Chapter 6 #3
I was thinking about your hand on my back and your mouth on my throat and all the ways I should not want you.
Instead, I said, “Tomorrow feels important.”
“It is.”
“I’m nervous.”
“I know.”
“Is that obvious?”
“To me, yes.”
That should have annoyed me. Instead, my core fluttered again, because apparently being known by him was quickly becoming indistinguishable from being touched.
He leaned slightly toward me, only enough to lower his voice. “Nerves are not the problem. Letting them make decisions for you is the problem.”
I swallowed. “I’ll try not to.”
“Good girl.”
The words went through me like a spark.
I hated my body. I hated the soft little pull of need that answered him, how some reckless part of me wanted to hear those words again under very different circumstances.
I hated that Jules would have read the moment perfectly and then made a joke so obscene I would have needed to lie down.
I hated that Callum was looking at me as if he could see far more than I had given him permission to see.
Then his gaze dipped to my mouth. It was only for a second.
But it still happened.
I stopped breathing. He looked back to my eyes immediately, and something in his face closed, almost like a man shutting a door inside himself before he could see what was on the other side.
“You should go inside,” he said.
I nodded too quickly. “Right. Yes. Nine tomorrow.”
“Nine tomorrow.”
I opened the car door before I could wait for him to do it, which was probably both childish and self-preserving. The cool night air hit my face. I stepped onto the sidewalk, turned back, and found him watching me from the dim interior of the car.
“Goodnight, Callum,” I said.
“Goodnight, Avery.”
I closed the door.
The car did not pull away until I was inside the building.
I felt his eyes on me while I fumbled my key into the lock, opened the door, and pushed into the dim lobby.
Only when the door shut behind me did I exhale.
My knees felt unreliable. My skin felt too tight.
Every place he had not touched me seemed aware of the omission.
I felt the disappointment of every one of those too-numerous places.
Once I made it inside my apartment, I dropped my purse onto the counter, leaned back against the closed door, and pressed both hands over my face.
My phone buzzed.
Jules: Are you alive?
I laughed once, weakly. How could she possibly have known I had just walked in the door?
Me: Physically.
Jules: Emotionally?
Me: Contested.
Jules: Sexually?
I closed my eyes.
Me: I’m not answering that.
Jules: So no, but in a hot way.
Me: He was a gentleman.
Jules: Tragic.
Me: Jules.
Jules: Define gentleman.
Me: He bought me a chocolate tart and talked about my parents and told me work needs distance tomorrow.
Jules: Ah.
Me: Ah?
Jules: He’s trying to be good.
Me: So am I.
Jules: How’s that going?
I stared at the message for a long time. Then I sank down onto the edge of my bed, still in the dress, still wearing Jules’s heels, and looked toward the window where the city lights blurred softly beyond the glass.
Me: Poorly.
Jules’s reply came almost immediately.
Jules: Get some sleep and reassess in the morning.
I laughed, but it came out shaky. I put the phone down and reached for the knot at my waist. The dress loosened with one pull, soft fabric giving way under my fingers, and for one wild second I imagined Callum’s hands there.
I imagined his mouth at my throat, the low sound of his voice against my skin, how he might tell me to be still.
Need moved through me again, deep and insistent, and I stood abruptly.
“No,” I said aloud.
The word sounded small in the room.
Wanting my new boss was stupid. Wanting my godfather was worse.
Wanting the man who had just handed me a chance to rebuild my life was selfish, reckless, and probably the kind of thing that ended in tears, scandal, and Benjamin Mercer appearing at my door with a confidentiality agreement and a shovel.
So I changed into pajamas. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and set an alarm for six-thirty, then seven, then seven-fifteen, because hope was not a time-management system.
I hung Jules’s dress carefully on the back of the closet door and touched the sleeve once before stepping away, as if it were evidence from a crime I had not committed but had very much considered.
In bed, I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling.
Tomorrow, I would go to Rowe Tower at nine.
Well, 8:45, because Benjamin. He would consider on time to be inexcusably tardy.
I would read policies, learn systems, take notes, and become the serious employee I had promised Callum I could be.
I would keep my distance. I would not look at his hands.
I would not think about his mouth on my neck.
I would not let one dinner and one brief touch at the small of my back turn into a fantasy I could never have.
I would be good.
The thought sent a final, humiliating flutter through me.
I turned onto my side and pulled the blanket up to my chin, furious with myself, already knowing sleep would be difficult. I closed my eyes and desperately tried not to think about Callum Rowe.
I failed spectacularly.