Page 68 of The Wrong Boss

Instead, I asked, “Are you okay?”

His eyes were a dark storm in the middle of the ocean. They were the endless night sky. He looked at me for a long moment and finally shook his head. “Not really.”

Moving as if in a dream, I stepped aside and let him in. The first step he took over the threshold made my breath catch. As I closed the door, I caught a hint of his scent, the complicated blend of cologne and Cole. My head spun.

“Did something happen with your fiancée?” I asked after the door latched. I turned to face him, keeping my palms pressed against the door as if I needed to make sure I had a means of escape.

But the last thing I wanted to do was leave.

The intensity of his gaze belied the bitter twist of his lips. “Ex-fiancée,” he corrected. “She broke up with me.”

If I’d found out the world was ending, it would have shocked me less. “She—” I blinked twice. Three times. “Why?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Swallowing thickly, I felt the heat of his gaze as it trailed down my body. Finally, he answered, “She’s in love with someone else, apparently.”

“Oh.” I exhaled. “I’m so sorry.”

“You know, it’s the funniest thing.” He took a step towardme, and suddenly I regretted keeping myself pinned against the door. He filled my vision; all I could see was the dark fabric of his shirt, the tousled hair he’d run his fingers through one too many times, the harsh line of a stubble-covered jaw.

“What’s so funny about breaking up with your fiancée?” I asked, my body beginning to tremble. Alarm clanged through me, but it was distant, distant. Some faraway corner of my mind—the part of it that was still thinking rationally—sounded out a warning. Things were quickly spiraling out of control.

He took another step toward me. “The funniest thing is that when she left a couple of hours ago, the most intense feeling I had was relief.” Another step. The toes of his shoes brushed the tips of my bare feet. “Relief, Carrie, because?—”

“Cole,” I interrupted with a whisper. “Cole…” I closed my eyes, but I didn’t move. His hand slipped over my hip, and fine trembling overtook my body.

“I need you,” he said, and those three simple words completely undid any defenses I could’ve erected against him.

When I opened my eyes, I knew I’d lost the battle against good sense. My shoulders softened, and I lifted my palms to his chest. Sliding them up to tease at the collar of his shirt, I felt the hard tenseness of his muscles beneath my touch. His eyes were liquid night. His fingers pressed into my hip, moving me closer to him with deliberate slowness.

“Carrie?”

“Yes,” I breathed—and he kissed me. It was more than a kiss, really. It was a dam breaking. It was seven years of secret yearning bearing down on me, drowning me in a rush. I realized I was clinging to him, my fingernails digging into thehard sinew of his shoulders, when he let out a rough grunt and pinned me to the door with his hips.

A rough laugh slipped through his lips to brush against mine, and he pulled away to look at me with wild eyes. “I didn’t imagine it,” he said, one hand coming up to slide over the nape of my neck.

“Imagine what?”

“Our first meeting. How fucking good you tasted.”

My reply was swallowed by his next kiss. It was desperate and messy and so good I wanted to cry.

For seven years, I’d focused on making good decisions for my daughter, for myself. I’d taken my experience with Derek and told myself,Never again. Never again would I let a man make me feel small. Never again would I let my boundaries be stomped by someone who couldn’t even work a washing machine properly. Never again would I let my own insecurities, my own weakness, shape my life into something I didn’t want.

For seven years, I’d succeeded.

And several short weeks ago, that resolve had begun to crumble, like a tiny stream of water eating away at my foundations, hour after hour, day after day.

The right thing to do for my daughter was to stop this, step away, and tell him the truth. Having sex with Cole was a horrible idea in every conceivable way. It would make it that much harder to tell him about Evie. It might muddy the waters legally. It woulddefinitelymuddy the waters professionally.

But there was one problem, one key area where giving myself to Cole right now was the exact right decision: I wanted to do it.

I wanted that weightless feeling again, the one I’d only experienced in his arms. I wanted him to look at me like no one existed. A lonely gap in my heart was begging to be patched after all these years of selfless toiling.

I wanted to beselfish, for once. I wanted to feelgood.

His grip on my hair tightened, and liquid heat flooded between my legs. He slid his other hand from my hip down to my knee, pulling my leg up so he could press his hips against mine. The tips of his fingers slipped under my dress, and I exhaled sharply.

“Missed this,” he growled, his lips coasting over my jaw. “Missedyou.”

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