Chapter 10 #2
“And I will keep having it until you believe me.” I lean against the edge of her desk. “How long have you been working on this?”
“A few months. I work on it when I can’t sleep.”
“Which is often?”
“Recently, yes.”
“Because of me?”
She meets my eyes directly. “Because of a lot of things.”
She pauses, glancing away.
“You must have cast a spell on me,” Bailey says suddenly.
“What?”
“This is the second time I’ve shown you my animation. I’ve never shown anyone else, not even Gretchen.” She runs a hand through her hair in frustration. “You have some kind of magic that makes me do things I normally wouldn’t.”
“It’s not magic. It’s trust.”
“That might be worse.”
“Why?”
“Because trust gets you hurt.”
I understand that fear intimately. I’ve lived with it for fifteen years. “Not always.”
“Often enough.”
We’re quiet for a moment. The office hums around us with the sound of computers, the distant HVAC system, and the occasional creak of the building settling.
“I’ve never known anyone who cared this deeply about something real,” I say quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“Most people I know care about money. You care about creating something beautiful just because it should exist.” I gesture to her screen. “That’s rare.”
“Cassidy wasn’t like that?”
“Cassidy thought art was decoration. Something you bought to fill wall space or impress guests.” The memory tastes bitter in my mouth. “She used to criticize me for keeping my design team fully staffed. She said it was a waste of money when we could outsource for cheaper.”
“She sounds delightful.”
“She was practical. Ruthlessly so.”
We’re staring at each other now. And against my better judgment, I take a step closer to her.
“Bailey—”
“Don’t.” But she doesn’t move away from me. “We agreed to boundaries.”
“I know what we agreed to.”
“Then why do you keep crossing them?”
I take another step. She’s close enough now that I can see her pulse jumping at the base of her throat.
“Because you keep looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you want me to cross them.”
Her breath hitches audibly. “That’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair.” I take another step closer. I’m inches away now. “But it’s real. And I’m tired of pretending it’s not.”
“Daniel, this is a bad idea.”
“I know.”
“You’re my brother’s best friend.”
“I know that too.”
“This arrangement is supposed to be professional.”
Her hands grip the edge of her desk behind her, knuckles white. I brace my arms on either side of her, caging her in without touching her. Yet.
“Tell me to leave,” I say quietly. “Tell me this is just business, and I’ll walk out that door right now.”
She is breathing hard. Her eyes drop to my mouth, then back up. “I can’t tell you that.”
I lean in closer, my lips almost brushing her ear. “Then what do you want, Bailey?”
She shudders. “You know what I want.”
“Say it.”
Her fingers release the desk and fist in my shirt instead, pulling me the last inch closer. “You. I want you.“
God damn it. I reach out, my hands finding her waist. She gasps softly but doesn’t pull away from my touch.
The kiss starts slowly, tentatively, like we’re both testing whether this is real or a big mistake.
Then she makes a sound low in her throat and pulls me closer.
The kiss turns hungry as everything we’ve been holding back for days crashes together at once.
I back her against the desk as she reaches behind her and sweeps her arm across the surface. Everything on it scatters to the floor.
“Are you sure?” I pull back just enough to ask her.
“Shut up and kiss me.”
So I do exactly that.
I lift her onto the desk in one smooth motion. She wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me between them. The position is intimate and deliberate, and precisely what we both need.
My hands slide up her thighs slowly. She arches into me with a gasp. The dress rides up, and I help it along with trembling fingers.
“We shouldn’t do this here,” Bailey gasps against my mouth.
“We shouldn’t do this anywhere.”
“That’s not helping.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“God, no.”
I work the zipper at her back and the dress loosens and falls away from her shoulders. She’s wearing black lace underneath that makes my brain short-circuit completely.
“Jesus, Bailey.”
“What?”
“You’re going to kill me.”
“Good. Then we’re even.”
She tugs at my shirt impatiently. Buttons scatter across the floor but I don’t care about any of them. My hands are on her skin. Her mouth is on my neck. Nothing else matters.
I kiss down her throat slowly, then across her collarbone with deliberate attention. Lower still. She gasps my name and digs her fingers into my shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
I reach for my wallet with shaking hands, finding the condom. Bailey helps me with my belt and my pants. Her hands are shaking slightly.
“Are you nervous?”
“Totally. But don’t stop.”
I wouldn’t dream of stopping now.
When I finally sink into her, we both freeze. The sensation is overwhelming, perfect, and exactly right.
“Okay?” I manage to ask.
“Better than okay.”
We move together with increasing urgency—slowly at first while we find our rhythm, then faster, harder. The desk creaks beneath us ominously. I don’t care. She doesn’t care. There’s only this moment and this connection.
Her head falls back, and I kiss the exposed line of her throat, feeling her pulse racing frantically under my lips.
“Look at me,” I say roughly.
Her eyes open and meet mine directly. The need in her gaze nearly undoes me completely.
“Tell me this isn’t just part of the act,” I whisper against her mouth.
She tenderly cups my face with both hands, kissing me softly and slowly. “It’s not an act. It’s never been an act.”
I kiss her harder and move faster. She clings to me like I’m the only solid thing in her world. When she comes apart beneath me while gasping my name, I follow seconds later. Everything goes white at the edges. There’s nothing but her and us, and I never want this perfect moment to end.
We stay wrapped around each other as our breathing gradually slows. Her face is buried in my neck. My hands are tangled in her hair. I can feel her heart racing against my chest.
Reality is going to crash back at any second. I know it is. But for now, there’s just this perfect bubble of us.
“That was—” She starts to say.
“Yeah.”
“We just—”
“I know.”
She pulls back to look at me. Her hair is a complete mess. Her lipstick is gone. She’s never looked more beautiful to me.
“What are we doing?” she asks quietly.
“I have no idea.”
“Daniel—”
“I know. This complicates everything. I know.” I cup her face gently in both hands. “But I can’t regret it. I won’t regret it.”
“You should regret it.”
“But I don’t. Do you?”
She’s quiet for a long moment. “No. I don’t regret it either.”
We stay there for another minute, neither of us moving an inch. Then she carefully unravels herself from me. She finds her dress on the floor and starts putting herself back together with shaking hands.
I do the same, buttoning what’s left of my shirt and finding the scattered buttons, trying to look less like someone who just had sex on a desk.
“I should go,” Bailey says when she’s dressed.
“Bailey—”
“Please. I need to think. I need space to process what just happened.”
“Okay. But we’re talking about this. Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” she agrees.
She gathers her laptop and her bag carefully. She avoids looking at me as she heads for the door.
“Bailey.”
She stops walking but doesn’t turn around.
“For what it’s worth, I meant what I said. It’s not an act.”
She’s silent for a heartbeat. “I know. That’s what scares me.”
Then she’s gone.
I stand alone in her workspace. The desk is a complete mess, and half of my shirt is missing buttons. I can still smell her perfume lingering in the air.
Her computer screen is still glowing softly.
I move closer and see what she’d been working on before I interrupted her.
The animation of the girl made of paper.
But there’s a new scene at the end. Two silhouettes reach for each other across empty space.
They’re getting close, almost touching, but never quite making contact.
The image hits me in the chest like a physical blow.
That’s us. We’re reaching but never quite connecting. Getting close but not close enough.
I run both hands through my hair and try to think clearly.
What am I doing, really? I must be crazy.
For a long moment, I stare at the almost-touch animation, and it hits me, sudden and sharp, like the snap of a thread pulled too tight.
It’s never going to work.
No matter how much I want it or how hard I try to pretend otherwise, we were built for almosts. There will always be that aching space in between.