Hot Under His Collar - Andie J. Christopher Page 0,63

he had since before he could remember.

She turned and sat on the edge of his desk. He backed her up until his thighs wedged hers open. He wished he could see the skin on her thighs as her dress rolled up, but he settled for squeezing one. He was so beyond the idea that he wasn’t going to cross his own line and think about this while he relieved himself in the shower for decades to come that it wasn’t even funny.

He wasn’t sure how long the kiss lasted, but he knew when it ended that Sasha was holding scissors and a huge lock of her hair was floating down to his desk.

Then, she was a few feet away from him—looking stricken. He wanted to take that away. This wasn’t her fault, and he was starting to think it wasn’t his. Their connection was rare and precious and felt like nothing else he’d ever experienced. He wanted to go to her, to put his arms around her and reassure her somehow.

But she’d cut off a hunk of her hair to get away from him, which must have meant that she was thinking a whole lot more clearly than he was in that moment.

“I have to go.” She was right, but it didn’t cut him any less. Sister Cortona could still walk in at any minute. If she saw them now, there would be no question that they had been up to no good.

Instead of saying what he wanted to, instead of asking her to stay, he nodded and she was gone.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

SASHA HADN’T CALLED FOR an emergency girls’ brunch in years, and not since before Bridget joined their group. But times were desperate. And, even though she was a relatively new friend, Bridget came through in the clutch in a huge way.

Bridget was divorced from and also engaged to the scion of an extremely wealthy and politically connected family that made the Finerghtys seem hopelessly bourgeois. And now that she’d fully embraced the idea of marriage, she enjoyed little more than giving away her ex- and future husband’s money. She said it was a “recovering Catholic thing,” but Sasha wasn’t willing to dwell on the concept of recovering and Catholic in the same sentence.

Hannah and Sasha had gone to Bridget and Matt’s house because she’d not only ordered brunch in, she’d arranged to have a hairstylist fix Sasha’s truly atrocious situation while they triaged the damage that Sasha had done in her—and Patrick’s—life.

She told them everything. Even the bar masturbation part. Both of her friends were truly shocked. A piece of pain au chocolat fell out of Hannah’s mouth, and she’d never before wasted pastry on something so inconsequential as one of Sasha’s stories about a man. Bridget, for her part, had finished three mimosas by the time Sasha arrived at the part where she’d cut her hair off so she wouldn’t fuck a frocked priest on his desk.

“I’m going to hell.” Of that, Sasha had no doubt. Still, telling two people who might understand was such a relief. She felt like at least half of the elephant crushing her internal organs was off her chest.

“We’re all going to hell,” Bridget said, motioning with her empty champagne flute. “I mean, I’m obscenely wealthy.”

“And I’m a total bitch,” Hannah added.

Sasha looked at her friend. She didn’t know how many times they were going to have to go over the fact that there was a difference between a bitch and the c-word. Hannah was a bitch, but she largely used her powers for good. Since she was in a delicate condition, Sasha pointed at her. “No.”

“Honestly, I don’t see what you did that was so bad,” Bridget, the lifelong Catholic, said.

Sasha put a piece of fruit in her mouth. She had been so sick about her inability to stop seducing Patrick, even though she’d really, really meant to, that she hadn’t been eating. “I cannot control myself around him.”

“Which I am totally grossed out by, by the way,” Bridget said. “He’s like my brother.”

“You were engaged to Patrick’s brother, which meant you were sort of engaged to your own brother.” Hannah had a smirk on her face that said she’d thrown that out just to get a rise out of her sister-in-law. While Sasha appreciated her friend’s effort at levity, this was a truly serious situation.

“Yeah, he was like my brother, which was one of the many problems with our relationship.” Bridget poured Hannah more orange juice and pulled another bottle of