The heat of her body seared through the blue silk blouse she wore and transferred past the high-quality cotton of his tailor-made shirt with the conductivity of electricity.
“Sorry,” he said, pulling away from her even though it was her contact.
“No problem. Will that be all tonight?” she asked, barely moving a scant inch from his side.
“Yeah, you can go. Thanks for staying with me.”
“No problem. What about you? Are you heading home now?”
“No, I still want to give these a final pass-through and compose the individual letters.”
She turned slightly so her cutely shaped backside was resting against the edge of his desk.
“You’re working too hard, Zach. Don’t you think you should lighten up, loosen that tie of yours a little and cut yourself some slack?”
Slack? There was nothing slack in his body right now, in fact, every working part of him was exactly the opposite—taut and aching and frustratingly unsatisfied. Words failed him as she leaned a little closer.
“Or maybe I should just loosen it for you?”
Her fingers undid the work of his perfect Windsor knot in a matter of seconds, then gently flicked the top button of his shirt undone.
“There, isn’t that more comfortable?” she said with a curve of her lips.
Before he knew it his hands were at her wrists, tugging her toward him until they were face-to-face.
“Comfortable? I’ll show you comfortable.”
He leaned forward and captured her mouth with his. The relief was instant but short-lived as the perfection of kissing her incited a whole raft of new sensations within him. He pulled away.
“Tell me to stop now and I will,” he growled, barely able to hold on to his instincts a moment longer.
In answer, Sophie captured his face between her hands and pulled him back toward her, her tongue slipping between his lips to caress and entice and thoroughly chase away any last rational thought of control. He gave over to the moment, to the rush of desire that consumed his body. For the first time this week, everything felt right. He sank into her warmth, her welcome.
She tasted of coffee and a sweetness that was pure Sophie and he couldn’t get enough of her. His hands skimmed up her rib cage to touch the sides of her breasts. She groaned and pressed herself against him, her hands now on the buttons of her blouse, pulling them open and exposing the silver-gray lace cups of her bra. Behind the sheer fabric he could see her nipples, taut and prominent nubs of palest pink.
Zach bent his head to the warm swells of her flesh, pressing his lips to the crevice created by the push-up effect of her bra. Sophie shuddered in his arms as he reached behind her and unsnapped the hooks on her bra, releasing her breasts.
“You’re beautiful, so beautiful,” he said reverently, palming the full globes, his thumbs brushing over her nipples, drawing them to attention even more.
“You make me feel beautiful,” she whispered in return, her hands now busy yanking his tie from his collar and loosening the rest of his buttons.
“I want you, Sophie.”
“I want you, too. So much. For so long.”
Her words slowly sank in. He’d been holding back, determined not to engage in a relationship with her and she’d been willing all along? He was a crazy fool. Here she was, as hungry for him as he was for her, and he’d been nobly refusing to follow what his body had been begging for all this time.
Her small hands pushed his shirt aside before spreading across his chest. He gasped at the sensation of her fingers on his skin. It had been so long since he’d allowed himself to give and receive physical affection, to have pleasure from meeting a need that went soul deep.
He kissed her again, and again and again, his mind a haze of need and want and sensation. Somewhere along the line she shed her skirt, revealing tiny panties to match her bra and thigh-high stockings with lacy tops. His fingers skimmed the lace, stroked the softness of her skin, felt her tremble at his touch. His hand worked slowly past the edge of her underwear to the neatly trimmed thatch of hair at the apex of her thighs, his fingers stroking her heated core, feeling her wetness, her desire for him.
He reached behind her to push aside the papers he’d been so fixated on only moments ago and gently coaxed her backward onto the surface of his desk. Her legs splayed over the edge and he felt his breath catch in his throat. He’d never seen anything more wanton, nor more exquisitely feminine in his life. Zach slid his fingers into the sides of her panties, drawing them down her legs, exposing her lush femininity to him. She was spread before him like a feast to be devoured, and he a man who hadn’t dined in so long he’d almost forgotten what pleasure was anymore.
Zach stood between her legs and bent over Sophie’s prone figure and kissed her again, her hands thrusting in his hair, then down the back of his neck and to his shoulders, her nails digging into him as he trailed one hand up and down her body, taking his time discovering the shape of her, the feel of her skin against his palms.
“You feel so good,” he murmured against her lips.
Beneath his mouth he felt her lips pull into an answering smile. “You should feel it from my side,” she said teasingly, her voice ending on a gasp, her body going rigid as his hands trailed lower to tease the tops of her thighs.
“How about I feel inside,” he responded, his voice thick with longing.
He gently parted her moist flesh and felt her tense in anticipation as he stroked the heated entrance to her body.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she said, her voice strangled.
“Oh, yes.”
Zach eased one finger inside her, her heat enveloping him and making another part of his body all the more eager to follow in kind. He stroked her inner walls and gently pressed his palm against her clitoris. The instant he did so, it was as if it catalyzed her body into paroxysms of pleasure. Her inner muscles clenched rhythmically around his finger, her hips strained upward and her cry of satisfaction filled the office. He slowed his movements, taking his time, easing his hand free even as she reached for him, dragging his belt undone and unzipping his trousers.
He almost lost it as her hands closed around his straining erection through his boxer briefs, but somehow he managed to regain control.
“I don’t have any protection,” he said through clenched teeth as she freed him from his underwear and stroked him from base to tip.
“I’m protected,” she said in invitation. “Seriously, I’m clean, I have regular checks, I haven’t had a partner in at least a year and I’m on the injection.”
“Same, except more than two years and while my shots are up-to-date, we’re probably not talking about the same thing.”
He smiled, caught by the random humor of the situation even as his body trembled and his brain, and other parts of him, demanded he simply take her and be done with it. Take both of them on a ride to deliver a maelstrom of feeling. Sophie stroked his length once more, making him hiss a sharp breath in between his teeth.
“Then what on earth are you waiting for?”
“Are you certain you want this?” he asked, desperately trying to maintain his equilibrium even though he felt as if the top of his head would blow off any second now from the pressure building inside him. “I’m—I…I haven’t been with anyone in a long time.”
She met his gaze full-on. “I’m certain. I trust you, Zach, and you can trust me, too. I’m not the kind of girl who—”
It was all he needed to hear. “Shh, I know. I trust you.”
And with those words of acceptance, he slid inexorably inside her body. Zach dragged in a deep breath and slowly withdrew again. This was pleasure and pain and everything in between. The gratifying impression of her slick body clasped around him, the piercing agony of holding back, of gripping the last vestiges of control. It was too much, especially when Sophie drew her feet up behind him. He heard her shoes drop to the floor seconds before her heels dug into his buttocks.
“Take me, Zach. I’m all yours.”
The dam of constraint burst and he surged forward, again and again until the sensations that drove him spiraled out of control. Vaguely he was aware of Sophie cresting another climax before his own flashed through his body—a kaleidoscope of color and sensuality, of connection and completion, of give and take.
He groaned as he collapsed, none too gently, upon her. Sophie’s arms closed tight around his body, holding him as if she’d never let him go. His heartbeat pounded at a mega rate as aftershocks of fulfillment shuddered through him. Finally he pushed himself up, mindful of his weight on Sophie’s much smaller frame.
Zach reluctantly withdrew from her body, his own instantly mourning the unforgettably sweet intimacy of their skin-to-skin contact.
“Are you okay?” he asked, extending a hand to her and helping her to her feet.
“Never better,” she answered and went up on tiptoes to kiss him.
Despite having enjoyed mind-numbing sex with her only seconds ago, desire slammed into him anew and he wrapped his arms around her slender form and drew her firmly against his body, deepening their embrace. The buzz of his mobile phone caught his attention.
Sophie pulled out of his arms.
“I’ll go and tidy myself up while you take that,” she said, with another quick buss against his cheek.
He watched as she collected her things, her movements graceful as she walked naked out his office door and toward the private bathrooms that were part of the executive suite. He ached to follow her but his phone continued to buzz insistently.
He swept it up and answered it without checking the caller ID.
“Zach? Is that you?”
Anna.
Guilt slammed into him with the weight of a runaway freight train.
Seven
Guilt laced with a hefty dose of relief. They hadn’t been a couple in any sense of the word for years—their marriage broken long before the ink was dry on their divorce papers—but she still needed him and relief won out as he silently thanked God she was okay.
“Yeah, it’s me. Where have you been?”
“Oh, just away. I—I needed some space, some time to think about things. The neighbors said you were around, looking for me. Was it something special you needed me for?”
She sounded distant, as if her mind was on something else. Zach’s concern inched up a few notches.
“No, nothing special. I just couldn’t get hold of you and I was worried about you. Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine, Zach. No need to worry. Everything’s just fine.”
“Have you been taking your meds?”
“Of course I have. Despite what you may think, I can look after myself.”
That was something he very much doubted. And the way she was talking worried him even more. She’d gone from calling him every day, crying through the phone, racked with grief for their dead son, to this. He’d call her parents and see if they could persuade her to stay with them for a few days. At least then he’d be able to relax in the knowledge someone was keeping an eye on her until he could convince her to see the doctors at the clinic.
“Okay,” he said, forcing himself to sound calm. “I believe you, Anna. I depend on you to take care of yourself.”
“Not to disappoint you, you mean.”
He flinched. He didn’t deserve that. “You don’t disappoint me.”
“But I did, didn’t I?”
He sighed and closed his eyes. “We’ve moved past that now.”
“Have we?”
“Anna, please. Don’t do this to yourself.”
“I’m sorry, Zach. Have I told you how sorry I am?”
Her earlier calm gone, her words were threaded with the grief he knew was on the verge of consuming her whole.
“You have, Anna, and it’s okay. You have to believe me. It’s time to move forward.”
“I’m trying, but it’s so hard.”
“I know,” he consoled. And he did know. There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t think about what Blake would have been doing had he lived. “But you’re stronger than you think, Anna. You will get through this. Look, why don’t you pack a bag? I’ll call your parents and get them to take you back to their place for the weekend so you have some company, okay?”
“Okay. Yeah, I’d like that.”
Zach quietly sighed and felt his body relax. She would be safe for now, at least. Getting her assurance she would pack her bag right that minute, he ended the call and then dialed his former in-laws, who were only too happy to agree to his suggestion that they take her into their home for a few nights. This disappearance of hers had given them a wake-up call and he could only hope that they’d be on board when he talked to them about Anna entering a professional care facility to guide her out of the black hole her grief had become before it consumed her whole.
Zach disconnected the call with his ex-father-in-law, closed his eyes and hoped with all his heart that Anna would be safe with them. Her parents had brushed off two earlier suicide attempts as accidental overdoses. Of course she hadn’t meant to do it, her parents had argued when he’d struggled to make them see she needed more than just their help to get through. Their favored excuse was that she just had trouble sleeping since the accident, the other that she had trouble controlling the pain in her neck that continued to be a reminder of the whiplash she’d sustained in the crash.
He didn’t deny that Anna had trouble with both those things, but her problems went far deeper, and since her parents were stubbornly oblivious to them, it was up to him to make sure she found a path out of her darkness. She needed someone in her corner to fight for her—to fight for her life, in fact.
The tension in his shoulders tightened when Zach opened his eyes and saw the chaos that was his desk. The reminder of what had just transpired in his office. He reached to the floor to pick up his shirt and dragged it over his body. What an evening of contrasts. To peak on such a glorious high, and then descend to an all-too-sobering low.
Zach finished getting dressed and made a vague attempt to straighten his desk before giving up the idea as hopeless. He’d sort it out in the morning when everything was clearer. He slotted his laptop in its case and, stuffing his tie in his pocket, grabbed his jacket in the other hand and walked out into the reception area of the executive suite.
Sophie stood at her desk. She started to walk toward him, but then hesitated. Uncertainty was clear on her face.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice tentative, as if she wasn’t sure if she should say anything to him.
Need filled him at the sight and sound of her. Not sexual, just the pure and physical need of one person desperately craving solace from another. He put his things on her desk and opened his arms to her, closing them around her slender form and feeling a deep sense of relief as hers closed around him in return. They stood like that for several minutes, not saying anything, just being—together. It gave him the strength he needed, for now.
*
Confusion chased through Sophie’s mind. When she’d left Zach’s office he’d been happy, satisfied. So who had been on the phone and what had they said or done to reduce him to this somber creature in her arms? She held on to him tightly, as if somehow she could infuse her spirit into him—give him the comfort he silently requested and so obviously sought from her.
That he’d come to her and that she could give it to him made her heart swell with emotion. That he needed it, however, made that knowledge a bittersweet one.
She stroked her hands up and down the long muscles that bordered his spine, relishing the heat and strength of him through the fine cotton of his shirt, and felt him relax in increments. Sophie breathed his scent, like a spray of sea air, crisp and fresh. She’d never be able to visit a beach again, smell the tang of the ocean, without thinking of Zach Lassiter and this moment.
Beneath her cheek on his chest she felt him inhale deeply and then slowly let it go.
“Thank you,�
� he said, loosening his embrace. “I needed that.”
“Tough call?” she asked, burning with curiosity yet not knowing exactly how to inquire as to whom he’d spoken to.
His eyes dulled a little and his lips firmed into a straight line before he gave a small nod. “Yeah, but it’s okay for now. I’m sorry it had to inter—”
Sophie laid a finger on his lips. “No, don’t. Life intrudes. I accept that.”
It intruded all too often and too harshly in her experience, which was why she was going to grab this time with him with both hands and hold on with all her might. Her discussions with Mia about seducing information out of Zach paled into insignificance in view of what they’d done here today. The chemistry they shared was all too rare and she knew she wanted more. More of him.
She looked him square in the eyes. “I never thought I’d ever say this to a guy, but here goes. Your place or mine?”
Zach didn’t hesitate. “Mine,” he said firmly and linked his fingers through hers. “We can stop by your place in the morning for a change of clothes, but up until about then I don’t think you’re going to need anything else.”
Sophie smiled back at him, squeezing his fingers tight. She didn’t trust herself to speak, her body racked by a surge of desire so sharp and so extreme it literally made her feel weak in the knees. They moved swiftly through the outer office. She was relieved that the hour was late and the space was empty of their receptionist and handful of admin and accounting staff because she was sure she glowed brightly with what they’d just shared—and what they were about to.
The drive to his home took about thirty minutes and it felt like the longest drive of her life. Every nerve in her body, every cell quivered on high alert. She tried to keep a grip on her thoughts and feelings but everything seemed determined to run through her entire being at Mach speed.
She’d never done anything like she’d done this night—ever. She’d never been the one to take control. Her relationships had always been so organized, for want of a better word. Courtships had followed a set procedure and sex, if it had progressed that far, had been satisfactory. Certainly not the mind-shattering culmination of pleasure she’d experienced tonight beneath Zach’s ministrations.
Something about the Boss... Page 6
