“Shut the fuck up, Noah.” I bellowed.
Noah held his hands up in surrender. “Why do you all put up with this shit? You all want me to come into the family fold, but I like my dick. I’m not going to castrate it simply so I can wear a suit and stop living.”
In the past, I’d have challenged him on his statement, but Kellie’s words came back to me. The ones where she asked why I worked so much but never enjoyed the fruits of my labor. I’d thought it was because I liked the work. It was the fruit. But now, all of a sudden, I wasn’t so sure.
I stood. “I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.” I strode out of the conference room and toward my office. I was focused and ready to work. And then I saw Kellie sitting at her desk. Her hair was up in its usual twist. She had on one of her professional outfits. She was back to normal. I was back to normal. But nothing felt normal anymore.
“Good morning, Mr. Strong.”
Fuck. I knew this woman’s body like my own. And now we were back to this. “Good morning, Ms. Nichols.”
My heart felt like it was being crushed in a vise. Especially when I noticed that she wasn’t wearing the charm bracelet. What did that mean?
I gave her a curt nod and went into my office shutting the door.
For the next three days, I pretended I hadn’t fucked her. I acted like the professional businessman and boss that I thought I was. But inside, I was a hot mess. Every time I saw her, I wanted to talk and laugh freely. My hands itched to touch her. My mouth watered to taste her. It was made worse by the fact that we had a lot of catching up to do on the expansion in Europe, as well as our new goal of expanding to Japan. Because of time differences, that meant we often worked late. Being alone with her in my office was a living hell. So many times, I caught myself reaching out to touch her. One night, when I got home from work, I drank myself to oblivion and nearly called her to fire her so that I could then sleep with her without worrying about breaking the rules. I was a fucked-up mess.
Later in the week, she was staying a little later so we could do a call to Japan, which was sixteen hours ahead of us. The call had gone well, and she was now presenting me with some papers we’d agreed to send over to the Japanese distributor.
She stood next to me as she set the paper on my desk for a signature. Her scent filled my nostrils, making me drunk with headiness.
I shook my head and focused on the document. “Is the delivery clause in there?”
“Yes, sir. Here.” She bent over to point to a section of the document. Her arm brushed mine, sending an inferno of need straight to my dick.
I turned my head, and hers was right there. Her lips only inches away. My eyes drifted up. She was looking at me. At first, she seemed surprised, and then uncertain.
She bit her lip, and that was it. I was a goner. I reached up, putting my hand at the back of her neck and pulled her to me, my lips devouring hers like I’d been dying of hunger. She moaned and kissed me back, thank fuck.
When I pulled away, I leaned my head against hers. “I feel like I need to apologize, but I’m not sorry, Kellie.”
She started to straighten, and I couldn’t stand the distance that it put between us. I stood, and took her hand to keep her from moving away.
“I thought that by the time we left Europe, I’d have this…” I didn’t know what to call our relationship so I skipped it. “Out of my system.”
She nodded like she understood.
“But I find that’s not the case. Not yet. You challenged me to live a little and while this is so wrong…” My gut clenched as the guilt and wrongness filled it. “I wonder if we couldn’t continue a little longer. Friends with benefits. No commitments or strings. You can give me the boot anytime and it won’t be a problem for your job, I promise.”
She bit her lip again and a part of me felt I should back off.
But I couldn’t. “The sex is amazing and we have fun, don’t we? Why deny ourselves? Isn’t that what you tried to teach me?” I was a jerk to use her words against her, but I was a desperate man.
She was quiet for a moment, and I searched my brain for what I could say that would convince her to agree.
“It was easy in Europe because we weren’t working. How would we keep the work relationship separate from the friendship?” she asked.
“We won’t indulge in the office.” That broke my heart a little bit because I had a fantasy of fucking her on my desk. But she was right. If this was going to work, no one could know. We had to keep it away from the office, and from my brothers and gran. “This would be a temporary thing. Until we get each other out of our systems.”
She looked at me for a moment and I thought maybe I hurt her feelings or offended her. But then she nodded.
“Yes, okay.”
My dick was practically singing in joy. I rubbed my thumb over her wrist. “Is that why you’re not wearing the charm bracelet? Because you’re concerned what others might think it means?”
She blinked in surprise, and then nodded. “Yes.”
“I don’t think people would know, if you’d like to wear it.” Jesus, fuck. What was wrong with me that it felt so important to me that she wear it?