Amazing, brain-altering, I-might-never-recover-from-this sex.
Oh shit.I had sex with my boss.
I should feel guilty. I should feel ashamed or panicked or like I just made the worst decision of my life. I should be spiraling about the professional messiness of it all, or the fact that I’msupposed to be the “responsible” one. But I don’t. There’s no shame sitting in my chest, no regret making my stomach twist.
The man is a very good kisser. Devastatingly good. He kisses like he’s been thinking about it for years, waiting for the exact moment to put the theory into practice.
And those hands. They’re exactly as good as I’d imagined they’d be. Better, maybe. The way they’d moved over me—confident, careful, like he was learning me. Mapping me. The way his fingers had—
I squeeze my eyes shut, my face going hot.
I remember bits and pieces. The taste of him—wine and salt and something darker. The breadth of his shoulders under my hands, all that muscle I’d been trying very hard not to notice for weeks. How he’d looked at me when he’d pulled my sweater over my head with a look of such profound, quiet recognition that it made me feel like the most important person in the world. I remember tongues and teeth and sweaty skin. The sound he’d made when I’d—
Okay.
I need to stop this immediately before I combust and leave a charred, naked silhouette on these very expensive sheets.
I look over. He’s still asleep, his face smoothed out into something almost vulnerable. Those thick, dark lashes are resting against his cheekbones like ink strokes. I find myself studying him—mapping the terrain of his face in the gray-gold light of the New York City sun. I’m memorizing the sharp curve of his jaw and the way his skin looks, trying to archive the moment before reality decides to crash the party.
He’s more muscular than I realized. I wonder if he used to play sports, because this isn’t just going-to-the-gym muscle. This is years of something—rugby, maybe, or rowing. Something that builds shoulders like that.
His lips are slightly parted, looking soft and dangerously inviting even in sleep. His nose has a slight, character-building crook to it—broken at some point, probably—and it’s the only thing that keeps him from looking like a Greek god statue. It makes him real. It makes him the man who argues aboutFriendsand drinks too much Bordeaux with the nanny.
His hair is a disaster of dark, untamed curls, spiraling in every direction. I want to touch them so badly it actually aches. So I do. I reach out, winding a single curl around my finger. It’s soft, springy. I watch it coil and then snap back when I let go, like it has a mind of its own.
His eyes flutter open. For a second, there’s that disoriented blur, and then he sees me, and he doesn’t panic. He doesn’t pull away. He just smiles a soft, sleepy smile that makes my stomach do a somewhat graceful backflip. He stretches, his entire body lengthening with the fluid, lazy grace of a cat, and glances at the clock.
7:30 AM.
I’m still there, my fingers tangled in his hair, watching the dust motes dance in the light catching the curls.
He lets out a low laugh. “Are you petting me, Annie?”
“Maybe,” I whisper back with a small laugh of my own. “Is that weird?”
“A little,” he murmurs, his voice groggy and morning-deep.
“Should I stop?”
“Don’t you dare.”
He shifts then, his weight hovering over me, pinning me into the softness of the mattress. He kisses me—a slow, sweet, unhurried thing that tastes like the end of a long journey. It’s a kiss that says we have all the time in the world, even if the world is currently waking up outside the door.
“Good morning,” he breathes against my mouth.
“Hi.”
He pulls back just enough to look at me. Not a look that’s assessing or even overtly sexual, but something far more intimidating—he’s being attentive. He’s taking in the details and storing them somewhere safe, like I’m not just a girl in his bed but something he’s choosing, deliberately and completely. It’s as if I matter in a way that has nothing to do with what we just did and everything to do with what comes after.
I reach up, tracing the line of his lips with my fingertip. I remember noticing them the first time we met, back when I was convinced he was an arrogant asshole. My finger slides over the tiny crease in the center of his bottom lip, and he catches my hand, kissing the tip of my finger before leaning down to find my jawline.
He finds the spot. The one he discovered last night that makes my entire brain go to mush.
I let out a soft, sharp gasp. “Isn’t Emma going to wake up soon? What are we…what are we doing?”
“Emma sleeps like the dead,” he mumbles against my skin, his breath hot and steady. “We’ve got at least two hours before the demands for cereal begin.”
He goes back to work on my neck, nipping gently at the sensitive cord of my throat before soothing it with his tongue. I wrap one arm around his neck, my other hand buried deep in that messy hair, and I realize I could live here. I could live in this too-soft bed with this man and never leave. I could let him make me feel like this—wanted, seen, safe—forever and never get tired of it.
