“It would be hard, obviously, but if we’re together all the time, all day long, I think people willseeit – I don’t know if I could stop them from seeing it – it’s going to be all over my face, and I’ve never been a good liar.I mean – what if we’re swept up in the moment like earlier and then someone walks in, and –”
“Keaton Dunbar.”
He broke off and looked at me.I didn’t think he had even truly registered that I was walking over until I was right in front of him.I reached for his hand and he took it.I pulled him easily to his feet.
“You’re staying right here where I can keep an eye on you,” I growled.I closed the distance between us with a single step and slipped my hand against the side of his face.His eyes fluttered shut instinctively.I waited until our lips were almost touching to let my final words linger on his breath.“No one’s taking you away from me again.”
And I sealed my promise with my mouth over his.
Keaton
His kiss sent sparks of electricity all through me, lighting me up from the inside.My sudden need to babble was just as suddenly gone.All the plans and machinations I had been making disappeared.
“Right,” I whispered.There was no arguing with those blue eyes.“I’m staying right here.”
Olly looked like he wanted to say something, but he paused and bit his lip, one hand still holding me firmly in place.Then he moved abruptly away, striding off and leaving me to cradle my own cheek as if I could capture his warmth and keep it there.
Until I saw what he was doing.
Locking the office doors.
He moved efficiently, reaching up to trip bolts I couldn’t even reach at the top of the door and then bending to the very base, triple-securing them from opening even if someone had the key.Only then did he turn back to me, and at the look in his eyes I actually found myself backing up against the wall.
“What’s the matter?”he asked.He looked like he was joking, but I could hear the undercurrent: that he was worried I had changed my mind about all of it.“Scared?”
“Nope,” I said, through a throat that was suddenly very dry.
He moved in close to me, leaning his hand against the wall above my head just like he had at Coleman’s house.I swallowed hard.He was so close to me that it was like the entire world was made up of Oliver Harvey.
I didn’t want to run away.
I lifted my hands and placed them flat on his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing for a long moment.
He tilted his head down and kissed me again and it was like the whole world was ending.I wouldn’t have been surprised if, when I opened my eyes, everything was gone: the office, the building, the city, all of it.I had waited so long for this.I had built it up so much in my head.But the reality couldn’t even compare.
He was everything.
I felt like I was melting into him as he pulled me towards him, his arms no longer trapping me in but now embracing me, one huge hand braced against the small of my back.He held me so tightly that I lifted just slightly off my feet and he didn’t even seem to notice, taking my weight like it was nothing just so he could kiss me deeper.
He broke away and searched my eyes, his own blazing with something indescribable.“Keaton…” he said.
We were beyond words.Beyond needing them to communicate.Which was good, because by now I knew Olly, and I knew that the most important things were the ones hedidn’tsay.But I knew what question he was asking me now.
“Yes,” I said breathlessly.“Yes, I want to.”
He lifted an eyebrow as if to question whether I really understood what he was asking, but I did.I knew I did.I reached up my arms around his neck and stood on the balls of my toes to kiss him, then purposefully walked him back a few steps so that we were more towards the center of the room.
“Where?”he asked, which was a pretty good question, considering where we were.
There were the chairs around the coffee table, but the table itself was low and the chairs, though comfortable, were not big enough for both of us.Certainly, there was going to be no lying down anywhere but the floor, and we walked all over that all day long in our outside shoes.
So, then, a different option.Not lying down.Bending over.
The desks were the perfect height.
I nodded my head in the direction of Olly’s desk, expecting to hear some objection about the fact that it was covered with work, but that didn’t seem to bother him.At least, that was what I had to assume by the fact that he turned and strode over there, pushed all of the paperwork into one big heap at the side with a single sweep of his arm, and then looked back at me with a gaze so expectantly heated it almost boiled me alive.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.My voice sounded small and weak, but I wasn’t afraid.
