“I’m going to try to say this better than I did earlier. But I feel like I have to be honest with you, because I’m your boss. Because of the whole situation with your husband…”
“I don’t care about him.” She said it, and she wasn’t entirely sure she meant it, but it felt like she did right then. Or at least she wanted to not care.
“Well, either way, I feel like I have to be upfront with you. So, bear with me if I end up sounding like an asshole.”
“Oh no. You maxed out your asshole points earlier.”
“I don’t have anything to offer you.”
“Other than the job and the whole new life?”
“I meanpersonally. Personally, I don’t have anything to offer any woman. I don’t want to get married, I don’t want kids.”
She kept eye contact with him while he said it, tried not to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. It was a foolish feeling. She didn’t want that right now, not with all her wounds still so fresh. Someday, maybe. Another five years in the future, when she’d firmly built her new life and given it all some time, maybe.
Not now. Not him.
So, it didn’t matter that he didn’t want it. At least, it shouldn’t.
This was her having a fling. Following her desires. Not looking for roots and permanence and guarantees. This was her living, not planning. Not building a whole new foundation around another person when she needed to figure out how to stand on her own.
“That’s fine,” she said. “I never said I wanted any of those things with you.”
“But you want them.”
“Here’s what I know for sure. You should never get out of a long relationship and go right into another one. Yes, I dowant those things. Eventually. I wanted them, that’s why I was married. Because I wanted that life. A committed relationship, a family, eventually. But I don’t need to have them immediately. I don’t need to have them with the first person that I kiss after my divorce. And technically, I’m not even divorced yet.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Now I feel like an asshole.”
“You’re welcome to feel like an asshole, but you don’t need to worry about me suddenly falling in love with you.”
“I don’t think you’re going to fall in love with me by accident, Marlowe. I haven’t managed to make anyone do that yet, I doubt you’ll be the first. But, I didn’t want you to think… It just felt like the right thing to do, because you work for me.”
“And you want to have sex again.”
“Here’s the thing, you and I are going to find ourselves alone again sometime, either because it just happens, or I lie to you and lead you out of a party, and you go like the sad little lamb you are. There’s no point deciding we’re not going to do it.”
“A little lamb?”
“Oh yeah, you are a little lamb, desperate to be devoured, don’t you deny it.”
Why was that hot? It shouldn’t be. But then, maybe none of this should be, and it was anyway.
She pressed the tip of her tongue to one of her teeth and couldn’t hold back her smile. “If by devour you mean I want you to eat me out again, then yes.”
“I want that too,” he said, his body hard as iron, his voice strained. “And because we both want it, it’s going to happen. No point pretending that it isn’t.”
“Fair enough.”
“So what’s the plan? We just… Burn it out?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve never done this before. I don’t know how it works.”
“Me either,” he said.
“Aren’t you like… An expert in casual sex?”
“One-night stands. Not ongoing affairs.”
“Oh wow.” She didn’t look flattered. “Am I one of the few women who might earn more than one night with you?”
