Page 44 of His To Unravel
“When I’m with you…” she murmurs, her voice quieter now, more vulnerable. “It’s like nothing else matters.”
I reach across the narrow table, letting my fingers brush hers. This time, she doesn’t just meet me halfway—she turns her palm to lace our fingers together.
“Good,” I say, gaze fixed on her mouth. “That’s exactly how I want it.”
The moment stretches taut. Her breath shallows. Her lips part, ever so slightly.
I rise from my chair slowly, careful not to disrupt the hush that’s settled over us, circling the table until I’m sat beside her. She tilts her head up, eyes following me with a mix of wonder and knowing. I cup her jaw gently, my thumb brushing over her cheekbone, and I feel her shiver at the contact.
Still, I wait. Because I know how easily I could tip us into more than she’s ready for. We’ve come so far, so fast, and the last thing I want is to make her feel like she owes me more than she’s ready to give.
If she turns her face away, I’ll step back. But if she leans in again…
She does.
So, I kiss her. Her lips part for me instantly, soft and eager, and my tongue sweeps into her mouth, catching the edges of her sigh.
Her hands fist in my shirt, dragging me closer. She’s hungry for this, I can feel it in the soft, desperate sounds she makes when I nip at her bottom lip.I’ll give her what she needs, I decide, as I wrap an arm around her and pull her onto my lap.
Her body melts against mine in a way that feels practiced now, but no less thrilling. Her legs bracket my hips. Her weight shifts just enough to grind down, slow and deliberate, sending a bolt of heat through me.
God, it’s familiar.That same burn. Just like that day in the library, when she’d tried so hard not to cry out, trembling in my lap while we were meant to be working.
Her hand slips under the hem of my shirt, cool fingertips skating across my abdomen. The jolt of sensation punches through me like a live wire. I groan low in my throat, and my own hand drifts lower, splaying across her thigh—tantalizingly close to the hem of her skirt.
“This is dangerous,” she breathes, her voice a rush against my mouth as I trail kisses along her jaw and down the column of her throat.
I smile against her skin. “Only if we get caught,” I murmur, then nibble playfully at the delicate spot beneath her ear.
She giggles, breathless and glowing, and the sound goes straight to my dick.
Her thighs flex around me. Her hips shift. She’s wet—Ican feel it, even through my jeans. I’ve come to know the rhythm of her body now: the flutter of her lashes, the sharp hitch in her breath when I graze higher. I know exactly how close she is to falling apart again.
“We can’t make a habit of this,” she says, but there’s no conviction in it. “How will we ever get any work done at this rate?”
I pull back just enough to see her face.God help me, she’s beautiful like this—cheeks flushed, lips kiss-bruised, pupils wide and dark with want. And she’s smiling like I’ve just made her day. I can’t help but grin back.
“Maybe we just need to…recalibrate our incentives,” I say, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “One kiss for every slide we finish. Two if we actually actually make it to the end without rewriting the entire outline again.”
She giggles sweetly. “Just one more,” she whispers, leaning in. “Then we really go back to work.”
The kiss that follows is slower. Deeper. Her fingers slip into my hair, and the way her mouth moves against mine feels like a promise—like she’s choosing this. Choosingme. It’s neither rushed nor frantic. Just soft and steady, like we’ve finally found the rhythm we’ve been dancing around since the beginning.
When we pull apart, it’s with a reluctant exhale, her forehead resting lightly against mine.
I don’t move far. I slide my chair beside hers, close enough that our shoulders touch as we turn our attention back to our project. Our knees brush occasionally as we get back to work, the contact small but constant.
We do manage to make progress—though that credit is hers, not mine.
Because while she rereads our draft with that razor-sharp focus of hers, flipping through case notes and cross-checking data, I barely touch my laptop. I pretend to edit a slide. I contribute a thought or two. But mostly, I watch her.
The way her lips purse when she’s thinking. The tiny crease that forms between her brows. The soft tuck of her hair behind one ear. She works like she’s trying to wring every last ounce of meaning out of the material—and she probably will. Olivia doesn’t do anything halfway. She approaches everything with this steady, persistent fire. And now, I get to sit beside it. Bask in it.
The glow of the antique reading lamp bathes Olivia’s face in warm, golden light, softening the curve of her jaw and casting gentle shadows that accentuate her focused expression. She looks like a painting in motion—alive and golden and devastatingly out of reach.
And yet here she is. Inches from me. Letting me have this.
My mind drifts. I picture a life where this moment isn’t confined to the alcove but stretched into days, weeks, and years. A future where every aspect of her existence is intertwined with mine, where my presence becomes her constant, inescapable anchor.
