“No, thank you, I’m fine.” He’s looking around my office, analyzing every knickknack and office supply with his genius brain, brow furrowed. God, he’s so sexy. My thighs are in a permanent flex, the flesh throbbing wetly at their juncture. “I checked your employment history before I hired you to plan the party. You haven’t been working here long. Yet you have your own office.” He picks up my high heel-shaped paperweight, turning it over in his hands with an amused smile. “You must have worked very hard.”
“Yes,” I say, throat dry. Aching. I’m so overcome by the fact that we’re alone in my office—alone again after I thought he would never allow it to happen again—that some of my truth slips past the net. “I was a little lost in my late teens, early twenties. I needed to make up for lost time. I wanted to be…better.”
He zeroes in on my face. “What made you want to change?”
Seeing your pain.
Feeling responsible for it.
“I’m not sure. I had a moment of clarity. Sometimes that’s all it takes. You look at your life and see the crossroads. You put one foot in front of the other until you’re walking in a new direction and the other road grows smaller and smaller behind you. It’s shaky at first, but then…you’re running. I think that’s why I worked hard. Hard as I could. Because I saw what it could be like if I kept going the other direction.”
He’s silent for long moments, studying me. “That’s admirable, Jane. I’m happy for you.”
Guilt screams through my center.
You don’t deserve his pride or his congratulations.
I swallow hard. “Let’s talk weird ideas,” I say haltingly, shuffling papers on my desk even though nothing about my idea is written or detailed on any of them. “I was thinking…a lot of programmers have a dark sense of humor and true crime is on trend right now. What if we staged a fake crime scene at the party? Your guests could inspect it for clues and try to solve the mystery of what happened. That might be too macabre—”
“I love it,” he laughs. “They will love that. You’re right, they’re completely morbid.”
“We can partition it off, just in case it’s triggering—”
“Right. Good idea.” He blinks at me from behind his glasses, shakes his head. “You’re amazing, Jane. I’m ashamed to say I underestimated the power of a party. My team is already more upbeat just knowing there is one happening.” He tugs on the collar of his navy blue button-down shirt. “I should have been more aware that they needed a break.”
I’m not sure when I moved closer to him, but suddenly I’m on the other side of the desk and there’s only a foot of space separating us. Byron never sat down, so I have to tilt my head back to keep eye contact. And when he swallows, stepping closer to me, my butt presses to the edge of my desk. “It’s okay. You were a little busy trying to conquer Silicon Valley.”
“Something like that.” He looks down at my thighs and shudders, rasping, “Christ, Jane. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Those words strike me with lightning. He can’t know the effect of what he’s saying. His interest is almost worrying. It’s like throwing a match into a puddle of gasoline. I’m already obsessed with him. What comes next? “I can’t stop thinking about you, either.” I swallow hard. “You don’t want to…enjoy yourself too much. I get that. I don’t want you to regret me, you know?”
“Yeah. It’s just…” His hands slide over my hips, gripping. “What man could ever regret you? He’d have to be insane. And yet, I can’t stop the guilt. Goddammit.”
Byron starts to draw his hands back. Begins to pull his touch away, even though he’s hard against the front of his dress pants. Even though he’s clearly in need. And it’s definitely a morning for ideas on the fly, because I find myself blurting, “What if you didn’t take any pleasure? What if you only gave it to me?” I take hold of his belt buckle and tug him closer, widening my thighs to accommodate his hips. “You couldn’t feel guilty about that, right?”
He searches my face, starting to breathe faster. “No. I couldn’t. I could never be anything but grateful to satisfy you.”
God, this is like a dream.
My skin is fevered, sensitive, my core clenching painfully. Needy. I lean up and press our lips together, licking the seam of his mouth lightly. “Do you want to give me an orgasm, Byron?”
“Yes,” he chokes out. “Please.”
How is this real? This big, gorgeous genius is all but shaking with the need to please me, his erection like a torpedo in his pants. He has no idea how easy this is going to be. Getting me off. I’m already poised right on the edge just having his undivided attention.