“That was a memorable night.”
“The DREAM.” My voice went up about three octaves. “I told you about the shirtless dream. I described it. While you sat there with your head in my lap. I told my boss’s dog that I had a dream about my boss and my boss WAS the dog.”
“Andrea...”
“Don’t. Don’t you dare. If you smile right now I will push you over that fence and I don’t care that you’re a wolf king or whatever the hell you just said.”
“I’m not smiling.”
“You are smiling with your eyes. I can see it from here. Stop it.”
I paced the porch. Three steps one way, three steps back. My face was on fire. Every conversation, every confession, every late night whisper I thought was safe because I was talking to an animal. I told Fin I wanted Finneas to smile at me. I told Fin about how my arm went warm when he brushed my shoulder. I told Fin I was losing sleep over a goddamn smile.
All of it. Every word. Delivered directly to the man himself while he sat there with fur and four legs and let me pour my heart outlike he was a therapy dog and not a six-foot CEO with a secret identity. Oh God, what the hell was I thinking?
“I’m going to be sick,” I said. “I’m not being dramatic. I might actually throw up. This might be the most humiliating moment of my entire life.”
I stopped pacing. Gripped the porch railing with both hands, knuckles white, and faced him. He was still by the shed, shirtless, watching me with an expression I’d seen a hundred times through the glass wall at work but never understood until right now. That look he gave me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention, the one I could never read. I could read it now and I wished I couldn’t. I needed to save whatever amount of dignity I had left.
“The crush is dead,” I said. My voice was shaking but I kept going. “Whatever I felt, whatever this bond thing is, I don’t care. It’s done. Tomorrow I’m handing in my resignation and I’m never...”
He crossed the yard.
Two strides, maybe three, I didn’t count because one second he was by the shed and the next his hands were on my face, palms warm against my cheeks, thumbs on my jaw, and he kissed me.
His mouth hit mine and my back hit the railing and his hands were in my hair and on my jaw and he was kissing me like he was starving for it, two years of restraint collapsing in the space between one breath and the next. His fingers tightened against my scalp and he pulled me closer and I grabbed the railing behind me because my knees buckled and my brain shut offand his bare chest was pressed against me and I could feel his heartbeat hammering through his skin.
He pulled back. Barely. His forehead against mine, his breath warm on my lips, his hands still holding my face.
“Don’t say that.” Low, rough, wrecked. “Don’t ever say that. I’ve had feelings for you since the day you walked into that interview and told me you were good at your job with a straight face and a pink blouse. Two years, Andrea. Two years of pretending I’m nothing but your boss. It’s been hell.”
“You liked me?” My voice came out smaller than I wanted. Smaller than I should have allowed, given everything.
“I like you so much it’s ruining my life.”
I should have shoved him away. Should have told him to get off my porch and out of my yard and out of my life. I was furious and mortified and overwhelmed and also his mouth had just been on mine and my whole body was buzzing and his hands were still on my face and I could feel the calluses on his palms against my cheekbones and I hated that I noticed. Hated that even now, even after everything, my body was leaning toward him instead of away.
I pushed him back. Both hands flat on his bare chest, warm under my palms, and I shoved that detail into a box and set the box on fire.
“Leave. I need to think.”
He went. Reluctantly, every line of his body fighting the direction his feet were moving. He grabbed his shirt, pulled iton, and climbed my fence, which was a ridiculous way to leave someone’s property but apparently that’s how wolf kings exited a conversation.
I went inside. Locked the back door, the front door, checked every window. Then I slid down the hallway wall to the floor and sat there with my knees pulled up and both hands pressed over my mouth.
He kissed me. He was a wolf, a king, my boss, Fin. He’d been on my porch for two years listening to me read romance novels in a terrible Scottish accent and confess my crush and describe my dreams and he liked me the whole time. The whole goddamn time.
I pressed my fingers to my lips. They were still tingling. My whole body was tingling and I wanted to scream into a pillow and also I wanted him to come back and kiss me again and I hated myself for that second part so much I could have cried.
Because here’s the thing I would never admit to anyone. Not to Maryjane, not to my grandma, not even to a dog on a porch, since apparently that option was no longer safe.
When he kissed me, I kissed him back.
Just for a second. Just a heartbeat where my brain went offline and my body took over and I leaned into him and my mouth moved against his before I shoved him away. Brief, barely there, but it happened.
And we both knew it.
9
