Snow Job by Tara Wyatt (best large ereader .txt) 📗

Was he trying to kill her? He was trying to kill her.

“Wow. That must’ve been an incredible experience,” he said, continuing to slowly roll the fabric up his forearm, stopping just shy of his elbow. Her eyes flicked from his to the corded muscle now exposed. Warmth flooded outward from her core, making her limbs tingle. What the hell was wrong with her? She’d barely met the guy and she was practically drooling over him. He followed the path of her gaze and shrugged, causing the fabric of his shirt to pull tight against his shoulders. “Sorry. It’s a bit warm in here,” he said casually as he set to work on the opposite sleeve.

She couldn’t disagree.

Clearing her throat, she stood and leaned over the table to hand him the last packet she’d prepared. Their fingers brushed as he took it, and she fought back a shiver.

“Miss Bristowe, why don’t you tell us why you want to work for Silver Stream development?” asked Mr. Riggs, who’d otherwise been silent the entire time.

Tearing her gaze away from her sexy as hell potential boss, she smiled as she started to answer. She’d been on so many interviews that she could handle just about any question thrown at her.

And she did. Over the next half hour, the three of them took turns asking her about her strengths and weaknesses, her achievements, challenges she’d overcome, what her first ninety days in the role would entail, where she saw herself in five years, even her hobbies. And she was pretty sure she was nailing every single question, even if Sebastian’s face—hell, Sebastian’s everything—was a massive distraction. Clearly one she’d need to learn to deal with if she had any hope of working here. With him. Under him.

Directly under him…her mind drifted back to the ways they could use the conference table. Again. Oops.

“And are you married? Single?” asked Mr. Stammler. Given his age and the tone of the question, she knew there was no ill-intent behind it, despite the fact that he wasn’t allowed to ask her that. She glanced at Sebastian, whose head was cocked to the side, his gaze radiating heat. Was he interested in her answer? Because based on his body language, it really looked like he was.

“You can’t ask that,” said Mr. Riggs softly. “Please don’t answer that.”

Kayla just nodded and laid her hands on the table, making sure to display her very ringless fingers. Just in case the answer mattered to anyone.

“In that case, I think that’s everything. Unless you have any questions for us,” Mr. Riggs said tonelessly.

“Actually, I have one last question,” Sebastian said casually. He met her eyes again. “You’re the most impressive candidate we’ve had, by a long shot. You’re smart, driven, and a hard worker. Seriously. Very, very impressive.”

She licked her lips, blushing. “Thank you. I take my work seriously. But, um, that’s not a question?”

He flashed that devastating smile her way again. “When can you start?”

Kayla turned the shower off and grabbed one of the fluffy white towels from the heated towel rack mounted to the wall. Wrapping the warm terrycloth around herself, she moved the thick white shower curtain back and stepped out, her toes disappearing into the plush bathmat. Once she’d dried herself off, she padded out into the bedroom, enjoying the peace and quiet of being alone. Booking herself a single room with only one queen-sized bed was one of the perks (and quite possibly the only perk) of organizing this stupid retreat.

With a huff, she discarded the towel on the bed and began rummaging through her bag for the outfit she planned to wear to the cocktail party tonight, along with her comb, hair dryer (she always brought her own because hotel hair dryers usually didn’t have diffuser attachments) and makeup bag. As she moved, she could feel an ache already settling into her muscles from her two hours of snowboarding. If you could call the meager sliding around she’d done snowboarding. And yet her shoulders, abs, thighs and calves were all sore. She’d thought she was in decent shape, but apparently not. Yet another reason to wish this damn retreat was over; she didn’t know how her body was going to survive another three days of snowboarding.

She combed through her wet curls, and then got dressed, trying not to think about Sebastian. Nope. She wasn’t going to think about him, or how good he’d looked. How healthy. Healthier than he’d looked in a long time. Gone were the shadows under his eyes and the gauntness in his cheeks from the last several months she’d worked with him. She also wasn’t going to think about how her body had jolted to life when he’d put his hands on her hips, guiding her through what should’ve been a simple movement. But she hadn’t been able to absorb anything with his hands on her, and he’d had to show her multiple times. She wasn’t going to think about the way her nipples had beaded and her thighs had clenched at having him so close.

Nope. Not going to think about any of that.

She scrutinized her outfit in the mirror, smoothing her hands down the camel-colored sweater dress. Frowning, she pulled a black belt out of her suitcase and looped it around her waist. There. Now it had some shape to it.

She retreated back into the bathroom to dry her hair and do her makeup, trying to think of anything but Sebastian. Trying and failing, because right there, floating on the surface of her brain, was the memory of her job interview and it all came rushing back. How attracted she’d been to him, the easy chemistry and subtle flirty vibe, his ease and confidence. He’d ruined it all before her first year was through, though. He’d missed meetings. He’d bailed on important events. He’d dumped things in her lap that she wasn’t quite ready to handle yet. He’d disappear for a day or two and then resurface, looking a little worse