The way my body pulsed with lust, my dick straining against the zipper on my slacks... if I didn’t put an end to this immediately, something very complicated would happen.

“Maggie, I need you to understand that I’ve made a very strict policy in the office about dating.”

She batted her eyelashes and sipped her lemonade, teasing my dick to a frenzy. I watched her neck muscles contract as she swallowed, and all I could picture was how they’d looked slightly bulging out as my cock pushed past her tonsils. Fuck, I was so in trouble.

“I don’t want inner-office relationships to muddy the atmosphere we have with the crew. And I find them highly unprofessional.” I stopped there, but if I let my inner beast out to talk, he would have added,“But they’re so irresistible when the woman is as fucking sexy as you, so let’s go back and lock ourselves in my office and fuck like horny teenagers.”

“Right, of course.” Maggie set her empty cup to the side and puckered her lips, smoothing her lipstick out. “You’re the boss, and I’m the employee. I don’t have a problem with that, Derek.”

I had prepared myself for water works or desperation. Even a modest rebuttal would have convinced my hormones to calm down, but this? Maggie’s beautiful smile pushed every button. She tossed her hair and pointed at my half-eaten salad. “You want me to toss that for you?”

As she stood, I couldn’t help but drink in every curve on her body. And when she leaned over the table right in front of me and a hint of her lacy bra peeked out, I thought I’d shoot my load right there. What I wouldn’t give to slide between those tits and—God, what was I thinking?

“Sure... ” I didn’t mean for that to come out as stunted as it had, but I needed to distance myself from her before this problem got any worse.

“Alright, Boss. I’ll see you back in the office.” Maggie picked up all the trash and slung her satchel over her shoulder. My eyes were drawn to her perfect round ass as she walked away.

My dick screamed, “Spread her and bed her,” but my better judgment forced me to stare down at my folded hands until she was out of sight. Magnolia Brock was off limits. She always had been. Curt would kill me, and if his father hadn’t interrupted the ass-kicking he gave me at the age of twenty for even thinking of touching his “sixteen-year-old, baby sister,” he may very well have.

It was difficult enough battling the torrent of hot memories. The time we snuck away during the football game to make out beneath the bleachers. Or the time we hid in the music room after school, pretending to take an interest in band—only to be caught by Mr. Jones just as my pants were unbuttoned. We never got to seal the deal, though. Curt had seen to it. And after coming home with two black eyes and a cracked rib, my father forbade me to see her.

That visit back home had challenged me, and after moving back to San Francisco, I dropped out of college. Maggie hadn’t been the only reason I’d spent my days and nights drinking and partying, but I was certain she was part of it. I clicked with her, and it wasn’t just sex, either. It was a closeness we’d shared since she was twelve and her mom died. I had never been able to find it again.

Until Leslie.

I was twenty-two. Leslie was a first-year student, and man, did I do everything in my power to impress her and put on a show. She just never bought into it. She toyed with my emotions, and eventually, when I tried to make my move, she threatened to tell everyone I raped her if I didn’t just back off.

Less than a year after that event, my drinking and partying spun out of control and I’d almost killed myself and another woman when I totaled my Firebird. Two weeks after being released from the hospital, I signed up for more classes at UCSF and finished my degree five years later.

Getting lost in thought helped the swelling go down in my pants, but it didn’t remove the aching feeling I had to taste that type of love again. I left that bistro a little hungrier than I’d entered it. Magnolia Brock might be off limits to me, but if anyone could make me change my policy about inner-office dating, it would be her.

CHAPTERFOUR

Maggie

We would haveto agree to disagree.

Gypsy sat across from me at the breakroom table during our final break for the day. She munched on a granola bar, and I cleaned up the crumbs when they fell to the table. For a snarky woman, she did make good points, all of which were at direct odds with what I wanted, of course. Derek’s policy about inner-office dating was the bane of my existence, though I hadn’t for a moment let on to anyone that I disliked it or why.

If something happened between him and me, it would be our secret. At least until we were ready to call ourselves an item. And I knew he had to feel something. Sure, we were never officially a thing back in high school, but that was only because admitting it openly would have been like lighting a match while pumping gas. Curt made himself clear that the “bro-code” had deemed me off limits to any of his friends.

I was never sure if that “bro-code” was because he wanted to protect me or if it was because he didn’t want his friends knowing our family secrets. Either way, Curt had made sure back then that we didn’t date. Now it was this ridiculous notion that a boss couldn’t have a relationship with an employee and keep it professional at work. I was arguing with Gypsy on a matter of principle and keeping my personal lust formy bossout of it.

“Yes, I see your point, but what about if the boss breaks up with the employee and that causes drama?” Gypsy carefully constructed her arguments based on logic, while my frenzied desire flew off the handle with rebuttals.

“Ah, but think about how much more they’d have in common. They’d spend all day together, building a stronger bond. And probably sneaking sex in now and then just to be kinky.”

Gypsy chuckled. “You are really trying to prove a point, huh?”

I shrugged. “It’s not that I’m trying to prove a point. I just disagree that the whole boss-employee relationship is a bad thing. What bad would come of it?”

Another bite of her granola bar, and more crumbs on the table for me to sweep up.

“Well, think of it this way.” She cocked her head, honing in on her target. “If Doc A and Doc B are in a spat—dating concerns or whatnot—and Doc A gets called into surgery but they’re distracted by inner-office problems, and Doc B had to assist, but they’re not getting along. What happens to the patient if one of them makes a mistake because of their animosity?”

She just had to go and make me eat my words, didn’t she? I kept the smile on my face and snorted a laugh. “You got me. So maybe doctors shouldn’t date their co-workers if they’re doing surgeries together.” But I was not a doctor, and I didn’t aid Derek in surgery, and I wasn’t about to tell Gypsy the “doctors” in question were me and him, anyway. Unfortunately, her point hit home with her next comment.

“It’s like this, though. Derek has to report to a board of directors for this hospital and also to the licensing board. If anything he does is seen as inappropriate, he could lose his licensing or even his practice here at Mercy General.”