I direct your call?”

By the time I dared a glance behind me, he was gone.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Boyfriend.

She had a boyfriend. This was good news, right? I didn’t want to be with her. I didn’t have the time; she wasn’t part of my plan.

So why did it feel like I’d gotten sucker punched?

And why did she have to be smart on top of everything? It would be so much easier to forget she ever existed if she couldn’t string two sentences together. No, this girl could string them—in multiple languages! It made me wonder what else she was good at, what she liked, if she ever traveled to the places she studied.

I accomplished next to nothing for the rest of the day. Or the following day. I couldn’t seem to concentrate on any of my current projects and instead filled my time doing mindless tasks. I kept hoping I’d run into her in the halls, making extra trips to the bathroom or break room for coffee. Even rowing didn’t take my mind off of her. It was pathetic. I was pathetic.

JT had been right, and I could see why so many of the guys in the office had been talking about her all week. She was—I couldn’t even put it in words. She had what the French called “je ne sais quoi”—that certain something.

I laughed at the irony that out of all the people in this office, she was probably one of the few who would even know what the phrase meant. I hadn’t expected her to have the intelligence that matched her beauty. It made it that much harder to forget about her. And I wanted to forget about her. I tried to forget about her.

I couldn’t forget about her. Her beauty, wit, and charm wormed its way into me like a virus.

Late the following morning, my office line lit up, indicating an incoming call. The caller ID revealed it was Jillian. Hesitant to pick up, I let it go to voicemail. As soon as my phone blinked red, indicating I had a message, I quickly snatched up the headset and listened to the message. Twice.

“Um, hi. Grant? Did I call the right extension? God, I hope I’m not accidentally calling the CEO or something. Anyway, this is Jillian, the new girl you helped yesterday? I seemed to have screwed something up and was hoping you could come over for a few minutes and take a look at it. Unless this is the CEO, in which case this is Temperance. Um, yeah. Okay. I’m hanging up now.”

I don’t think I ever made the conscious decision to move, but I found myself standing beside her cubicle within five minutes of her voicemail, excited for the chance to talk to her again. I needed to punch myself in the face.

“Hi there,” I greeted.

Jillian hadn’t heard me approach. She sat chewing on a pen cap, obviously daydreaming. A blush crept up her face when she turned to talk to me.
Now what was that thought
, I wondered.
Was she thinking about me?

“Hi, yourself. I guess you got my voicemail.” She bit the hangnail on the side of her thumb again. I wanted to rip that thumb out of her mouth and suck on it myself. Watch her pupils dilate as I bit down a little.

I am so screwed.

“I did. How can I satisfy your needs today?” She drew a shaky breath at my double entendre, and my smile deepened.

“I, um, well,” she stumbled, before pausing and taking a deep breath. I knelt, dropping my desktop repair kit on the floor and getting out a few tools. I doubted I’d need them, but it gave me a chance to move closer to her for a second. She smelled like the beach, coconut and salt air. I breathed in deep, holding it in my lungs for a long minute. I wondered if it was some sort of lotion or shampoo. It didn’t matter; either way I wanted to rub her up and down with that scent.

She slowly removed her headset and swiveled her chair toward me, causing her legs to brush up against my own. I could have sworn I heard her mumbling “boyfriend” a few times under her breath, but couldn’t be sure.

“It froze. The computer. I tried restarting, but nothing happened.”

I stood, much closer to her than was necessary, but my body didn’t seem to want to move away. “I see. Let me take a look.”

I found the problem easily, but delayed telling her in order to talk to her for a bit longer.

“How do you like Allegro Corp so far, Jillian? I heard you had the pleasure of training with Temperance.”

She tried not to choke on her coffee and rolled her eyes. “Oh, I’m ‘hanging in there.’ It was a ‘purr-fect’ day.”

I laughed. “I’m so glad you’re making new friends. I’d hate for you to miss out on all the seat cozy knitting parties and what not.”

“I hear it’ll be the hottest event of the summer. Who would miss that?” She nudged my shoulder with hers playfully.

“I’m sure it’ll be toute la ville en parle.”

She looked up, shocked. “You speak French?”

“Je parle un peu.”

“Well, that sounds like more than a little to me. Now I’m the one who’s impressed.”

Her eyes lit up, and I wanted to keep speaking French to keep them that way, but I couldn’t remember much more.

“Don’t be. I have two years of high school French under my belt, and I visited Lyon to see my grandparents last year. It’s where they retired. I honestly know only a few phrases.”

“It’s still more than most people in Georgia. God, I love the beauty of this state, but sometimes the ignorance makes me want to run screaming.”

Lord have mercy, this girl was going to ruin me. She was amazing. “I know exactly what you mean.”

We stood, eye to eye, staring at each other for several moments. Neither of us spoke, or even breathed. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, and I wondered if she could hear it. I’d not wanted to kiss someone more since the seventh grade with Brooke Sample. And she even gave me tongue.

Jillian had a natural radiance that drew people to her, and her smile could light up a room. I only talked with her for a short while, and I was completely enamored. I loved the way she got flustered when I stood close to her. Knowing she was just as affected by me as I was by her and hearing the little hitch in her breath when I brushed against her made me need to adjust my pants. Again. The cute little brown-haired vixen had shaken my resolve and, as much as I knew I should, I couldn’t shake her out of my system.

This wasn’t good. I had set my course, and I couldn’t be derailed by the sweet siren’s call. Yes, I was attracted to her. There was no use in denying it. But I couldn’t have her, and it was no use trying. I needed to stick to The Plan. No girls, work hard, get out of Georgia. Make a name for myself at Google. Be settled and far advanced in my career before I even began to think about dating. I could not end up like every other man in my family, especially my father. It wasn’t an option.

“I have to go.” I took two long strides backward, needing to put distance between us. I finally allowed myself to take a breath, but still the air lingered with her sweet scent. I needed to get out of here. Now.

I practically ran out of the cubicle. I’m sure it came off rude as hell, but I couldn’t worry about it now. I needed space to refocus my thoughts and refocus the blood that had all pooled to one region of my body.

Throughout the day, I found myself attempting to make excuses to see her again. It was pathetic, junior high stuff that I knew was beneath me, and yet my body couldn’t seem to get on board with my mind. I successfully talked myself out of going back to her cubicle, but by five o’clock, I’d come to two conclusions. One—this girl was dangerous; and two, I would find a way to see her again.

JT caught me on my way out the door. “Hey, man. Wanna go out for a drink tonight?”

He’d asked me this question countless times while we’d worked together, and I’d never once taken him up on it. I liked the guy, but he was always solely focused on picking up girls instead of actually hanging out. I didn’t care if he wanted to hook up with all of Georgia, but sitting at the table by myself like a chump and watching while he did so was not my idea of a good time.

This made it all the more surprising when the words “Sure, I’d love to” fell out of my mouth. JT did a double take, unsure he’d heard me correctly, and I sighed. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, right?

We headed over to Breakers, a small bar across the street from the beach that served great wings. I could do dinner and a few beers with the guy. It would be fun.

We hadn’t even made it to our table to order when JT started flirting with the bartender, who he’d apparently hooked up with a few times before. I ordered the summer pale ale and a dozen teriyaki wings while I waited for JT to return to the table.

I was halfway through my second beer when he finally plopped down with a guilty grin plastered on his face. “Dude, Celeste is so hot, and totally into me. I’m so glad she was working tonight.”

I nodded and bit into another wing. JT must have picked up on my annoyance and called me out. “What gives? You said you wanted to come out, and then you sit in the corner and sulk all night.”

I rolled my eyes at his dramatics. “I’m not sulking.” I held up a wing. “I’m eating.”

“No, you’ve been in a weird mood for the past two days. What gives?” He flipped the chair backward and straddled it, resting his folded arms on the top as he waited for me to answer.

I sighed, licking my fingers clean of all the extra sauce. What the hell. Maybe talking about it will get it out of my system. Not likely, but worth a shot.

“I met the new girl.”

JT’s eyes widened a bit, and he smiled broadly. “Say no more. That chica is enough to make any man a little crazy, am I right?”

“Yes! I don’t even think she knows she’s doing it.”

JT took a big swig of his Corona. “Well, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. She hasn’t given a second glance to anyone. And trust me, plenty have tried already.” For some reason, the idea of all the other guys in the office going up and hitting on her made my hands ball tightly into fists. “Plus, I heard she has a boyfriend anyway. Dude, did you just growl?”

I cleared my throat. “No, sorry. And yeah, she mentioned she had a boyfriend. I don’t even want to be with her, except, I do. This is drivin’ me nuts. I never lose my shit over girls.”

“Well, it’s nice to see you finally joining the male race for once. I was beginning to wonder, man. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. I have a cousin, James, I was gonna set y’all up.”

I laughed at JT. Did people really think I was gay ‘cause I didn’t date? Was I really the only one who wanted to focus on my career before my love life?

Then again, here I was, unable to focus on my career for most of the day because of a girl. A girl I shouldn’t want. A girl I couldn’t have. Yeah, I needed another beer.

By the end of the night, I was half in the bag and ready to get laid. All night, JT had convinced me this was the root of my problem. He was like a little, pesky devil on my shoulder, and the more I drank, the more he made sense. It wasn’t Jillian per se; it was a lack of getting into any girl’s pants in what, eight months? Could it have really been that long?

Turned out Celeste had a friend, Nikki or Vicki or something like that. I’d only been half paying attention. The other half was entirely focused on her tits that were proudly on display. There was drinking, and dancing, and kissing. This girl couldn’t hold a conversation if she had “Conversations for Dummies” opened in front of her, but her ass felt great in my hands as we swayed to the music.

She licked my earlobe and sucked on it a little. ”Wanna go somewhere a little more private?” she cooed.

I didn’t even stop to think about it. I grabbed her hand and pulled her to the entrance.