Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
AUGUST CURRENT DAY (TUESDAY)
T he presentation has to be perfect. There can’t be a single word out of line, a single number out of order. There are peoples’ jobs at stake. This is my legacy at stake.
“I want to take you out tonight.”
I look up to find Warren smiling at me from the doorway as he watches me work. It’s an expression I know well from when he used to sit next to me and catch my face twisted in all sorts of funny ways when I was deep in concentration. He called them my “unstoppable faces” because when I “focused on a problem, there was nothing I couldn’t solve.”
“Take me out?” I can’t help the smile growing on my face. “What’s the occasion?”
“We’re celebrating, of course.” He winks at me, and I think the hit of dopamine it gives me is visible.
“Isn’t it bad luck to plan a celebration when you haven’t won yet?”
He shrugs, leaning against the frame so casually and comfortably, like he’s been doing it his whole life, just for me. “I’d bet on you any day, with full confidence that I’d win.”
I stand up and move to make myself a coffee that just so happens to put me right next to where he’s standing. As I approach, his eyes slowly travel down my body. Without my suit jacket on, I’m in just a fitted white button-up shirt and light blue tapered pants and he likes what he sees. The muscles in his jaw are tight and he takes a step into the office, reaching to close the door behind him. I raise an eyebrow at him as it clicks closed but turn to make two cups of coffee.
He steps up behind me, leaning down to press his lips to my shoulder, then up my neck. “This is what I wanted to do the moment we were alone in this room that first day,” he mumbles and spins me around to face him. He captures my gasp of surprise with his lips as they crash into mine.
I’m grateful that I almost exclusively keep my office blinds closed, so it’s not suspicious that we’re in here together like this.
He kisses me like this is the most important thing in the world—like I’m the most important thing in the world. And I kiss him like this isn’t my workplace, like there aren’t a hundred people outside that door that could walk in and get us both in trouble. But as he picks me up and sets me on the corner of my desk, I couldn’t care less. My legs wrap around him, and I pull him closer by the blue tie he wore to match my outfit.
God, Warren Mitchell is a fucking religion. No, a cult, and I drank the juice.
And I never want to go back.
Let them walk in. Let them see how perfectly his body curves around mine. Let them see how he kisses me until I can’t remember anything but his name and that he belongs with me.
His hands travel from my back and thighs to the button on my pants.
“Warren,” I gasp out between kisses.
“You look so good in these pantsuits,” he says against my lips as the zipper goes down and his fingers flirt with the space created. “But,” he adds, just as his hand finds its way down the front of my pants. I would get on my knees and beg for his fingers to never stop doing what they’re doing right now. “They make it really hard to have office sex.”
I don’t want him to stop—I never want him to stop—but I lightly push back against his stomach and in a second, he’s two steps away from me. He sucks in breath after breath just as I am, and his jaw is tense like he’s forcing himself to stay right where he is even though all he wants is to bridge the distance between us again. His dark eyes are still on my unzipped pants.
He wants this as much as I do.
I take a deep breath and try to make my voice firm. “No office sex.”
His eyes flash up to mine and his words are ragged. “Your body is saying otherwise.”
“You could touch me in every inappropriate place on this planet and my body would react that way simply because it’s your hands on me.” I finally catch my breath and stand, fixing my shirt and buttoning up my pants. “Are our evenings not satisfying enough for you?”
“I have six and a half years to make up for.” He steps forward and kisses me once more. “And when it comes to you, I’ll never have enough.”
“Well, for right now, it has to be.” I kiss him again then move to open the door so he can’t tempt me further. Just seeing him in his perfectly tailored suits every day is temptation enough. “We have a presentation in a few hours, and I need to make sure it’s perfect.”
“It’ll automatically be perfect because you’re giving it.” He winks and I chuckle. “But do you need anything else from me?”
“I’m going to look it over a few times to make sure I’m not missing anything and then I’ll come find you to do a final walk-through,” I say, gently pushing him out the door. If he stays, I won’t get anything done.
* * *
I don’t even make it thirty minutes before I’m taking all of my notes and my laptop over toward the conference rooms.
That prick has ruined my office for me.
I never had a reason to even consider office sex before, but as I sat in that room after he left, all I could think of were all the ways we could have sex in there. Couple that with the knowledge that he was only a hundred feet from the door, and I couldn’t stay there any longer. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to work in there effectively again—definitely not while he’s here.
When I come stomping into the room he looks up and a grin grows when he sees the frustrated look on my face. “You’re thinking about it.”
“If I get fired, you’re to blame for killing my productivity.” I scowl as I drop into the seat beside him. “You have ruined my office for me.”
“Oh, Analise,” he purrs my name, and a chill runs down my spine. “If you believe your office is the only place I’ve ever imagined fucking you, you don’t know me as well as I thought you did.”
My heavy breaths huff out of my nose like a bull ready to charge its prey. The glass wall exposing us to the rest of the office is the only thing that stops me from climbing into his lap and letting him finish what he started in my office.
“I’d prefer to not have every place we’ve ever been ruined for me,” I say through gritted teeth.
His face lights up the way it always has when I play along. “You do know me,” he pouts.
“Well enough to know this is just as agonizing for you as it is for me.” When he’s so under my skin like he is right now, all I want to do is get under his. I lean in closer and lower my voice as I continue, “I know that all you can think about is your hand between my legs earlier. How my usual put-together appearance was unraveled by your touch as I sat on the corner of my desk with unbuttoned pants and my shirt untucked, and wild eyes that almost let you do every little thing you desired in that moment.”
“Now that’s just cruel,” he murmurs, his hand moving to my leg, just above my knee, to squeeze.
“I haven’t even begun yet.” I smirk, and run my hand up his leg to feel him through his pants.
He hisses and grabs my wrist immediately. His breathing instantly turns ragged and his eyes dance with want. “Careful,” he breathes, unable to speak louder. He’s about to snap and part of me really wants to see what happens if he does.
“I know you better than anyone on this planet ever will,” I say, holding eye-contact. “I know every little thing that gets under your skin, that turns you on, that makes you tick, because I’m fucking obsessed with every move you make. I have been studying you since the moment I met you—always with the goal of making you happier than you ever dreamed you could be. So every dirty, depraved fantasy that goes through that brilliant mind of yours . . . I intend to be the person to make every one of them a reality.”
“Holy, fuck.” His one hand grips my leg harder as the other starts shaking even as it holds mine back.
“But right now,” I add, forcing myself to continue. I want to see him snap, but it can’t be right now—there’s too much at stake. “What may end up being the most important presentation of my career is in an hour, and I need you to use all of your focus to help me make sure this proposal is bulletproof.”
He sucks in a deep breath, followed by another, and only after he’s composed himself does he look at me and nod. “Whatever you need.”
* * *
“Holy shit, is this for real?” he asks after I go through the presentation I’ve put together.
“It looks too good to be true, right?” I say. That’s been my biggest worry—that it is too good to be true and I’ve misinterpreted something. “I want to walk you through all of my research to make sure you agree with my interpretation of everything. I want your complete agreement with everything in these slides, especially the financial projections. You are the CFO after all.”
He grins. “Still after the title, huh?”
I laugh as I pull up the research and walk him through it.
We have some really great discussions about some of the articles and their exact interpretation and application, and at the end of it all, we’re in complete agreement. My numbers, although mind-boggling, seem to be completely accurate.
“Do you want to present with me?” I ask and he shakes his head before I even finish.
“No, this was all you, Analise.” The pride in his voice, in his eyes, is breathtaking. “I don’t want to take credit for even a sentence of it. They should see how fucking brilliant you are.”
Our eyes lock and nothing else exists to me. I smile, much too friendly for a room that has a glass wall, but I can’t help it. “Looks like we’ll be able to celebrate tonight after all.”
“Good thing I already made the reservation.”