Page 9 of The Boss’s Obsession
When it finally came on, the time blinked at me. After 9 pm. Should I call Jim? It was late, and he probably had other things on. Should I just let Ronan sleep it off in the sitting room? I had the instinct that Ronan wouldn’t like anyone else to see him drunk as he was. At least I was leaving soon, so he wouldn’t feel embarrassed.
I texted Jim instead and told him that I knew where Ronan was, and everything was fine, not to worry about it for tonight, but requested an early pick up from my apartment the next day.
In the kitchen, I poured a long cool glass of water and headed back to the sitting room. Ronan hadn’t moved. I took his shoes off and set them on the floor and then looked at the rest of him. His shirt didn’t look like the most comfortable thing to sleep in. I knelt beside him, and carefully worked his tie off, tugging it very gently off his neck, so as not to wake him. Next, my hands moved to his shirt. At least undoing a couple of the buttons would stop him from choking to death in his drunken sleep. As I slid the buttons out the loops, I stared at his slack face, for once free to look as much as I wanted to. He looked so different without his usual intensity. I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to smooth the one line that remained on his forehead. My finger had barely made contact before his eyes opened, and his fingers closed around my wrist, yanking me closer to his chest. My breath flew from my lungs, and a cry of surprise left me as I was consumed by the burning look in his eyes.
“You think you don’t have a man in your life, but you do,” he muttered quietly. My heart felt like it was pounding out my chest, and the air around us simmered with something flammable as I leaned half across him, my lips only inches from his.
His eyes moved to my lips, and heat blossomed in me, as fiery as a furnace. “You have me. I’m the man in your life, Sienna,” he muttered, and leaned up and pressed his mouth to mine before I could jerk backward.
The kiss should have been sloppy, given how drunk he was, or tentative, considering that he’d never even considered kissing me before, but it wasn’t.
His strong lips moved purposefully over mine, parting them effortlessly, and his tongue pressed inside, sliding against mine. It was suddenly, and shockingly intimate. It only lasted seconds, but I was completely breathless afterward. Pulling back, and dropping his head back to the pillow, he stared at me with dark, hungry eyes.
“If you want intimacy, you come to me, no one else. Don’t leave me, Sienna.”
“You’re drunk. We’re just co-workers, and we both know it,” I muttered numbly.
He shook his head, his eyes never leaving mine. “No, we’re not and we both know it.”
CHAPTER8
Ronan
Iblinked awake to the sound of a faraway sneeze.
Light moved across an unfamiliar ceiling, and I nearly rolled right off the couch below me as I jerked awake.
My head pounded and the inside of my mouth tasted as if something had died in there. The sound that had woken me came again. A soft, delicate-sounding sneeze.
I sat up and took in my surroundings. The apartment was filled with early morning light, and full of books and bright furnishings. I knew immediately whose it was.
This was Sienna’s apartment and it had to be her sneezing. All in a rush, the night before returned to me. Getting wasted for the first time in my life at the bar, and staggering to her steps. Waiting there to be discovered by her, and then, the difficult journey upstairs.
“You’re drunk. We’re just co-workers, and we both know it.”
The memory of her words filled my head, closely followed by the kiss. I’d kissed Sienna. My gut dropped and my blood roared to life at the thought, racing through my veins, and turning my body to stone. I shifted on the couch, aware that my morning wood had turned into a raging hard-on. Christ. I was usually good at keeping my body under control, but being here in Sienna’s home after that kiss was shredding my self-discipline.
What I had told Dr. Pooja remained to be true. I was too old for her, I’d promised her father that I’d look after her, she was off-limits. Yet, I’d kissed her anyway. I rubbed my tired eyes and sat up, feeling the world tilt dramatically for a moment.
Christ, this was awful. If this was what drinking to excess did to you, I couldn’t understand why anyone chose to participate in it. Pushing myself to my feet, I heard another delicate sneeze. I followed the sound.
Knocking gently, I pushed open a door up the hall and was rewarded with the sight of Sienna’s bed, and the woman herself, curled on her side. She sat up when she saw me, her eyes round.
“You’re awake!”
“That I am. Are you sick?” I immediately asked.
She shook her head, and then sneezed again, hugging her body. I shouldered into the room, and she looked alarmed. Crossing the carpet to her bed, I sank down on the edge and put a hand on her forehead.
“You’re burning up. Do you have a thermometer somewhere?”
“Bathroom cabinet, but you can’t look in there, I’ll go,” she said, making to stand up.
I pushed her back firmly. “Why not?”
She reddened. “It’s too embarrassing.”
I tutted loudly, and stood up, making for the bathroom before she could stop me. “Don’t be ridiculous. You aren’t well. There’s nothing in a woman’s bathroom cabinet that I haven’t seen before.”
