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“I’m very aware that you’rehere,” Jonathan snaps back. “I’m also very aware that you’re an employee.”
I’m also an employee who’s lying to him about having amnesia to buy time to get him to like me. Except now it’s worked and that’s messed up in ways I didn’t really think through even if it does save the branch. Worse still, it’s worked back. Because I’m sort of on his side now as well. He’s become more than my dickhead boss. He’s become my dickhead boss whose baggage I’ve seen, whose family I know, whose laugh I’ve heard. And I’m not sure I want to go my whole life without kissing him again either.
“What if we just said I wasn’t?” I try. “Just for a minute like.”
“That isn’t how it works.”
“Says who?”
He looks up, his eyes all dark and shiny, like Whitby jet. “Says everyone, Sam. Says the law.”
“Okay, but everyone’s not here. We are. And what harm can it do really?” This is incredibly bad of me. I should not be doing this. Problem is, I can’t stop myself. What with one thing and another,I haven’t had room to…to feel like this. Not for a long time. And now I do, I can’t let go of it. Can’t give it up. “If it’s just this once,” I keep trying. “Get it out of our systems.”
“That’s not going to work.”
“It’s better than the alternative.”
“Of what?” he asks. “Of us behaving like sensible adults?”
“You’ve been a sensible adult your whole life, Jonathan. Where’s it got you?”
He gives me one of his two-fifths smiles. “I suppose this is not the time to remind you that I’ve been very successful in the highly specific sphere of bed and bathroom retailing?”
“Yeah, but if you can’t get kissed by who you want to get kissed by, what’s the point?”
“Sam,” he says, and it comes out a little bit of a sigh, and a little bit surrender. “This can’t be what you want. Not really.”
I’m pretty sure he meanshecan be what I want, but he’s too proud to say it. “It is,” I tell him. “You are.”
There’s this pause that stretches out like Blu Tack. And then Jonathan Forest’s in my lap, kissing me so hard it knocks the breath from me.
“Sorry,” he says. “I’m not very—”
Sliding a hand into his hair, like I’ve been wanting to forever, I kiss him back before he can finish. And then it’s like he’s trying to kiss me with every kiss he’s ever had or ever will have. I suppose I should have expected Jonathan Forest would take the “get it out of our systems” thing far too seriously.
“Ow,” I mumble.
And Jonathan draws back, looking flushed and abashed at the same time. “I did warn you. I…” He glances away. “I’m a little out of practice.”
“Yeah, you do keep mentioning how busy you are.”
He’s still glancing away. It’s sort of adorable actually, howhe’s gone from smacking into me like a truck hitting bollard to not being able to meet my eye. “The truth is, I’ve not had many long-term relationships, and I don’t find casual sex particularly interesting, so I don’t…really…that much at all.”
I do get where he’s coming from because I’ve not exactly been Mr Party Boy myself the last couple of years. But it’s like riding a bike, isn’t it? You do enough of it in your late teens, it sticks with you. “Well,” I suggest, “how about we take it slow?”
“I said I didn’t find casual sex particularly interesting”—coy Jonathan has very much left the building—“not that I’m sweet sixteen and never been kissed.”
“Aye, but you don’t have to go at it like you’re making up for lost time, is all I’m saying.”
He glares at me. “Then how do you want me to go at it?”
Not like thatseems a bit harsh. It wasn’t that it’d been bad. It’d just been a bit…much. Besides, if this is the only time I get to kiss Jonathan Forest, I’ve got to make sure it’s everything it can possibly be. “How about,” I suggest, “you take a breath and let me go at you for a bit.”
“You make that sound so alluring.”
I laugh. “Just shut up and let me kiss you.”
And, to my surprise, he does. Though I don’t kiss him straight away. I just get him tucked comfortably on my lap and brush my fingertips along his jaw and the bridge of his nose.
