Page 24 of The CEO’s Assistant

This was not that kiss. Not even close.

Cordelia's mouth found Wren's in the dark, and her right hand was already tangled in Wren's hair, her fingers closing into the loose dark weight of it at the nape. The sound Wren made—not a gasp but also not a fully formed word, something lower and more certain than either—went through Cordelia like an electrified current.

Cordelia dropped her bag, and neither of them acknowledged it. Wren's hands came up to Cordelia's hips, warm through the wool of her suit, and Cordelia thought she knew I was coming and then couldn't think anything because Wren pulled at her enough that Cordelia’s weight shifted forward and her knee met the edge of Wren’s chair. She was close enough to feel the heat of Wren's body through two layers of clothing, close enough that when Wren tilted her head and deepened the kiss, Cordelia's mouth opened for it without any decision involved at all.

She had rebuilt this wall on Monday. She had toed the line through Tuesday, through Wednesday morning, through watching Wren sitting at this desk four feet from Cordelia's door, answering her phone, bringing her files. Yet she was here anyway.

Wren's mouth left hers and moved to her jaw, then to her temple where the scar was, and Cordelia felt her breath catch at the tenderness of it, the way Wren's lips found the old wound like she already knew it was there, like she had been paying attention long enough to know where her body kept its history.

"You came back," Wren said against her skin, no surprise or questioning in her tone.

Cordelia's hand tightened in Wren's hair because she could not answer that with words and have any of them be the truth she was willing to say aloud. Her body, though, knew that of course she came back, that she hadn’t really stopped coming back to it, and that even though her mind had closed the door, her body knew differently.

Wren shifted, and the chair rolled back and hit the wall. They now stood close enough that Cordelia could see the fine grain of the oxford shirt Wren was wearing, the top two buttons undone, and the hollow of her throat. Wren kissed her again.

Wren's hand was on the lapel of Cordelia's jacket, turning and redirecting her, and Cordelia felt herself guided backward until her hip met Wren's desk, and then Wren's hands were on the desk on either side of her. Cordelia was sitting on the edge of it, and Wren was standing between her knees.

"Tell me to stop," Wren said.

Cordelia looked at her. Wren's face was in the shadows except where the glow caught the edge of her jaw, the tip of her nose, and the wetness on her lower lip where Cordelia's mouth had just been.

"Tell me to stop and I will," Wren said. Both her voice and hands were steady, and the old watch had slid forward on her wrist. Cordelia saw her twist the watch face, the tell that meant Wren was holding herself still against something that made her want to move.

Cordelia reached up and put her hand over Wren's. Stilled the watch. Stilled the turning.

"No," Cordelia said.

Wren exhaled. Something in her shoulders released, and she kissed Cordelia again. This time her hands found the buttons of Cordelia's blouse, the small shell buttons she kept precisely aligned, the ones she checked every morning in the mirror, the ones that were her armor and her order and her proof that she was in command of at least one small area of her life.

Wren undid them with more care than the kiss warranted. She wasn’t so much as slow but deliberate. Each one a small act of attention, each one a layer removed, and Cordelia sat on the edge of the desk and let it happen. She felt the air of the empty floor reach her bare skin through the gap in the silk.

She let it happen. That was the thing she could not get past. She was not overtaken or surprised. She was sitting on Wren's desk in the dark, and she was letting Wren unbutton her blouse with her too-steady hands while Wren's mouth moved down her throat while knowing exactly what this was, and yet she did not stop it.

Her blouse fell open. Wren's palm slid across the top of Cordelia's chest, above the line of her bra, and Cordelia heard herself make a sound that she did not recognize. Not a moan, something more private than that, something that came from behind the composure she had been maintaining since Monday, since March, since she was a child.

Wren stopped. "You're shaking.”

"I know."

"Come here."

Wren pulled her off the desk by the hips and pulled her close. Cordelia's blouse was open and her jacket was still on. Wren's arms were around her, and for a moment they were just standing there, Wren holding her and Cordelia's forehead was against Wren's shoulder. Cordelia could smell her—soap and cotton and something underneath that was just warm skin, just Wren.

"Tell me what you want," Wren said.

Cordelia pulled back and looked at her. Wren's eyes were dark in the low light, and there was nothing careful in them now. There was just want, plain and open, the want that had survived Monday and the week of distance they both tried to maintain.

"You," Cordelia said. "I want you, and I have wanted you all week. I told myself I didn't, and I was just lying to myself.” She paused and took a steadying breath. “And I am done lying about it."

Something moved across Wren's face in the shadows. It wasn’t quite triumph, nor was it relief. It was something fiercer and quieter than both. And before Cordelia could figure out exactly what it was, Wren kissed her and walked her backward through the antechamber toward the glass door of Cordelia's office, and Cordelia let herself be led.

The door was already open. Cordelia's office was dark except for the ambient glow from the antechamber lamp and the city through the windows, the scattered lights of buildings where other people were still working, still awake, still doing anything other than this.

Wren turned her at the doorframe and kissed her against it, her mouth hot and certain, her thigh pressing between Cordelia's legs, and Cordelia's head hit the glass and she didn't care. The pressure was there—Wren's thigh, the ridge of muscle through her slacks against the seam of Cordelia's—and Cordelia rolled her hips into it before she could decide not to, and the sound she made was the sound of a woman who had been holding still for a week and could not hold still anymore.

"Jesus," Wren said, and her voice had changed. Lower now, rougher. The steadiness that once was there was fraying at the edges. "Cordelia."

"I'm here."