Soul Rest: A Knights of the Board Room Novel Read Online Free Page A

some recaps?” he asked. “I usually tape a few game highlights and watch them or ESPN to unwind. Gives you a place to eat your salad. I have a microwave that can handle that lasagna.”
    “You’re offering to let me use a microwave and watch dated sports news with you.” She pursed her lips. “I’m starting to see the problem with your dating life.”
    He chuckled, and that baritone did marvelous things to it. She wondered what a full-throated laugh would sound like. Her abused toes wanted to curl.
    “Any other time I’d squeal like a high school cheerleader at the chance to visit the home of a total stranger who outweighs me by a hundred pounds and is a foot taller than me,” she said, “but I need to get out of these boots from hell. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea when I strip them off. You might think I’m undressing for you and be overcome with lust.”
    “I can restrain my baser urges,” he said dryly. “And in defense of my dating abilities, I might like watching sports, but I know how to focus on a woman. Though if the Tigers are playing—”
    “Then you better shut the hell up so I can watch,” she said. “We can talk about your feelings any old time.”
    He grinned. “Nice to know you care.”
    “About a man's feelings? One, you have to assume he has any worth considering, and two, no.”
    “Ouch. Okay, I'm taking my nachos and my bruised feelings and going home.”
    “Fine, you big pussy.” This was her groove. She traded spirited trash talk with the uniforms all the time. She tried to ignore the extra kick she experienced when his eyes twinkled, but apparently her mouth hadn’t caught up to her brain. “Maybe I better at least give you a ride to your place. Someone with your tender feelings won’t be safe on these streets this late at night.”
    “Feisty.”
    “Most people prefer bitchy.”
    “Maybe they're not looking close enough.”
    She glanced up at that. He was looking pretty close. They were standing as near to one another as they’d been at the frozen food case, though they had plenty more room behind them to widen that space. No question that they were flirting, but the way he looked at her touched those deeper things inside her. It made her hold his gaze longer than was wise. His shoulder twitched, and she thought he was going to lift his hand, trace her mouth with one of those long fingers. She’d stay still as he did it, waiting for him to tell her what he wanted next.
    She stepped back, broke the spell. “I’m not trying to assume anything here, but I don’t want to be misleading, either,” she said. “I don’t date people who have a good chance of being a lead or source. It’s late, and I know how these things can unfold. Going back to your place can lead to other stuff. We’re both adults, no sense denying it.”
    “Okay.” He pursed that distracting mouth. “Then I’ll make you a couple promises. You will never use me as a lead or source. And no matter what, we won’t have sex tonight. I won’t take off a single item of clothing. Not even my shoes. Even if you taunt me by taking off your boots.”
    The man was charming, mainly because he wasn’t trying to be charming. Despite the humor of the last statement, every sentence before it had been issued in a straightforward tone, with that unsettling direct eye contact. He was laying down the structure, the rules to dictate how it would be between them. Also a Dom thing. She couldn’t help shifting her gaze away when he did that. She tried to snap it right back, but she saw the flicker in his gaze. He’d caught it, and she had a feeling he’d understood why she’d done it better than she did.
    She tried to remain sensible, steer it away from all that. “So if I strip down naked and beg you to bang me like drum, I get nothing.”
    “Nada. Though you will officially be the meanest woman I’ve ever met. Considering some of the people I’ve met on the job, that’s saying something.” His