Page 115 of All's Well that Friends Well

When she remains silent, I push off the desk and stand up, approaching her carefully. “Is that all?” I say.

Her gaze trails up my neck and my face until her gaze meets mine, vivid and blue. “It’s just…” she says with horror as I close the distance between us, and when she goes on, her voice is higher-pitched. “I told you to email me [email protected].”

“Still stuck on that.” I can’t keep my smile in any longer, and I can’t rein in this feeling, either—this surging joy in my chest, overwhelmingly bright and giddy.

Because it’s hitting me, right here and right now, that I absolutely don’t want someonelikeher. I wanther. I want to feel like this all the time. I want to choose this woman everyday. She is my white picket fence, my dream of the future. No one else makes me feel the way she does. No one else makes me smile the way she does, and no one else drives me as crazy, either.

We could have somethingreal,Juliet and I. Something lasting. And I want it.

“Rod, you should go,” I say absently as I lift my hands to Juliet’s face. When the couch squeaks, I glance at him, more alert. “Do you need help?—”

“Shut up,” Rodney says, waving me away. “You have a woman like this in front of you.”

So I turn back to Juliet, sliding my hands into her hair, moving impossibly closer. Her hands have found my waist, wrapping around me and holding me tightly, her eyes bright as she looks up at me.

From behind us the blinds rattle as the office door opens. “I’m closing these,” Rodney says in his creaky voice, and I hear another rattle of blinds. “You’re welcome. We’ll discuss your promotion later.”

I hum my thanks, but it’s all I can give him at the moment, because Juliet is everywhere and I want her. I want her days and her nights and her laughter and her tears.

“I have to say, Mr. Slater,” she says when the door has closed and we’re alone again, “the way you’re looking at me is not very office appropriate.”

“The things I want to do are not very office appropriate either,” I admit as my heart thuds against my ribs, trying to escape, to reach the woman to whom it now belongs.

She gasps, her gaze flashing with amusement. “How scandalous. Please tell me more.”

“Well, first”—I slide my hand out of her hair and tug her headband off, tossing it carelessly onto the sofa—“I want to get rid of this.” Something stirs in my chest at the sight of her hair cascading down, and when she pouts up at me, I exhale roughly.

“I told you to stop making that face,” I say, the words hoarse as my gaze lingers.

“Hmm,” she says, her arms trailing lightly up my back. “What are you going to do about it?”

I lean forward and nip her bottom lip, pulling it between my teeth and swallowing the gasp that escapes her. “I’m going to kiss you,” I breathe. I shiver as her fingers curl into my back, like she can’t hold on tight enough. “I’ll kiss you all the ways I want to kiss you—and I’ll kiss you all the ways you want to be kissed.”

“There are a lot of ways I want to be kissed,” she whispers as I trail my lips up her jaw. “A lot of ways and a lot of places—” But she breaks off as I find the spot just below her ear and press a kiss to her skin—then I skim my nose down her neck, breathing her in.

“Heaven,” I mutter. “You smell like heaven all the time.”

And I could explore her forever. I want to. But her lips are calling, begging, and I finally let myself give in. I find her mouth with mine, fuse our lips as she melts into me, matching me stroke for stroke; I explore this part of her the way I’ve wanted to since the moment we first kissed that day in my office. Fire roars in my chest and grows, spreading throughout my body as longing flares to life.

Her hands are in my hair now, digging painfully into my skin, and everything is hypervivid—her gasped breaths as our lips slide, the desperate curl of my fingers at her waist—closer?—

More.I want more, but it’s too much, toofast, and I know instinctively that moving too quickly will kill whatever we could have.

So I slow down. Relax my grip, ease the tension out of my body, and let myself feel her—gentle hands up and down her spine, slow breaths instead of frantic gasps. She senses the change, I can tell, because her grip loosens too as she slides her hands to my shoulders.

I was so reluctant to fall for her. So reluctant to let her into my messy life, into my messy heart. But she barged her way in anyway, and now that she’s here…I want to see how she looks in my space. So I tilt my head to kiss her more deeply, more languidly, a lazy exploration of her lips. I count the notches in her spine. I revel in the sensation of her fingers sliding through my hair, the soft press of her curves.

And when she smiles, it’s an expression I feel rather than see. “Hi,” she whispers.

My legs are strangely weak, my chest full of something odd and fluttering but infinitely pleasant. “Hi,” I breathe.

She licks the word from my lips, steals it away as I groan.

This woman will be the death of me. She’ll drive me insane, and I’ll love every second. I let my forehead drop to hers, moving my hands and smoothing them over her hair. “You’re trouble,” I say in a hoarse voice.

“And you’re mine,” she whispers, still out of breath. “Right? You can’t kiss me like that otherwise.” A faint smile flits over her lips, bright red.

“I’m yours,” I agree.

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