Think Outside the Boss - Olivia Hayle Page 0,55

night wasn’t what you’d planned. What either of us had planned,” I say.

Her mouth opens on a soft exhale, but I barrel on. “Did your co-workers suspect anything when you met them?”

“No. Not at all, actually.”

“Good,” I say, and I mean it. “I understand why you’d want to keep it from them.”

She frowns. “I didn’t mean to rush out like that. The idea of them being in the same hotel, of potentially having to answer questions… of HR finding out…”

“I understand.”

“It was panic. I don’t like to panic.” Her eyes turn to our intertwined hands. A soft thumb smooths over the back of my hand, the smallest, tiniest of caresses.

“As long as you don’t regret it,” I say. My body feels like it might break if she says she does.

But Freddie shakes her head. “I don’t regret it.”

My eyes close at the relief of those four words.

“How could I?” she continues. “When it was everything I’ve wanted for weeks? You’re not the only one who’s been burning since the Gilded Room.”

She reaches up and runs the cool touch of her fingertips along my jaw. Soft. Sure. I bend my head and kiss her, and her arms twine around my neck, leaning into me with the same trust she’s shown from the start. The same trust that undoes me.

As much as I loved her body in the tight dress and heels, the feel of her in loungewear is almost better. It’s easy to slide a hand under the hem of her sweater, smoothing across the skin on her lower back.

She tugs off my coat, and I toss it over the single chair in her studio.

“I’m happy you’re here,” she says, running her hands over my chest.

“I wasn’t too forward in inviting myself over?”

Her grin widens. “No.”

Kissing her is like losing myself. All the titles, the roles, the worries, they melt away. She pulls me forward until we’re back on her bed, devoting ourselves to kissing. Freddie bends a knee to fit me more snugly against her, but my hand never rises further beneath her sweater than the curve of her hip.

When I finally lift my head, her lips are rosy and swollen. “I didn’t come here just for this, you know,” I murmur.

“I know,” she says, her hands sliding under the collar of my shirt. “But you’re not complaining, are you?”

“Never.”

Her smile beneath me is intoxicating, beckoning me back down. We lose another few minutes to kisses, but any time lost in that way is never wasted. She’s the one who tugs the sweater over her head.

I watch as it inches over olive-toned skin, and Christ, she’s not wearing a bra. The magnificence on display derails all my thoughts of being a gentleman.

They derail all thoughts, period.

She laughs as I bend my head and suck one of her nipples into my mouth, worrying it hard between my teeth. We slip effortlessly into an intimacy deeper than any we shared the first night at the Gilded Room, a repeat of Boston without the urgency or the hesitancy.

Freddie explodes before I do, clinging to my shoulders and moaning against my ear. I give in, burying myself deep and shaking from the pleasure-pain of my release.

I rest against her until the thundering of my heart has quieted, until I can see straight again. It’s somewhat reluctantly I lift myself off and shift beside her, wrapping my arm around her waist. “I know we shouldn’t,” I say, “but I can’t imagine ever tiring of this.”

Freddie’s smile is heavy with pleasure. “Me neither.”

I glance around the tiny apartment. Last time I’d been in here, I hadn’t given it much thought, focused as I’d been on her. She’d been trembling from the stalled elevator.

Now she’s relaxed and languid beside me, and the trembling this time hadn’t been from fear. “So this is your kingdom,” I note.

She chuckles. “Yes, if a kingdom can be considered less than two hundred square feet. Sorry about the chill in here, by the way. The heating system isn’t great.”

“Hadn’t noticed.” I lean over and press a kiss to her shoulder. “You kept me warm.”

Her smile widens. “What a line, Mr. Conway.”

“Does it give me bonus points?”

“Half of one, perhaps.”

“You’ll have to show me the heater later. We forgot that last time.” I nod to her dresser, the framed photographs standing there. “Who are they?”

She settles into the crook of my arm. “My parents and my grandfather.”

“From Philadelphia.”

“Yes. Well, my grandfather was technically from Palermo.”

“Italy?”

“Yes. He came here after the war. Had nothing,