“I’d love to, Miss Price.”
14
~
June
I stepped into his office with my heart in my throat.
I knew what I’d asked for, and I knew what I was getting into. At least I thought I did.
But all of my recent decisions were like a torrent of built-up reckless choices that I was now shamelessly living out without the fear that had kept me paralyzed in my own life for so long.
Maybe this was too much too soon. I knew that if anyone were to find out about what I was doing, the judgement would be valley-deep and probably rightfully so. But I’d spent my whole adult life already thinking I was both too much and not enough.
I was tired of rules. Well, not rules as a whole. Oren had given me a particular set of them to follow for today’s coaching session. We discussed things beforehand, but there was a lot of information that I had no idea was pertinent to what he had planned for me today.
I’d followed all the instructions to a tee, though. Old habits die hard.
“Come in, Miss Price,” his baritone voice called from the other side of the closed door.
It was office hours, meaning that whatever was going to happen inside this office, was going to need to be as silent as possible. Oren watched me as I came in, seated behind his desk.
There was something different about him, something that seemed to change. It wasn’t that he’d ever been shy or a wallflower. But between Lucas’s extroverted idealism and Ronan’s charming sarcastic banter, Oren had always been more reserved.
I could see how all three of them fit together, how their distinctive personalities cemented their bond and held them in balance. Oren was the grounded one, the one who quietly watched when no one else noticed things.
He’d done that with me, offering me comfort in what had been one of the darkest times of my life. He’d seen through parts of myself I didn’t even know about, and it was his words that had helped set me on the path I was now currently exploring.
If Lucas was a fire that fed my own passion, and Ronan was a roguish charmer who brought out a playfulness in me, then Oren was like a steady rock that withstood even the most chaotic of storms.
Steadfast, reliable. Someone I trusted to push me beyond what I was comfortable with because I knew that he was deserving of that vulnerability. But now, there was something else in his countenance. Something more dominant that I hadn’t picked up on before.
“Business first,” he said, gesturing to the chair in front of him. I nodded, a relatively thick folder in hand. “Did you follow my advice about tailoring your portfolio?”
I nodded, sliding it over to him. Oren paged through everything, stopping at certain sections to really read through what I’d included and breezing through the rest. When he was satisfied, he gave it a nod of approval and passed it back to me.
“One big determining factor in how they view prospective employees is their dedication to regional turnovers. Have you researched the local development context?”
We continued on for some time, going through all the points he’d told me to cover. But in the midst of all that business talk, the atmosphere between us began to shift. He moved closer to me, leaning over to take a look at some of the concept documents I’d printed out.
His body formed a cage over mine, something I was sure wasn’t entirely unintentional. He was so close that I could feel his body heat, smell his scent. I could feel his breath at the back of my neck as he spoke, his low voice a siren call in my ear.
“You did such a good job,” he said, voice barely above a whisper now. The tip of his nose ran down the length of the back of my neck, and I was grateful for my choice to put my hair up this morning. “You followed all my instructions so far. Tell me, did you do the rest?”
He didn’t have to specify what he was referring to. I nodded, my face burning with desire and a small bit of embarrassment.
“Good girl,” he said.
I briefly recalled that Ronan had called me “his girl”, and for a moment I wondered what would happen if I told them about each other. Sure, there may have been no commitments or even open conversations about what was actually happening between us. But would they be pissed off?
Would they be intrigued?
Attagirl. Lucas’s praise had sent my pulse racing. And when Ronan had made his own claim, I’d been putty in his hands. But now it was Oren calling me good, and for the moment that’s all I wanted to be for him.
He started mouthing my neck, alternating between kisses and nips of his teeth. I put a hand on the side of his face, tilting my head to give him better access as small sighs of pleasure escaped my lips.
His hands came around to the front of my blouse and began playing with the buttons, popping them open one by one until he could reach inside and cup my breasts.
