By the time Willa joins me, I have coffee going in two machines.
“Regular and decaf,” I explain. “And there’s an instant kettle if you prefer tea, or?—”
“Coffee’s great.” She crosses to me and I take her into my arms. “That was a nice way to wake up. Seeing you come out of the bathroom with a hard-on.”
I groan and lower my mouth to hers. She tastes like toothpaste.
I’m in love.
She tangles her fingers in my still damp hair and tugs as I deepen the kiss.
“Do you wear it back every day?” she asks after we finish kissing, at least the first round. Her voice is breathless and her lips are swollen.
“Yes.”
She smiles.
“What?”
“Does that mean that I’m the only one who gets to see it down?”
I’m smiling now, too. “Yes.”
She squirms against the counter.
Fuck.
“You like that?”
“Mm-hmm.”
I catch her by the waist and pull her hard against me. She’s wearing pants again, and I’m glad for that, because if she was wearing a skirt, all bets would be off.
“Good,” I growl before stealing another kiss.
Then I put the island between us, and force her to admit what expensive breakfast foods taste surprisingly good to her.
She insistson walking over to work alone, because it’s weird for the CEO to shadow her all the way to her cubicle.
I disagree. After less than twenty-four hours, I think it’s weird for us to be separated all day.
Instead of going upstairs to the executive floor, I head to the IT department and ask them for a new phone for Willa, because I’ve noticed that hers is an older model with a cracked screen.
Then, out of a respect for her privacy, I send one of them to deliver it to her, with a note with my phone number scrawled on it tucked into a sealed envelope.
I know we’ve done things out of order, gorgeous, but one of my many regrets is that I didn’t give you my number that night. So I’m doing so now, hoping you might text me during your work day. I think, ifeverything were different, maybe that’s something we would have done in the early days of getting to know each other? Because I would have missed you. I did miss you, in fact. And I miss you right now.
Then I force myself upstairs.
It doesn’t take long for a new text to arrive.
This is Willa
Roman
Hi Willa, this is Roman, in case you forgot… guy from the terrace?
Willa