Brazen Bossman: A Hero Club Novel, стр. 34
I didn’t move at first, certain I would be physically exhausted enough to drift off to sleep with her, but that wasn’t the case at all. I stared at the ceiling, listening to her soft, perfect snores until I just couldn’t lie still anymore.
Insomnia at its finest.
So here I am, leaning against the doorframe, whiskey in hand, completely naked, watching my administrative assistant sleep in my bed, also completely naked and thoroughly fucked.
I’m very much a “keep it casual” kind of man. I converse with you enough to not feel like a complete asshole for fucking you then sending you on your way, but that is what is easiest for me and for my life. There is too much happening at all times for me to allow myself to get wrapped up emotionally with someone who, at the end of the day, probably won’t make me happy in the long run. I’ve never seen myself settling down seriously. I’ve only had one steady girlfriend in my life, and even that didn’t feel right. The term in and of itself feels so juvenile, but when I look at Piper, I feel this tingle in my chest.
I don’t know what to call it or what it even means, but I do know I like having her around. I enjoy simply talking to her in a capacity that isn’t Lennox Publishing related, and I certainly enjoy fucking her. So all I know at this point is I would very much like to keep doing both, which is a new feat in my life.
I bring the tumbler to my lips and the ice clinks against the glass. She stirs beneath the sheet, nuzzling her face into the pillow before blinking her eyes open. She looks around the room for a moment, like she’s trying to remember where she is, before her eyes settle on me.
“Are you all right?” she whispers.
“I am. I just need to get some work done,” I lie. “Go back to sleep. I’ll be down the hall in my office if you need anything.”
“Are you sure? I can call a cab if…”
I walk across the room, placing my glass on the nightstand, and bend to place a soft kiss on her lips, stopping her complete line of thought. She sighs happily into my mouth, and I pull away just a bit, pushing her hair from her face.
“You’re not a whore or a one-night stand, Piper. I’m not sending you off in a cab. Sleep. You need it.”
“So do you.” She slides her hand up and down my forearm.
“I’ll be in here soon.”
“Okay.” She doesn’t say anything further. She settles back into the pillow, pulls the sheet up around her shoulders, and soon, her snoring resumes.
***
The sun is just barely starting to cast an orange glow over my office a few hours later. I didn’t really have much work to do, but I needed to occupy my mind with something if I wasn’t going to sleep.
My eyes burn from staring at my laptop screen too long, so I press my palms into my eyes, rubbing them just a bit to ease the sting. My mother texted me, about forty-five minutes ago, to let me know my father woke this morning asking for his own father. Grandpa Lennox has been dead for a decade. When my father was formally diagnosed, they told us things can progress slowly, or they can progress rapidly. Every person, every brain is different. My father, obviously, has headed down the rapid trail very quickly.
“Don’t you ever stop working?”
I drop my hands, turning in my chair to see Piper in my office doorway, wrapped in my black sheet like a towel.
“No. I don’t,” I answer honestly.
“You should. Being a workaholic is just as bad as any other addiction.” Her arms are exposed, and her black hair is tousled and perfectly messy, pulled over one shoulder.
“I don’t think that is necessarily true, Ms. Kingston.”
“Don’t call me that here. It makes me feel like we are at work. Just call me Piper.”
She holds the sheet tightly around her and pads her bare feet closer to me.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?” I ask, extending a hand out for her to take, which she does without hesitation.
“No, not at all. I checked the time and realized you still hadn’t come to bed. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her to stand between my legs. I rest my forehead on her stomach and sigh heavily.
“I’m all right.”
“That sounds like a lie to me.” She rests a hand on the back of my neck and slowly begins to scratch along my hairline… and it’s magical.
“Mmm. That feels nice.”
“I’ll keep doing it if you tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”
One thing I’ve never been in my entire life is open. I don’t talk about my feelings or what I’m thinking about. That’s usually a one-way ticket to manipulation and disrespect.
But my instant inclination is to bare myself to her, and that scares the shit out of me, so instead I sweep my eyes up to hers and tug the sheet open, exposing her body to me.
“I don’t want to talk.” I press soft kisses to her chest and over the swell of her breasts.
“What do you want to do?” Her voice is breathy and soft.
“I think that’s obvious, don’t you?” I slide my hands around to pull her even closer to me.
“Maybe I just like hearing you say it because you’ll at least say those words to me, even if you won’t tell me what is bothering you.”
She is reading me like a book. She’s always been able to do that. Even when I don’t know what I need on a professional level, she assesses the situation and makes everything better for me.
“I want you. All of you.”
I