“My mother?” The head of Aiden’s assistant snaps up, his eyes appearing over the top of his Mac. When he sees us standing just inside the door, our fingers twined together, his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “Ohhh. My mother. That’s right. We’re going to lunch. So nice of her to drive in from Connecticut at the last second.” He stands and swipes up his keys, checks for his wallet, and breezes past us with a thousand-watt smile. “The official word is that you’re discussing the direction of the spring window designs.”
“Thank you,” Aiden says to his assistant’s retreating back.
The door closes, leaving us alone in the office.
“People are totally going to know what we’re doing in here,” I murmur, Carol of the Bells starting to play. Aiden turns to face me, crowding me against the door, sending a wave of heavy heat careering into my belly. “What, um…what are we going to do in here?”
A shudder goes through his sturdy frame. “That’s up to you, sweetheart. I just needed you to myself.”
He reaches past my right shoulder and taps a switch on the wall. There’s a mechanical whir and the room begins to darken. A thin black shade is coming down over the window, still allowing some light in but blocking most. In the space of seconds, the office goes from a professional setting to something else entirely. But when Aiden drops his mouth to mine and whispers my name, we could be on the N train during rush hour for all I care. I just want to kiss this man. My toes are curled up tight in my boots, anticipation making me dizzy.
God, he’s so big. Did I notice that enough before? How his shoulders block out the world? How it feels so natural to rub our foreheads together, to treat my hands to a ride up and over his pecs. Touching this man is like second nature while being entirely new. Thrilling. Right.
“Stella,” he says, tilting my chin up. “Are you sure you’re okay after what happened?”
I start to lie, to say yes, but the words won’t come out. Not to him. “It shook me up. But now…I don’t know, I feel shaken up in a good way. Maybe that doesn’t make sense. I just know I’m not scared anymore, but my adrenaline is still pumping. I haven’t come down.” I press up on my toes to meld our mouths together. “Don’t let me come down.”
Our kiss is a perfect assault. It’s nothing like the other ones, because there’s no holding back. There’s no reason to temper the heat, except maybe the fact that we’re in his office in the middle of the day. Our location is the furthest thought from my brain, however, when our lips open in tandem, the condensation from our labored breaths making the kiss slippery. Hot. Sexual. We’re in the dark and there’s nothing to stop this. Nothing to stop Aiden’s tongue from pushing past my lips to stroke mine. Nothing to keep his hands from cupping the sides of my face, his thumbs tracing the curve of my jawline. With a groan, he tips my head back to kiss me more fully, taking the access I grant him with hunger growing more and more unchecked.
“Dammit, we should have gone back to my place,” he rasps, drawing me onto my toes and crushing me to the door, dragging his hot, open mouth up the curve of my neck. “I just need to be alone with you so bad.”
“I need to be alone with you, too,” I breathe. “I missed you.”
“Did you?” he pauses to say, pausing our kiss long enough to search my face—and I don’t hide anything. For now, I’m an open book and the unspoken sentences he reads in my eyes make him huff a hard breath, our mouths crashing back together with more intention.
More urgency.
Our hips roll together, my stomach dragging sideways over his sizable erection—and I’m immediately pinned harder to the door. There’s a short pause, neither of us moving, balanced on razor wire or maybe the point of no return. And then he slides his feet back to position his sex lower on my clothed body, pressing that ridge tight to my mound and grinding upward, bringing my boots momentarily off the ground, before they land again. We exhale shakily, his hands climbing up the sides of my hips, framing and squeezing them hard, humping me again.
“Oh my God,” I whimper, wrapping my left leg around his hip, watching his mouth skate through the valley of my breasts, kissing each of them through my shirt, his hips shifting restlessly between my legs. “I’ve never been this turned on in my life.”
“Is that what I am? Turned on?” He surges up, forward, pressing his bared teeth against my ear, his thickness pulsing at my inner thigh. “Stella, you’ve got my dick so hard, I’m going to pass out if I don’t come.”
Hearing the words dick and come from this man’s normally squeaky-clean mouth hardens my nipples like pearls. His hair is in disarray, his mouth shiny and swollen, bow tie askew. Gorgeous, aching man. Desperate man. I love the change that comes over him when we’re intimate. It’s like watching the sun set, filling the sky with orange fire.
And his hands are magic. Magic. Massaging my bottom now, slowly, reverently, as if he’s discovered buried treasure after years of searching. His confident touch strokes up and down my buns, heating my flesh through my skirt, our mouths in a state of madness now. There’s no savoring, no going slow. Our mouths are open and we’re taking. My upper half is flattened to the door. I’m a willing victim. I want to rub myself against his hard shaft, but despite the lust storm building inside of me, there is a modicum of awareness left.
I care about this man.
I pushed him once to do something out of character and I won’t do it again.
If we’re going to rein it in, now is the time. A few more seconds of his mouth punishing mine with such perfect sensuality and I’ll forget my own name.
“Aid—” His tongue rakes up my neck and my breath stutters out. “Aiden.”
Eyes glittering, he cages me in tight to the door. “Yes, Stella.”
Wow. His voice is bottom of the barrel deep. “We can stop,” I whisper.
He stares at my mouth like a starving man. “Is that what you want?”
If I say yes, I’ll be lying. So I remain silent. Breathing, breathing.
“Uh-huh,” he drawls, in kind of a…cocky manner? “That’s what I thought.”
Yeah, wow. He looks kind of arrogant right now and oh man, it is really working for him—and me. Without untangling our gazes, he fists the hem of my shirt, untucks it from my skirt and peels it off over my head, making me gasp. Now I’m in a bra and a skirt, pinned between my boss and the door. Did I really think this man was a dork once upon a time? Because right now, the bow tie is my only reminder of my first judgment of Aiden Cook. Gone is the Tennessee gentleman and he’s been replaced by an absolute panty-melter.
“Listen to me,” he says against my ear, brushing his lips up and down the sensitive shell until my eyes start to glaze over. “I’ve stretched my patience as far as it will go when it comes to you, Stella. I’m starved. And there’s no more paperwork for this. I’ve fulfilled that obligation. The only requirement I’m interested in now is the one between your legs.” He turns and carries me across the office, settling my backside on the edge of his desk and yanking my hips to the very edge. “I need to fill it. As long as you want that, too, I’m done stopping.”