Page 27 of Dear Grumpy Boss

His palms are abrasive as he slides the dress off my hips. It catches at my ankles, and I stumble. Zayn catches me and on my next breath, I’m on the high bed, floating on a cool, fluffy cloud.

Hands on my knees, he watches me with that singular intensity. My heart is beating so fast that I’m surprised it’s not shooting out of my chest. I want to reach for him, but old fears and new inhibitions keep me passive.

“Is this what you want, Mouse?” he says, leaning down and pressing his palm between my breasts.

I grab his wrist with both hands. “Yes, please. I want…”

“What?”

“Whatever you want.”

A frown claims his brow. Already, I feel like I’m failing him. But how do I tell him it’s because I’ve never done this before? That I want to please him so badly that I’m tying myself in knots.

“I want to see more of you,” I say, pushing up to my elbows.

Amber eyes gleam in the darkness with a savage kind of satisfaction. So, he likes it when I ask him for stuff? I file the little detail away.

He unbuttons his shirt—his jacket lies discarded somewhere in the corridor—and pulls it out of the band of his trousers. Candlelight plays with every ridge and plateau of his defined chest and abdomen. His sparse chest hair narrows down to a thick trail on his abdomen that I want to follow with my tongue.

Holding my gaze, he unzips his trousers and pushes his black boxers down. They stay on his tapered hips as he sneaks his hand inside and pulls out his cock.

He is gloriously made, with fat veins running its thick length.

My eyes widen into saucers as he tugs from root to tip a few times. Saliva floods my mouth as if in preparation to take that thickness inside. The restless need in me coils tighter and tighter as he plays with himself, his gaze eating up my expression.

“Is this what you want, Mouse?”

“God, yes,” I say, running my hands over my thighs. I spread them—the move as instinctive as it is wanton.

His gaze lasers toward my core and he strokes faster. Pre-cum beads into a pearl at the tip. I lick my lips but he catches it and wipes it away on the bedsheet. My heart drops to my stomach.

“Touch yourself. See if you’re ready for me.”

“What?” I say with a quiver in my voice. The idea of not only baring myself to him but touching myself in front of him is…both exciting and mortifying.

“You take instructions well in the office, no? Do the same here, Mouse.”

My gaze dips to his erection and then skids back up. “I thought we’d make love. Don’t you want that?” I hate how breathy my voice is, but I can’t help it. I’m dying to feel him inside me. I want to feel his hard body pressing me down into this bed, that thick cock pinning me until I can’t breathe.

Suddenly, I realize I have all these desires and the words for them but I don’t know how to communicate them to him without betraying the fact that I love him so much.

He doesn’t laugh but his lips twitch. “Make love?” One devilish brow climbs up his forehead. “Step out of the pages of the romance novel into real life, Mouse. You wanted one forbidden night, remember? This is purely sex. Scratching an itch.”

He’s not being mean, I tell myself. Only giving me what I asked for. I should have known to be careful of what I ask him.

Before I can protest, he leans closer and taps his cock against my lace-covered core. I reach my hand out, eager to pet him. Eager to please him.

He arrests my hand midway. “You’re allowed to look, Mouse. Not touch. You haven’t earned the right to my cum either, baby girl.”

The hurt that pierces me at his declaration is stunning in its intensity. My hand falls to the sheet and I fist it. “That’s…unfair.”

He shrugs. “That’s why you should never offer up carte blanche before the opposite party spells out their terms.”

“This isn’t a business deal for me.”

“What is it then?”

My silence makes his jaw lock up tight. A muffled curse later, he’s gone.

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