happy?” I shake off my annoyance and offer my hand. “Truce? For real this time?”
Miss Holly stares for a moment before clasping my fingers. She feels so small, so fragile, so much like something I came too close to breaking like the staggering fucking moose I am.
“Truce,” she echoes, a faint smile on her lips.
She’s still hanging on my hand. I must be out of my mind from today’s events, because I pull her closer, then move so she’s backed against the wall, and do the most idiot thing possible.
I press my lips to hers in a kiss that’s unholy.
It’s greedy. Electric. Unrepentant.
I kiss her with a maelstrom of hunger that ends in a rushing growl, pawing at her hips, sucking in her gasp. All while a panicked voice buried in my head screams, what the ever-loving fuck are you doing?
She should slap me blind, if she doesn’t just progress straight to stabbing me first. But incredibly, she opens her mouth. I lick her lip with animalistic need, slide in, and caress until she moans against my tongue.
Goddamn.
Miss Holly.
Paige.
She cups my arm with her hand, sinking her nails into my flesh. Her fingers tremble.
The seething bulge in my pants grazes her thigh when I shift, and I swear, if we weren’t in public, I would hump her like a feral dog.
Another kiss.
Another molten groan.
Another whispering moan like a smoking campfire from her lips.
That’s when I move away with a furious jerk, fighting off disaster.
Holy fuck.
What kind of jagoff am I? I just made out with my assistant in front of my grandmother’s hospital room. Right after I spent the day on a roller coaster from the height of my career before plunging down to fear, loathing, despair, and bad decisions.
Yes, I’m going straight to hell, and I deserve it.
“W-Ward?” she gasps. “Mr. Brandt?”
I get even dumber. I lean in, placing a kiss against her hair. “Go into the room, please, and park your butt on the chair until I’m back with your slippers. Do not walk around.”
She flashes me a red-faced smile. “That’s kinda tyrannical, you know. You’re as bad as Magnus Heron.”
“Nah, I’m not a showy marketer midwit like him.” I shake my head. “I told you, one ER visit a day is my limit. Can I ask you something?”
Her throat pulses as she swallows, green eyes so glittery and full of light.
“Sure,” she answers softly.
“How did you know what to do back at the office?”
“I was a lifeguard at YMCA summer camps in high school. I’ve kept my CPR certification up, because you never know when you’ll need it. But I’ve never used it before today in a real emergency.”
“God, you’re amazing,” I whisper, my throat so raw. I need to get the hell out of here. “Go sit.”
She beams and retreats into the hospital room.
My head comes unscrewed, trying to sort out what this day even is.
Damn it all.
I kissed her.
I tasted my very off-limits assistant, and I fucking liked it.
No clue how to deal with this tomorrow, but I know how it ends.
Certain cataclysm.
7
Mad Men (Paige)
I pinch my nose to swallow another sip of triple espresso loaded with sugar.
Six days ago, I wasn’t a huge coffee drinker, aside from those sticky sweet cinnamon lattes I’d always get with Brina.
Six days ago, I didn’t hate my job.
Six freaking days ago, I didn’t know Ward Brandt could obliterate a woman in sixty seconds flat with an apocalyptic kiss.
No, we haven’t discussed it since.
Hell no, I haven’t forgotten.
Could you forget a perfect sunset sliding down your throat? Thawing parts you didn’t even know were frozen?
Calling his kiss divine would be an insult. Those lips were pure precision wrapped in a halo of hot tease, velvet sledgehammers dead set on breaking me apart.
And I’m a little afraid to admit they succeeded.
I don’t think I’ve lived an hour since that kiss without remembering it. His heat, his hunger, his playful softness shifting into wild abandon. Ward kissed like a man laying claim to a woman he wants.
Needs.
He kissed like he flipping needs me.
What do I even do with that? Besides feeling my toes curl up until they hurt every time he walks by, I mean?
Besides feeling butterflies tickling my belly with insistent little wings, total confusion, and no answers. Butterfly wings aren’t as easy to read as tea leaves, apparently, and neither is my blackhole of a boss.
Right now, I’m just trying to forget the whole incident because I’m here on a mission.