“Ethan’s out,” Adrian said with his own brand of curious confusion. “But I can call him if you want.”
Maren didn’t answer. She just reached behind her, closed the door, and slid the lock into place. That single sound sent a rush of heat up my spine.
I straightened in my chair, pulse spiking. The air changed instantly, like the molecules in the room had rearranged themselves. There was something wild about the way her lips parted, the faintest tremor in her hands that didn’t match the boldness of her stance.
She crossed the room slowly, her hips swaying with a natural rhythm that had no right to look as good as it did in jeans and a soft, fitted top. My throat went dry.
“You guys work too hard,” she said, her voice low. “I’m here to make sure you take a proper lunch break. Have something to eat.”
Adrian gave a low whistle, leaning back in his chair. “I think I’m starting to like this version of employee wellness.”
She slid herself onto the boardroom table in front of me. My chair creaked as I leaned back, just to get an eyeful of the view she was offering. My gaze trailed up her legs to the faint flush on her neck, the quick rise and fall of her chest.
Jesus. I had no idea what was happening, but she was something else.
I stood before I even thought about it, the instinct to close the space between us overpowering logic. My hands found her thighs first, thumbs brushing the inside seam of her jeans, feeling the warmth through the denim. The tension in her body thrummed like a live wire.
“Are you sure?” I asked, because I needed her to know I wasn’t going to be the one crossing that line for her. She didn’t answer with words. Just reached for me, fingers curling in the front of my shirt, and pulled me into her.
That first kiss hit like a bolt of lightning. All heat and hunger wrapped in a single brush of her lips. Every sound in the room blurred until all I could hear was the pounding pulse in my ears and the way her breath caught when I pushed my tongue deeper.
Her hands were in my hair, tugging, directing, taking. And I let her. I let her set the pace, the pressure, the tone. Not my usual gambit but feeling her like this turned me the fuck on like nothing else. This woman who’d been seeped in uncertainty for weeks suddenly taking charge, right here, on the table where I’d spent hours building event strategies.
When she finally broke the kiss, both of us breathing hard, Adrian’s voice cut through the haze. “So I guess the teaching job’s off the table, and you’re… on it?”
Without flinching, Maren grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him in, too.
Watching them kiss was its own kind of fire. She was just as commanding with him as she’d been with me, one hand gripping his collar, the other sliding up to the back of his neck. Adrian made a low sound against her mouth and that’s when it hit me.
She didn’t take the job. Because of this. Because of us.
The realization punched through the haze of arousal and made it worse, somehow.
Because I hadn’t said it out loud, but I was more than a little disappointed to hear she’d up and left. Ethan played it off too, but I knew that if I pushed him to be honest I’d have to do the same. I’d have to admit this wasn’t just horny attraction anymore. I thought about Maren all the time. Wanted her all the time. And not just like this, but all of the ways.
She was bolder than any woman I’d ever known, and that boldness did something to me. The kind of thing that made me want to match her, challenge her, maybe even worship her a little.
“Does that answer your question?” She looked up at him with heavy lids, lips swollen and red.
And as her fingers slid from Adrian’s collar back to my arm, her eyes finding mine again, I was ready to do all three.
I closed my fingers around her wrist and, keeping eye contact, guided her hand over the straining hard-on in my pants. A gasp fell from her slightly parted lips, and I watched as her bright green eyes shot black, swallowed by pupils that divulged her secret without discrimination.
A spark flashed in her smoldering gaze and with her hand still on my dick, she used the other to push my chest. Hard enough to make me sit back down as she slid off the table to follow. Iblinked, and she was bending over me, her legs on either side of my knees, slow, firm strokes teasing my cock through my pants.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything… important.” Her tongue came out to wet her lips, and I bucked my hips once as she explored my length.
“Tease.” Adrian came up behind her and, with his hands firmly on her waist, pulled her to stand so her back pressed snug against his chest.
Her head fell onto his shoulder, and she reached up to grip the back of his neck. “It’s only teasing if I don’t follow through.”
Adrian glanced at me with a knowing glint in his eye. I watched him trail his fingers down her side and bring them to rest inside the waistband of her jeans. He kissed her, biting down on her bottom lip as he pulled back, and only let go once a deep moan fluttered out of her.
“Well, just in case, you should know we have our own way of dealing with a tease.” He slipped the sensible cardigan from her shoulders and it floated to the floor at her feet.
“You came here with a mission, didn’t you?” I moved forward so she was between my legs, hands running up her thighs and around to the delicious curve of her ass. I squeezed down. “Didn’t you?”
She bit down on her lower lip in that way that drove me fucking crazy. My cock twitched just looking at her.
