Page 60 of Forty, Flirty & Fired

Now he does look up, and the intensity in his pine-green eyes makes me glad I closed the door. "Sit."

I don't. Something about his commanding tone makes me want to challenge it. "I prefer to stand."

He rises slowly, coming around his desk. "Always have to do things the hard way, don't you?"

"Says the man who spent an hour arguing about wine decanting."

"That was different."

"Was it?"

He's close now, close enough that I can smell his cologne, see the dark shadow of hair along his jaw. "You ran away."

"I had a family emergency."

"You ran away," he repeats, backing me against his office door. "After I kissed you."

"Technical point – I ran away the next morning. After you kissed me."

"Semantics." His hands land on either side of my head, caging me in. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why run? Why hide? Why spend months criticizing tech culture through a blog instead of just telling me directly?"

"Would you have listened?" I tilt my chin up, defiant despite my racing pulse. "Before the champagne incident? Before I proved I could actually fix things?"

"No," he admits, then kisses me.

This isn't like the lodge kiss, all whiskey-flavored possibility and tentative exploration. This isn't even like the break room kiss, soft and sweet and questioning.

This is possession. Challenge. Promise.

This is everything we've been dancing around since that first gala.

My fingertips curls into his button-down shirt as he deepens the kiss, pressing me harder against the door. Histongue traces my lower lip and I open for him with a gasp that turns into a moan when his thigh slides between mine.

"Still want to run?" he murmurs against my neck.

"Still want to fire me?" I counter, then gasp as he finds that spot behind my ear.

"I think," his hands slide down my sides, "we can find better ways to handle corporate criticism."

"Like making out in your office after hours?"

He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. "Like admitting that maybe we're both right. And both wrong. And maybe?—"

I cut him off with another kiss, because somehow he keeps saying exactly the right things in exactly the right way and it's either kiss him or admit that I might be falling in?—

A crash from outside makes us jump apart.

"Sorry!” Keith's voice carries through the door. "Minor revolutionary incident with the holiday decorations! Nothing to worry about! Though the revolution notes some interesting after-hours management meetings happening?—"

"I'm going to fire him," Alex mutters against my throat.

"No, you're not." I thread my fingers through his hair. "He's actually good for morale. In a chaotic sort of way."

"Speaking of chaos..." He pulls back, though his hands stay on my waist. "We should talk about the blog."

---