Chapter 16 #2
Callum looked up from behind his desk. He was clean-shaven and sharply dressed, but there were shadows beneath his eyes, and the papers on his desk had multiplied into stacks that looked hostile and punitive.
His suit was dark, his tie loosened by perhaps half an inch, his hair slightly rough at the temples as if he had pushed a hand through it one too many times.
His gaze found mine.
“Avery,” he said.
“Callum.”
Benjamin closed the door behind me. The click was soft.
Callum stood. “Lock it.”
My body reacted before my brain did. Then my brain caught up and panicked.
“Lock it?”
His eyes held mine. “Please.”
I turned, fingers trembling only slightly, and locked the door. The sound moved through me like a chord I already knew. When I faced him again, he had come around the desk but stopped several feet away, far enough away that we couldn’t touch.
“Before anything else,” he began, “are you alright?”
The question should have been easy. Instead, my throat tightened.
“I don’t know.”
His expression softened. “Tell me.”
I laughed once, without humor. “That’s the problem. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be this morning.”
He did not move.
“I came in thinking maybe you’d act like nothing happened,” I said.
“Or maybe you’d call me in here and we’d…
” I looked away, face heating. “And then I hated myself for being disappointed by the idea that you might not. And then I hated myself for being aroused by the idea that you would. And then I thought, great, wonderful! I’m walking into work wondering if I’m the boss’s girlfriend or his dirty little secret or his employee or his goddaughter or his—”
I stopped.
“His what?” Callum asked quietly.
I looked at him. “Don’t make me say it.”
“I need to know what you’re afraid of.”
The kindness in his voice almost ruined me.
“His t-toy,” I answered very softly.
Callum went still. I thought I saw a flash of hurt cross his face, maybe, or the controlled version of hurt he allowed himself before converting it into something else.
“You are not my toy,” he said.
I swallowed.
“You are not just a fling. You are not an office secret I use when convenient and put away when the calendar becomes difficult.” He took one step closer. “You are my employee here, and that matters. You are also Avery Hale, who has her own job to do and her own place to earn. That matters too.”
“And outside here?”
His eyes darkened.
“Outside here,” he growled, “you are mine.”
The words went through me so hard I could not speak.
“Mine because you choose to be. Mine because I choose you back. Mine because I spent the weekend in rooms full of liars and politicians and charlatans—which may be redundant—and still, every quiet second I had, I thought of you,” he ranted, his voice turning rougher.
My eyes stung.
“That was very good,” I quipped, because feelings frightened me and apparently sarcasm remained my emergency exit.
His mouth curved. A real smile, small and tired and entirely mine for that second. “Was it?”
“Alarmingly. Did Benjamin draft it?”
“No. Benjamin would have added subheadings.”
“And a liability clause.”
“Several.”
I laughed, and it came out embarrassingly unguarded. The sound filled the office too brightly, and for one second, I felt like a teenager with a crush, giddy and reckless and dizzy because the boy I wanted had just said something devastating and then smiled at me.
Callum’s gaze warmed.
“There she is,” he murmured.
“Oh, don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you like me.”
“I do like you.”
“That is not helping.”
“I don’t intend to help with that.”
Then he closed the distance and kissed me.
The kiss was not like our first one. It started with his hand at my jaw, thumb resting just beneath my cheekbone, his mouth firm over mine, and for one astonishing second I thought he might keep it gentle.
Then I made the mistake of sighing into him, and his control shifted.
He backed me into the door with enough purpose that my body thrilled at the command of it.
His mouth opened mine, his tongue sliding against mine, and I clutched at his lapels because there was nowhere else to put the force of wanting him.
His other hand found my waist, then the small of my back, pulling me close enough that I felt exactly how much he had missed me.
When he broke the kiss, my breathing was ruined.
“Did you think about me this weekend?” he asked.
I laughed breathlessly against his mouth. “No. I took up woodworking.”
His eyes narrowed, amused and dangerous. “Liar.”
“I did. I built a canoe.”
His hand slid into my hair and I went quiet immediately. His thumb stroked once near my ear.
“There’s my girl,” he crooned.
My knees nearly gave.
“That’s unfair.”
“Yes.”
“Callum.”
He kissed me again, harder this time, then caught both my wrists and pinned them above my head against the door. The movement was so fast, so clean, so utterly him, that a sound slipped out of me before I could stop it. His gaze dropped to my mouth.
“Still with me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He held me there, just making the point that he could pin me with his hands alone. I could have moved. I knew that. He knew that. What made it hot was not that I couldn’t. It was that I didn’t.
“You are a smart girl,” he said, voice low. “You proved that last week. Dana saw it. Benjamin saw it. I saw it. You read a room well. You write clearly. You listen. You can become very successful here if you decide to stop apologizing for taking up space.”
My heart twisted. Then his mouth came closer to my ear.
“And you are also twenty-five,” he continued, “and sometimes you need an older man to put his hand under your skirt, bend you over, and remind you to stop testing the edge of every rule just to see whether someone will hold you to it.”
The words set me on fire. My thighs pressed together in a tizzy. Callum’s eyes dropped, then returned to mine, dark with satisfaction.
“I saw that,” he smirked.
“Of course you did.”
“I saw it Friday too.” His grip on my wrists tightened a fraction. “When I pointed out that you were twenty-five and I was old enough to know better.”
“You didn’t say how old.”
“I’m forty-seven, Avery.”
My breath caught. There it was. The age difference said plainly, dragged into the room and set between us like a centerpiece.
His eyes searched mine. “And there. You bit your lip.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“I’m processing information.”
“You clenched your thighs.”
“I have legs. Sometimes they move.”
“Your pulse is racing.”
“That could be fear.”
“No.” His mouth hovered near mine. “It isn’t.”
I should have been ashamed. I was, a little.
But the shame was threaded with heat, with the strange relief of being seen in what I was most ashamed to desire and not being mocked for it.
Callum knew. He knew the age difference fed some awful, hungry part of me.
He knew the forbidden pieces had not frightened the desire away; they had intensified it.
He knew, and instead of pretending to be horrified, he held my wrists above my head and watched me blush.
“You like that I’m older,” he said.
I closed my eyes.
“Avery.”
“Yes.”
“Look at me when you answer, young lady.”
I opened my eyes. His face was close enough that I could see the faint shadows beneath his eyes, the tiny lines near his mouth, the control he wore like a tailored suit and the heat moving under it.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I like it.”
His breath left him slowly. For one second, I thought he would kiss me again and not stop. Instead, he released my wrists.
I stared at him.
The loss of his grip felt like a reprimand.
He stepped back half a pace, though his hands hovered near my waist. “And sometimes,” he said, voice still rough but steadier now, “that same man needs to send you back to your desk.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“You kissed me like that and now I’m supposed to go format summaries?”
“Yes.”
“That is cruel and unusual punishment.”
“That is Monday.”
“I hate Monday.”
“You have work to do, young lady.”
I stared at him, still flushed, still breathing too fast, still pressed against the door with my body loudly protesting the existence of professionalism.
His gaze softened. “This is not a one-time thing. This is not something I took from you on Friday and plan to ignore moving forward because the weekend made it inconvenient,” he said. “It is not just sex. It is not only secrecy. It is also not going to swallow your job whole. Do you understand?”
I nodded, then corrected myself before he could.
“Yes.”
“You want to make your way up in this company?”
“Yes.”
“You want Dana to respect you?”
“Desperately.”
“You want Benjamin to stop calling you a sentimental variable?”
“I’ve adjusted my expectations there.”
His mouth twitched. “Then you will work. You will let Dana manage your development. You will let Benjamin be unbearable when he is right. You will not rely on me to make things easier for you.”
“I know.”
“And with me,” he continued, “you will tell the truth. If you need tenderness, you say so. If you need space, you say so. If you need me to put you over my knee and spank your ass bright red, you say so.”
My face went molten.
He smiled faintly. “There it is again.”
“You enjoy this too much.”
“I enjoy you.”
My heart went pitter-patter in my chest.
“What am I supposed to call you?” I asked before I could lose my nerve.
His brows drew together slightly. “In what sense?”
“At work. In private. In my head. To Jules. Am I your… girlfriend?”
It came out smaller than I wanted. Callum did not answer immediately, which was cruel and probably wise.
He lifted a hand and brushed his thumb along my lower lip. “I want you in my life, Avery. Not just in my office. Not just in my bed. I want you everywhere.”
My throat tightened.
“So, yes. If you want to be my girlfriend, you will be my girlfriend.”
My heart beat even faster then.
“I might want it,” I said.
“Might?”
“I’m negotiating with my dignity.”
“How is it going?”
“Poorly.”