Page 11 of Hitched to my Boss

"Shit!" She jumps up, coffee dripping from her clothes onto my floor.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," I'm on my feet immediately, grabbing dish towels from the kitchen. "Are you burned? Is it too hot?"

"No, I'm fine, it's just—" She looks down at her coffee-soaked sweater with dismay. "This is cashmere."

Without thinking, I start dabbing at the stain, trying to absorb as much liquid as possible before it sets. It's only when my hands are pressed against the curve of her waist, the soft fabric clinging to her skin, that I realize how close we are. How my touch has made her go perfectly still.

I freeze, suddenly aware that I'm essentially caressing her through the wet fabric, that I can feel the warmth of her body beneath my palms, that she's looking up at me with dark eyes that have gone wide with something that has nothing to do with spilled coffee.

"Sorry," I mutter, but I don't immediately step back. Neither does she.

For a moment, we stand there in my kitchen, my hands still pressed against her waist, both of us breathing a little too hard for a simple accident. The air between us is charged and heavy with awareness that neither of us is prepared to acknowledge.

"I should..." she starts, but doesn't finish the sentence.

"I can give you a clean shirt," I hear myself saying. "If you want to change. While we figure out how to clean this."

She nods, not trusting her voice.

I lead her upstairs to my bedroom, acutely aware of her presence behind me, the way she takes in my private space. The bedroom is as spare as the rest of the cabin. There’s myking-sized bed with plain dark bedding, simple furniture, and windows that showcase the mountain views.

I pull a clean flannel shirt from my dresser. "This should work until your sweater dries."

"Thank you." She takes the shirt, her fingers brushing mine in the exchange. The contact sends electricity up my arm.

"I'll be downstairs," I say, backing toward the door. "Take your time."

But as I reach the doorway, she speaks my name.

"Jason?"

I turn back, and the look in her eyes stops me cold. There's something vulnerable there, something uncertain but hopeful.

"Nothing," she says after a moment. "Just... thank you."

I nod and escape downstairs, my heart pounding like I've been running sprints. What the hell was that? A simple accident, a moment of proximity that any decent person would handle without making it weird.

But the way she'd felt under my hands, warm and soft and perfectly right, the way she'd looked at me like she was seeing something she hadn't expected to find.That wasn't simple at all.

I'm still standing in my kitchen, staring at the coffee-stained table, when she comes back downstairs. My flannel shirt hangs loose on her frame, the sleeves rolled up to accommodate her smaller hands. She's buttoned it conservatively, but there's something intimate about seeing her in my clothes, something that makes my mouth go dry.

"Better?" I ask, not quite trusting my voice.

"Much." She smooths the shirt self-consciously. "Though I feel like I'm playing dress-up in your clothes."

"You look..." I catch myself before saying what I'm actually thinking, which is that she looks like she belongs here, in my space, wearing my shirt like she has the right to it. "It suits you."

"Thank you." She sits back down at the table, pointedly ignoring the coffee stain between us. "Should we continue with the interview?"

"Right. The interview." Because that's what we're here for. Business. Professional development. Not whatever that moment upstairs was about.

But as we settle back into our questions and answers, I find myself distracted by small things. The way my shirt gapes slightly at her throat when she leans forward. How she's pushed the sleeves up, revealing delicate wrists. The fact that she smells faintly like my detergent now, mixed with her own subtle perfume.

Set professional boundaries, I remind myself.She's here to do a job. I'm paying her to solve a business problem.

Except when she laughs at something I say, curling into my shirt like it's a comfort rather than just borrowed clothing, professionalism feels like the last thing on either of our minds.

And when she finally changes back into her partially dried sweater an hour later, the cabin feels emptier somehow. Like something that had been briefly, perfectly right has shifted back to merely adequate.

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