Me: Hey! I’m good. Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to call. It was just a butt dial of sorts. My phone seriously has a mind of its own sometimes. Anyway, I hope you are doing well. -Remi
Yep. I signed my name to a freaking text. Would I be Remi Grey if I didn’t make it as awkward as humanly possible? That wasn’t even the worst of it though. Bowen and I must have been typing at the same time, because his text appeared on the screen a half second before mine.
Bowen: Remi, you have to give me something here. My mind is racing with a million different scenarios of why you’d call me and then not pick up. None of which leave me with a good feeling. Especially since I can see the text bubble where you keep starting and stopping texts to me. You’ve got two minutes to reply or I’m on my way to Savannah.
Oh. My. God. While alpha Bowen had always done some seriously hot things to my body, my fingers had never flown across a phone screen faster. He could not come to Savannah. As far as I knew, he didn’t have my address, but knowing my luck and Bowen Michaels, he could sniff me out like a bloodhound.
Me: I replied! I replied!
Bowen: I see that now. How very serendipitous of your lovely ass to call me like that.
I frowned at the phone even as butterflies ricocheted around my stomach. Damn Bowen and his obsession with fate.
Me: I’ll have you know serendipity is actually the opposite of fate. Thank you very much. By definition it’s the occurrence of events by CHANCE.
Bowen: Hmmm…interesting. I didn’t mention fate at all, but I see you’ve been giving it some thought since we last spoke.
I clamped my mouth shut. Damn, I’d walked right into that one.
Me: For the record, it was actually Siri who called you. My lovely ass doesn’t think about you at all. She’s rather ambivalent.
Bowen: So only your mouth then? Last I checked Siri takes voice commands. Mmm…I do miss that mouth.
The breath was stolen straight from my chest. What the hell was happening?
No, for real. What the actual fuck was happening? He’d gone from losing his mind with worry to sexting me in less than two minutes. And worse, my fingers were all but aching to type back, “Tell me more.”
Nope. Nope. Nope. We were not doing this. Diving down this rabbit hole wasn’t healthy for either of us.
Me: Shouldn’t you be working?
Bowen: Not really. It’s been slow since my best client moved away. Which reminds me. Where should I forward the remainder of your bill?
All at once, my heart whooshed as the dam I’d carefully crafted in my head busted open, flooding me with memories of all the different ways—and positions—I’d been working off my so-called debt.
The late-night payments. The shower payments. The hood-of-the-truck payment. Oh, the kitchen-floor payment—I’d actually made two of those. The office payments. The early-morning payments when we were lazy and I wrote the check out slowly as the sun came up. Then there were the hand payments—which were worth a little less. But judging by his reactions alone, my mouth payments were like paying double.
Damn him.
Bowen: Either I’ve struck a nerve or you’re thinking about your first installment the day I bent you over the chair in my office. I’d prefer the latter, but I’m fine with either.
Dumbfounded and with a tingling clit, I stared at my phone, one smartass comment after another flittering through my mind. He was teasing me. Taunting me. Knowing exactly how weak I’d always been when it came to him.
But the reason we weren’t together had not one damn thing to do with sex or how compatible we were in bed. It had never been my body I was scared of trusting Bowen with.
Me: And on that note, I’m going. Sorry if I bothered you.
Bowen: No bother. Tell your ass I said hi. Go ahead and give your breasts all my best too. Then again, you could send me a picture and I could do it myself…
There was zero chance I was getting myself into that dangerous game. I was weak against his charm and basically just weak in general. When and if Bowen and I found our way back to each other, I didn’t want to doubt any of it.
So instead, I replied curtly.
Me: Don’t press your luck, nerd.
Bowen: Feel free to press yours anytime.
“Son of a bitch,” I mumbled.
Then, against my better judgment, I pressed my luck for a good thirty minutes in the shower, long past the hot water tank’s limits.
Bowen
“Fuck yeah,” I breathed, setting my phone on my desk. As much as I would have liked to claim I’d played it cool, there were more than a few fist pumps involved in my celebration. My chest heaved and my heart thundered against my ribs, but holy shit, talking to her again felt like I’d climbed the highest mountain, fought off ten bears, and then rescued a dozen orphans from a burning building.
