Smart Girl
me a CAD to show the rest—”
    I’m already digging a Sharpie out of my giant shoulder bag.
    “Do you have any paper?” I ask him.
    He blinks dramatically and holds his arms out to the sides to show that he isn’t actually concealing a drawing pad on his person.
    “Smart-ass,” I grumble before dropping my bag onto the dusty floor and pulling a hair tie off my wrist. Once again the mass of blue and black goes into a topknot on my head. As I’m halfway to the ground, Liam realizes what I mean to do.
    “You don’t have to get down on the—” Just as my knees hit the ground, he finishes, “Floor. This really isn’t necessary. You could just send me something later, and then you wouldn’t be covered in plaster dust.”
    I’m already drawing out the perimeter of the room on the cement floor. I work quickly, and with each passing minute the design I see in my head comes to life on the ground below me. As I’m shading in the tile work, I get dust on my white blouse. My sleeve drags across the edge of the marker while I sketch the floral centerpiece by reception. When I push it up my forearm to keep it from further ruin, I notice that Liam’s gaze isn’t anywhere near my drawing. It’s planted firmly on my butt.
    With a gasp, I realize it’s not even his fault either, because I’m on all fours, on the ground, in tight leather pants. I quickly sit back on my calves and cover my face, utterly mortified by how that must have looked. Gods, I’ve been moving around too!
    “I wasn’t trying to be provocative,” I whisper through dusty fingers.
    I really wasn’t either. I was going for professional and inspired, like Jo in Little Women . Not hoochie and obvious, like the cougar with a side pony in Dirty Dancing who keeps trying to steal Johnny from Baby.
    It takes him a second to respond, and when he does his voice is gruff.
    “With you it doesn’t seem to matter.”
    I let my hands fall into my lap. His outstretched fingers are already there to help me up.
    “Miko.” His voice is strained. “Please get off the floor.”
    I let him pull me to my feet, and then go about dusting myself off to try to gain some composure.
    “It’s incredible,” he says.
    I look up, startled. Is he still talking about my—oh, nope. He’s talking about my drawing on the ground below us. I stare at it along with him. It’s the size of a poster, and since I’ve drawn rooms like this thousands of times, the detail is crystal clear. It looks almost exactly like what I see in my head. Dirty floor or not, if I’d had colored markers, it would have been perfect.
    His phone rings again, dissipating most of the emotions in the air around us. He glances at the screen, then back up at me.
    “I have a four o’clock.”
    I don’t know what I thought he was going to say, but dismissing me for a meeting wasn’t it. How did we go from him checking me out to right back to business? It’s always like this too. One second it’s intense and I can feel the attraction between us like a third person in the room; the next second I worry that I’ve imagined everything. Maybe I have. Maybe I’m just like Peeta in The Hunger Games , and I’m going to have to start asking people if things are real or not real. Which sucks, honestly. Who wants to be Josh Hutcherson? At the very least, shouldn’t you get to be the Liam Hemsworth of your own life?
    Ugh! I’m sort of ashamed that I’m not better at this. Because surely if I were a practiced flirt, he wouldn’t be able to switch gears so quickly regardless of whether or not he wants to, right? I glance up to find blue-gray eyes burning into mine. Before I even realize what he means to do, he touches my lower lip with his thumb and tugs it out from my teeth.
    “That is exactly how you’re supposed to bite your lip.” He drops his hand to his side as if just realizing what he’s done. He takes a step back from me, straightening the cuffs on his shirt like the simple act will help reorder his
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