Page 67 of More Than Words

“I’ve never come more than once,” she confessed, pressing her head against my shoulder. “Who am I kidding? I was lucky to come once.”

“Fucking stupid bastards,” I groaned when I felt her clench hard, right on the cusp of letting go. My teeth ground against each other as I continued pistoning my hips, trying to fight off the urge to finish before her. “Never again, babe. Never. You’re mine now. It’s such a fuckin’ turn-on to make you come.”

“Yes,” she exhaled, shaking in my arms. Her chest heaved when she spiraled into another intense release, my fingers sliding easily against her clit. I prolonged it, pressing inside as far as I could before I let go.

My heart hammered as her body relaxed, beating frantically against where her back rested against my chest. Tracing my fingers along her waist, I pulled her back, erasing any space between us. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore, Is. I’m going to take care of you.”

Her hand covered the one I pressed into her stomach, her fingers settling into the spaces between mine. She may not be ready yet, but my mind was already on the future, hoping that she wanted the same things I did. I wasn’t just trying to get her into my bed. I wanted all of her.

She shuddered as my thumb slowly caressed her soft skin and tilted her head to look at me. “I want that too. I want—”

“It’s yours,” I interrupted. “Whatever you want, it’s yours.”

ISOBEL

Boston

My mind drifted while I sat in a chair outside of Sloane’s office, daydreaming about the last few months with Adrian. Things had shifted after the baseball game a month ago, and it was totally unexpected in the best possible way. While I never doubted Grant had loved me, Adrian was borderline obsessed. He couldn’t get enough (not that I was much better), but things weren’t purely sexual.

He talked to me while we ate dinner together after work at either one of our apartments, sent me text messages throughout the day—of both the sweet and spicy variety—and he hadn’t been a total dick at work in weeks. We spent as much time as possible with each other when we weren’t actively working, although our lunch dates had set off the office gossip mill. I should’ve been horrified that my coworkers were speculating about my sex life, but frequent orgasms had a way of desensitizing you to pointless office politics.

Every day, tiny pieces of his actual personality slipped through the cracks of his facade, and he showed me he was serious about trying to have a real adult relationship outside of work by behaving in the office. He didn’t intentionally try to provoke Kristine, and he even helped the receptionist, Andrea, with her coursework when no one else was watching.

He’d also successfully calmed me down when I freaked out that Chase and Evan had seemingly disappeared after his book was released and only resurfaced long enough to tell me they were writing a book together and Chase was putting her own upcoming book series on hold.

“You ready?” Sloane smiled as she appeared in her office doorway, motioning for me to follow her.

She’d mentioned when she met with me over a month ago wanting to pass down some of her duties as head of publishing while Vivid restructured to expand into a television streaming platform. Details had been vague at the time, but as the hiring process was already underway for the genre editor positions opening in a few months, she was clearly ready to fill in those blanks.

“When we talked earlier, I know I didn’t have any concrete information for you, but now that we’ve figured out how to cover some of your day to day, I wanted to bring you in so I could pitch what we’d like to be your new role with Vivid.”

Other than stepping into her job, there wasn’t much advancement possible on an editorial level, so I was intrigued by the thought of taking on more while still maintaining my role as the head of the romance genre department in Boston.

“We’d like to create a hybrid position and promote one of your interns to take over the less critical parts of your job duties. Kristine would be the natural choice, but we can revisit that later since it looks like she’s one of the final candidates for the position in New York.”

“What would that mean for me?”

“You’d be given the title of publishing manager and oversee all the genre heads at a production level. That’d mean less time spent on your individual authors and more time making sure each department had what they needed for their releases.”

Nodding, I mentally processed what I’d be willing to give up taking on this new position. “So, I wouldn’t work directly with any of my authors anymore?”

“Not exactly,” she hedged. “You could pick a handful to continue to be a primary contact for, but the rest would fall under your new intern supervisor and the rest of the copy-editing team.”

While this opportunity would be amazing, I wasn’t sure I wanted to completely leave behind the creative process. Even if it was only in a limited capacity, I loved working with authors. And with Chase dropping the bomb on me she was working on something secret with Evan, I didn’t want to give up control of that manuscript to someone else. It meant working directly with Adrian again, but that would go a lot smoother than the first time.

“The management team discussed it, and whenever the next book tour begins for your department, we’d like Kristine to manage it to test out her ability to step into your role.”

“Does that mean less travel for me?”

She shook her head. “No. Just a different kind of travel. You’d be based out of Boston, but we’d need you to travel to all four locations on an as-needed basis. The California office will be restructured to take on the television production, so we may be able to find someone to work under you from that pool of editors, but you’d be responsible for the department heads here, New York and Chicago.”

Meaning I’d become Adrian’s boss.

“If there is a conflict of interest in supervising one of the editing heads, would that be a problem?”

Sloane chuckled as she leaned back in her chair. “As long as you and Adrian can keep it professional in the office, I don’t see why it would be.”

My cheeks heated as her smile widened, knowing she’d easily hit the mark. “Do I have your permission to share the details of this offer with him?”

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