Page 584 of Summer Heat
If there’s one thing I hate more than being treated like a woman, it’s being treated like a weak, vulnerable woman.
So, to show him…and maybe also myself a little bit…that I was just fine, that I wasn’t all falling apart at the seams or wilting like a sad flower over what happened—or didn’t happen, rather—between us, I texted some of my guys to see if anyone wanted to go out drinking.
It’s funny, though I’m awkward and just plain awful at dating those nice guys who ask me out, I’m actually pretty normal in social settings with construction dudes. Years of practice, I guess. And, since I usually make the effort to hang out with my men every so often to keep the camaraderie up, I figured two birds, one stone.
I even dressed up a little for the occasion. Meaning I did something with my hair other than coil it up into a bun for a change, and I threw on a pretty, girly tank top on over my jeans instead of the plain t-shirts I usually wore out. Still, it was enough to earn me a few whistles from my guys, which went a long way in making me feel better.
Really, it was the perfect, fun little distraction…until, surprise, surprise, Jason showed up. He waltzed into the bar with two of his buddies, Cade and Logan, both of whom I’ve met before in passing on the site a couple of times. Since both guys apparently knew a lot of my guys pretty well, of course the trio was invited to join us.
And so began three long hours of Jason watching over me like a mother hen. Or a protective rooster. Whatever the appropriate overbearing bird metaphor, he was the very dictionary definition of it. Much to his two ever so unhelpful buddies’ visible amusement.
With every bottle of beer I drank, his expression grew more brooding. Every time one of the guys touched me in any friendly, totally innocent way, whether it was a simple pat on my knee or even a brief shoulder nudge to get my attention, he glared at them like they were committing an unholy sin.
Then he got downright hostile with the nice accountant-looking man who’d sidled up to me at the bar and offered to buy me a drink.
Ten whole minutes he spent afterward chewing me out and lecturing me on being more careful about men buying me drinks.
Finally, with my night officially ruined, I told the guys I was taking off and I went outside to get an uber. Tried to at least. Before I could even finish pulling up the app, I had a totally sober, six-foot-three, disgruntled billionaire swiping my phone from my hands and dragging me over to his truck to drive me home himself.
I feigned sleep the entire ride back to our building.
Sunday, I spent most of the day surveying the marsh lands, just like I had the two Sundays prior. Unlike those other two Sundays, however, I had a shadow the whole time.
As soon as I saw the big black work truck parked right next to mine outside the trailer, I tried waiting Jason out. But when it starting raining a bit, I finally gave in and trudged on back to the jobsite, fully prepared to get my ass handed to me for being out there alone. Seeing as how I’m a woman and all.
But he didn’t yell at me. Or scold me. He just gave me a silent onceover as if checking to make sure I didn’t have any visible scratches or bumps and bruises. Then he climbed into his truck and left without a word.
Yesterday, however, the man upped his game considerably. All day long, every time I tried to talk to any of my guys in private about something, he’d pull some barely plausible reason to step in—literally—and send them off to take care of something clear on the other side of the jobsite. Just so he could get me alone to lock those intense green eyes on me and tell me we needed to talk.
About “us.”
It was tricky, but I managed to escape each time. I used the fake phone call trick a few times, the classic ‘look over there’ and running in the opposite direction tactic once (which I honestly didn’t think was going to work), before finally resorting to hopping in my truck and continuously parking it in new locations around the site while doing mundane paperwork with my windows rolled up until the end of the work day.
Cowardly? Yes. But also highly effective. I know Jason. He’d never make a scene in front of the guys.
Maybe today I should go see how those sewer pipes are coming?
Sleepy but sound plan in place, my bra
in finally gives me the go-ahead to close my eyes and try to get at least a few minutes of shuteye before the sun comes up. The last three nights, I barely got a wink of sleep. Because as it turns out, having Jason follow me around during the day, inevitably results in him following me right into my dreams at night.
Who knew my imagination was so, well, imaginative?
Not to mention vivid.
Even now, I’m fully conscious that I’m dreaming. I know that Jason isn’t really stalking into my room, grouchy as hell, and reprimanding me for running from him all day yesterday in that deep, sexy voice.
Still, I feel every inch of my body flood with heat, and my panties getting drenched the instant he pounces on top of me on the bed and rips open my shirt. I feel my legs actually parting under my sheets as dream-Jason presses his big, hard body against me, pinning me down with that huge, thick cock of his to prevent me from escaping again.
I know it’s only a dream, but I let myself revel in it anyway. Because in the dream, I’m not the weird tomboy who’s never had sex, but has worked more power tools than most men ever will in their lifetime. No, I’m the strong, sexy woman that’s capable of making a man like Jason Steele lose control. The woman bold enough to go after what she wants the second he starts to.
That last truly fantastical thought has my hands fisting against the bed covers in frustration.
What I want, I’ll never have.
This is all just a dream. A fantasy that’s never coming true. I need to accept that and banish these futile delusions about Jason and me to the farthest corners of my mind.
I can’t screw this up. This is literally the biggest job I’ve taken on to date, and the first big commercial project I’ve run point on in a while, to be honest.
