I got up from my chair and went to give him a kiss on the forehead.

“Don’t worry. I can fight my own battles with my fiancé.” He chuckled.

“I know who holds the reins,” he said. I nodded once.

“You’re damn right.” He slapped his thighs and got up, giving me a quick hug.

“Oh, Rory Girl, it seems like just yesterday when you were dragging my briefcase around the house and saying that you were off to work.” Even if I hadn’t remembered this, my parents had pictures and video evidence of it.

“Yeah, well, I’ll always need you to be my dad. No one could ever replace you.” He patted the top of my head.

“Okay, okay, enough of that. You’re going to make your old man emotional. I can’t even think about walking you down the aisle without having to reach for a tissue to blot my eyes and hope no one saw me.” I could totally picture him doing that. My dad was a total softie at heart, even though he could be a hardass in the boardroom.

“Have you heard from Hal?” I asked. His face fell and I wanted to kick myself for bringing it up. Sometimes my mouth got the best of me.

“No. I think that’s over and done with. Decades of friendship down the tubes.” He smiled sadly and I couldn’t even imagine losing a friend I’d had for so long. Sloane and I had met in college, so we’d been friends for less than ten years and if I lost her, I didn’t know what I would do. It would be like a death. I hugged him again.

“I’m so sorry it had to end that way.” He patted my back and cleared his throat.

“Sometimes things end. It doesn’t invalidate our whole friendship. It just means that we’re taking two different paths.” He was so wise sometimes. I hoped I was that wise when I was his age. Probably not, but you never knew.

He gave me one last smile and left, waving to Lilia, who seemed unable to figure out what she should do. I mimed waving behind Dad’s back and she gave him a jerky little hand motion that was a cousin to a wave. I laughed and walked up to her desk.

“Sometimes I forget that your dad is the President and I freak out when I see him,” she said in explanation. I leaned on her desk.

“Don’t worry about it. I know he can be intimidating.” I leaned closer so no one walking by would hear us. Lilia did the same.

“I made sure to keep him out here until you were, ah, done with your meeting with Mr. Blythe.” Yeah, she knew exactly what we were doing in there. Maybe not every detail, but still.

“Thank you,” I said. That would have been the absolute worst. Lucah and I were definitely going to have to be more careful. I just couldn’t take the risk that my dad could see me having sex. I would never recover from that embarrassment.

“I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again,” I said and Lilia winked.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got your back, boss.”

~*~*~

“You know we almost got caught today,” I said when I met Lucah in the lobby later that night so we could go home together.

“That was close. I’m not sure if I could get over Walter knowing that I would do anything of that sort to his precious daughter.” I snorted.

“He knows I’m not a virgin, but yes, I get the point. I definitely don’t want that to happen. So, next time, send me an email. Or a text. Something to warn me ahead of time.” He snorted as he hailed a cab.

“You want me to schedule sex with you?” A cab pulled up and he held the door for me. I slid in and gave the cabbie the address.

“No, but a little advance warning would be nice,” I said, not wanting to discuss our sex life with a cabbie sitting right there. Sure, they probably tuned the majority of stuff out, but still.

“Okay, okay. I can understand that,” he said, conceding.

“Good, because I’d rather my dad not have a talk with you about respecting his daughter.” He’d had one with my high school boyfriend and I still hadn’t lived that one down.

“I would like to avoid that as well,” he said, putting his arm around me.

“To change subjects, I was wondering if you wanted to maybe head up to the cabin on Thursday night. Then we could have a little more time there. We wouldn’t have to be back until Saturday.” It would be fun to have some time just to ourselves. Sure, we had our own apartment, but Ryder and Sloane both had keys and seemed to come and go whenever they wanted. They really were made for each other.

“I think that can be arranged,” I said with a sly smile. I reached out and put my finger in his chin dimple. It was one of my favorite features on his face.

“Good,” he said, taking my finger and slipping it into his mouth and completely changing the energy in the cab.

Tags: Chelsea M. Cameron Erotic
Source: readsnovelonline.net