Chapter 20 Like Any Other Couple
LIKE ANY OTHER COUPLE
Favorite part of your day when you’re not at work?
Bridget: I wake up early, and I spend at least five minutes outside. I know I’m basic, but I love to watch the sunrise.
Cole: I have a great lotion that I like to massage into my hands at night. Climbing is rough on my fingers, okay?
COLE
Bridget’s eyes were closed, and her breathing was ragged as I eased my fingers out of her and rearranged the robe to cover her.
Her “Please, Cole” still echoed in my ears.
I’d finally gotten her to beg, even if I’d had to plead with her first. It had been one hundred percent worth it to see her sprawled, wrecked, across the sofa.
I’d done that. And I couldn’t wait to do it again, hopefully with my cock inside her.
I pressed my hand against the bulge in my jeans. It wanted in on this action, but I was in control, and now wasn’t the right time.
I pulled her legs onto my lap and brushed my hand down her smooth leg. So what if I couldn’t stop touching her? I was simply claiming my territory.
Wait.
I rewound that thought. A week ago, she was my enemy.
After blowing up my deal, after fighting me daily in the office for weeks, she’d dragged me four thousand miles from home for mandatory “fun” with people I didn’t even like.
Five days ago, when she’d tossed her passport to a crocodile, I’d resented her, knowing she’d make me miss Thanksgiving with my daughter.
But now, I realized I admired her tenacity. And her people skills in bringing us together as a team. I valued her.
No, that wasn’t enough.
Yesterday, she’d laughed at me when I called us “inevitable.” Hell, I’d also been shocked when that word bumbled out of my mouth.
Now I knew how right I’d been. I hadn’t known when I’d joined Apex that a year later, I’d be massaging the irritating COO’s dainty feet, but here we were. And I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
Her foot twitched, and her eyes opened. Her face was relaxed, a blissful smile on her lips.
“Hey there, gorgeous.” I released her foot and handed her a glass of water.
“Thanks.” She sat up and sipped it. Her throat bobbed.
Almost instantly, like the cool water had woken her from a trance, her expression sharpened.
Her forehead wrinkled with a frown, and those berry lips pursed.
She hauled her feet out of my lap and planted them on the floor, clutching her robe closed.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” she muttered.
Intellectually, I knew she was right, but the impulsive part of my brain won the battle for my voice. “Of course we should have.” I barely stopped myself from reminding her we were inevitable.
“No, Cole. That was wrong. You’re practically a different generation. You don’t even like me, and we work together. When we go back to the office next week, it’s going to be awkward. What if someone finds out?”
“No one’s going to find out,” I said. “How could they? We’ll be careful. If you want, you can keep arguing with me in the office. And then when we get home—”
“Wait.” Her eyes were wide and wild. “Home? You mean together?”
I cursed at the foolish part of my brain that had leaped three steps ahead. Dial it back. “You want to do this again. So do I. We’ll be discreet about it. We’ll go to your place or mine, like any other couple.”
“Couple?” She had a special skill with turning my words back on me. “You mean, like, dating?”
Was that what I wanted? To date my irritatingly sexy colleague? I’d sounded certain, but my mouth—or my cock?—was a mile ahead of my brain. I needed to cool off. Wrestle back control. So I forced a lazy smile onto my face. “Or whatever. I’m down to fuck, and I think you are too.”
“Shit. You’ve had your hand inside my vagina once, and now you’re proposing a career-destroying sexual relationship?
Because you know the woman is always the one fired in these situations.
” Her voice had risen in pitch like a firework shooting into the sky, about to combust. “Look, I can’t have this conversation right now.
I need to put some clothes on.” She rocketed to her feet.
I stood. This had gone off the rails faster than I could have expected. “Wait. We can work this out. Here. Borrow my clothes.” I strode to the dresser and tore open the package of clothing the hotel laundry had cleaned for me. I pulled out a T-shirt and a pair of athletic shorts. “Take these.”
She glared first at me, then at my clothes. “Fine.” Snatching them, she stomped into the bathroom and shut the door.
I ran my fingers through my hair and tugged at the roots, trying not to remember how it felt when Bridget had done it.
Why was I so fixated on her? I should let her walk out.
Call it a momentary lapse that led to an indiscretion.
It happened all the time. Hell, after my divorce, I’d slept with a former colleague after a few too many tequila shots at the open bar at a conference.
The morning after, we’d laughed about it and gone our separate ways.
But I didn’t want that. Not with Bridget.
I’d regret it every time I glanced at her across our office and saw that sharp, stubborn chin and blazing blue eyes.
I’d want to kiss those deep-pink lips and smear the lipstick across her cheek.
I’d want to unravel her tidy chignon and let her hair flow across her shoulders the way it did this afternoon.
I’d go to my knees under her desk and beg her to ruck up her skirt and give me a taste.
Then I’d want to take her back to my place and do it again, all night.
The rational part of my brain called it an unhealthy obsession caused by hormones and my raging boner. A quieter voice somewhere closer to my racing heart suggested we’d fought so fiercely to cover up our irresistible attraction.
The bathroom door opened, and Bridget emerged.
The T-shirt that clung tight to my chest was loose on her, but it didn’t hide her pointed nipples.
And even after she’d rolled the waistband, my athletic shorts fit like a split skirt on her, hanging almost to her knees.
Seeing her in my clothes sent a surge of possessiveness through me.
In that moment, the quiet voice got loud.
It declared she was mine.
“I…maybe I should go back to my room.” She twisted the hem of my shirt.
“No!” Fuck, I sounded unhinged. “I mean, stay. Please. We’ll talk. Or…or…watch TV.”
She bit her lip. “I guess that’s okay. Are you, um…do you need to…” She nodded at the bulge in my jeans.
“Don’t worry about it. How about we sit on the bed? Here.” I opened the closet and pulled down the spare blanket. “You’re always cold.”
She held my gaze for a moment, then took the blanket from me. “Thanks.”
“What’s wrong?” I picked up the remote from the dresser and circled to the other side of the bed.
She sat on the bed, then scooted back to lean against the headboard.
She extended her legs and shook the blanket out over them.
“I can’t figure you out. Totally leaving aside what happened on the loveseat, I don’t know if you’re the guy who rescued me from the river or the guy who stood by while only I was assigned an anger management course. ”
“I’m sorry about that.” I sat next to her and rolled onto my hip to face her. “I’m trying to be better. Learning and growing, like you said. Can you forgive me?”
“When we go back to San Francisco, are you going to be the Cole who gave up his Thanksgiving so I wouldn’t be alone or the one who tried to make a deal without consulting me?”
My chest heated. “I’m sorry about that too. Are you going to keep throwing my mistakes in my face?”
She sighed. “That was unfair of me. I guess I’m confused.”
“Can we start fresh? I don’t want to fight anymore. I’d rather spend our energy on more enjoyable things.”
“I’m still going to call you on your bullshit,” she said. Her gorgeous lips turned up at the corners.
“And I’ll tell you, in a reasonable way, when I think you’re about to make a mistake. Okay?” I held out the remote to her.
“Deal. Keep the remote. I can’t read the buttons without my glasses.”
I flicked on the television and browsed through a few channels. Soccer, news in both Spanish and English, more soccer, a telenovela, something dark and broody, a cartoon—
“Wait, go back,” she said. “That was Buffy. It’s my comfort show.”
“A cheesy, dated show about vampires is your comfort show?” I flicked back. Buffy was talking to her friends and a creepy older guy in an outdoor corridor.
“Bite your tongue.” She lightly smacked my arm. “This is arguably the best episode of season two. Weren’t you obsessed?”
“I was, like, twelve when the show ended. Sarah Michelle Gellar was crush-worthy, of course, but I was more of a Heroes fan.”
“I guess I get it, but it didn’t have the staying power of Buffy.” She tugged the blanket up over her chest. “Now shh.”
We watched the show silently. The guy from Bones was stalking Buffy after they’d broken up.
Everyone kept talking about how he’d changed, and I realized that was part of Bridget’s problem.
She wasn’t sure that I’d changed. I hadn’t, not fundamentally.
I was a goal-oriented leader with a bit of a control issue. That would always be true.
What had changed was that I understood Bridget now.
She wasn’t trying to ruin my life. She chased success as desperately as I did, but she also believed in the importance of human connections.
She’d somehow managed to make this doomed retreat a win.
The leadership team all knew and respected each other better.
Including Bridget and me. Though I felt more than respect for her.
I was positive she wasn’t the kind of woman who’d put her career at risk over simple lust, but I was certain she felt something for me too.
As the episode ended, she moaned, “Jesus, a floppy disk. You don’t even remember those.”
I muted the television. “Of course I do.” I didn’t mention that I’d only used them in elementary school since that wouldn’t help my case. “Bridget, you keep bringing up our age difference. It doesn’t matter to me.”
She turned to face me, clutching the blanket. “It matters to me.”
“Does it? Or are you afraid it’ll matter to other people?”
“Aren’t you?” It came out as a whisper. “Afraid of what people will say?”
“No.” I put my hand over hers, and she let me tug it to the middle of the bed. I traced the lines on her palm. “The only thing that matters is what works for us. If we care about each other.”
“Do you care about me, Cole?” Her eyes were big and round and shining with hope.
“I do. I care about you.” There was no other answer I could give.
Her hand curled around mine, and she tugged me to her. Then she pressed her lips to mine.