Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sara
I might be hanging on by a thread.
A thin, fraying, caffeine-soaked thread that’s doing its absolute best to hold me together while the rest of me spirals into corporate crush hell.
After Elevator Moment 2.0, aka the sequel no one asked for but everyone with a libido is still thinking about, I’ve been useless.
My skin still buzzes from the way he looked at me.
Not just looked. Devoured. He memorized me molecule by molecule.
One more second and we’d have been back where we started, pressed against a wall, forgetting how to breathe.
But then he walked away.
Which… fine. Great. Perfect. Walk away, Mr. Brooding Morality Clause. I can walk away, too. I can be just as cool and collected and professionally aloof as he is.
Spoiler alert: I cannot.
Because now it’s 6:48 p.m., the office is empty, the lights are on that weird motion-sensor dim, and I’m still here. Not because I’m trying to impress anyone. Not because I’m dying for another chance to bump into Nick Ashford and his rolled-up sleeves and deadly forearms and unfair jawline.
No. I’m here because the client revisions on the fall campaign are a flaming dumpster fire, and someone has to fix it. And apparently, that someone is me.
I groan and rub my eyes, blinking at the last slide on my screen. The font’s off. The tagline’s flat. And I’m ninety percent sure the stock photo we used of a woman holding a pumpkin latte is the same one I used on a meme in college titled “White Girl Autumn.”
I save, close the laptop, and head down the hall toward the print room, because of course I need to grab the backup copy I forgot about.
That’s when I see it—his office light is still on.
Drawn forward, powerless, I drift closer to the world’s hottest flame.
I don’t go home, to my own apartment that I’ve finally moved into. No, I edge nearer to him.
He’s alone. Leaning over his desk. Tie gone. Top two buttons undone. Sleeves rolled up, forearms flexing as he scribbles something in the margins of a printed report.
And there goes my last functioning brain cell.
“Seriously?” I say, because apparently I’ve lost the ability to walk away silently, normally.
He glances up, surprised. “Sara.”
“Do you sleep here now, or is that just a CEO thing?”
He straightens, setting the pen down with an exaggerated calm that does not match the heat in his eyes. “Late night. Lots of moving parts.”
I cross my arms. “Right. Like ignoring all my edits and sending the deck back to creative without telling me?”
His brow lifts. “Because your edits pushed us twenty percent over budget.”
“They also added structure and narrative flow. But sure, let’s nickel and dime the one thing the board is actually excited about.”
He walks around the desk slowly, careful not to spook me. “You think this is about the board?”
I blink. “Isn’t it?”
“No.” His voice is quiet. Too quiet. “It’s about you.”
My pulse stumbles. “Excuse me?”
“You’re amazing at this,” he says, stepping closer. “Smart. Sharp. You’ve taken a campaign on life support and made it compelling. But when you steamroll a budget, I have to rein it in.”
“Oh,” I snap. “So now I’m impulsive and reckless?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
The room is too quiet again. His gaze drops to my mouth and lingers.
“I don’t want to argue with you,” he says finally, his voice rough around the edges.
“Then stop giving me reasons to.”
The words come out harsher than I mean. Louder. Clearly, they’ve been sitting on my tongue all day, waiting for a moment to detonate.
His jaw tenses. Just slightly. But it’s enough.
And then he steps forward.
Too close.
Not touching me, but close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him in waves. Close enough that I can count the flecks of gold in his eyes. Close enough that I forget what we’re fighting about… hell, that we were even fighting at all.
“This is a bad idea,” I whisper.
He nods. “I know.”
My back hits the door. I hadn’t even realized I’d moved. Or maybe he moved. Maybe gravity just tilted in his direction and I never stood a chance.
His hand lifts and brushes my hip. His fingers graze the fabric of my dress. A question already answered.
I don’t flinch.
I don’t move.
I should.
But my body’s gone traitor. Frozen, trembling, tuned entirely to the space between us. Every nerve ending stretched tight, waiting. Wanting.
He’s so close I feel the heat of his breath on my cheek. His pulse thunders in my ears—or maybe it’s mine, a warning I’ll never heed.
His eyes lock on mine. They drop tantalizingly slowly to my mouth.
And just like that, the air turns combustible. The tension snaps, wrapping us in barbed wire, waiting to draw blood.
My breath hitches. His hand brushes my hip, just the faintest graze, and I swear I see his restraint fracture right in front of me.
One beat.
Two.
And then we detonate.
Our mouths crash together, raw and urgent, as if kissing is the only language left between us. It’s a collision, firestorm, an explosive “fuck it” spoken through lips, teeth, and restless hands.
His fingers dig into my waist, dragging me flush against him with desperate hunger. My hands clutch his shirt, pulling, anchoring, craving more, deeper, right now.
He groans into the kiss, low and guttural, and it reverberates through every inch of me.
My back presses hard against something, maybe the wall, maybe the spinning world, and I stop caring about anything except his mouth, his hands, the way he’s kissing me as if I’m the only thing keeping him alive.
There’s nothing soft here. Nothing slow. Just weeks of want breaking loose in a single, blistering moment that neither of us survives intact.
By the time we break apart, we’re wrecked.
Breathing hard.
His tie hangs undone, a casualty of the night.
He leans in, forehead pressed to mine. Still too close. Still not close enough.
“We shouldn’t,” he whispers, voice rough as gravel.
“I know,” I breathe.
But neither of us moves.
Not an inch.
We stay there, suspended in the aftershock, trembling with everything we just unleashed, and everything we still haven’t.
If we move, the whole room might ignite.
Maybe that’s what we want.
A sudden clatter jerks us apart, guilty teenagers caught in the act.
Footsteps.
I freeze, breath snagged in my throat, heart pounding. Nick’s hand tightens into a fist at his side.
Then, from around the corner appears the office cleaner, a short woman in a bright pink hoodie, completely oblivious to the sexual meltdown that nearly happened in this room.
She’s wearing huge noise-canceling headphones, singing loudly and off-key to Lizzo as she pushes her cart past the doorway without even glancing inside.
“Feelin’ good as hell…” she wails, spinning her duster, baton style.
Nick and I stare after her, wide-eyed and silent.
“Shit,” I whisper.
He lets out a low breath. “We need to go. Now.”
“Yeah. Before we ruin both our lives.”
We practically trip over each other to reach the door, the awkward tension thick and suffocating as we escape the scene of the crime.
My heels click too loud on the polished floor. His hand brushes the small of my back, steadying me, or maybe steadying himself, and that stupid electric zing shoots straight through me all over again.
Get it together, Sara.
I suck in a quick breath, forcing oxygen into my overloaded brain.
This is the best job I’ve ever had.
The first job that made me feel I could actually do something. Be someone. Make a real mark instead of fetching coffee or fixing someone else’s broken pitch deck.
I am not going to throw it away just because my boss smells of smoky cedar and cold leather, and kisses me with the dark heat of sin itself.
Nope. Not happening. I need to keep my head. My distance. My sanity.
I need to forget the burn of his mouth on mine, the low drop of his voice when he said my name, the weight of his body pressing me against the door as if he’d been starving for it.
I need to remember what’s actually at stake here.
A career I busted my ass to build. A paycheck that finally lets me afford my own apartment. Stability. Respect.
Damn.
I’m so screwed…