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I frowned. “You don’t understand. Thatcher, she flat-out took credit for his ideas. And if the other stuff he said is true?—”
“Quiet,” he said low and firm and sexy. His tone, combined with the press of his half-hard cock against my thigh, made it tough to remember why I’d wanted to talk in the first place…
But not impossible.
“You’re not listening to me,” I breathed. “Thatcher?—”
“I’m listening.” His words were a hot wash against my neck as his lips nudged the sensitive skin there. “You think Layla’s taking credit for Terrance’s work. Maybe she is—maybe,” he repeated when my body tensed at the doubt in his voice. “But the truth is, any presentation Terrance did while he worked at PennCo is PennCo’s property, and for all you know, baby, Layla may have influenced his design or changed it up after the fact.”
I shook my head, trying to clear the lust haze that formed when he called me baby. “N-no. She didn’t?—”
Thatcher dragged his hand up my side under my sleep shirt, and I shivered. “I can’t blame you for thinking the worst of her right now—she was awful to you earlier, and I’ll be addressing that with her once we’re back in New York, I promise—but she’s still your supervisor. This, us, doesn’t change that.” He nipped lightly at my jaw. “So tonight, let me take your mind off it.”
I let out a shaky breath. “I’m not complaining about the way she talks to me. I’m trying to tell you, it’s way bigger?—”
He cut me off with a kiss to my lower lip. His hard length moved against my leg in tiny, frustrated circles. “Shhh. I told you, I’ll take care of it. I’d have said something to her already if I didn’t know you’d be too busy over the next few days to be fetching her coffee?—”
“Stop.” I rolled, pushing him onto his back. “Look, I appreciate you being protective or whatever. It’s sweet,” I whispered. “But I’m not sharing gossip or hoping you’ll take my side against my boss. I can handle myself, and I can handle Layla, too?—”
“Bullshit,” he said, low and fierce. His eyes were a dark storm of lust, affection, and frustration.
“Pardon?”
“I said that’s bullshit. You didn’t handle it, Reagan. You were cold and polite to her.” He said the word like a curse.
“Of course, because she’s my boss,” I pointed out, keeping my voice down though it wanted to rise.
“So am I, but you don’t try that shit with me,” he hissed back.
“Because I don’t want to sleep with Layla,” I said in the same tone. “And I’d rather not be fired. I’m trying to succeed at my job here?—”
“So that you can get a job with your father.”
His words, like the rest of our conversation, were hardly more than a whisper, but they landed on the bed between us with an almost audible plop, like a rock thrown into the center of Lake Wellbridge, sending out ripples that pushed us to opposite sides of the bunk.
I sat up, ramrod straight, and stared down at him. “That… is none of your business.”
“Isn’t it?” he shot back. “You’re mine—I mean… my employee,” he corrected quickly. “And you’ve already admitted that your goal is to convince your father that you’re serious about a career in social media so he’ll give you a job on his campaign. Of course, you still haven’t said why the hell you’d want that. Your father campaigns for big business and family values. He’s never, to my knowledge, spoken up for any LGBTQ issues. Doesn’t it bother you that he won’t take a stand?”
“Yes, of course it does,” I whispered fiercely. Then I frowned.
How the hell had we gotten to this? How the hell had Thatcher missed the point so damn badly? We’d both been on edge all day, but this tense, whispered conversation—while my whole body ached to feel Thatcher inside me and one small woman on the far side of one thin-as-fuck door held us back—had me clinging to the “edge” with my fingertips.
I took a deep breath and tried to speak calmly.
“My dad’s attitude hurts JT,” I admitted. “And I hate that. For a long while, I told myself that since I’d never come out to my parents, it didn’t hurt me personally, but that’s not true. It does hurt that he doesn’t go to bat for people like me. But… my father’s not evil. He does decent things, too. He’s got a moderate voting record compared to other people in his party, and he supports charities and programs that provide training for underprivileged people. But he can’t do anything unless he can get elected, and to get elected, he needs my support.” I sounded like one of his campaign ads, and judging by Thatcher’s lifted eyebrow, he knew it. “I’m just saying, refusing to be seen in public with him or making a giant, public stink about his platform isn’t the way to get him to make a stand on the issues that are important to me. Once he’s elected and I’m on the inside, I’ll have the ability to push him on those issues.”
Thatcher’s mouth twisted up in an expression of fond skepticism that I recognized well because I’d been seeing it on my parents for years. It was like setting a match to dry paper.
“Look, I love my family,” I whispered. “They don’t have to be the very best people for me to love them. Heck, they don’t have to understand me or even support me for me to love them. Apparently, I go around loving people with zero regard for my personal needs.” And wasn’t I staring down at a prime example of that? “I’m not going to change my mind because you don’t like it.”
Thatcher’s annoyance crumbled into concern, and a line appeared between his eyebrows. “Reagan, I wasn’t criticizing you.” He blew out a breath and sat up also. “Talking about this was the furthest thing from my mind when I was waiting for you tonight, and I apologize for leading us down this road. I was only trying to convey that I don’t want you to ever accept less than you deserve or to… to feel like you need to be anyone you’re not. I want you to feel empowered to stand up to Layla when she’s asking you to do things that aren’t in your job description. I want you to realize there are bigger, more fulfilling jobs out there than working for your father if you decide to leave PennCo. I want you to know that your voice, your perspective on the world, are valuable and deserve to be heard?—”
“Right.” I huffed out a laugh that expressed more pain than humor. The things he was saying, the sincerity in his eyes, was exactly what I’d wanted from him a week ago. Now, what I wanted from him was so much more… and absolutely never gonna happen. “You want me to stand up for myself and what I deserve, but you definitely don’t want anyone to know you’re in my bunk right now. You want to protect me from Layla, but you don’t want to hear what I learned from Terrance, which means you won’t help me protect myself and anyone else at PennCo. And you’re side-eyeing me for giving in to my family when you’ve spent so long taking ownership of Brantleigh’s life he might never learn to take responsibility for his own happiness or his own fuckups.”
Too much. I’d said too much. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to suck them back. Instead, I firmed my jaw and refused to utter another word.
Thatcher pulled away, literally and figuratively. Storm clouds crashed across his expression. “I can see we’ve gotten into the inadvisable act of exchanging unsolicited advice. My bad. I’ll find my own bunk and leave you to your sleep.”
