Chapter 7 #2
At first, I tried to keep it clean, which was ridiculous, but true.
I tried to think of just kissing her. I imagined stopping her at my office door, my hand on the frame above her head, giving her every chance to leave.
I imagined her not leaving, then I imagined lowering my mouth to hers and feeling the first soft shock of contact, her breath catching, her hands coming to my shirt.
That should have been enough.
It was not.
The image shifted darker, hotter, and far less defensible.
Avery on her knees between my legs, looking up at me with the same defiant softness she had worn at dinner when she told me I could not boss her.
Her hair loose around her face. My hand tangled in the strands, holding her head steady as she parted her mouth.
My cock sliding over her lips and into the wet heat of her mouth while she watched me, her pretty hazel eyes sparkling with defiance.
I swore under my breath.
The sound disappeared into the dark.
My hand moved under the sheet.
For a few seconds, I resisted even then, as if the delay meant something, as if not touching myself immediately preserved some moral line the fantasy had not already crossed.
But my desire had become a physical ache, and when my hand finally closed around my throbbing cock, relief moved through me so intensely that I shut my eyes tighter.
This was not touching her.
I kept telling myself that.
I stroked myself slowly at first, jaw clenched, breathing measured through my nose like discipline could survive the act if I gave it rhythm.
I thought of her in the car, the hem of that dress and the small sound she had made over chocolate.
Then I thought of her mouth again and lost the measured pace almost immediately.
I imagined her saying my name.
Soft at first, then breathless. Maybe irritated with herself for wanting me.
Maybe still trying to be good because she had not yet understood how much that would undo me.
The thought burned through me. I tightened my grip and dragged my hand over my cock harder, the sheet twisting at my hips as my control thinned to a narrow, fragile thread.
I should not be thinking about her like this.
I knew that. I knew it with every part of me.
The decent part. The loyal part. The part that still loved Robert Hale like a brother and had stood beside his grave promising silently that I would never let his daughter be alone in the world if I could help it.
I knew that wanting Avery this badly was a complication at best and a betrayal if handled poorly.
I knew power had a gravity of its own, that my age, my position, my company, my history with her family all meant I had to be more careful than another man would have to be.
I knew all of it.
And still, in the dark, with my hand around my cock and the fantasy of Avery’s mouth taking me deeper, all that knowledge did not stop the pleasure from climbing.
I saw her as she had been beneath the restaurant awning, looking up at me while the city shone around us, her mouth soft and her eyes too bright.
I felt again the brief press of my palm at her back.
I imagined sliding that hand lower, pulling her against me, hearing her quick intake of breath.
Pushing the navy dress up her thighs, finding her warm and wet and needy from all those careful little moments we had pretended not to feel. Telling her to look at me.
And in the fantasy, she did.
I came with my jaw clenched and one hand gripping the sheet, a low sound torn from me before I could stop it.
For several seconds afterward, I did not move.
My breathing filled the room, too loud in the quiet.
Heat drained slowly out of my body, leaving behind the familiar aftermath of pleasure: clarity, shame, and the inconvenient truth that neither one erased the other.
I got up, cleaned myself, washed my hands, and returned to the bed as if order could be restored through procedure.
It could not.
The room felt the same. The house felt the same.
The city beyond the windows went on being indifferent.
Nothing had happened, in the practical sense.
No line had been crossed where anyone could see it.
Avery was still in her apartment. I was still in my house.
Tomorrow, she would arrive at Rowe Tower at nine, and I would be in a meeting about Hartwell while Benjamin processed her into the company like a suspicious package.
I would keep my distance. I would do what I had told her I would do. At work, I needed distance.
But in the dark, I had already failed to keep it.
I lay awake for a long time after that, one arm bent under my head, staring at the ceiling. By one in the morning, I had made several decisions.
No more private dinners for a while.
No unnecessary closed-door meetings.
No special treatment that could look like intimacy and no distance so severe it looked like punishment.
I would keep my hands off her. I would not call her late at night, would not text unless it concerned work or safety, and I would not look for reasons to see her alone.
I would be her employer when I had to be, her godfather when I was allowed to be, and nothing else.
It all sounded very reasonable.
It sounded like a plan.
It lasted until I closed my eyes and saw her again, standing on the sidewalk in that navy dress, looking at me as if she knew exactly what was going on in my head.
At 1:30, my phone buzzed on the nightstand and I turned my head. For one reckless second, I thought it might be her, but it was Benjamin.
Benjamin: I have scheduled Avery Hale’s first HR block at 9:15. Dana has requested permission to terrify her. I said yes provisionally.
I stared at the message, then typed back.
Me: Be fair.
Benjamin: You keep using that word as if it will save you.
I set the phone down without answering. In the dark, I almost laughed. Then I almost groaned. In the end, I did neither. I lay still until the ceiling blurred above me, the night carried on, and I knew with perfect, unwelcome clarity that tomorrow would not be easier.
Tomorrow, I would have to be better than I had been tonight.