Chapter 11 Janie #2
"These allocations don't match your presentation numbers." Warren points to a line item, leaning forward.
I slide my chair closer to see. "That's because Pope suggested we redirect funds from adult screenings to pediatric."
"Without consulting the committee?"
"It was preliminary. I was going to bring it up at Thursday's meeting."
Our shoulders brush as we both reach for the same chart. The contact sends warmth radiating up my arm.
"We should counter with this structure instead." He sketches a quick diagram, his hand steady and sure.
For an hour, we debate statistics and funding percentages, our voices the only sound in the empty house. When I reach for my empty water glass, Warren takes it.
"I'll refill it."
When he returns, he hands me the glass and a pen I'd been searching for. His fingers graze mine, lingering, sending a chill across my skin.
"Your argument about preventive care is solid," he admits, settling back beside me, closer than before. "I was too focused on intervention programs."
"We need both." I smile. "That's why we make a good team."
His eyes meet mine. "We always did."
The comment breaks through our professional veneer. We laugh about a board member's ridiculous questions at the last meeting, then about Caleb's hideous bow tie collection.
The laughter fades, leaving silence thick enough to touch. Warren's eyes drop to my lips, and I know work is the last thing on either of our minds.
Warren's eyes lock with mine across the table. I can't breathe, but I can't look away, either. The spreadsheets between us might as well be invisible.
"I haven't stopped thinking about you since the gala." His voice drops low, almost rough at the edges. His fingers flex against the tabletop like he's stopping himself from reaching for me.
The confession shatters something inside me, a wall I've been reinforcing for five years.
"I haven't either." My heart hammers against my ribs. "Hell, I haven't stopped thinking about you since that night, our night. It never left me, Warren."
The air between us snaps taut, charged with electricity. I watch his control break in real time. His pupils dilate and his jaw clenches. Then he's moving, and so am I, like two magnets too close together, unable to stop.
His hands pull me to him, and our mouths crash together. This kiss isn't gentle. It's hunger and need and years of denial crumbling to dust. Papers scatter to the floor as I push against him, my body arching into his.
We stumble backward, our mouths still locked together, hands grasping at clothes, at skin. My hip catches the edge of the table, but the pain barely registers. All I can distinguish is Warren, his hands in my hair, on my waist, everywhere at once.
"Where?" he breathes against my neck.
I pull him down the hall, past Beckett's room, into my bedroom. The door lightly shuts behind us.
His mouth crashes to mine, all hunger and restraint finally breaking. My back hits the wall, cool plaster against overheated skin, and then his hands are everywhere, skimming my bare side, sliding up my ribs, cupping my face like he can’t believe I’m real.
The zipper at my side lowers with a rasp that seems to echo in the room. My skirt slides down my legs, pooling at my ankles. His knuckles graze my thigh as he helps me step free, and the touch makes my knees buckle.
“Janie.” My name breaks out of him, rough and reverent. My body tingles hearing him call me like that, in this moment.
I fist his shirt, yanking it up and over his head. His chest is all hard planes and heat. It's the same body I’ve imagined since that night, but I never let myself picture for too long.
He lifts me effortlessly, and my legs lock around his waist, my back meeting the edge of my dresser as his mouth devours mine.
Five years collapse between us, pulverizing in every frantic kiss, every frantic touch. He grinds against me through too many layers, and I cry out into his mouth, desperate.
"Off," I beg.
“Tell me to stop,” he rasps, forehead pressed to mine, breath hot and uneven.
“Don’t you dare,” I whisper, nails digging into his shoulders. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
His eyes darken, a growl vibrating low in his chest as he drops me onto the bed. The mattress bounces beneath me, sheets tangling around my hips as he shoves my thong to the side and circles my clit.
He pauses long enough to shove his pants down and reach for his wallet. The foil packet flashes in his hand.
This time, I don’t stop him. “I want you so bad. Warren. Hurry.” My voice is breathless but certain.
His eyes flick up, catching mine. The look detonates in my chest—guilt, memory, desire sparking all at once, scorching through me. Then he rips the packet open with his teeth, hands shaking as he rolls the condom on.
I curl my legs up, panties shoved down, my pulse so loud I can’t hear anything else. He snatches them from my ankle and flings them aside, eyes never leaving mine.
“Good girl,” he mutters, voice rough and low, the sound sliding over my skin like another touch. He pushes my thighs wider, his grip biting into me, and lines himself up.
The blunt head drags through my slick. The warmth of his skin on mine sends me into a tailspin. My body answers before I can think—gripping, quivering, begging. Every nerve lights, every muscle straining for him.
He presses harder, thick and unyielding at my entrance, but he doesn’t push in. Instead, he teases, nudges, and my body rebels, arching, contracting, greedy and wild with the need to take him deeper.
“Fuck, Janie,” he groans, his voice shredded. “I've thought about this, about you, about being inside of you a million times since that night.”
“Then take me,” I pant, arching up, grabbing the back of his neck to drag him closer. “God, Warren, please. I'm yours.”
He holds still for one beat, like he’s branding the image into his memory. Then he pushes in, slowly and deliberately. Inch by thick inch until he’s buried inside me.
My back bows, a cry tearing from my throat. Every nerve lights up, sharp and blazing, the forbidden edge making it hotter, filthier, impossible to stop.
His mouth finds mine again, swallowing my broken choke. “So fucking tight,” he mutters against my lips, hips grinding deeper. “Five years, Janie, and I’m losing my goddamn mind.”
I wrap my legs tighter around his waist, pulling him as deep as he’ll go. “Don’t stop. Don’t you ever stop.”
He thrusts again, harder, the headboard rattling against the wall. His breath rips out ragged, mine a counterpoint, both of us straining, breaking, coming apart together.
Heat detonates low in my body, sharp and relentless, and my cry shudders against his shoulder. He groans into my hair, driving me through every pulse and aftershock until I’m shaking apart under him.
His hands fist the sheets, his rhythm stuttering as he falls with me, body convulsing, voice breaking on my name.
We cling, trembling, sweat-slick and wheezing, mouths finding each other in desperate, messy kisses that taste of salt and whiskey and need. Neither of us lets go, not even when the quake of it ebbs, not even when his thrusts slow and still.
For a long moment, the only sound is the brutal pound of our hearts. My cheek is pressed to Warren’s chest, his heartbeat thundering against my ear. My own hammers back the fear, joy, the knowledge that we’ve crossed a line there’s no coming back from.
His lips brush my temple, the faintest whisper. “Goddamn, Janie…”
And that’s where the silence falls heavily, electric, leaving us stranded between ruin and something neither of us is brave enough to name.