16. Matt
16
MATT
L oren couldn’t have run out of the conference room any faster.
“Wait,” I called out, but I doubted she heard me. I saw the panic in her eyes. I heard her slight gasp of utter panic when Tom opened the door and walked in, finding me seated with my head between her thighs.
She didn’t turn back, not even when I reached out to her.
One minute, she was smiling, so satisfied with my going down on her and bringing her to a quick orgasm. Her lips had parted in awe, giving me those sexy little moans of pleasure that I couldn’t get enough of. But then, the next minute, her mouth hung open in an O of horror and alarm as she bolted.
She didn’t need to go. I didn’t want her to go.
But I understood that she’d escape after being caught.
Goddammit.
Fucking Tom just had to walk in when he had. I supposed he hadn’t listened to my suggestion that he go home and work. Maybe he’d just gone to his office instead, staying in the building because he was that determined to be close to Loren. Or perhaps he had left but needed to return for papers he’d been tasked with looking over.
He’d scowled at me, so furious at seeing me with the woman he’d been so damn persistent with. Jealousy showed on his face past the surprise, and I had no doubt that he’d take the news of his discovery somewhere.
To John, likely, because he represented the head of HR. And catching a couple of coworkers going at it on a freaking conference table was a clear grievance against what was professional and what was inappropriate for the office setting.
What Loren and I had done, surrendering to the need to kiss like that, wasn’t appropriate in any way. She worked for me. We had to have boundaries. Yet, the first needy look she gave me had me caving. Just like that, we fell back to the potent magnetism that linked us together like it had that first night we shared.
Now, it was on me to do damage control. I’d need to speak with John and reassure him that Loren and I had something of a past, one that we didn’t know we’d have to worry about because we didn’t share names or details that first night.
I’d need to confront Tom, too. I wouldn’t lie and suggest anything false. Nor would I confirm that yes, he did walk in on me doing down on Loren. Telling him that we had been sharing a moment was both as vague and clear as what was necessary.
I had to protect Loren, though. She was new here, just starting out with her career. A bright, promising one at that. If Tom had it in his mind to take his jealousy-fueled anger out on her by dragging her name through the mud, he had another thing coming.
While I had no claim to Loren, I was mighty possessive of her. I had no patience for anyone trying to ruin her reputation because she didn’t deserve it. She was one of the hardest workers and the brightest minds here.
But what do I say?
Other than talking with John and confronting Tom, I had no clue what would come next between me and Loren.
Her running off like that was an abrupt stop to anything fun and frisky between us. We’d been interrupted, and it was clear she wasn’t hanging around to come talk to me now.
But she’d need to come back to work after the weekend. She would have to be in touch with emails and texts about the Gammon project. It wasn’t like she could walk away from me .
All I knew was that I wanted more. I wanted another chance to taste her and please her. I wanted many more opportunities to kiss those sassy, sweet lips and hear the sexy-as-hell moans come from them when we came together.
I didn’t want to be done with her. Not at all. We’d acted on impulse, kissing each other tonight, and I knew we weren’t consciously planning a method of knotting ourselves together. Did she just want me the one time? More? Was that all she wanted to have with me? I didn’t know.
All I could state as a fact was that there were strings attached between us. We worked together. We harbored an undeniable connection. We shared a mutual and quick-to-burn chemistry. And we… worked together.
The strings that attached us had been braided and twisted into complicated knots, but I couldn’t unravel them on my own.
I didn’t want to, either.
I’ve got to talk to her.
I have to…
I rubbed my hands over my face and groaned. Hell, I didn’t know what I had to do. Common sense would dictate that I had to give her up and stop this stupid attraction. Or resist it and shove it further back in my mind until this project was over.
I didn’t want to. When it came to Loren, I wanted to explore all that we could, not hold back.
I shook my head, standing now that my dick had gone down. The shock of being caught, then the several minutes of coming back to reality after making her come, sobered me. Then with confusion rooting in my head, I began to go home.
First, I checked whether Loren was in her office. She wasn’t, as I expected. Neither was Tom. Save for the cleaning crew coming in to start their work, no one was up on the executive floor this late. I retreated to my office and stowed some essential things in my briefcase, and then I went home.
It made no difference whether I was at the Richards building or my penthouse apartment. My thoughts and concerns stayed true to their path.
If I wasn’t obsessing about Loren and debating how to proceed with our being caught, I was brainstorming about the Gammon pitch. If I wasn’t listing the pros and cons of how I could suggest to Loren that we try to be “something more” than a boss and employee or than a couple of randomly connecting lovers, I was picking apart all the flaws of what we had to do after the next Gammon meeting.
We were slated to meet with the Gammon team on Wednesday again, and with further input from them there, things would really start to get more intense. The pace would pick up. We had to be functioning as a team by then, and that would be a tall order.
I had to smooth things out with Tom, even if I didn’t know what to tell him. He was liable to ask if Loren and I were together, and for that, I had no answer. If I told the other three men that Loren and I might be together, I could be jumping to conclusions.
I have to talk to her.
My vague texts asking her how she was went unread. I called, but it went straight to voicemail.
But that would be the first step. Come Monday morning, I needed to get a feel for where she was at. If it was a lapse that she wanted to cross off as a mistake that couldn’t be repeated, ever. If she was more amenable to trying to start… dating? Sleeping together as coworkers with benefits?
I knew that I wanted more, however we could make it happen, because she was the first woman I’d ever wanted this badly, the first person I was genuinely intrigued about, wanting to know every detail there was to know about her.
Sunday evening, I met with John at the office. That was a preliminary step to testing the waters about whether Tom had filed a report or something. And that would be a telling in and of itself. If he tattled, then that was that. But if he didn’t say anything, I would be kept in a game of suspense, waiting for him to speak up and presumably at a moment when it would feel like an attack. If I spoke to John first, then I had the first word to go by.
He couldn’t have told him yet. If Tom told John already, my friend wouldn’t have hesitated to call me immediately. Human Resources was his department, after all, and he was damned good at what he did.
He had been busier than usual lately because he was dealing with a clingy ex who didn’t want to let go of him or sacrifice his attention. They were supposed to talk with each other over the weekend, which was why his location showed that he was at the office now, instead of yesterday. We both had a bad habit of stopping in at the office on the weekend.
“How’d it go yesterday?” I asked when I came by. It wouldn’t hurt to start a conversation about him before I talked about myself and Loren.
“Terrible.” Even though he was dressed in casual clothes, he looked like the typical stressed-out and harried businessman as he rolled his chair back from his desk and sighed at me.
I sat across from him and leaned back. “Really?”
“Really. I swear, I’ll never find a woman I’ll just click with.” He shook his head and grimaced.
I swallowed hard, feeling fortunate that I already had. Loren.
We clicked. Even if we spoke best with arguments and bickering, we were in sync. I loved that she wasn’t a pushover just as much as I adored how peppy and sunshiny she could be when she was at ease.
The circumstances of how we’d gotten together weren’t clear and simple, but we did mesh well with each other. I felt that deep in my bones.
“Ursula whined again about my working too much. About how I never gave her enough time. That I vetoed all the vacations she wanted to plan for us.” John shook his head. “All on my dime, which, whatever. I don’t care. But she had no drive. Nothing. She just wanted to be a kept woman and do… nothing.”
“It doesn’t sound like you’re compatible.” Which I told you the first time you introduced her to me…
“No. I guess I was hoping she might be.” He shrugged. “But I guess that’s how it goes. Some people click and others don’t. I won’t change who I am for a woman. I like my job. I feel fulfilled to have my career and excel at it. It doesn’t ‘trap’ me and ‘suck the life out of me’.”
I chuckled along with him. In the back of my mind, though, I realized how I’d found a treasure in Loren. I was setting myself up for disappointment to assume Loren could be mine, or stay mine. But I wanted to be optimistic that she wouldn’t try to deny that we were good together. That we could be good together for a long time.
That we could have a future. Screw her claim about nothing more . That was fear talking.
Loren was that kind of career-driven woman I wanted in my life. She was brilliant and ambitious, and both of those traits were sexy as all get out. She wasn’t idle. And so independent.
The more I thought about her, the more I wanted to speak with her. To explain that the preview I gave her in the conference room was a sample of how it could be with us. That instead of sneaking in stolen, forbidden moments at the office, we could look forward to the guarantee of having each other at home.
I wanted to experience everything with her. A relationship. A domestic one, too. Hell, if I let myself daydream that deep and that far, I could get used to the idea that she could fit in my life as something like what my grandmother had suggested.
The mother of my children.
The wife I called my Mrs.
I had to talk to her soon, and definitely before I told John. It didn’t seem like Tom had hurried to tell John, and it seemed like a grace period.
As soon as she’s in the office tomorrow, we have to talk.
Because if Loren could be on board with my wistful thoughts about a long commitment with me, I wanted it to start now.