Page 54 of Her Boss

Or you could make it for her.

But I couldn’t, not really; my desire for her was fathomless. I was increasingly driven to dive deep into its waters, and take her with me, whether she was willing or not.

So, it would have to be her choice. The best I could muster was to keep my animal needs at bay.

For now.

I had to hope she had the courage where mine had failed. To save herself… from me.

Just then she came padding out to the sitting area, clutching the sheets to her body. Sleep had her eyes still heavily lidded, but she gave me a wan smile regardless. “Hi.”

I looked at my watch. It was almost six, the dark outside already beginning to fade, dawn imminent. “Want some coffee?”

“Please,” she said, plopping down on the suite’s couch.

“Good. I’ll make you some.”

She rubbed her eyes, yawning.

I headed over to the coffeemaker, my thoughts wandering a bit as I’d waited for the coffee to finish. I’d gotten the impression, rightly or wrongly, that she’d viewed Chester as more or less a kindly father figure. Mostly harmless.

Such a description was one literally nobody who’d ever dealt with the man would ascribe to Chester Nantes.

When you get her woken up, Rick… maybe it’s time you tell her what kind of man her uncle really is.

CHAPTER 25

Geneva

The views from the winding road that followed the White River were stunning, the summer already taking hold, the green of the surrounding forests lush and deep. They had the river’s waters littered with white caps presenting a picture of a mountain idyll that even someone like the stone-hearted Rick Trafford could appreciate.

The gravel ticked against the undercarriage of his Audi as he pulled off onto a roadside look-out, the vista of the White River spreading out before us as we faced north. The water meandered its way down the final miles of its journey to its rendezvous with the mighty Columbia River, the confluence just barely visible far down the valley to our east.

Every now and then a tractor trailer rig would roar by behind us, but aside from that, the only sounds were the gentle moan of the wind at our ears, and the almost imperceptible murmur of the river as it coursed and tossed over the rocks of a shallow ford just below the promontory of our look-out.

“I didn’t know this place could look… like this.”

I wasn’t entirely sure if Rick was talking to me or himself, but I completely agreed with the sentiment, regardless.

As odd as the ‘meeting’ had been in the strange little town, the overall experience of life in that place was… something entirely bizarre. I still wasn’t sure how to attempt to unpack everything I’d seen—and felt—but of one thing I was already quite certain.

Someday, I would come back to that place.

Perhaps with Rick, perhaps not. There was so much more to explore, so many unanswered questions my experience of the town and its environs had left me with.

But that would have to be for another time. There were far more pressing matters. Such as my burgeoning, confusing—and probably stupid—interest in the man who was at that moment leaning over the high guardrail, his huge hands resting atop the pale gray painted steel.

A better version of me might not have immediately noticed the curve of muscle of his compact, powerful buttocks, the fabric of his black slacks stretching over his much-too-fine ass.

Not now, Genie. Down, girl.

While Rick may have come up with a possible way to help solve the disappearances happening in town, what he hadn’t determined was how the two of us were going to maintain a relationship. We needed a way of making what might work for us.

Despite the near certain disaster that would befall either of us should my uncle learn that Rick and I were involved sexually.

“What we need is the proverbial cabin in the mountains,” he suggested. “Cliché, I know, but it would be perfect. Some middle of nowhere place. Just us. Nobody else around. Nearest town miles away. How about that?”

I assumed he was talking theoretically, just throwing out ideas. “Um, okay… that might work.”

---