Page 68 of Foreplay with the Boss

“And this would be a good dream or a nightmare?” He rubbed the side of his neck, looking unsure for the first time ever.

“I guess it depends on what happens next.” I realized my dad was still on my phone and told him I’d call him back before disconnecting and slipping it in my pocket. “My dad just told me that you postponed your big meeting.”

“I did.” Jameson slowly reached up and trailed his fingertips across my cheekbone, almost as if he wanted to make sure I was real, and it was all I could do to not throw my arms around him and melt into him it felt so damn good.

“This is like torture,” I said, trying to swallow and finding it impossible. “Being this close, knowing that we’re over…”

He cupped my cheek and shook his head. “But we’re not over.”

“Jameson.” A sharp pain went through my chest, and I blinked at the tears trying to form. “You weren’t supposed to… This is just making it…” My brain was having trouble finding the right sentence because all of them were sadder than I wanted them to be. “Wait. How did you even find me?”

“I, uh, just had this feeling like you’d be here.”

I lowered my eyebrows, packing the skepticism I felt into the look I shot him.

“Fine,” he said. “I called in a favor to a friend and had him put a trace on your cell phone. I just needed to know you were okay, and then…well, I needed to talk to you, and it couldn’t wait. It worked out nicely that the aquarium’s so close to the office.”

“Yeah, well, it seemed like a good place to be alone with my thoughts. Not that I’m completely alone. Lately I’ve been talking to a lot of creatures. Seagulls, fish…” I looked him up and down. “The devil incarnate.”

“Funny.”

“I thought so,” I said, but then I cracked, and a tear ran down my cheek.

“Shit, Kat. Please don’t cry.” Jameson wiped the tear away with his thumb. “I already feel like the biggest asshole, and knowing I made you cry? Well, I’m about to reenact a scene from Fight Club and kick my own ass.”

“Hey, why do you get all the fun? I want in on that action.”

“Go ahead,” he said, spreading his arms wide.

All that did was make me want to hug him, but then I’d forget that this wasn’t going to work, so I hugged my arms around myself instead. “I can’t do this. I can’t set myself up to get hurt all over again. I won’t. So we’ll call this ending on a positive note. We can say a proper goodbye where we wish each other the best with wherever our lives take us. Then I’ll go back to my life, and you’ll go back to yours, and once in a while, we’ll cross each other’s minds, and we’ll smile and go on with our days.”

“That’s bullshit,” he said, his voice snapping in the stern, no-nonsense voice he used during meetings. “There’s no going back to life, at least not for me. You got to say your piece in that email, but you didn’t give me a chance to say mine. I’m not a robot. Anyway, not since you came into my life. And honestly, I don’t know what to do with all these fucking feelings?—”

A woman gave us a shocked look and pushed her children by us in a hurry.

“Sorry,” Jameson muttered, then he dragged me to a more secluded corner. “Because of what happened with my dad, I’ve always looked at feelings as a weakness, one I couldn’t afford. I worked so hard to shut them down that when I couldn’t, I didn’t know what to do with them. But I have them. For you. They’re overwhelming and frustrating and amazing at the same time, and I postponed that meeting because I didn’t want to risk doing anything that would make it impossible for us to be…us.”

“And what are we? Do you even know?”

Jameson backed me up until I was flat against the thick plexi- glass. “You’re mine, and I’m yours.”

My heart clenched, trying to block off the rising hope that would make the fall that came afterward even more devastating. I glanced down because it was too hard to look at his face. “Are you sure you don’t just miss your sex toy?”

“Don’t do that,” he said, tipping my chin up and locking eyes with me. “You know that you’re way more than that to me. You’re the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about as I drift off to sleep. I can’t stop thinking about you, and I don’t want to.”

He crowded even closer, so close that my chest bumped into his every time I took a shallow breath that never seemed to reach my lungs. “You once said that you thought people only had so much passion to spread around, and you had to choose. I think you can have a lot of passion for a lot of different things. But there’s definitely one thing I’m more passionate about than anything else, and that’s you. I choose you. I need you.” He slid his hand behind my neck, his blue, blue eyes boring into me. “I love you.”

The rest of the room spun out of focus, and I reached up and wrapped my hand around his arm, needing him to keep me steady. “You do?”

He nodded and rested his forehead against mine. “I do. It took me by surprise, just like you did. I want you next to me when I’m watching TV. I want you cuddled up next to me at night. I just want you, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make us work.” He brushed his lips across mine. “Say you want me, too, Kat.”

I blinked back tears. “I want you, too.”

“Then we’ll work out the rest.” He slanted his mouth over mine, parting my lips with his tongue and kissing me with a feverish urgency that echoed through me.

“Dream,” I whispered, and he pulled back and looked me in the eye.

“What?”

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