Page 15 of The Law of Attraction
Olivia shifted to make room for him, and he squeezed in next to her, leaning his back against the window as he stretched his legs out in front of him. He had long legs, almost a foot longer than hers, and thick, muscular thighs that pulled the denim of his jeans taut.
One of his muscular thighs was touching her leg. His hip was pressed against her too, and his arm, and his shoulder. He’d left as much space as possible between him and the woman next to him, choosing to cozy up against Olivia rather than a random stranger.
She wasn’t sure if she should be flattered, but she was definitely having a hard time concentrating on her knitting with Adam’s body heat soaking into her and his shirt rubbing against the bare skin of her arm.
He’d pulled out his phone to read his texts, and she couldn’t help peeking at it. He seemed to get a lot of texts from women. In addition to the work names she recognized, he had texts from a Michelle, and a Vanessa, and also an Angela. He opened the most recent text from Angela, which was an invitation to dinner on Friday, and replied to let her know he’d be out of town but maybe they could do it next weekend.
“See anything interesting?” he asked, shooting Olivia a sideways glance as he typed.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s hard not to look when you’re holding your phone right in front of me like that. Who’s Angela?”
“My sister.”
“Ah.”
“Why? Did you think she was my girlfriend?”
“I didn’t think anything.”
She was in no way relieved to find out that Angela was his sister, because she had no interest whatsoever in Adam’s love life, aside from whatever mild entertainment it might provide while they killed time at the airport. This weird feeling she was having was merely relief that she hadn’t accidentally read anything too personal.
Yeah, sure.
“Should we talk about our plan for when we get to the plant?” Olivia asked, adopting Adam’s tactic of changing the subject.
He shoved his phone back in his pocket, which in the tight space required him to do a sort of twisting hip thrust that resulted in his head basically resting on her shoulder for a second. She tried not to react as his hair brushed her neck and her senses filled with the heavenly scent of his hair product. It was spicy and masculine, with a hint of cedar—or was it sandalwood? Whatever it was, it made her mouth puddle with drool.
“What plan?” His breath puffed warmly on her shoulder before he straightened. “We get there, we assess the situation, and we deal with whatever we find.”
She cleared her throat as she tried to suppress a shiver. “Do you know how much network bandwidth is available at the site?”
“Nope.”
“Do we have all the cabling we’ll need to connect the RTUs?”
“I had everything drop-shipped yesterday.”
“What if we get there and find out their equipment is so old it won’t integrate with our systems?”
“Like I said, we’ll figure it out when we get there. There’s no point worrying about it now, when we can’t do anything about it.” He leaned his head back against the window and closed his eyes. “You need to relax.”
Olivia ground her molars together. She didn’t like being told to relax. Not only was it patronizing and presumptuous, but it wasn’t like she was equipped with a magical Zen switch she could flip to turn off all her worries and chill out. She’d relax when she damn well had a reason to relax, and not because someone said she should.
How the hell was Adam so relaxed under the circumstances? His discomfort at the crowded airport seemed to have dissipated, along with his momentary stress over their delayed travel plans. How did he do that? Just let things go, and embrace the unknown future without a care?
Olivia couldn’t help feeling a little envious. It was exhausting always thinking ahead and trying to prepare for every outcome and surprise that might lie around the corner. Why did people like him get to relax while she was putting in all the advance work to help things run smoothly?
He was so relaxed, in fact, that he might actually have dropped off to sleep—sitting on the floor of a crowded airport, with only fifteen minutes until their boarding time.
How was that even possible? He’d been talking just a minute ago, and now his breathing had slowed and his shoulders were sagging and his lips were slightly parted.
Seriously?
She gave his arm an exploratory nudge and his head snapped up like he’d been jolted with electricity.
“Were you asleep?” Olivia asked in amazement.
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Maybe. Why?”
