Her fingers stay in my hair. “This feels like advanced practice.”
“It is.”
“Do I pass?”
I slide my thumb along her lower lip. Her breath catches, and her pupils widen.
“Barely.”
“Barely?”
“You keep looking at me like you want more.”
Her blush burns hotter. “And that’s bad?”
“It is dangerous.”
“For whom?”
For me.
For every rule I have used to keep my life clean.
For the distance between boss and secretary.
For the promise I made myself after Sabrina.
For the last decent piece of restraint standing between my hands and her innocence.
I do not say any of that.
Instead, I kiss the corner of her mouth once, because I am a bastard and she tastes too good to leave completely.
“When I take you, Natalie, it will be real.”
Her breath stops.
I lift my head.
She stares at me, lips parted, hands still in my hair, thighs spread around me on my desk. She looks flushed and soft, her mouth swollen from mine, her body still leaning toward me like it has not realized I stopped.
Mine.
I step back before the word makes me do something irreversible.
She blinks as if the room has moved without warning.
I reach down and pull her dress carefully back over her thighs. The gesture costs me. Every inch of skin I cover feels like a personal insult.
Her cheeks go pink again. “Thank you.”
“Do not thank me for stopping.”
“Why?”
“Because I do not want to.”
Her mouth opens, then closes.
