I snorted. “And what was your first impression of me?”
He smirked. “I got a look of you from way down the hall, before you ever laid eyes on me. So between us, I was actually the first one to have inappropriate thoughts.”
I looked surprised enough that he laughed, but before I could ask for details about that, Adam informed me that my pan was smoking, and I gasped as I remembered the fact that I was heating up oil on the cast iron.
It was only after I’d cooked the chicken thighs, packed them with the vegetables and batched several mason jars’ worth of overnight oats that I found the time to think back on what he’d said about first impressions.
I wanted so badly to ask what his inappropriate thoughts were, but I also knew they’d get me riled up in a way I couldn’t afford to be, because I really couldn’t figure out what I was doing here with Adam.
Even in a best-case scenario where we were say, dating, it’d still look bad. I was his assistant and despite being just an assistant, I’d earned a fair amount of respect at the office. But that would be gone if people knew we were sleeping together. Assumptions about unearned opportunities and preferential treatment would be made, and I of all people knew how much that shit sucked.
So I kept the conversation light as we ate together, talking about the game on TV, and a little bit about Knox. I warded off the barrage of sexual thoughts when Adam got up to get water from the fridge, treating me to the view of his very noticeable bulge in those sweats, and despite getting very hot and bothered, I managed not to writhe or squirm when he came up behind me to refill my glass.
But God, the heat of his chest against my back was damn near electric, and all I wanted was to feel him touch me. Anywhere.
It was honestly a miracle that I managed to survive dinner, though just to be safe, I got up as soon as we finished eating, citing the time—past 10PM—for why I had to get going so fast.
“Yeah, definitely,” Adam had said, following me to the door.
And for a moment, it felt like I was really going to get out of here unscathed, without a new incident to make me toss and turn tonight, sleepless and breathless in my bed. I was almost convinced.
But then I felt a shiver up my spine when he said, “Hey.”
“Yeah?” I turned around, a knot jumping into my throat when I found Adam standing right behind me, our toes barely a foot from each other. God. Standing this close put such an emphasis on his height. How much I had to lift my chin to finally meet his dark blue gaze, which was relaxed yet searching as he looked at me. His eyes moved from mine to my lips, then my throat as I swallowed, needing to steel myself through the thickness of the silence before he finally said, “Thanks for tonight. I needed it.”
His voice was such a low, husky murmur that I felt immediately hot. Swallowing again, I smiled.
“Of course,” I said lightly, a tingle darting over my skin.
Then it was back to quiet, our bright eyes dancing on each other for the next two seconds. But on the third, our bodies collided, his shirt in my fists and his lips crushed against mine. His fingers laced in my hair, Adam rubbed his cock against me, all while our tongues stroked against each other, licking and laving with all inhibitions thrown to the wind, as if we’d kissed each other a thousand times. As if this were nothing new to us at all.
For what felt like an entire night of its own, we kissed by the door, our hands smoothing over each other then grasping at each other tightly, greedily, like we couldn’t bring our bodies close enough.
And when he pulled away first, I understood, because I felt every hard inch of why he needed to, and I was half-relieved myself. But with his forehead resting on mine, I let my hands slide to the back of his neck, tipping my chin up gently and returning my lips to his for one more kiss—softer this time.
I savored the warmth of his breath when he breathed out after, exhaling like he was expelling the stress of the entire day.
When our eyes glowed on each other again, he looked loose. Relaxed with a heavy-lidded gaze. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he murmured.
I smiled. “Goodnight.”
Then, turning around before I didn’t, I left, glancing over my shoulder once to wave to Adam as he stood by the door. I focused hard once I got into my car and pulled out of his driveway, but as soon as I was around the corner, I pulled over just to catch my breath, because it legitimately felt like I was driving under the influence—which actually seemed like a pretty good metaphor for what I was doing right now.
I was playing with fire. Being totally reckless. And as always, I knew better.
But for once, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
19
ADAM
“So, when’s that cranky son of a bitch coming for a visit? Tomorrow? Thursday?”
I laughed at Don Engelman’s question despite the fact that he had just been palming his shiny, bald head and was now grabbing the signed baseball from my desk to toss to himself—something I let him do solely because he owned the whole goddamned company.
“He’s coming tomorrow,” I said, referring to Knox, whose potential signing had flown previously under the radar here. But now Engelman himself had a personal stake in it, for reasons most anyone in the sports industry, but especially I, could relate to:
Fucking RTA.