Love Bug (The Prescotts Book 3) by Tara Wyatt (electric book reader .TXT) 📗

She gave him one last look before turning and heading for her office. After she’d settled in at her desk with her coffee, her notepad for jotting down ideas and thoughts, and her Air Pods in her ears, playing her favorite 80’s playlist, she opened Chris’s email, then pulled up the project files to see if she could figure out what was going wrong.

The program they were developing was tentatively titled BingeStack, and it was a platform where users could access all of their streaming services—Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, HBO Max, etc.—from one spot. All you had to do was search for a title and it would automatically search all platforms to which the user was subscribed and play in a central window. Getting all of the different streaming databases to play nicely together was proving a bigger challenge than they’d anticipated, but she’d always liked a challenge and enjoyed hard work.

With George Michael, Prince, and Kenny Loggins blasting in her ears, she immersed herself in the lines of code, only ever pulling her attention away to take sips of her cooling coffee. She’d found one string that needed fixing, but was stuck on what else might be going wrong when it came to the biggest infrastructure issues.

Frowning, she pulled up one of the other files and started going through the lines of code, determined to find the problem. A large, masculine hand waved in front of her face, startling her. Her arms shot out and she knocked over her coffee cup, sending the dregs of it pooling on her desk. Whirling, she found Max standing on the other side of her desk, a tablet and a stack of file folders in his hand. He wore a light blue button-down shirt that set off his eyes, tucked into a pair of black pants that seemed to emphasize his muscular legs. His shirt was open at the collar, giving her the smallest glimpse of skin. Her lips tingled at the memory of the soft warmth of it against her mouth.

Her heart hammered in her chest as she reached for a box of tissues, plucking out a few to mop up the spreading puddle of coffee. Once she’d tossed them in the trash, she pulled her Air Pods out of her ears, her hands shaking a little. Taking a deep breath, she pressed her fingers against her lips. Her heart was still racing, her skin tingling.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” said Max, his eyebrows raised as he studied her.

She shook her head, hauling a forced smile into place. “No, it’s fine. I’m just…I don’t like being startled. I guess I’m still jumpy from the…” She trailed off, swallowing thickly. “The invasion.”

Max’s usually stony features softened and he nodded. “Right. Of course. I’m sorry. I should’ve thought of that.”

“It’s fine,” she said, waving away his concern. “How can I help you?” He didn’t usually venture into her office, especially without warning, and she knew that his unexpected appearance was part of the reason her pulse was still racing.

“I sent you an email about needing that preliminary bug report for Blind Date,” he said, his tone neutral. “I wanted to go over it before the meeting this afternoon.”

“Oh,” she said, disappointment curling through her. She’d hoped that maybe he’d come to talk to her, but no. It was work related. Of course. Why wouldn’t it be? “Right. I’ll get that to you ASAP. Time got away from me this morning,” she said sheepishly. Despite everything that had happened between them, he was still her boss and she owed him competency and professionalism.

“Great.” He turned to go but then hesitated. “What were you so immersed in just now?”

Her eyes flicked back to the lines of code on her screen. “BingeStack. We’re having some problems with the automation infrastructure. But don’t worry—Chris and I are both on it and I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

He frowned slightly and tilted his head, then gestured at her computer. “Mind if I take a look?”

“Oh, uh. Sure,” she said, vaulting out of her chair and pulling it away from the desk. It was putting her on edge to have him in her space like this. With a small grin, he set his folders and tablet down on her desk and came around behind it, dropping into her chair. It creaked under his weight and she remembered the feel of all of that muscle on top of her, moving above her, inside her…

“…don’t get to play in the sandbox much anymore,” he was saying, forcing her back to the present moment and out of her sexy memories of the man sitting behind her desk. She hovered a few feet away from him, watching his large fingers dance over the keyboard. “Let’s see…” He rubbed his fingers over his mouth as he navigated between different files, lines fanning out around his eyes as he squinted slightly. “Are these all of the config files?”

She nodded. “For the mainframe, yes. We haven’t gotten around to any of the others yet.”

He nodded and she moved a little closer. The scent of his expensive aftershave hit her, making her stomach explode in butterflies. She curled her fingers into her palms so she wouldn’t do something stupid, like reach out and touch him.

“Do you mind if I copy and dump this into a separate sandbox? I don’t want to undo what you’ve already got, but I have an idea.”

“Sure. Go for it,” she said, wrapping her arms around her middle. She couldn’t seem to stand still, feeling restless with the lust spinning through her. God, he was making her squirm and he’d barely even looked at her. For several minutes, he jumped between screens, changing small things here and there, and she had to admit that it was fascinating watching him work. She was highly proficient in C++, but Max was a freaking genius.

“What if…” he said, still focused on the screen, still typing away, “instead of using configuration orchestration we created a CloudFormation