Think Outside the Boss - Olivia Hayle Page 0,43

where one of us ends and the other starts, and I kiss her like she’s the only light available.

She kisses me back like she trusts me. Like she needs me as desperately in this moment as I need her. My fingers dig into her hips, craving the contact of her smooth skin instead of the fabric of her coat.

My entire body tightens in need.

She locks her hands behind my neck, and it’s been so long since someone clung to me like this, like she needs me and only me in this moment. Her teeth scrape over my lower lip and I chuckle, my palms flattening against her back. So she wants to play rough?

Sudden light plays against my closed lids. I lift my head from Freddie’s, blinking against the brightness.

A clipped voice echoes from the panel. “We’re very sorry about this inconvenience. We should have the elevator moving again shortly.”

“Thank you,” I call out.

The line clicks off and I turn my attention to Freddie, still straddling my legs. Her eyes are red and wet, her lips puffy, and I know the latter is my doing. “How are you doing?”

“Good,” she says, but the harrowed look in her eyes doesn’t leave. I smooth my hands over hers and loosen the death grip on my coat.

“Let’s stand.”

She gives me a look that makes it clear she thinks I’m crazy for suggesting it, but I help her up, my arm around her waist. We sway as the elevator begins to move with a faint jerk.

She buries her face in my jacket, and I smooth a hand over her back. Over and over again until the elevator slides to a smooth halt at the top floor. It’s a tangle of arms and haste in making it out into the narrow corridor, and then Freddie’s hand finds mine and she’s pulling me to a door at the end. Her hands tremble as she pulls out her keys, so I take them from her and unlock the door.

All of her is trembling. She pauses in the middle of her tiny studio and covers her face with her hands. There’s not a sound, but her shoulders shake.

I shut the door behind me and wrap my arms around her. “You’re okay now,” I tell her. “You’re home.”

“This is so silly,” she says in between racketing sobs. “I’m sorry, Tristan, I don’t know…”

“It’s not silly. That was a stressful situation, and now it’s over. Of course you’re reacting to it.” I look around the room for a couch, but there is none, only a bed tucked into a corner of the room. It’s neatly decorated with a gray spread and colorful pillows.

I pull us toward it, and we sink down together, her still in my arms.

“You’re not,” she accuses.

“I’m not reacting?” I smooth my hand over her hair, looking up at the ceiling in the tiny studio. The bed smells like her, of floral perfume and shampoo and the woman clinging to me. I’m most definitely reacting. “I wouldn’t say that. That wasn’t a pleasant experience.”

She shudders in my arms. “I’m only taking the stairs from now on.”

“You live on the fourteenth floor.”

“Then I suppose I’ll get in great shape.”

I chuckle, curving my fingers around her waist and holding her as she calms down. Her crying abates as quickly as it had come on, a consequence now of released tension and not fear. It’s gone entirely when she props her head in her hand and looks at me.

I smooth my thumb over her cheek, over the lightly smudged mascara. “You’re okay,” I murmur.

Her smile is small but true. Traces of amusement play in her eyes. “This is really not how I wanted you to think of me.”

“I can think of you anyway I want,” I say. “Not for you to decide.”

Her faint laughter is breathless. “Right.”

“And your fear of heights hasn’t made me think less of you, if that’s what you’re worried about.” My fingers shift to her ear, tracing the smooth edge of her jaw. Her skin is like silk beneath my fingers. No, this has only made her more human to me, real and fallible and sweet and nuanced, with frailty to counter the ambitious fire.

And it just makes me want her more.

Freddie leans into my hand and closes her eyes. “How did you know what to do?”

“What to do?”

“To calm me down,” she says. “Have you talked people away from a panic attack before?”

My hand slips from her cheek. “My sister used to have them.”

“Oh, I