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19

Tess

A pharma salesman is paying me attention I don’t want. I want to bury myself in edits, so I don’t focus on the two hours of wasted time. It’s 4:30, and he needs to be in a car by 9ish.

Just as the pharma salesman comes in for his sixth try, there’s a kiss on the right side of my neck, and he walks away. Alex marking his territory is hot. I turn around and respond by kissing him deep and long.

“Remind me to be late more often. Hungry?” he says, sliding a hand to the nape of my neck.

“Starved,” I respond.

“Can you wait?”

I smirk. “To be with you, no, I don’t think I can.” He takes my hand, bag, and my bourbon and pulls me out of the club room. Just in the hallway, he crushes his mouth to mine. I think I’m going to die. I want him so badly. His hand invades my skirt.

“This green leather skirt is everything.”

“As is this green tie.” I pull him towards me with it.

“You like?” He raises his eyebrows at me.

“Didn’t know there was green in your eyes.”

His hand moves further up my skirt while still balancing my bourbon and bag. He embodies sex.

I say between gasps, “You know my room is right there.”

“This can’t wait.” He kisses me again, pinning me to the wall with his body and his bright, hazel eyes. He says, “I can’t remember anything I’ve ever wanted more than you. Maybe a bike when I was seven, but what the fuck are you doing to me? Nothing distracts me from work. You’re all I want and can think about.” He’s staring at me after this amazing declaration.

“Same.”

He kisses me again, and I yank him down the hallway into my room. As the door shuts, I undo his tie and unbutton his shirt while he puts down my drink, my notebook, and his bag. He reaches around me to unzip my skirt. I wiggle out of it as he releases my hair from the low pony.

“You really are so fucking beautiful. I write for a living, but that’s the only phrase I have.” His voice is almost a low growl of need and want. I command this powerful man with desire. But I’m not used to hearing this volume of compliments. It’s intoxicating in its own right. Aside from the heady feeling, I get just by being around him. He says things, and I think I’m hearing them for the first time in my life.

I look down. “So, you’ve said.”

He lifts my face and begins kissing me. “And so smart and clever and quick.”

I smile broadly. “What else?” I go fishing. He’s not saying these things to get laid. I’m a sure thing. He must mean the things he’s saying. By having implied sex, we’ve made each other honest.

“Your latest book is good. I should’ve been reading strategy reports, polling info, Twitter, research subjects, sponsor agreements. Still, I found myself unable to put it down until I knew if the lawyers in love, Susie and Robert, would work it out.”

I jerk my head back. “Damn! You really read it.” I back away from him incredulously.

“Really fucking well written.”

I can see the outline of his cock, and it’s distracting me, but then I remember what he just said. “Wow. Thank you.”

“And I stared at that picture of you on the big ivory couch holding coffee a lot. Kept imagining which set was underneath. And then waited to stop thinking about you.”

“It’s cream to match. They’re in my suitcase if you want me to change.”

“Maybe later.”

“I may have listened to this week’s podcast a couple of times.”

He rushes to me. “This has to be it. Then we go back to the original plan. I’ll see you after the midterms and the winter leg of your book tour. We talk—”