“How?”
“By being so sexy this morning.”
She put her hand on her chest in mock astonishment. “Chief, is that any way to talk to your employees? I should call HR—oh!”
Strong arms encircled her and pulled her to his chest. “I like it when you call me chief.”
“You do?”
“Mm-hmm.” He flipped her around, pressing her bottom to his groin, where she could feel his semi-hardness against her. “Makes me want to bend you over that table and—”
“Damon!” she admonished, pulling away from him. Still, she couldn’t stop the smile turning up the corner of her lips. She liked this playful side of him. “I told you, we need to be professional here. What if someone walked in?”
“I suppose you’re right.” The heat in his gaze could have scorched her panties right off. “Being my assistant, I think we should work late tonight. I’ll need your … assistance on a few things.”
“Ha.” She pushed the folder in her hand at him. “Sign these please, so I can send them over to requisitions.”
“Yes, ma’am. But first,” he snaked a hand around her waist. “One kiss.”
“Oh, all right.” The folder dropped to the floor as soon as his mouth descended on hers. Her body sang as their lips touched, as it had been years—and not hours—since they last kissed. He ravished her mouth thoroughly, and when he was done, she had to brace herself against his chest to keep her balance. “Oh my.”
He grinned at her boyishly, then picked up the folder. “See you at lunch?”
Straightening her blouse and her hair, she gave him a nod. “See you then.” She turned on her heel and walked out of the office.
As she sat back at her desk, she couldn’t help but glance at the clock. Though she managed to do most of her work, it felt like the time crawled by. Finally, five minutes before twelve, the door to Damon’s office flew open.
“Ready?” he asked.
Her hands gripped the side of her desk to keep her from flying out of her seat. “I am,” she said, grabbing her brown paper bag. As she walked around her desk, to her surprise, he took her hand in his.
“Let’s go to the cafeteria.”
Despite knowing she should take her hand from his, she couldn’t do it. So, instead, she braced herself as they walked through the building on their way to the cafeteria. However, she should have trusted Damon more. No one seemed to bat an eye that the chief and his assistant were walking together hand in hand. Maybe there were one or two double takes, as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing, but no one sent them nasty looks or made any mean comments.
When they reached the cafeteria, they sat down at an empty table, and moments later, Gabriel, Daniel, and even Anders joined them. None of the guys said anything, though Gabriel did wink at her, and Anders didn’t say anything flirtatious or inappropriate throughout the whole hour.
The week went by much quicker than she anticipated. She slept over at his cabin almost every night, except for one disastrous time when they tried to stay over in her room at J.D.’s place. After they had dinner at an Italian place he suggested, she insisted on going back to her room. Unfortunately, the tiny single bed barely fit them both, plus J.D. had rapped on the wall in the middle of the night, yelling, “I’m trying to sleep here, you horny ef-fers!” They’d stayed at his place since then.
It would have been nice to sleep in on Saturday morning, especially after Friday night, when Damon cooked dinner for her and they made love for hours after. However, she’d already promised the girls she would do her first yoga class that weekend, and aside from the initial six women, another three planned to join them.
The prospect that she might actually be able to turn this into a business made her giddy with excitement. So, though she was loath to leave Damon’s warm bed—not to mention the man himself—she drove to Blackstone Castle early that morning. They made plans to meet up later that day, as she wanted to do some shopping on Main Street without having to worry about his anxiety over crowds. They settled on an early dinner at Rosie’s as the weather predicted heavy snowfall later that night, and she didn’t want to be out driving when that happened.
“Wow.” It was difficult not to gasp as she pulled up the driveway toward Blackstone Castle. Catherine hadn’t been kidding. It really was a real-life fairy-tale castle in the mountains, complete with turrets. Turning her engine off, she got out of the car and headed to the front entrance. Before she could even knock, the door opened.
“Hello, you made it,” Catherine greeted. “Thanks for coming early. Only Amelia and Georgina are here, so we can help if you need to make any changes to the layout I did.”
“Hey, Catherine. Yeah, the directions were easy and you’re actually closer to Damon’s than J.D’s place.” A blush crept into her cheeks when the other woman gave her a knowing look. “So … nice castle.”
Catherine stepped aside to let her in. “Yeah, we do what we can. Come on,” she cocked her head. “I’ll tell you what I know about the history.”
They chatted as they made their way through the elegantly-designed halls of Blackstone Castle. Everything about it screamed old money, from the plush Persian carpets to the art hanging on the wall. It was like stepping back in time and visiting with the Rockefellers or Vanderbilts.
“… so, Lucas Lennox promised the countess he’d build her a castle if she would marry him,” Catherine finished and then gestured for her to go through to the next room first.
“And so he did.” This place was mind-boggling, and she had grown up in a six-bedroom mansion in Albuquerque’s most exclusive neighborhood. “This is perfect,” she said when they entered the large, well-lit room and walked toward where a
