Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
This was just really stupid. She knew that.
It had been stupid to kiss him back at the party.
It was stupid to be up in the hotel, wandering around the lobby at midnight because she couldn’t make herself go to bed, because she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Because she had been doing her level best to stop herself from getting in her car and driving over to his house.
There was a whole genre of country music that she was a pretty big fan of, all about how a person shouldn’t drive over to their ex’s house and hook up with them, and she had never really understood it, because she hadn’t had an ex before.
Now she did, Aiden, but it wasn’t him she was resisting going back to.
It was Cody.
Who had touched her body and set her on fire and made her feel things that she never had before.
It was Cody who had upended all her rational thought.
Cody, who was here now, making her heartbeat too fast, making her want to sweep everything off the registration desk and let him take her there.
Didn’t she have any self-preservation?
Hadn’t she been through enough?
The question was valid, and yet, she didn’t want to give it attention.
She wanted to push aside rational thought, all her fears, all her worries, and make a very foolish decision.
“Okay. You have…” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Five sentences to try and explain why you were such a dumb ass earlier.”
“It was about me, really. It felt too big for me to handle, along with the opening of the hotel. I am very wound up about all of it because it connects to me wanting to get revenge on my dad. By living well and not self-destructing. It’s making me do things that are very stupid. I think that was five sentences.”
“That’s almost good enough,” she said.
It sounded like his dad had been terrible. Like his dad had had nothing to do with the raising of his siblings, and she could understand why this was a big deal to him.
What if she found out she had a big inheritance from her mom? How would she feel? Would it make her… erratic?
Maybe not. But there was something about Cody, something feral.
She’d worked to lose that wildness in herself. She’d tried to become something civilized, the kind of civilized that people recognized. The kind that blended in.
Cody was like the kind of wild horse she’d seen in movies. Powerful, untamable. If you ever wanted to get close, you had to go slow. Put your hand out, let him get your scent.
He would probably hate that evaluation of him, but oh well.
“What else can I do?”
“I’m not going to make you work that hard,” she said, “because I want you.”
She might as well be honest about it.
“I’m going to try to say this better than I did earlier. But I feel like I have to be honest with you, because I’m your boss. Because of the whole situation with your husband…”
“I don’t care about him.” She said it, and she wasn’t entirely sure she meant it, but it felt like she did right then. Or at least she wanted to not care.
“Well, either way, I feel like I have to be upfront with you. So, bear with me if I end up sounding like an asshole.”
“Oh no. You maxed out your asshole points earlier.”
“I don’t have anything to offer you.”
“Other than the job and the whole new life?”
“I mean personally. Personally, I don’t have anything to offer any woman. I don’t want to get married, I don’t want kids.”
She kept eye contact with him while he said it, tried not to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach.
It was a foolish feeling. She didn’t want that right now, not with all her wounds still so fresh.
Someday, maybe. Another five years in the future, when she’d firmly built her new life and given it all some time, maybe.
Not now. Not him.
So, it didn’t matter that he didn’t want it. At least, it shouldn’t.
This was her having a fling. Following her desires. Not looking for roots and permanence and guarantees. This was her living, not planning. Not building a whole new foundation around another person when she needed to figure out how to stand on her own.
“That’s fine,” she said. “I never said I wanted any of those things with you.”
“But you want them.”
“Here’s what I know for sure. You should never get out of a long relationship and go right into another one.
Yes, I do want those things. Eventually.
I wanted them, that’s why I was married.
Because I wanted that life. A committed relationship, a family, eventually.
But I don’t need to have them immediately.
I don’t need to have them with the first person that I kiss after my divorce.
And technically, I’m not even divorced yet. ”
“Yeah,” he said. “Now I feel like an asshole.”
“You’re welcome to feel like an asshole, but you don’t need to worry about me suddenly falling in love with you.”
“I don’t think you’re going to fall in love with me by accident, Marlowe. I haven’t managed to make anyone do that yet, I doubt you’ll be the first. But, I didn’t want you to think… It just felt like the right thing to do, because you work for me.”
“And you want to have sex again.”
“Here’s the thing, you and I are going to find ourselves alone again sometime, either because it just happens, or I lie to you and lead you out of a party, and you go like the sad little lamb you are. There’s no point deciding we’re not going to do it.”
“A little lamb?”
“Oh yeah, you are a little lamb, desperate to be devoured, don’t you deny it.”
Why was that hot? It shouldn’t be. But then, maybe none of this should be, and it was anyway.
She pressed the tip of her tongue to one of her teeth and couldn’t hold back her smile. “If by devour you mean I want you to eat me out again, then yes.”
“I want that too,” he said, his body hard as iron, his voice strained. “And because we both want it, it’s going to happen. No point pretending that it isn’t.”
“Fair enough.”
“So what’s the plan? We just… Burn it out?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve never done this before. I don’t know how it works.”
“Me either,” he said.
“Aren’t you like… An expert in casual sex?”
“One-night stands. Not ongoing affairs.”
“Oh wow.” She didn’t look flattered. “Am I one of the few women who might earn more than one night with you?”
“It’s not earning anything. I just can’t stop thinking about you.”
His words were like a punch straight to the gut. He couldn’t stop thinking about her? That seemed… well, that seemed like an actual declaration of something other than just attraction, and she had a feeling he didn’t mean for it to be that way.
“I can’t stop thinking about you either,” she said quickly.
“And I don’t know if this is normal. I’ve only been with the one guy.
Except you. And… I don’t care if it’s normal or not.
I don’t care if it’s…” She was about to say she didn’t care if it imploded.
She didn’t care if they were driving a souped-up Ferrari right at a brick wall.
At this point, she just didn’t care. She had been cautious her entire life.
She had done all the right things. She had certainly never made out with her boss on the outside of a work-related party.
She had certainly never decided to have a physical-only affair and damn the consequences.
She was willing to take the risk because playing it safe hadn’t gotten her anything.
He didn’t want a family, he didn’t want a relationship, and that was just fine.
It was true. You shouldn’t go falling for the first guy you sleep with after a divorce, that was just logical. That was smart.
Everybody knew that.
So this was her… Sowing her wild oats.
Everyone needed to do that, and she had never done it.
Maybe that was the real issue, the problem that Aiden was having.
He had never really gone absolutely mad and done whatever he felt like doing.
So he had imploded their perfectly good life, but maybe the same feeling would’ve been coming for her no matter what.
This was her chance. To seize the day, seize Cody, howl at the full moon, be feral and wild and something else entirely.
She wanted to grab this opportunity by the horns, like the cowgirl she absolutely wasn’t. She wanted to make this change.
She needed this moment of insanity, even if it did blow up this job. This new life that she was trying so hard to build. That she had built. Roots wrapped around roots.
When would that feel like enough?
Never. She knew that already. Marrying the first guy hadn’t been the right choice. Marrying him hadn’t made it permanent.
She’d hoped she’d find stability, security, here in this job. Maybe she would. Maybe everything would be fine no matter what happened with him. Maybe this job would be one that lasted for a long while.
Maybe, though, nothing was permanent.
Maybe things weren’t meant to be.
Right then, she had the very uncomfortable vision of something, some grand divine hand pulling apart every piece of her. Forcing her to let go of every pattern, every assumption, everything that she had believed would keep her safe.
None of it had.
She had to rebuild herself, make a new way of being, a new way of thinking.
And if this was the trial by fire, the initiation that would take her there, then she was going to grab hold of it joyously.
“Come with me,” he said.
“I thought we weren’t doing this.”
“I didn’t say that. I said we shouldn’t. I said it was a bad idea. I said I was your boss, and that ought to matter. I said it made me feel like a villain. But I never said we weren’t doing this.”
Her stomach went tight, all the air rushing out of her lungs. “Oh. Well, if it’s so very stupid, I’m not sure why we’re doing it.”
“Because,” he said, his eyes blazing into hers. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop thinking about this. In two days, guests will arrive at the hotel, and we’ll be busy working. Maybe we’ll forget about it, but I can’t forget about it now. I might die if I don’t have you.”