Page 52 of Bona Fide

“I don’t want to deal with that kind of bullshit,” I rebuke, removing my skin from his. “Regardless of your political status and how you have to watch your ass, I’m not that kind of person. I don’t go for second best.”

His hand wraps around my neck, but he doesn’t squeeze, just keeps me firmly planted where I am. “You’re not second best. You’ll never be anything but the only option for me.”

“Wade, I just want this to—”

“You don’t understand me,” he reproaches softly. “I’m not overexaggerating when I tell you that I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop beating myself up over what I didn’t tell you. I never thought we’d—you were a surprise to me.”

A soft pressure digs into my inner thigh from his thumb, and I know he’s trying to be open with me, but it still changes nothing about where we stand, who we are and the baggage that he comes with.

“If you want me out of your life, I’m just asking you...for one goodbye kiss. And you’ll never hear from me again.”

“I work for you,” I counter.

“Less than three months to go, right?”

Right.

This was only supposed to be a job—nothing more or less. It was an enormous paycheck for my family, potentially solving a lot of my problems.

I just never expected for me to sink into Wade Lockwood and let him get underneath my skin. It was never like that with Grant, I just tolerated him, ignored the shit out of him mostly.

However, the moment Wade strode through a room, he captured all of my attention.

“I know this isn’t just hard for me,” he whispers. “You feel it too. The force that pulls us together, and it’s detonating. Everything takes off, and I never want to come down from it.”

“You’re just making this harder than it needs to be,” I mutter, my body buzzing to the proximity of his body. The way he’s a barrier between my legs that are spread open for him. How I want him to make a move.

Any fucking move against my better judgment.

“Then make it easy,” he challenges, leaning in closer to me again. “Send me on my way.”

I can’t tell him anything because my body isn’t listening to a thing my rationality is telling me to do.

He needs to go.

You need to go.

Everything needs to fucking go.

The faint brush of his lower lip grazes my upper, coaxing me to just take his mouth and have one chaste kiss.

I don’t even know what the fuck a chaste kiss is.

Easy isn’t something I tend to stray towards, hence the man in front of me on his knees in his expensive-as-fuck suit.

His fingers trail higher up my legs, the pad of his finger right at the seam of my panty line.

“I’m ready,” he utters. “To let you go.”

My chest feels like it’s being weighed down by a thousand pounds. Choked inhales and exhales won’t properly fill my lungs, and my body temperature just jumped to boiling.

If he was any other man, this wouldn’t be shit to me.

If he hadn’t been an asshole yet sweet to me in some moments, I would’ve already kneed him in the balls and been on my way.

And that’s not helping me right now.

Reducing the centimeter of space that’s between our lips, my heart wins over as I crush mine to his. His exhale that leaves his nose is heavy and loud, almost as if he is relieved.

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