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“It won’t,” I said as a reached for her hand. “I promise you.”
I was surprised she let me hold her skin against mine as long as I did before she pulled away. She drew in a deep breath before putting her coffee mug to her lips, and I was entranced with the way she moved.
I wondered if she was thinking the same thing about me.
“How do you feel about what happened last night?” she asked.
“I already told you. I wanted you there when I woke up this morning, and you weren’t there,” I said.
“I couldn’t stay,” she said.
“And that’s fine if you think that,” I said.
“I don’t think it; I know it.”
It didn’t shock me that I was getting the guarded Stella, but it did hurt a bit. After seeing her so open and free with her emotions last night, it felt like we were backtracking.
And that would hurt the business.
“Don’t close me off, Stella. If you want to talk about what will hurt this business, that would be it. You’re at your best when you let yourself feel.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment for last night,” she said.
“As you should. You performed magnificently,” I said, smirking.
My comment earned me a little snicker, and my stomach warmed at the sight. She wasn’t gone. The Stella I saw last night wasn’t gone, merely sleeping.
Which she looked like she needed more of.
“We can’t keep doing this,” she said. “It’s not normal.”
“I get it. I do. Trust me. So, how about this?” I asked. “What if we put last night behind us. If we keep it in the past, it won’t affect our work. Then, it won’t impact the company, and it won’t affect our working relationship.”
“What will it do to our personal relationship, though?” she asked.
“Our what? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we had one of those,” I said, winking.
“You’re such a turd,” she said.
“I’m serious. I know you well enough to know your mind is going to swirl with this all day, and that’s fine. Just know that, come tomorrow morning, it’s behind me,” I said.
“That’s actually a good idea. We’ve been through the wringer the past couple of weeks. Last night was an awkward combination of opportunity and being caught up in all the stress that has been dealt us,” she said.
“Exactly,” I said. “Now, aren’t you glad you opened the door?”
“Get out of here,” she said, grinning.
“I’m taking this fabulous coffee with me, and I’ll return the mug to you tomorrow,” I said. “In the meantime, get some rest. You look like hell. The boss will be pissed if you come in looking the way you do now.”
“Well, tell the boss his boss says, ‘shove it,’” she said.
I took my mug of coffee and headed back out to my car. While the conversation went well, it was nowhere near what I had wanted to say to her. I wanted to tell her how illuminating she was last night. How wonderfully the sunset played off her eyes as she drank her wine. That I was mesmerized by the way she ate her food. How desperately I had wanted to kiss her just moments before she snuck into my room.
I wanted to tell her how soft her skin felt beneath my lips. How beautifully her body sucked my cock right into her depths. I wanted to pull her into my arms and show her, yet again, how a man should treat a powerful, respected woman like her.
I wanted to tell her to take me upstairs so I could show her everything she missed out on by not wanting to play the game I wished so wantonly to play with her.
But, as I settled into my car and backed down the driveway, I thought about the conversation we had. It was stereotypical Stella, backing away from something that scared her, so she had time to process. Maybe that meant I could have her again in the future. Perhaps, after some time, we would slowly get back to the place we were last night: enjoying each other’s company before falling into each other’s bodies.
