Chapter 25
WREN
I think I’ve fucked him on every surface of his apartment this past week, but it’s still not enough. When I’m around him at the office, the same need and sexual tension is there, as if we haven’t been fucking around off the clock at all.
I don’t know what it’s going to take to rid me of my attraction to him, but this isn’t cutting it.
I lean back at my desk, arching the chair back enough for me to see inside Darcy’s office. He’s looking at his screen with the same concentration lines in his forehead that he gets when he’s trying to convince his body not to come.
Work looks sexy on him.
Hell, anything looks sexy on him.
I glance at my computer screen, contemplating whether I can convince Darcy to clock off at 5:00 p.m. today like a normal person.
Tobias appears in my doorway out of nowhere, and I almost fall back completely but manage to get the chair back on balance.
Toby snorts. “Classy. If you’re waiting for Darce to tell you you’re allowed to go home, it won’t happen.”
“I’m actually contemplating trying to get him to go home.”
“Good luck with that. That man stops for no one. See you tomorrow.” Toby is slowly but surely warming up to me, and I’m hopeful that one day down the line, we might have a chance at a brotherly relationship. Uh, not the kind of brotherly relationship I have with Darcy, but a real one.
Once Toby’s out of my line of sight, I go back to staring at Darcy. There aren’t enough hours in the day to get my fill of him. I need more of him. More time where I’m able to touch him when I want. Kiss him.
It doesn’t have to be public. Just … more.
That’s it. It’s time to go home.
Yet, when I stand and walk across the hall, I don’t even get that out before Darcy says, “There’s no way I’m going home anytime soon.”
I step inside and close the door behind me.
Our offices are all glass, but they have a cool feature that turns the glass frosted for privacy if we need them to.
Mostly, we all keep the sides frosted, but as I lock his door and round his desk, I press the button to make his entire office private from prying eyes.
“Wren …” He sounds so pained.
“You sound stressed. You know what’s good for stress?” I slip between him and his desk, accidentally typing on his keyboard with my butt.
He grips my hips. “Maybe not messing up my report with your ass?”
“Oops.” I reach back and pull the keyboard out from under me. “You need a break.” Leaning in, my lips land near his ear. “You need release.”
When I pull away, his eyes flutter closed.
“You have no idea how much I want that, but I’m behind on a ton of paperwork for the accounting department, and I need to get it done before leaving tonight.”
See? Getting together is next to impossible, so it’s no surprise our hunger is only growing for each other.
I slide off his desk. “Okay, how can I help?”
Darcy considers it for a moment. “I don’t think it’s something you can help with.”
“Because I’m not smart enough?”
“Because you’re inexperienced. There’s a difference.”
“What are you trying to do?”
“We were looking at acquiring a small online magazine, but to push it through, we need all of the site’s profits and losses. But … what they’ve given me … it’s not adding up.”
“Have they fudged the numbers to make it look more profitable than it is?”
“The opposite. It’s like they’ve undervalued the site.”
“Score for us, then.”
“No. Not score for us. It means they could be doing some shady shit. Earning money, but the owner could be embezzling or taking that money and putting it back into the business, but I can’t find the records.
The numbers aren’t lining up, and I need them to before sending them to accounting for approval. ”
“Can’t accounting help find the numbers?”
“They’ve gone home already, and they’ve been asking me for this for the last week. You know, the week where I’ve been going home early to have an illicit affair?”
That shouldn’t bring a smile to my face, but it does.
“Print off everything they sent, and let’s find that missing money.”
And that’s how I end up pulling my first all-nighter in the office.
I have to say, it’s not as terrible as I thought it would be, but I’m sure it has nothing to do with the work and everything to do with Darcy.
* * *
We’re both zombies as we enter Darcy’s apartment at the ass crack of dawn.
“It should be illegal to be this tired,” I say. “Or it should at least be for a better reason than staying up all night problem-solving.”
Darcy takes my hand. “But the good news is we made the math work.”
“You mean we figured out how that website’s reporting was all formatted wrong, which made the numbers off.”
“Same thing. Come on. We’ll have a three-hour power nap, wake up, fuck, then go back into the office in time for our 10:00 a.m. meeting.”
I want to sob. “Can’t we cancel that?”
“You don’t have to be there, but I do.”
“How do you do this? Every day? More importantly, how do you enjoy it as much as you do?”
We reach his bedroom and strip down to our underwear.
“Are you saying you’re not enjoying it?”
In unison, we pull back the covers and slip into bed, where it’s a fight not to fall right to sleep.
“I am. I enjoy spending time with you. And I can even admit that I like living the kind of work life I thought I’d have when I went through college. But the hours … there has to be a better way. Ever wonder why our father drove himself into an early grave?”
Darcy winces. “Can you not refer to him as our father now that we’re sleeping together? It blurs lines I’m really trying to differentiate between.”
“Fine, your father—because he sure as fuck will never be mine in my eyes—worked himself into an early grave.”
“He died from cancer, not from working too hard.”
“Surely the stress would’ve made it metastasize faster or something. They’ve done studies … probably.”
“Oh, well, if you’re sure they’ve researched it and have never read the study results, I will believe you.”
I pinch his side. “I’m just saying, you need to take a break more often.”
Darcy sighs. “I know I do, but the thing is, Father passed not too long ago, and I’m still proving myself by taking over for him. I’m still fighting for what I’ve worked hard for. And?—”
“Darce, you’ll be doing that for the rest of your life. Where do you draw the line?”
I worry I’ve said something wrong because he doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. And if I had my eyes shut, I might have thought he fell asleep. But he hasn’t. He’s blinking, unwavering.
Then suddenly, he rolls onto his back and lets out a “Fuck, you’re right.”
“Sorry to inform you, but you don’t need an MBA to know more than you.”
He breaks into a laugh. “Let’s get some sleep. I’m setting my alarm for three hours.”
I mimic Darcy’s voice. “You’re right, Wren. So right. Now, let me ignore your advice and insist three hours is enough sleep to live off.”
“I already said I can’t miss this meeting this morning, but you can.”
“Can I sleep naked in your bed so that when you get home right after your meeting, you can wake me with a blowjob?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, you’re forgiven for being a workaholic then.”
“How generous of you.”
I yawn and close my eyes, already feeling myself drift off. “I’m a giving kind of guy.”
Darcy’s hand lands on my cheek, and he says something, but I miss it because I’m already in that weird space between consciousness and oblivion.