Instead, I close the gap between us.
I take her face in my hands and press my lips against hers. Instantly, the taste of her lips engulfs me and my heart is happy again.
My kiss takes her by surprise, and for a moment, she doesn’t respond, but then she makes a tiny gasping sound and wraps her arms around my waist, meeting my tongue with hers, her lips moving as frantically as mine as we consume each other’s mouths.
My whole body wakes up, raging with the need for this woman. For this moment with her. I know then that I will never be able to go back to the way we were. And Sierra said it herself. She doesn’t want to be the woman fucking the boss. She doesn’t want this; she doesn’t want to be with me. But I can’t get her out of my head when I know she’s so close and as into me as I am her.
I allow myself another second of her kiss and then I pull away. I take hold of the tops of her arms and gently push her way. “I’m sorry.” I turn away and leave my office, not looking back, even though it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s not as hard as what I know I’m going to have to do next though.
Chapter Twenty
Sierra
I head into the office on Monday morning with a good feeling inside of me. I’m even humming to myself. Last week was a nightmare. An awful nightmare I felt like I would never wake up from. Chance kept avoiding me like the plague, and I felt horrible about that, but deep down, I was kind of relieved. It’s one thing to tell myself I don’t want to be that woman at work, the one who sleeps with her boss, but it’s quite another to actually believe it.
Chance is a professional through and through, so I know whatever happened between us out of the office wouldn’t affect anything in it. If I screwed up, I’d be in trouble, regardless of whether or not I’d sucked his cock the night before. That made it harder to accept that nothing could ever happen between us again.
I found it a little easier because I didn’t have to work closely with him all of last week, but I also found it to be a distraction. I found myself watching his office door, desperate for a glimpse of him. And when I got one, it would throw off my concentration completely.
But all of that was something I had anticipated. What I hadn’t anticipated was the constant barrage of questions from everyone around me. Sandy wanting to know why she was suddenly Chance’s chief point of contact and where the answers to all of his questions would be found. And then the inevitable question; what was going on with us? And the clients and other staff members picked up on our avoidance of each other too, and I found myself constantly fending off questions about whether or not we’d fallen out.
But this week will be better. I know that now, because of what happened on Friday. I came so close to talking to Chance, to asking him when this awkwardness between us would pass. I chickened out of speaking, but it was like he read my mind. He kissed me and for a few moments, everything felt right with the world. It was like he was telling me we’d find a way and everything would be all right.
I’ve spent the weekend thinking of nothing but Chance and that kiss. Even when Hayley and I went out for ice cream, I was distracted and eventually, I suggested we go and watch a movie, so I could think about him without being distracted from her.
I thought he would call. I thought maybe he would want us to get together over the weekend to talk, or to do something a little more fun than talking, but he hadn’t. And that’s okay. We can take things slowly. We should take things slowly. At least now, I know he’s not avoiding me because he regrets what we did. I debated calling him and a couple of times, I pulled my phone out and got as far as scrolling through my contacts to find his name, but I never got as far as actually calling him.
I think maybe today we’ll have some sort of conversation about where we go from here. It’s obvious that the attraction I feel to him isn’t one sided, and just knowing this has me feeling good. We’ve been a team for two years in the office. A good team. The A team. And now, we will find a way to be just as good a team outside of it too. It’s all about honest communication and we’ve always had that in work. Now we just have to have it outside of work, and I think we did a good job of that in Vegas and at the wedding. It proves we can make it work if we want to.
I sit down at my desk and fire up my computer. I’m not going to let myself be distracted by this. I’m not going to give anyone a reason to question whether or not I’m off my game, and I’m definitely not going to give Chance a reason to think this is a bad idea because it’s affecting my work. I am going to work harder than ever before and show him I am a true professional and that isn’t about to change, no matter what changes between us.
I decide to start with my emails. There’s always a ton of messages to go through on a Monday morning, like every client, supplier and designer suddenly has a burning
