“I really hope what we just did isn’t against any of your company’s rules,” I murmur.
“If it is, I’m just going to have to re-write them because I plan to kiss you again, Emmy. I’m going to kiss you all over.”
A grin spreads across my face as I pull back to look into his hooded eyes. “It’s your company and you don’t know if there are rules about workplace dating?”
“Oh, so we’re dating now, are we?” His eyes dance with amusement as he smirks.
My cheeks flame. “Oh…um…I didn’t mean… Shit. I’m jumping to conclusions. You must think I’m juvenile.” I lock eyes with him. “For all I know, you kiss the girls you hire all the time. You could be a serial kisser—grabbing girls left, right, and center, kissing their socks off then moving on to the next. Or you could have a whole harem of women who are specifically there for you to kiss and never date. Or maybe you do date, but you hate being exclusive because you’re a successful man and that’s an attractive quality to a lot of women. Then you’re actually super attractive on top of that, so of course you’re not hard up for a date—” I don’t get to finish because his mouth silences my words, swallowing them up in a deep, slow kiss that has me whimpering and melting against him.
“No,” he rasps when we finally come up for air.
“No?” I blink up at him, thoroughly confused and sated all at the same time.
“No, I don’t kiss girls I hire. I don’t kiss girls on the street, and I don’t have a harem of women, or any woman for that matter. There’s only you, Emmy Townsend. I want you and no one else.”
A surge of lust and...something more,something newthat I’m not sure I’m ready to analyze, surges through me, all because of one Mr. Drake Grant. So many years of wondering why I never felt what I currently feel, questioning why I never had a connection with the opposite sex or mooned over posters of movie stars like the other girls my age did. I’d put it down to the fact that I had responsibilities, so I didn’t have time for things as trivial and boys and crushes on men I couldn’t have. But now I realize, the reason I never felt anything was because of this man right here. All I’d had to do was wait. Wait for Drake Grant to breeze into the mall, buy my cupcakes, and change my life forever.
“Wait. So, are we dating or…”
Drake chuckles as he brushes the back of his knuckles along my jaw. “Yeah, baby. We’re dating. So you’ll need to tell any other guys you have sniffing around that you’re off the market.”
“Oh, there’s no one else. Never has been.”
His brows lift. “Never?”
I shake my head to confirm, and his grin gets even wider.
“Good. Because I’m not a man who likes to share, and you, my beautiful cupcake, belong to me.”
Drake
Absently, I drum my fingers on my desk, glancing down at my watch for what seems like the hundredth time in the last...fuck, has it really been just ten minutes?
Letting out a frustrated sigh, I wheel away from the desk and stand up, walking over to the floor to ceiling windows that overlook the waterfront. From there, I watch the water, the tiny boats and activity from my eagle’s vantage point, and slowly, my restlessness ebbs away.
Maybe now I can get a little work done…
Today has not been an easy day. Actually, it has been nothing short of torture. Emmy started working with the company today, and knowing she’s in the same building, taking the same elevator, walking the same halls—but never at the same time as me—is taking its toll. It’s been a fight against my own self-control all day long when all I want to do is go to her, grab her by the hand then find the nearest flat surface to get horizontal. She’s been teasing me via text all weekend, and I’m dying to get some alone time with her.
I haven’t seen her since the dinner at her home, haven’t kissed her since that moment standing beside my car. I gave her the weekend to wrap her head around the idea of us. Not that she seems to need it, but I needed her to have it. After all, I’m her boss, and I’m twenty-five years her senior. I’ve lived an entire life already, and she’s only at the beginning of hers. Maybe, after a moment to think without me in her space clouding her judgment, she’d realize I’m nothing but a middle-aged man attempting to date a not-quite-twenty-year-old woman.
It helps me to think of her like that—as not-quite twenty. Stops me from feeling like a dirty old man going after a college girl. Not that she’s in college, but you get my drift. This isn’t the road I saw myself taking that day when I was walking through the mall. I’d been focused on expanding my business, a relationship the furthest thing from my mind. And then, there she was, the girl of my dreams beckoning me closer. How could I walk away?
And how can I deny the feelings that exist between us when despite me trying to give Emmy some physical space, she instigated a text exchange that started the moment I got home from dinner and ended this morning when I promised I’d take her out to dinner after work. It’s been radio silence since.
I run my hand down my face, rubbing my tired eyes as I pick up my phone and scroll back over our messages. We’ve chatted back and forth about anything and everything, sent photos back and forth—some sexy, some simple. I click the one of her lying against her pillow, sent late last night before we both said good night. Her cheeks are flushed as she smiles sweetly,seductively, into the selfie lens, and her hair is fanned out to the side. She’s wearing her pajamas, but there’s just enough skin showing for me to see the deep line of her cleavage. My cock stirs, and I let out a groan.
I can’t stop thinking about her, wanting her, wishing she was near. In the week and a bit since I first met her, I’ve thought of little else. My entire brain space is taken up by Emmy Townsend, whose brown eyes and lush backside seem to be my reason for waking each morning. Every moment I live through, is a means to an end. I just want to get to a point where she is mine, and I am hers, and there’s nothing in between.
Which is why I personally assigned Emmy a female supervisor to show her around on her first day and to train her privately. Normally, it’s the senior sales representative who handles the orientation and assigns trainers to new staff. They get thrown into the bullpen and have to learn fast to keep up. I rarely step in, but this time, it’s personal. And the last thing I want is for Emmy to be in close proximity with another man all day. I know how enticing she is, even if she doesn’t realize it herself, and I know for a fact some of thoseyoungguys on the sales floor are serial daters who’d sniff out her innocence and take advantage of it the first chance they get. Not on my watch. I don’t care how possessive that makes me seem, but Emmy’s mine. Period. And if that means special treatment, then so be it. If anyone has a problem with it, I’ll get rid of them and set her up with a desk inside my office, and I’ll train her myself.
I check my watch again, exasperated that time seems to be crawling by.Why didn’t I suggest a lunch date instead?
Moving to the door, I pull it open to stick my head out. Alice, ever efficient, sits at her desk, typing up a flurry. She looks up as I call her name, and makes to get up, but I wave her back down.
“No, don’t bother getting up, Alice. I just wanted to find out whether you’ve been to that new place that opened last week? The one on Ekker Street.” I close the door behind me and lean against it.
“You don’t pay me enough to dine out at someplace that swanky, Mr. Grant,” she deadpans, her fingers poised over her keyboard as she lifts her eyebrows at me.
