The Boss (The Boss 1)

I took a breath and carefully considered my response. “I don’t know how I feel about you telling... whatever it is you told to Rudy. I have to work with him, too. But if you trust him to keep your secret, I can. You have more to lose in this situation than I do, I think.”

Neil shook his head. “This is all going much differently than I expected.”

“You expected you’d show up and we’d fuck?” The word sent a jolt of tension through me.

“Can you blame me for trying?” He gave me that half-smile that melted my bones. “I should go. This was an inappropriate visit.”

I watched him as he stood and strode toward the door, and my chest tightened. Okay, so he’d let Eye-Rolling Rudy in on our dirty little secret from six years ago. I’d told Holli, hadn’t I? And she occasionally worked for the magazine. It might not have been the same level on the indiscretion scale, but if he was feeling even a fraction of the emotional confusion I was suffering from, no wonder he’d needed a sympathetic ear.

Plus, he wasn’t looking for a serious relationship. I loved sex, and finding someone I wanted to have it with, someone who was actually good at it and who didn’t want to involve me in their five-year plan, was absurdly difficult in a city of eight million people. Especially when you were holding every available man to the impossible standard of being as amazing as Neil Elwood.

And here he was, the guy who set the bar for my sexual expectations. And he wanted exactly what I wanted.

“Wait,” I said.

He stopped, his forehead creased with confusion.

“If you’re down for a little extracurricular fun, and this isn’t some kind of weird male sexual scavenger hunt wherein you need to fuck your secretary to score points...” My voice trailed off. I had gotten off track somewhere. I inhaled through my nose and straightened my spine. “Then fine. Let’s just see each other casually.”

“When you say ‘see each other’...” he began cautiously.

“I mean have sex. In a friendly, no-strings kind of way.” It never crossed my mind to be worried about whether or not he’d think it was “slutty” of me to want such an arrangement. It was strange, but I felt like I could trust him to be honest with me and not judge me according to some bullshit misogynistic double standard. Maybe having the kind of sex you have with a person you think you’re never going to see again is the way all relationships should start.

“And nothing is going to happen tonight,” I stated firmly. It took a lot of self-control not to whimper during that sentence. I’d spent so many years fantasizing about him and only him, and now he was standing right next to me, totally willing to do all the nasty things I’d dreamed of. But I had a strict “no sex with drunk people” policy.

A slow smile tilted his lips, and the naughtiness promised in the expression was enough to make goose bumps stand out on my skin. “Quite right. We’ve waited six years, there should be nothing to another... twenty-four hours?”

“Twenty-four hours?” I echoed, my heart lodging firmly in my throat. I crossed my arms over my chest, acutely aware of my hard nipples chafing against my sweater.

“Twenty-two?” He stepped toward me, his lips still twisted in a wry grin, and looked down his straight, classically handsome nose at me. He didn’t touch me, but he stood so close his coat brushed my sleeves. A thrumming, purely sexual energy throbbed between us. If he’d opened his arms, if he’d made any move to embrace me, I would have fallen against him gladly, drunk rule or not. But he didn’t. He just gazed down at me thoughtfully, his eyes moving over my features as though he were deciphering an intricate code. “I think six years of wanting you is long enough, Sophie.”

Six years of wanting you. He’d wanted me, just like I’d wanted him. Relief and tension at the same time make for a strange sensation. I could think of lots of good reasons not to let him push me up against the wall and fuck me with all my clothes on, and none of them seemed good enough.

My tongue darted out to wet my lips, and I glanced up. It was easier to make eye contact when I could be sarcastic and guarded. “Well, now that all that’s out of the way... I would offer you a drink, but I think you’ve had enough.”

“No, I have a car waiting.” He leaned down, his lips a fraction of a millimeter from mine. “I’ll see you tomorrow, with further instructions.”

He kissed me, far too briefly, and left.

I stood by the door for a long time, wondering what exactly had just happened. At the moment, it seemed like I was getting what I’d hoped for, after six long years of not hoping very much. At the same time, I’d just agreed to have sex with my boss, again. Holli’s bedroom door opened a crack. “Is it safe to come out?”