Those longer fingers dipped gently into the soft flesh underneath my shirt. "Nothin'."

Nothing? Threatening to fire me if I accepted a date was nothing? I started to shake my shoulders under his hold. "Why are you being like that?" It wasn't like I was planning on accepting the offer but still. I didn't want anyone else making my decisions for me. Especially not when it was something within my control. Something that only affected me. This wasn't a matter for either of my brothers or anybody else to get involved in, dang it.

Dark cobalt blue eyes gazed down at me. His expression switching from distant to pissed by the way he started grinding his teeth.

“Don't be dense," he snapped.

My jaw dropped. “You have no right—”

He snapped his fingers together. "You wanna talk about this? My office, right now."

The look on my face was organic what-the-fuck. In a month, I hadn’t had a man approach me at all. You couldn’t really count the men who’d come in that were natural born flirts because those kinds of guys flirted with anyone that could possibly have something shaped like a vagina between their legs. And I didn’t think Trip counted either. With experience, you learn to smile and shrug off the winks and the flirts. This was exactly what I’d done. What I’d been through in front of a wordless Dex many times. And now he was going to intervene?

Maybe it was a little immature, but I ground my teeth together and attempted not to stomp my way toward his office. I didn’t need to turn around to know that he was following after me. Unfortunately, I’d developed this sixth sense of being too aware of him. I kind of thought it was because of how often we rode on his bike together. Kind of like how some women start menstruating around the same time when they were around each other often. It wouldn’t surprise me if Charles Dexter Locke had been able to throw my hormones out of whack.

If anyone could, it would be him.

Dex who I’d quickly learn to gravitate around. The Dex who woke me up every day. The same one that every morning made our coffee and poured my orange juice while I made breakfast. Dex who sat at night with me, watching Firefly while we folded our laundry on the sofa. Dex Locke who wished me goodnight before we went to bed.

When exactly I’d started looking forward to spending time with him, I had no idea. When I started eating up those little smiles at Pins and those little secrets we shared… I have no idea either. But I had. I'd grown to accept the fact that I had a massive attraction to someone who might not be capable of liking me in return.

At that moment though, I forgot all about that. The Dick had just cockblocked me.

He closed his office door and leaned against it, palms flat on the wood behind him. Dex’s eyes were strangely tight above his flex jawed. He looked mad or annoyed, or maybe a little of both as he stared at me in silence.

“You didn't have to do that.” I told him after a minute, trying to ebb away my own annoyance with him for blocking something I would have done on my own in a classier and less embarrassing way.

He looked at the ceiling, discarding my question. His fingers started tapping on the door. "Do what?" he asked sharply.

"You know what." I rolled my eyes. "You told me to stay here and work for you, and then you're going to threaten my job in front of everyone just because some guy asked me out?"

Dex licked his bottom lip but didn't say anything. His silence was a big, fat yeah that had me stomping right up to him.

"Are you kidding me?" This guy was out of his friggin' mind.

"No, Ritz. I'm not f**kin' kiddin' you."

My head was going to start hurting in like ten seconds. "Dex, I don't see why that's any of your business. You already tell me what to do half the time, and I know you're stuck with me staying at your place until this mess with my dad gets straightened out—but my dating life has nothing to do with you, okay?"

"Yeah, it does, Ritz," he gritted out.

"No, it doesn't, Charlie." I poked him right between his pecs twice.

"Yeah. It. Does."

It suddenly made complete sense to me that he was the youngest child in his family. He must have never been told "no" in his life. At least not often enough. "I'm pretty sure you're in no place to tell me who I can and can't date." I looked him right in the eye. "Charlie." Pushing him was more than likely a terrible idea but I was too far gone to care.

He narrowed those brilliant eyes. "Why's that?"

"Because I'm not a kid." Then, the stupidity just popped right out from my mouth. "And you've probably slept with half a dozen people since I met you, so trust me. You're not in a position to try and give me advice on who I talk to."

His face changed as he leaned into me. "I know you're not a f**kin' kid. And I can tell you who you can and can't talk to." He took a nice long swallow, and I didn't realize until right then that his hands were fisted at his sides. His entire body was tense. "And you can't f**kin' talk to anybody that wants to put their hands down your goddamn pants."

"What?" Oh lord. Oh dear, heavenly lord. "Why are you being like this?”

“‘Cuz. I. Don’t. Fuckin’. Like. It.”

God, grant me strength. “Dex, I don’t mean to sound like a complete bitch but...I don’t care if you don’t like it. He was asking me out on a date, you stubborn idiot. That doesn't mean he's planning on—"

Nostrils flared. “Don’t finish that sentence, baby. I’m about this f**kin’ close to losin’ it.” He reached up to rub his fingertips along the sides of his mouth, shaking his head with a gruff groan.

I curled my lips behind my teeth and lifted both shoulders. “I’m not trying to piss you off. Honestly, I just really don’t understand why you’re being like this with me. I thought you didn’t mind me working for you.”

Something changed in his expression that I couldn’t pinpoint in the seconds before he dropped his hand from his mouth. Dex’s blink was slow and thorough as his jaw ticked. “I thought I had more time...”

He didn't finish his rant because he was suddenly in my face, breathing out of his nose hard, his body taut.

Two big hands cupped my jaw the instant before his mouth with its deep pink, full lips and day old scruff, descended on me in a hard kiss—all ownership and demand.

Ohmigod.

Once. Twice. His grip on my face was unrelenting even as he pulled his mouth back a square inch then kissed me even harder, pressing and molding possessive lips to me. His tongue shoved its velvet, hot length against mine with a need and intent I couldn't comprehend.

Never in my life, even if I happened to kiss a hundred other people after this, would anything feel like Dex’s long, strong fingers cradling my jaw, his teeth nipping my bottom lip.

I shouldn’t have just stood there. I also definitely shouldn’t have opened my mouth for him, or met him halfway with my own tongue but when someone who looks like Dex—tall, strong, not exactly always on the right side of moral issues, and talented with his mouth—kisses you, you don’t say no. I understood at that point why so many women had fallen prey to him but this was so carnal, it didn't feel natural. When someone like Dex makes a noise into your mouth when you slid your tongue against his in a friendly gesture while simultaneously shoving your br**sts against his hard chest, you do it again.