Page 105 of Work with Me

His face lit up with hope. “You mean it? I’m not dreaming all this, lying on your kitchen floor with Tigger eating my entrails?”

I snorted. “Don’t be so dramatic. You two are going to get along great. Now come on.” I stood and led him to the couch. We sat, side by side, and his arm went around my waist. Tigger jumped onto the sofa and curled against my other side, purring. I laid my head on Jackson’s shoulder and let my gaze go soft until the Christmas tree lights blurred.

“I can do my job from Austin,” he said at last. “Cooper and I’ll work out some combination of leading projects here and the management stuff he wants me to do for headquarters.”

“No!” I sat up. “They need you at headquarters.”

He pulled me back against his chest and inhaled. “But I need to be with you. I need to prove that I can stay.”

I rubbed his chest over his sweater. I’d thought about it over the past week, when it was clear he wasn’t going anywhere. I was willing to try long-distance for a while. And when the time was right, I’d consider moving to San Francisco. That was where he belonged as Synergy’s leader. And although I’d been more or less happily stuck in Austin all my life, I’d always wanted to see the world. San Francisco would be a first step. “We can be together and not be…together. At least for a while. As long as you’re with me. Here.” His heart beat strong and steady under my hand.

“Always.” He kissed my temple. Turning my face up to him, I captured his lips. The spark was still there, igniting between us. But it wasn’t as desperate as it’d been before, when we knew we had a time limit. It was the warmth of a roaring bonfire, able to burn for hours, not the flash of a scrap of paper blazing into nothing.

He cupped the back of my head, and I angled toward him. For the first time in weeks, I touched his skin, caressing his neck and the softness of his beard. He was mine to touch, mine to hold, mine to kiss, as he’d said, “Always.” I took my time reacquainting myself with the softness of his lips, the scratch of his beard, the taste of him. The heave of his chest against mine.

He groaned and slid a hand under me, shifting me to straddle him. I ground my hips over his, and he trailed his lips down my neck, murmuring my name. Goosebumps broke out over my skin. My panties were soaked, and my lounge pants would soon follow, especially if he kept kneading my ass like that.

“Jackson.” I pulled away. “We are not doing this here on the sofa where my family could walk in at any moment.”

He shifted the hand that wasn’t on my ass to my waist and slid it up under my sweatshirt. “I thought you said they were at a movie.”

“Stop.” I gave him my sternest glare. “What I want to do to you will take more time than we have. Hours.”

His Adam’s apple dipped. “Hours?”

“Hours. At your place. Tonight.”

“All night?” His fingers teased the lower curve of my breast.

“Tomorrow, too. It’s the weekend.”

“All weekend in bed? I like the sound of that.” The low tone of his voice hit something inside me, and my sex clenched.

I clambered off him and tugged down my sweatshirt. “But now, we have work to do. You do the top of the tree, and I’ll do the bottom.”

He frowned. “But I—”

“Jackson Jones. Do you or do you not want to spend all night and all day tomorrow in bed with me?”

His face went slack for a moment. Quickly, he said, “I want that.”

“Then you’ll do what I say. Start with the star.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He bounded off the couch, and I watched his tight ass all the way over to the tree.

“Mmm-hmm,” I purred, picking up the empty box.

He reached easily for the perforated tin star and plucked it off the top. He set it into the box I held and then kissed me. “Better together, right?”

“Always.”

Epilogue

Three Months Later

ALICIA

Wearingthe visitor’s badge Jackson had left for me at the front desk, I stepped out into the courtyard behind the Synergy office in San Francisco. Music and voices bounced off the brick pavers and the sides of the surrounding buildings, making me wince. It had been a long day of work and travel, and a headache lurked behind my eyes, ready to flare. Maybe I could find Jackson and convince him to slip away so I could tell him my news somewhere more private. My stomach fluttered in anticipation.

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