I’m well aware that it’s not what employers do. That’s not what friends do. Not even friends with benefits. But once I started down this path, I haven’t been able to stop.
I turn that thought around and around in my brain, just like the pebble. The powerful need to keep Emma in my employ dissipated that first night in the hospital, like the air in a balloon being let out. Needing her as my assistant became secondary to making sure she’s okay. To showing up as someone she can rely on. Nothing else mattered.
When she first quit, I thought that what we both needed aligned. I assumed she was burned out, and all I had to do waslessen her load and adjust the job to suit her better. I never questioned that there’d be a time when her being in my life as my assistant wasn’t what was best for her.
I never even questioned why I needed her to stay with me on some vaguely defined timeline that resembled forever. I never wondered about the caveman-like, visceral feeling of it.
It just was. Sebastian and Emma. Always.
But tonight, I overheard her talking about her new business to Caitlin. Her eyes lit up, and her voice and body got animated when she discussed Dream Space in a way she never had as my assistant. She radiated energy and enthusiasm.
It showed me everything I didn’t want to see for so long. I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that what’s best for her is not me. Or, at least, not me as her boss.
And I wonder if she could want me in a different role.
If I could ever earn that. If I could ever earnher.
I pull her forward, needing to be close in a way that’s beyond logical thought. I ignore any warning bells I might hear about the stupidity of my actions. I can’t help myself.
I’ll just hold her. That’s it.
For a second, she’s stiff in my arms, but then she softens. I’ve changed into boxers and a T-shirt, my attempt to make her feel comfortable, even though I normally sleep naked. The basics are covered, but we’re skin to skin everywhere else, limbs entwined, arms bare, her cheek resting against the cotton of my white T-shirt. Her hair tickles my chin, and the slight weight of her body feels like the most precious cargo, pulling me into depths I’ve never been to, depths I’ve always feared.
I kiss her head, the silk of her hair cool against my lips. “Sleep, Em,” I say roughly, desperately clawing at every bit of restraint I can muster. “I’ve got you.”
But instead of falling asleep like she has the past few nights, she sits up and pierces me with eyes that are wide and intense.
“I can’t,” she says. “I’m not sick any longer.”
The devil and my conscience both whimper.
“Thank fucking God, baby,” I grit out. “Because I sure as hell can’t either.”
Restraint never stood a chance.
CHAPTER 33
Emma
He called me baby.
How can he possibly think I could sleep when he’s holding me like this? And maybe I did when I was sick from the effects of the concussion, but that was then.
This is now.
Electricity buzzes through my body.
If I hadn’t already been half out of my mind for him, his admission that he can’t sleep either and his slow, devastating smile would have taken me the rest of the way.
He shakes his head. “You have no idea how beautiful you are.”
“But I’m—” Anything else I was about to say flies from my brain when he stops me with a kiss.
Our second kiss. But the first one that’s just for us.
I thought it might be a desperate coming together, but instead his lips brush over mine in soft aching sweetness, uncertain in their reverence.
A testing. Again. And again. Each swipe lingering a little longer.
