Chapter Eight #2
Blaze looks puzzled (more than usual). “What? Donations were up. Cam said we killed it!”
He pushes himself out of the chair, grabbing another handful of mints (well, laundry tablets).
“Aight,” he says, fumbling for his phone. “Gonna hunt down Dr. O. That blonde from the lawn hit me up for his number, and then I was like, ‘Wait… does the doc even HAVE a number?’” He sighs. “Total fail as his wingman.”
The door clicks shut. The silence that follows is nuclear.
I whip my chair around, diving into the logistics folder on my iPad. The right side of my body disagrees with my decision entirely. It remembers how solid he felt and was not ready to let that go. Too bad. I focus on the timeline.
Trash bag distribution.
Volunteer sign-in station.
Drone clearance window.
Click. Click. Click.
Cole’s chair rolls softly across the floor.
“Everyone makes a bad call now and then, Stopwatch. Doesn’t mean you’re weak. Just makes you human.”
My fingers stop typing. “I didn’t make a bad call.”
“It’s not a big deal. You’re not going to lose the promotion because a guy lost a fight with his shorts.”
My jaw tightens. “But I didn’t make a bad call.”
“Orson was a risk.” Cole exhales slowly. “That’s all I’m saying.”
I swivel my chair toward him. “A risk? Wow. Groundbreaking analysis, Hartwell. You should write a training manual.”
“Glad you’re impressed.”
“Oh, I’m thrilled. Enlighten me, did your legendary gut also predict our client would have a giant protruding penis monster!”
“No. But I predicted it would be a shitshow.”
“What’s your damn point?!”
“That I knew it was a bad call, and you ignored me.”
The wheels of my chair scrape against the floor as I roll forward, close enough that my knee brushes his—and son of a—the contact warms my entire inner thigh. My brain lights up with: Dangerous! Stupid! Don’t fucking do it!
My body, though? Team all-in. Closer, it purrs, touch him. See what happens.
I sense his heat, the solid weight of his chest inches from mine. Filthy, unwanted thoughts take over:
What if I were pinned beneath all that muscle? Him, on top of me, pressing me into the sofa. How good he would feel between my legs.
I shift in my seat, my pulse thrumming in my throat.
Seriously, vagina? Snap out of it!
I should not be this close. Him and his stupid tight shirts and whiskey scent scrambling my focus. This is how he keeps winning! By turning me into a horny mess.
“Well,” I say. “My gut was right. Record donations. And this time? I’m taking the credit. Hope that monumental ego of yours can handle it.”
“You’re mistaking instincts for ego. I can see the crash before the screech, know the room’s gonna burn before the match strikes.” He cocks his head, eyes dark with challenge. “You call that luck. I call it skill.”
“Oh, spare me. Your gut is a crystal ball now? Next, you’ll tell me you can whisper to the algorithm and make videos go viral on command.”
“Foam rave? You really gonna sit there and call that luck?”
“You gamble, Hartwell. You throw darts in the dark and call it strategy when one hits.”
His chair slides closer, caging my knees between his legs. My pulse detonates.
“Instinct isn’t gambling, Stopwatch.”
“It absolutely is.”
“No,” he says in a low, gravelly register, and my toes curl in my sneakers. “Reaction is gambling.”
I narrow my eyes. My argument is losing ground fast. Mostly because I can’t stop staring at his jawline and imagining exactly how it would feel to bite it. Or lick it. Or worse (God help me), to feel his scruff rubbing up my inner thigh as he reaches that place I’m aching for him to touch.
My self-control has abandoned ship. It has officially swum to shore, gotten an Uber, and checked into a shady hostel for the night.
“And what was I doing today?” I say, inching toward him.
A mistake to be sure.
“Reacting,” he says, his gaze dropping to my mouth for a second before locking back onto my eyes. His warm breath skims my cheeks, and that is new information my body does not need. “You said yes to Blaze because you wanted to beat me to the call. Not because you thought it would work.”
“Not true.”
Except, it’s painfully, embarrassingly true. I hate that he knows me so well.
“You didn’t read the moment,” he says forcefully, and my clit picks it up like a microphone. “You reacted to me.”
Cole’s palms settle on my knees, easing them open a fraction.
Fuck. Heat doesn’t just climb my neck; it’s a full-body flashover. My skin is two sizes too small. I’m pissed off and vibrating with need. I squeeze the armrest, manhandling the leather to keep from reaching out and fisting my hands in his shirt.
I try to swallow, but my throat is desert-dry.
“This whole weekend I’ve been playing janitor to your ‘instincts’. Disaster after disaster. This event would be running so smoothly if you weren’t here. Deny it. I dare you.”
Cole raises an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
“I’d be executing the agenda, hitting every mark, and you’d be back home with your mind blown, wondering how I did it.”
“Keep telling yourself that. You’d be totally screwed without me here watching your blind spots,” he murmurs, blue eyes fixed on me. His fingertips work that hyper-sensitive spot on the curve of my knee, moving with slow, agonizing strokes.
The air between us vanishes. The silence is quicksand. The magnetic pull of his mouth is unbearable.
He tilts his head. Slightly. He’s about to kiss me. Close the last half-inch and ruin my entire life.
God! Just do it already.
“You freeze when you should act on instinct,” he murmurs. “You’re doing it right now.”
Ivy Ellison, Event Producer and Functioning Adult, elbows her way back into the room.
“I do not freeze.”
To prove this point—
I shoot to my feet, my chair skidding into the wall. And march straight out of the room.
Because if I stay another two seconds, I’ll either slap Cole Hartwell… or straddle him.
And neither option will get me that promotion.
“See, you hesitate,” he says, following me down the hall. “You default to safe.”
“Call it what you want, Hartwell. You know everything.”
“And you’re terrified my instincts might be right.”
We’re both standing at the elevator. I jab the button, imagining it’s Cole’s forehead. He steps into my space, but I don’t budge.
He dips his head. “Admit it, you hate how I act while you’re stuck overthinking.”
“I hate that you think there’s more to you than sheer arrogance.”
DING!
The elevator opens. I’m inside it in half a second. “Conversation over. I need to change before lunch.”
“Not until we talk about—” he gestures, between us, “—this. Whatever the hell this is, that keeps almost happening.”
The doors start to close, but Cole’s palm presses against them, holding them open—holding me captive.
He fills the threshold with hard muscle and dark intent, one forearm braced against the door, doing things it has no business doing.
My skin prickles with the heat of his stare, like he’s already touching me.
“That’s where you are very, very wrong.” I hold up a finger. “There is you. There is me. There is one promotion. That’s it. No us. And nothing to talk about.”
“So, back in the office?”
“Proximity and poor judgment.”
“You felt it.”
I take a step closer, frustration clawing up my throat, and stab the second-floor button so hard my finger stings.
His hand stays firm. Still trapping me in the moment.
“I think,” he says quietly, “you’re scared to listen to your instincts.”
My laugh comes out sharp. “You want instinct, Hartwell?”
And before the sensible, promotion-minded part of my brain can intervene, I grab his face and kiss him.
It’s supposed to be a demonstration.
A mic-drop moment.
Instead, Cole makes this rough, startled sound deep in his throat (half groan, half approval) and suddenly the kiss is not mine anymore.
One second, I’m proving a point.
The next second, he’s got an arm braced against the elevator door, keeping it open, while the other slides around my waist and hauls me against him so hard the air leaves my lungs.
Oh.
Oh wow.
His mouth moves against mine with the same confidence he argues with. Slow. Certain, like he’s winning and knows it.
My fingers fist in his hair, yanking him closer, and he doesn’t just take the green light; he floors it, deepening the kiss. I tilt my head and give him more access.
His tongue slides against mine.
Every single thing I believed about the organized, prepared, always-three-steps-ahead Ivy Ellison gets absolutely vaporized.
Gone.
Ash.
Right now, I’m throbbing in places I didn’t even realize I had. His teeth graze my bottom lip, his stubble rough against my skin, and a pleading whimper tears from me. My tongue is begging him not to pull away, not to let this end.
And then, with peak poor decision-making, my leg hooks around his thigh.
My own leg. Out here, making executive decisions. Not approved by management.
Well. Hello there, Mr. Obvious Erection. I feel the hard, thick ridge of his cock pressed against my center, and my clit purrs. I rise on my tiptoes, grinding into him, testing the weight of his desire—
WRRRRRNG! WRRRRRNG!
The elevator alarm shrieks.
We jerk apart. He stumbles back into the hallway, and I slam into the elevator wall. We stare at each other across the six feet of crackling space, breathing like we just set a tornado loose.
His hair is destroyed.
His mouth is—
The panels slide.
The last thing I see is his eyes: not smug, not performing, not any of the Cole Hartwell expressions I’ve learned to deflect. Simply shaken.
The doors seal.
Oh. My. God.
Kisses are not supposed to do that.
Melt my bones. Scramble my brain. I think I left my soul back there with this mouth.
This is bad.
I went and gift-wrapped the Director of Strategic Campaigns position and handed it to Cole Hartwell with my tongue.
The elevator doors ding open on my floor.
I walk out and cup my mouth, as if maybe I can keep the feeling in.
I should be freaking out. I should be spiraling.
Instead, I’m standing here, wishing he’d do it again.
And the most embarrassing part?
He could tell exactly how much I liked it.