Engaging the Boss (Heirs of Damon) by Noelle Adams Read Free Book Online Page B

day?” she asked, turning out the light on her bedside table. Only his
light was still on now, casting strange shadows on the rest of the room.
    “Fine.”
He could feel her moving beside him, and he tried desperately not to think
about how her soft body would feel against his.
    “Is
everything all right?”
    It
was a familiar question. She asked it of him a lot, usually in response to
something going wrong in the lab. Very often, she would have a solution.
    She
could offer him a solution to his current predicament, but it wasn’t one he
would ever accept.
    He
couldn’t have sex with her, no matter how much he temporarily wanted to. Their
work was too important, and he didn’t want to think about trying to do that
work without her, which was what would happen if they indulged in an affair.
    “Jonathan?”
she prompted. She was looking at him—he could feel it—and he realized he hadn’t
answered her question.
    “Everything’s
fine.”
    She
didn’t say anything immediately, but she was still watching him. He wished she
wouldn’t. It was giving him very wrong thoughts.
    “Are
you annoyed with me?” she asked at last, as if she’d just figured it out.
    He
swallowed. He’d been annoyed earlier, but he’d known even then it was
irrational. She hadn’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t her fault she looked so
luscious all of a sudden and he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
    “Jonathan?”
she prompted, making him realize yet again he hadn’t answered her. “Are you
annoyed?”
    “No.
Of course, not.” He tempered his tone, so as not to convey his impatience over
her pursuing the questioning when he obviously wanted to be left alone.
    “You are annoyed,” she said, as if it was resolved now in her mind. “Or
frustrated or something. What did I do?”
    “You
didn’t do anything.” If she didn’t shut up soon, he was just going to leave the
room. He could think of some sort of an excuse.
    “Jonathan,
look at me,” she said sharply.
    He
did and then knew it was a mistake. She was on her side, propping her head on
one hand. Her top had slipped down, exposing far more cleavage than was good
for him to see. Too much of her fair skin was exposed, looking smooth and soft
and tempting. And her full lips were turned down in a frown.
    “Tell
me what you’re frustrated about.”
    He
obviously couldn’t tell her his most urgent frustration, so he hid that with a
lesser frustration from earlier, the one he didn’t care about anymore. “It’s
really nothing. I had thought we might do some sight-seeing today, just to get
away. I wish you would have checked with me before you went shopping.”
    It
sounded petty even as he said it, but it was better than admitting how much he
was fighting arousal.
    Her
lower lip fell open in astonishment. “Are you kidding? I did check with
you. You said it was fine.”
    “What
could I have said then? You’d already made plans.”
    She
took a deep breath, evidently suppressing a surge of annoyance. “You’ve got to
tell me things, Jonathan. Seriously. We’re never going to get through this,
otherwise. I know you’re the strong, silent type or whatever, but this isn’t
going to work unless you communicate a little more.”
    “Communicate
what?” He was almost relieved at the surge of annoyance since it dampened his
physical response. A little.
    “Communicate
what you want! How am I supposed to know what you’re thinking unless you tell
me? I can figure a few things out on my own, but not everything and not all the
time.”
    “I
tell you what you need to know. The rest of it doesn’t matter.”
    “Of
course it matters,” she exclaimed, her voice rising in her frustration. “You’d
had something in mind for us to do today, but you never told me what it was. I
would have been thrilled to go sightseeing with you. It would have been much
better than spending endless hours shopping for wedding lingerie for someone
else’s marriage.”
    She
broke off, flushing