16. Emily
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Emily
I wake up warm, and it takes me a second to figure out why.
There’s an arm around my waist, heavy and solid, and a chest at my back, and for one foggy second I can’t place it, because in three weeks of this I’ve never once woken up to anything but cold sheets and a polite note on the pillow.
He stayed.
I lie very still, careful with it. I don’t let myself make it into a whole thing, because it might be a one-off, might be that he just fell asleep and didn’t mean to, and tomorrow there’ll be a note again and I’ll feel stupid for getting my hopes up.
So I don’t. I just lie here in the warm and let it be nice for a minute, his breath in my hair, his hand spread open over my stomach like it belongs there.
He stirs. Presses a kiss to the back of my neck, sleepy and slow.
“Morning,” he mumbles.
“What time is it?”
“No idea. Don’t care.”
“We have work, Richard.”
“Work can wait.” Another kiss, lower, at the top of my spine, and his arm tightens. “I own the place. Pretty sure I can be late to it.”
“Pretty sure that’s not how it works.”
“It’s exactly how it works.” He’s smiling against my skin, I can feel it. “Five more minutes.”
“You’re going to say that again in five minutes.”
“Probably.” He rolls me over to face him, hair a mess, eyes half shut, and he looks younger like this, none of the boardroom on him at all. “Why are you frowning? We’re having a nice morning.”
“I’m not frowning. This is my face.” But I am, a little, because I’m braced for it, waiting for him to clock the time and remember himself and slide out of bed with some excuse, like he has every other morning before the sun’s even up.
It doesn’t come. He just tugs me in closer, tucks my head under his chin, says, “Five more minutes,” again, and I let him have it, and I don’t make it into a whole thing, even if a small, dangerous part of me wants to so badly it aches.
We stay an hour. It’s reckless and stupid and it’s going to make us both late as hell, and I can’t bring myself to give a single damn, because his hands are warm and his laugh is low and rough first thing in the morning and I have clearly lost my mind.
We almost make it out clean. Almost. Helen catches us in the kitchen, me in yesterday’s blouse and Richard half-dressed and unhurried about it, the two of us down here way later than either of us is ever down here, and she takes one look at us and says, “There’s coffee, and there’s eggs if you’ve got two minutes, which by the look of you, you don’t,” and goes back to her pan, but I catch the pleased little smile she’s fighting and my face goes hot to my ears.
“She’s been with me since the week I bought the place,” Richard murmurs, handing me a travel mug. “She’s been waiting years to make that face.”
“I’m never going to be able to look at her again.”
“You will. She’ll feed you through it.”
We walk into the office together at nine forty, which is a problem, because Richard Reed is never late and I am never with him when he arrives, and Paul is standing by my desk with a tablet and a look on his face like a man watching two and two become four right in front of him.
“You’re both late,” he says. Flat. Not a question.
“Bad traffic,” I say.
“You came in the same car.”
“It was bad traffic for both of us.”
Paul looks at me. He looks at Richard, who has the gall to look completely unbothered, straightening his cuffs like a man with nothing on his conscience.
Paul looks back at me, at my slightly-wrong buttons and the hair I fixed badly in the car mirror, and I watch him decide, with the weariness of a man who has worked for Richard Reed too long, that he is not paid enough to ask the follow-up question.
“Your nine o’clock got moved to ten,” he says instead, and sets a coffee down by my keyboard, and walks away without another word, which is so much worse than if he’d said something.
He knows. Of course he knows. The man knows everything. He probably knew before I did. He probably has it in a spreadsheet somewhere, color-coded.
I drink the coffee he brought me anyway, because I’m not insane, fix my buttons, and get to work, and for about an hour I almost manage to be a functional adult. Almost.
***
The day is endless.
There are meetings, there are calls, there’s a mess with one of the overseas offices that eats three full hours and most of my patience.
And the whole time, Richard is ten feet away on the other side of a glass wall, in his big corner office, and every single time I glance up he’s already looking at me.
Not even subtle about it. He’ll be on a call, nodding along at whatever some executive is saying, and his eyes will be on me through the glass, dark and unhurried, and then he’ll go back to his call like he didn’t just scramble my entire afternoon.
I try to fight back. I cross my legs slow when I catch him looking, watch him lose his place mid-sentence, and feel obscenely pleased with myself. He retaliates by loosening his tie one-handed, eyes on me the whole time, and I drop my pen. We are both far too old for this. Neither of us stops.
It’s a strange thing, this game. At the reunion he was a memory I’d half convinced myself I’d exaggerated.
Three weeks ago he was a stranger with a too-good offer.
And now he’s a man behind a pane of glass who can undo me with a look across a busy office, and I let him, and I look forward to it, and I have apparently signed up for whatever this is with both eyes open.
I think about the cold notes on the pillow and the morning he stayed and the careful, hopeful thing growing in my chest that I keep trying not to name, and I drag my attention back to my screen for the fourth time.
Around two he sends me an email that starts off about some report and ends with one line that has nothing to do with work and everything to do with last night, and my face goes hot.
I delete it immediately like it’s evidence, because it is.
I send back something clipped and professional and watch through the glass as he reads it and grins down at his screen like an idiot.
By three I’ve fixed the wrong report twice. By half past, I’ve stopped pretending I’m getting anything done at all.
At four, my phone buzzes. Come in here. Now.
I grab a notepad, because I am a professional, and let myself into his office.
“Close the door,” he says, from behind his desk, perfectly calm.
I close it. Through the glass I can see the bullpen carrying on, phones, keyboards, Paul’s empty chair where he’s off in a meeting. I lower my voice anyway. “What’s so urgent?”
“I haven’t kissed you since this morning and it’s wrecking my concentration.”
“That is not a work emergency, Richard.”
“Feels like one.” He’s already up, already coming around the desk, and I should say one sensible thing, I really should.
“Paul is right outside,” I say.
“Paul’s stuck in a meeting until five.”
“Someone could walk in...”
“Nobody’s walking in.” He says it low, certain, already reaching past me. “Trust me.”
“This is a bad idea.” But I’m not backing up. I’m doing the exact opposite of backing up.
“Terrible idea,” he agrees, hands settling warm on my waist, walking me back a step. “One of my worst. Want me to stop?”
“Did I say stop?”
“You said bad idea.”
“Bad ideas are sometimes worth it.” I fist a hand in his tie and pull. “You’ve got a meeting in twenty minutes, Reed, so this is your one shot, and I’d hate for you to waste it being a gentleman.”
His eyes go dark. “Gentleman’s the last thing on my mind.”
I twist the lock while Richard drops the blinds, and papers go sliding to one side of his desk because he sweeps them away with one arm.
He grabs my waist and pulls me against him, his mouth on mine before I can say a word.
His tongue slides in deep and I kiss him back hard, tasting the coffee he drank at lunch.
He keeps kissing me, slow and deep at first then faster, his hands roaming everywhere while I melt into him.
“You locked it?” I ask against his lips.
“Yeah. Twenty minutes max,” he says, already tugging my blouse open.
His hands cup my tits through my bra, thumbs rubbing my nipples until they tighten.
I arch into his palms and he squeezes harder, rolling them between his fingers.
I bite my lip to keep quiet because the whole floor sits right outside that glass.
He kisses down my neck and back up, sucking on my bottom lip again and again until my head spins.
“On the desk, assistant,” he orders, voice low and firm. “Now.”
I raise an eyebrow but do it, sprawling back on the cool wood with my legs dangling. “Bossy today, sir?” I tease, even as heat pools between my thighs.
He laughs once, low and dirty, then leans over me to kiss me more, his tongue claiming my mouth while his fingers work my bra off.
He sucks one nipple into his mouth, teeth grazing just enough to make me gasp, and his hand plays with the other, pinching and rolling until I squirm.
More kisses trail down my stomach before he straightens and steps back.
“On your knees first,” he says. “Show me how you follow orders.”
I slide off the desk and drop down, unzipping him.
His cock springs free, already hard, and I wrap my lips around the head, sucking slow and wet.
He groans softly and threads his fingers in my curls, guiding me deeper without pushing too far.
I bob my head, tongue swirling, taking him as far as I can while he mutters filthy praise above me.
“Good girl. Just like that. Fuck, your mouth feels perfect.” He pulls me up after a minute, spins me around, and bends me over the papers so I sprawl flat on my stomach, ass up.
He yanks my panties down and rubs my clit in quick circles until I have to clamp my teeth together so I don’t moan out loud.
He kisses the back of my neck, then my shoulder, more kisses scattered across my skin while his fingers work me open.