I watched Patrick’s index finger stumble over book spines until finding the volume he wanted, the overhead lights illuminating his auburn hair against the darkness outside.
My spy informant Tom—sexuality still unconfirmed—reported that Patrick and Shannon spent an hour yelling at each other post-partners’ meeting but failed to provide intel on the topic of said yelling. Patrick didn’t mention anything over lunch, and it was evident he was still slogging through it while he absently studied a technical manual on rainwater collection systems.
“Fucking hell,” I groaned, scrolling through another page of prosaic home goods. It was easier to bulldoze a historical landmark than find the right bridal shower gift.
“What?” Patrick snapped back from the bookshelf.
He looked startled—maybe a little bewildered—and I pushed away from the conference table to approach him. It was after eight, and knowing we were alone in the office, I laid my hands on his chest. Feeling his thundering heart under my palm, I looked up with alarmed eyes. Residential rainwater collection wasn’t that exhilarating.
“Hey,” I murmured, my hand snaking up to wrap around the back of his neck. “You’re a little twitchy.”
“Yeah,” he breathed, his forehead pressing against mine. “I feel a little twitchy.”
I stared into Patrick’s eyes, waiting for an explanation while my fingers teased apart the bunched muscles in his neck and shoulders. I was not holding the same man who warned me to stretch in advance of my evening with him.
“Are you coming home with me?” he rasped, his voice heavy with stress and exhaustion. He sighed, his eyes drifting shut. “Do you know how much I hate asking that?”
I blinked, studying the jumping pulse along his throat. “No, Patrick, I don’t know, but I don’t think that’s why you’re twitchy.”
“Andy,” he sighed. “There are at least five other things we need to talk about right now, tonight, but goddamn it, my head is going to explode if you’re not with me tonight. So please, tell me you’re staying.”
I vacillated between wanting Patrick’s confessions—the ones his eyes and hands and body openly communicated—and knowing I required a career path independent of hot sex and a hotter man.
“Your head is going to explode,” I started, backing him toward his desk chair, “because your heart is beating as if you just ran ten miles uphill, and you haven’t taken a cleansing breath since you walked in.”
He sat, and I climbed on his lap, my fingers continuing their work on his shoulders while his hands gripped my waist.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he murmured into my hair. “Don’t torture me right now. Today has been…overwhelming, and I need to know. Are you coming home with me?”
Patrick grunted as my knuckle dug into his shoulder. “Of course.”
Lifting his head from my shoulder, Patrick smiled. “Good,” he growled, and his lips fused to mine, his hands tangling in my hair and diving beneath my shirt. “I want to wake up next to you every single day.”
I’d like to say it took more than one kiss, one touch, one look, but that’s how it was with Patrick. The instant his lips brushed over mine, I was lost to him and the magnetic pull drawing us together. Every touch magnified that pull, and as his mouth pressed against mine, I shifted to roll my center over the erection straining behind his fly.
Patrick’s fingers tugged at the ribbon knotting my poplin wrap shirt at the side, loosening the ties until it hung from my elbows and his chin scratched over my chest. His arm snaked under my thighs, and with one deft movement, I was staring at the hand-carved plaster medallion surrounding the chandelier. I didn’t notice the edge of Patrick’s laptop digging into my ribs, or the mechanical pencils snagged in my hair. My legs anchored Patrick to me, towing him closer until I felt him pushing against me.
“This isn’t how I expected the night to go, but I’m not complaining,” Patrick murmured against my lips.
“If you were complaining,” I replied, my hands fisting in his shirt to free it from beneath his belt. His warmth, his weight, it was breathtaking, and I didn’t want to let go. “There’d be something wrong.”
“And this is not wrong,” he laughed, his teeth capturing my bottom lip as his fingers fought with the button closure of my pants. He slipped beneath my waistband, his fingers passing back and forth over the spot of arousal dotting my panties, my thighs quivering with each stroke.
“Yo, Patrick, here’s the updated budget for the new offices that you asked for, with the floating wall between Andy’s office and…oh shit.”
Riley’s upside-down frame froze in the doorway. His eyes bulged as he drank us in, our tangled arms locked around each other for a slow motion second.
My first thought: could he see my boobs?
Second thought: was my underwear still on?
Third thought: why the hell was Riley in the office after five?
“Fuck,” Patrick hissed. He jerked me off the desk and shoved me behind his back, wrapping a hand over my hip.
A quick survey of the state of my clothes answered my first two questions—boobs: out; underwear: riding below my hips.
“Yeah, so I’m gonna go,” Riley said, his voice trailing off as he backed away from the door.
