The office was equally intriguing. I glanced at the glass wall separating her office from the bullpen. From her desk, she could see Tom’s alcove, the small room where her assorted assistants worked, Riley and Matt’s offices, and the stairs. Of course she’d want to preside over it all.
There were photos from the Boston Marathon finish line going back six years, always with her four brothers and Shannon in the middle. Little geodes dotted her bookshelf. I spotted the framed magazine spread hanging near her windows and laughed out loud. It was classic Shannon—perfect red hair, perfect purple dress, perfect girl-boss pose, and the perfect headline. “‘The Hand That Holds it Down’, huh? Who holds you down?”
“That’s pretty rapey, William. Thanks for that.” She continued banging away at her keyboard.
“Not rapey,” I said, frowning. Her body didn’t lie in the night, not when she was unconsciously arching into me and wrapping herself around me. She was strung tight, aching for release, and I wanted her to let me take care of her. “Not even close. But tell me this: how hard would you come for me if I fucked you up against that glass wall? If you had to let go of everything and give it all to me?”
She was tapping her foot again, the heel clacking hard against the wood floor. I could almost see the disdain rolling off her in waves. “Like, how is that an acceptable comment?”
I rounded the desk and leaned in, bracing my hands on either side of her, my short beard scruff rasping against her ear. “When I can see how much you want it.”
Her breath hitched and I knew—I fucking knew it—it was exactly what she needed.
“Finish what you’re doing and then I’m taking you home.” I didn’t need to say another word. I didn’t need to add that she’d be too busy surrendering to worry about anything else.
However, I couldn’t think about that until we were home. It wasn’t like I could stand beside her with my semi and expect anything more than an elbow to the nuts. She wasn’t leaving until she was finished, and it was up to me to reconcile that reality.
I parked myself in a pale purple velvet chair and snatched one of the regional magazines piled on the small conference table. The cover boasted an exclusive peek at one of Sam’s newest builds, and despite my biases about the man, I found it interesting.
“I need to leave a few things for Tom, and then we can go,” Shannon said.
I followed her out, waiting while she marked files with sticky notes and arranged them on his desk. Pointing to a framed photograph, I asked, “Is that Tom?”
Shannon glanced over then went back to her notes. “Yeah, that’s him at Machu Picchu. He likes going places to climb things.”
“He’s been with you a while, right?”
The air was crisp when we reached the ground floor, and wind whipped through the narrow street while Shannon set the alarm. “Six years,” she said.
“You don’t talk about him much.” She yawned, pulled her coat tight to her chest, and leaned into me when I draped my arm over her shoulder. It was late and she was tired, but all I could think about was her skin against mine. I’d settle for another celibate night if we could do it with fewer clothes.
That was a lie. There could be no celibacy with nakedness.
“It’s not easy straddling the line between friend and boss,” she said. “He’s like family—of course he is, he lived with me—but he’s also not, and that adds some layers. We had to suffer through some tense times before we found the right balance.”
“He lived with you?”
“Mmm.” She ducked deeper into her coat to avoid the wind. “His parents were terrible, hateful creatures. They sent him to all sorts of reeducation camps to pray the gay out of him. When that didn’t work, they shipped him off to a boarding school that was basically hard labor and solitary confinement.”
“That’s awful,” I said. It wasn’t lost on me that this was the exact fear Wes lived with. There wasn’t a labor camp in his future, but he was avoiding this reaction. And he wasn’t a kid on his way to homophobic bible study; he was a thirty-four year old Navy SEAL.
“Completely. He tried to fake straight, but they were convinced he—and I quote—had the devil in him. They kicked him out and said he wasn’t their son, and blah blah blah he lived with me for a bit.”
“‘Blah blah blah’?”
“I owed an assistant district attorney a favor, and one night she needed a public defender,” she said. “He’d been arrested for trespassing. He’d been sleeping in a garage. I got the case thrown out and his record scrubbed, and I took him home with me.”
In the elevator, I asked Shannon, “What else do you collect?”
“What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “You’ve got lost causes and dilapidated homes, broken souls, everything purple, and the geodes. And gourmet salt. Oh, and vibrators. And the bracelets! Those fucking annoying little bracelets.”
She tossed her hair over her shoulder as she marched toward her apartment. “Don’t be rude,” she said. “You’re one of my lost causes.”
I leaned against the wall while she unlocked the door, watching the way her fingers moved over the knob. She glanced back at me when she stepped inside, and it was possible she was speaking but the only thing I could hear was my pulse hammering in my veins.
She hung her coat in the closet and kicked her shoes to the corner while I secured the locks. I noticed every one of the quick glimpses she shot in my direction, and I followed her into the bedroom.
