Off Limits by Lola Darling Page B

to emphasize said point. The movement dislodges her hat, though, and I barely have time to reach up and snatch it before the wind whistling around the convertible steals it away.
    She blinks for a moment, her blonde curls crazier than ever today, whipping wild across her face. Then she breaks out into a wide smile, as she reaches for the hat. Her hair, her smile, the air siphoning around us, it all makes me want to stop the car right here and grab her, pull that wild hair out of her eyes and bend her back along the seat, and rip that summery, thin top off of her.
    Fucking hell, don’t do this to yourself, Davis . I shove the hat into her lap.
    “You never told me you part-timed as a ninja,” she says, in a softer voice now that the car is slowing down, and the wind isn’t whipping quite so loudly.
    “I’d hardly call it part-time. Really only a hobbyist ninja, actually.”
    “Well you—holy shit.” Chloe breaks off as we turn up the street toward the address in the GPS, Suzie’s address.
    I have to agree. This is not quite what I was picturing.
    “Is that her house ?” Chloe gapes at the place.
    In retrospect, I suppose we should have expected something like this from Suzie. The place is sprawling, that’s for sure—what she called a “ranch house,” I would definitely call a mansion instead. “I guess exercise videos pay well,” I say as we roll up the driveway.
    “And make you a little bit crazy, too?” Chloe replies. Probably because said mansion stands about ten feet off the ground, propped up on huge pillars so it almost blends into the canopy of the huge trees surrounding it. The house itself consists of a few off-white oblong concrete structures in various shapes and sizes, making the entire construction resemble nothing so much as a mushroom colony.
    “She did say it was the white one,” I say, consulting the instructions in my work email with a glance. Sure enough, the instructions are just like I remembered. Take the exit, turn right off the ramp and head straight up the street—it’s at the end of the block, the white one. You can’t miss it.
    I pass Chloe my phone, and she stifles a laugh with the back of her hand. “Well, she’s not lying. You definitely can’t miss it.”
    I shut the car off and we make eye contact for one last time. Her hair has settled around her cheeks now, still looking wild and windswept, but in a way that only makes me wonder what that hair would look like if I had her sprawled beneath me on a bed, my hands wrapped in it, her lithe, tight little body writhing beneath me.
    Chloe swallows once, and it’s all I can do not to watch the slow bob of her neck, or the way her eyes dip down to my mouth, just for a split second. It’s enough, though, to tell me she’s thinking something along the same lines.
    Shit.
    “Well.” I push out of my seat and hop out of the car, slamming my door hard, as if that crack of noise will break the tension between us. “Here goes nothing.”

Eleven

Chloe
    “ H ere’s my two favorite legal eagles!” Suzie pulls the two of us into a double-armed bear-hug before we even make it through her door, which we have to climb a circular flight of stairs alongside one of the mushrooms to reach. “How’s it going? Hope the drive up here wasn’t too painful!”
    “Only for one of us,” Max replies, with a sideways grin in my direction.
    I wince, for about the hundredth time since I met him this morning—I cannot believe I slept through my alarm. The last time I did that was probably in freshman year of college. And even then it was probably from an actual flu, not just being hungover as all get out. Here it comes, I think, bracing for Suzie’s reaction once he rats on me. Do health instructors drink? Suzie might, but I doubt she does it often or anything.
    “Lucky for her, this one slept through the whole thing,” he continues, and I lift my eyebrows at him, surprised yet again. I’ve lost count of how many times that is