Because if she did, then it’d be so easy to shatter her. To take her and ruin her.
Angelica smiled at Hope when she turned to face her, but she didn’t have any words either. Hope finally turned around to snuggle up against Angelica’s side and traced two fingers down her chest and around Angelica’s nipple, which was now hard from the chill in the air instead of from arousal.
“Is Josef coming to Tucson?” Hope asked, not looking at Angelica.
“Unfortunately,” Angelica answered, clenching her jaw. She hadn’t been happy to find that out, but there was nothing that she could do about it, either. Josef was a producer on the show, and he was the show runner, technically. Everything that they produced went through him to fit his vision. And he had the most power of anyone there.
“We can find time for this when we’re there, right?” Hope asked timidly.
Angelica had never known her to be afraid of anything. When she looked down into Hope’s eyes, there was a worry there that Angelica couldn’t name precisely. Worry over what they had disappearing? Over being found out? Or was it because she didn’t trust that this would last beyond tonight?
Angelica nodded at her and plastered on the best smile that she could manage. “If there’s time, yes.”
Hope grinned at her then. She moved up, straddling Angelica’s hips and pressing her elbows into the pillow. Her hair curtained both of them as she bent down and kissed Angelica. What started as a few quick pecks turned into deeper kisses. Their tongues tangled. Angelica reached up and tangled her fingers in Hope’s hair and held her close.
She breathed in this moment that they were sharing, one that would be rare. Because Angelica wanted this. She needed this. Whatever chemistry was between them went beyond simple filming and coworkers. She’d known that the moment she’d met Hope, but she hadn’t ever expected it otherwise to go as far as this.
But maybe, just maybe, they could find a way to make this work.
Episode Four
TUCSON, ARIZONA - DESERT PARADISE
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
“Do you ever fill this room with people or is your office just this big to make a point?” Hope stared directly at Angelica as she sat at her desk in her home office in Los Angeles, head bent and reading glasses perched on her nose.
Angelica glanced up at Hope and hummed, her lips pursing before she answered. “Both.”
Hope’s lips quirked up to the side. They had exactly one hour before they were supposed to leave for the airport and head to Tucson for the week, but Angelica had needed toget some work donebefore they left. Hope hadn’t even stepped foot in her house since they’d arrived.
She’d been immersed in Angelica and nothing else, and the reprieve from filming and family life had been exactly what she’d needed. Except now Angelica was distracted by work, and Hope still wanted to be living into the oasis they’d created over the last two nights where it was just the two of them.
Well, them and the investors that they’d wined and dined.
They’d done the work they were there to do, and then Hope had gladly taken full advantage of having a king-sized bed and Angelica naked in it, and no time constraints so she could fallasleep with Angelica and wake up with her. Dawn’s first light against Angelica’s skin had looked like heaven. Hope hadn’t been able to resist tracing her fingers up and down every inch of skin she could reach.
“How many meetings do you actually have in here?” Hope looked from the giant conference table on the other side of the room with a partition where Angelica could close her office if she wanted to make it even smaller. But each time that Hope had been in there, the partition had been wide open. Yet Angelica’s office wasn’t small, there was enough room for a large desk and two chairs opposite, where Hope sat now, and then a small table and two chairs in the corner next to the window.
“Several times a month when I’m in town,” Angelica murmured as she continued to type on her computer and work on whatever she was doing.
Hope breathed slowly. She also had things she needed to get done for her restaurants, but just being in Angelica’s presence was enough to distract her from that. She didn’t want to be nose deep in numbers and schedules and menus. She wanted to be wrapped up with Angelica again, not just literally but also figuratively. The more she got to know about her, the more she was enjoying the woman underneath all the ice that she showed everyone.
“Have you talked with Tatum?” Hope asked, her voice carrying around the room.
“Tatum and I have weekly calls,” Angelica answered, clicking on something on the computer.
“Oh.” Hope clenched her jaw. She hadn’t realized that, but it did make sense. If Angelica was still managing Mountain View, then she’d have to be apprised of the situation up there and keeping Tatum up to date with everything. “Is he doing okay?”
“He’s fine.” Angelica sighed heavily, looking at Hope over the rim of her glasses, an annoyed flicker crossing her features. “Are you bored?”
Hope’s lips quirked up into a smile, and she stood up, moving quickly to the other side of the desk, in between Angelica and the keyboard. “Do you know how sexy you are when you look at me like that with your readers on?”
Angelica snorted out a laugh, immediately reaching up to pull the glasses off. “If you want to know how Tatum is doing, ask him. I’m sure he’d like to hear from you.”
Hope traced her finger down Angelica’s cheek and across her lips before leaning in and kissing her quickly. “I might just do that.”
