Chapter 13
BENJI
Isighed into the quick kiss. A kiss he wanted as much as I did.
I was sure of it. I’d been brave enough to kiss him the first time, but in the minutes I was working at the desk, I’d come up with a dozen other explanations for interactions I had perceived as heated and a million reasons why kissing him was a bad idea.
Then he kissed me, just a simple peck of the lips, but I knew in that moment that I wanted his kisses and his teasing and that laughter in his eyes, I wanted all of it even though all of it would be … messy, complicated, dangerous.
Probably too dangerous for the famous head of a multinational company.
I returned to the desk and sat, needlessly checking the settings on the printer.
Anson took his seat opposite me. We both listened as the printer turned our calculations into a tangible thing, staring at each other, neither of us paying any attention to the creation being made.
The final product would be waiting for us in the morning.
What felt like an eternity later, but was probably only a few minutes, Anson rounded the desk and held out his hand. I obliged, standing and facing him. He’d not left much room, crowding me in, surrounded by a desk and a chair and the man himself.
“Come back upstairs with me,” Anson spoke, his lips brushing mine as he said it, featherlight but causing an inferno, nonetheless.
We hadn’t really embraced each time we kissed, keeping our bodies separate, and I swear, my cock strained in desperation like it could break through my pants, reach out, and touch him on its own.
All from whispered kisses and honest, open smiles, and the rolling of his eyes when I couldn’t stop myself from asking him to leave his hair down.
It was still down because I’d asked it of him. I reached up to run my fingers through it but hesitated, pulling my hand back to my side instead.
I wanted to do so much more than run my fingers through that hair.
I wanted to get on my knees for him and learn what he liked from the sounds he’d make.
I wanted to climb on top of him, our bodies moving with the same kind of connection I felt when we worked.
I wanted to make him writhe and scream, and I wanted to lose control with him in a way I’d never trusted myself to do with another man.
None of those thoughts were helping the situation in my pants or the voice of common sense that was niggling in the back of my brain.
Because the other thing I had come to want in my time with Anson was to protect him and watch out for him so that he could continue to be his brilliantly distracted self.
I thought about parading back upstairs with him, where we would have few distractions in his cozy, dimly lit office, but where we would also pass Ross’s office and probably run into Beck.
Next I thought about dinner with my dad and months, or hopefully years, of working officially for New Day, of working with Anson.
Emotions played over my face, and I watched Anson focus on me, concentrating the same way he did when facing a computer screen.
I knew I had to help him understand what I was feeling.
It was only fair. And I had to do it more clearly than blurting out, “I want to work here!” in the heat of the moment.
I reached up and did one of the things I really wanted to: I ran my fingers through his soft hair and pulled his head down until our foreheads met. My inhale took in his scent, and it almost took my resolve with it. I forced it out on a sigh.
“We can’t, baby.”
Even though my tone was soft, he stepped away from me quickly, his eyes wide.
“Think about it,” I whispered, wishing for nothing more than to be back in the orbit of his arms, my hands in his hair, my breath dancing with his.
“You're my boss,” I said simply, though it seemed like the most complicated sentence I’d ever uttered.
He nodded. “But …” he started, stopping himself to think it through. I waited and watched. It was my turn to process the emotions kaleidoscoping on his face.
The final one before he spoke could only be interpreted as defeat.
“Okay, yeah. I get it, I suppose. Complicated, right?”
I smiled sadly in agreement.
“But I need to understand something.”
“Understand?” I implored.
“I … don’t always get these things right,” he confessed.
“What things, Anson?”
“I don't always understand cues. Social cues, facial cues.” He trailed off, his tone tugging at my heart. “I thought maybe, with you I did … but … I need to be sure.”
For a moment, in my mind’s eye I was the boy I’d been, the one with his image on my computer. But it wasn’t my icon standing before me, it was a man, an unsure man, hesitant and worried.
I thought about how that man was my very wealthy boss.
I thought about how my dad and Anson had known each other as boys.
I thought about Beck and how protective he was, how apoplectic he would be if he found out what we were getting up to in the private lab.
I thought about Erin in HR, and what she might have to say.
And finally, I thought about the man standing before me, his genius, his reputation, his research grants and government contracts, his huge successes, and those yet to come. The tools he’d created that really helped people improve their lives.
I thought, too, about the awkward man who wasn’t always great at picking up on things, like he’d admitted. I thought about how I needed to be one of the people to protect him.
“You’re not reading this wrong, Anson. You’re not reading me wrong.
But people will question us. My motives, your intentions.
The boss can’t just …” I wanted to say date a junior assistant, but that seemed presumptuous as much as it was where I envisioned our kiss leading.
Fuck sounded crass and kiss, too simple.
“Benji, my intentions …”
I interrupted him. “Please don’t. I know. Anson. I know. But what will other people think?”
He spoke plainly, “I don’t generally care about what other people think.”
I smiled at him, thinking about how disheveled he looked in that news article I’d kept on my computer screen. Standing before me, he was much better put together but still essentially the same mad scientist.
“That’s not true, Anson,” I said softly.
“You care about New Day. You care about the people in this building, and you very much care about your research and the good it does in the world. You cannot compromise that. I won’t allow it.
For what? Some kid …” I straightened my spine and shoved my hands in my pockets to keep from reaching for him.
I continued before he could contradict me.
“Some fresh-out-of-grad-school interloper. Some entry-level employee who people will accuse, whom Beck will accuse, of manipulating you, of using you to get his name on your next project!”
It felt like silence around us even though the printer kept up its work, our work.
Anson turned and walked away from me, pulling his chair out from the desk and slouching into it. He looked at me with that intense focus that I’d come to know meant he was working to solve a problem.
“Please tell me that’s not what’s happening here, Benji? Please tell me that’s not true.”
My hands fisted in my pockets, blunt nails reminding me that caring about this man meant protecting him. I had to be honest. He’d just have to understand that how we were feeling, how I felt about him, wasn’t important.
“Of course it’s not,” I confessed, glad for the desk that divided us.
He nodded, a determined look furrowing his brow as he calculated a solution.
“So we wait until this project’s done. Then you can go work for Morgan in R&D. Or”—he breathed out for a long moment—“or I can provide you with a recommendation to go work … elsewhere.”
I shook my head, vehemently. “No! Please, Anson. NDT has always been the dream for me. I … please … Don’t make me leave you.”
“Leave me?”
“You. New Day. This lab. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“Does that include a fling with the boss? With the famous Anson Day?” Anson was looking directly at me, asking a blunt question and demanding an honest answer.
“Anson … I … that’s not what this is about.” My frustration was in direct proportion to his calm. “I mean, maybe, when I was younger. When I was a kid …” I paused, trailing off until I found my words. Anson waited, instinctively understanding that he didn’t need to fill the silence.
“But this thing between us. This connection. It’s real. Isn’t it? I mean, look what we’re accomplishing down here. Look at the amazing things we can do, together.” I sounded desperate.
“We just fit.” He’d summed it up succinctly. Three simple words. So true.
“We do. Or we would. If it weren’t so complicated!” My frustration echoed over the sound of the machinery, our silence filling the room.
I sighed. Anson sighed. We looked at each other.
“Finish this project with me, Benji. You know this is going to work. We can decide your future with the company after that. Okay? Anything you want. Any project! Any department!”
The 3D printer voiced its effort, a crucial piece of our project coming to life in front of me with every slide of the extruder. I turned away from it and away from him.
“Don’t you see,” I whispered. My back was to him, so I said it louder. “Don’t you see, Anson. You can’t say things like that. I’m not special. I’m an entry-level employee, and I need to be treated like one.”
“Not true!” I spun around quickly, surprised, no, shocked at the passion in Anson’s voice.
He lowered it to a whisper. “That’s just not true.
Your work is exceptional. You are exceptional.
That’s why … I think … No, I know, damn it!
This connection, this thing between us.” His hand waved violently as if the torque of it could manifest said thing the same way the printer was spitting out carbon fiber mix.