Penalty Clause by Lori Ryan

his heel and walked down the front steps.
    Andrew slammed the door with a little more force than was probably necessary but it felt really good. Turning Jill in his arms, he studied her face. She still wore the same stunned, confused look. Damn, she felt so good in his arms. So right pressed up against his body.
    “Sorry, I probably should have let you handle that. It just didn’t sound like he was gonna leave any time soon and your eggs were burning,” Andrew said. Andrew couldn’t seem to let Jill go. The bewildered look on her face was just too damn cute.
    “My eggs? Oh! My eggs. Oh , crap!” Jill broke out of Andrew’s hold and rushed back to the kitchen, leaving Andrew with a disturbingly empty feeling where she’d been.
    Andrew walked into the kitchen to find Jill dumping eggs in the garbage can.
    “I hate that he still gets me flustered. But, what the hell is he doing showing up this early in the morning, unannounced, now that I live forty minutes away from him. Who does that?” Jill looked up at Andrew as if she expected him to be able to explain her ex’s behavior.
    “You handled him just fine. You stood your ground and told him to go away. I wouldn’t call that flustered.” Andrew watched as Rev tried to get into the garbage can for the trashed eggs.
    “I tell him that every time he comes around. So far, the words are completely ineffective,” Jill said.
    Andrew watched her crack more eggs into the pan and begin to scramble them as he tried to figure out how to ask his next question.
    “When you say he doesn’t listen, you don’t mean... I mean, he doesn't ever force his way in, does he?” Andrew could feel the tightness in his jaw as he asked the question. He clenched his fists at his sides, holding his breath as he waited for Jill to answer.
    “No, no. Nothing like that. He just doesn’t listen, you know? What I don’t get is why he keeps coming around? He’s the one who left.” Jill gestured Andrew toward the kitchen island as she slid scrambled eggs onto two plates. “Here, you earned breakfast.”
    Jill smiled and pulled two pieces of toast from the toaster, buttering them and placing one on her plate and one on Andrew’s.
    Andrew was quiet for a minute while he thought about Jill’s question.
    “Only two reasons he’d keep coming around,” Andrew said slowly. “Either he really is an arrogant ass who thinks you can’t live without him or he still wants to sleep with you.”
    Jill’s head shot up. “What? No! I mean, no. He’s...he left me. He’s living with his mistress. He doesn’t want... I mean, we don’t. He’s not...”
    Andrew laughed. “Okay, then he’s an arrogant ass who thinks you can’t live without him.”
    Jill frowned at her eggs. “Well, yes. Actually, that sounds exactly like him.”
    They ate the rest of their breakfast in silence. Jill seemed to be a million miles away and Andrew was busy having a little internal conversation with his dick about its reaction to Jill in her pajamas. She wore men’s pajama bottoms and a thin cami top that beautifully outlined the round curve of her breasts and hard peaks of her nipples.
    If Andrew expected to keep his head around Jill, he really had to stop coming around first thing in the morning. Jill in pajamas with her hair mussed from sleep was way too tempting.
    ***
    Andrew walked into Jack’s office for their morning meeting and found Chad and Jack were already there drinking coffee, waiting for him.
    “Sorry, guys. Got caught on the phone,” Andrew said as he picked up the coffee that waited for him in front of his usual chair.
    “No problem. We don’t have much to go over today. A few details for the investors we have coming in and someone who’s looking for a spot on your team, Andrew. Chad, you have anything else to go over?” Jack turned to Chad.
    “Just a few employee raises,” Chad said. This earned him puzzled looks from Jack and Andrew.
    “We don’t need to review raises for your people. We