Page 85 of Think Outside the Boss

She shakes her head. “I ate earlier.”

“How long was your heater off for?”

“A few hours.”

“A few hours before you called me?”

Freddie gives a sheepish shrug. “Yes.”

That’s it. I grip her around the waist and grin as she squeals, tossing her onto my bed. She bounces once on the wide surface and spreads her arms, like she’s about to make a snow angel. Her hair is a dark halo. “You told me you were busy tonight. I didn’t want to bother you if it wasn’t important.”

“You not freezing to death is pretty important.”

She reaches for me, pulling me down on the bed. “Do you know,” she asks, her smile a beautifully wicked thing, “that I agree with that?”

“One more thing we have in common.” I brace myself on my elbows above her, and while her breasts press tantalizingly against my chest, it’s her smile I can’t look away from.

“Do you want to know something?” she asks.

“I do,” I say, bending to press my lips to the soft skin of her neck. She lets out a soft sound, somewhere between a sigh and a moan.

“From where I stand, you’ve done a pretty good job with everything, Tristan,” she murmurs. “Things don’t need to be perfect to be worth doing.”

20

Freddie

I wake up in a bed that’s large enough for five, snuggled deep under soft linen comforters. A heavy arm is draped around my waist. My legs threaded through someone else’s.

I smile sleepily. I’m with Tristan in his bed, having spent the night. The intimacy we’d shared has settled into my bones, thorough relaxation throughout my body. Lingering pleasure from the night before. A light, pleasurable soreness.

The giant room is cast in soft shadows and flickers of faint December light. The strong lines of Tristan’s face are smoothed into softness, the thick hair mussed. A man used to being watched, here where no one can watch him.

Tenderness clenches in my chest at the sight. He might be my boss. There might be a thousand things standing in our way. But I want this man, with all of his doubts and flaws and strengths and skills.

His arm tightens around my waist. “You’re awake,” he murmurs, not opening his eyes.

“So are you.”

His arm inches higher, a hand settling around one of my breasts. I’ve quickly learned it’s one of his favorite handholds.

I run a hand over his chest. “Thanks for being my heater.”

“Hmm,” he says, hand squeezing. “I do my best.”

“You must run a degree or two hotter than me.”

“We all have our skills.” He rises on an elbow, his shoulders a contrast of sharp, masculine angles against the softness of the comforter. “You really have amazing breasts, you know.”

It’s such an offhand comment that I laugh.

He raises an eyebrow. “It’s true. Perhaps not a skill, but very true.”

I peer underneath the comforter, where his hand covers one of them from view. “They’re all right,” I agree. “But the size can get pretty annoying. I can’t really buy sports bras from normal stores, for example. Shirts often gape at the buttons.”

Tristan frowns. “Must be difficult.”

“It’s a nuisance sometimes.”

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