Page 29 of Grumpy Boss's Secret

Heat coursed through me like shockwaves. The water streamed down my body, wetting my hair and running in sensuous tendrils across my bare skin. I watched Ian’s cock move up and down in his hand. The way his chest heaved. His lips parted and opened wider and wider as he kept speeding up the motion.

Then suddenly, just as he looked about to come, he stopped. His hand fell limply to his side. He was panting, his erection like an iron rod. I stared back at him. He placed both hands against the shower wall behind him and stood there, panting and looking at me. He wasn't smiling, but his eyes were glowing, and his lips were still parted. I stared at him, my desire writhing like a forest fire.

I stepped up to him slowly, reaching my fingertips towards him. I brushed them against the tip of his cock. It was as if I could feel his blood rushing under my fingertips. It was as if I could feel his desire for me pounding inside him. His eyes roamed over my face, his lips still parted.

I placed one leg up on the side of the bathtub, bracing myself. Gripping his shoulder with one hand, I wrapped the other gently around his erection and guided it against my opening. With a groan, he helped me, pressing himself into me and touching my butt. He pushed himself inside, his hips rocking backward and forward in rhythm with mine.

Pleasure crashed through me, wild and maddening. The rhythm of our bodies sped up to a crescendo–a burst of hot, rippling bliss. I came, letting out a scream that probably could have heard by my neighbors three floors down.

Chapter Twelve

And then I woke up. My eyes opened. I stared at the ceiling. Sunlight was flickering across it. What. The reality is that it was only a dream that ended in a splash of cold water. Of course, it had only been a dream. Things like that didn't happen in real life. All that bliss, that warmth, that –

“Oh no,” I groaned, rolling over and covering my head with my pillow. “Oh no.”

Well, obviously, I was very into Ian. Very. That was the hottest dream I'd ever had in my life.

And it had been so detailed. As if I knew him well enough to imagine exactly what he'd do–his facial expressions, his movements. I knew what his body looked like. My dream imagination had recreated it perfectly.

I moaned and shut my eyes tightly, trying to get back to the feeling of physical bliss. It evaporated slowly, as if leaking out of my body and into the cold light of day.

That night after dinner, I sat on my couch with my phone and braced myself to write another email to Kirk. We'd written back and forth a few times since he'd sent me the quote from Seventh Midnight, but now that I was falling for Ian, writing to Kirk felt odd. It wasn't something I should do anymore, and I was trying to get over him.

Still, whatever else it had been to me, it was definitely a friendship to both of us. I didn’t want to leave him hanging. I’d turned my kitchen lights out and hadn’t turned the living room lights on yet. I was just sitting there in the dark, with one candle burning. I opened the email app on my phone and began to type.

Dear Kirk, Things around here have been good! Work has been good. How's writing coming? Are any new books in the making? Zee

I wanted to ask him about himself instead of offering information about my life. I have little to say about me besides, "Well, Kirk, I've been in love with you for years, but now I'm falling for my boss, so…what do you think I should do?"

I could guess what he'd say. Move on from him and the boss. Grumpy with my own conclusions, I tossed my phone onto the couch and lay down, staring at the light patterns cast across the ceiling by the streetlights.

“I just need some time,” I said. “To adjust to the idea of not being in love with Kirk anymore. I’m just distracting myself with Ian. That’s fine.”

Sure, until Ian became the person, I was trying to get over. I rolled over, looking out the window. More rain. That was fine. It suited my melancholic mood. I closed my eyes, thinking of Ian. I smiled. He filled me with a kind of physical excitement that Kirk never had.

“Gee, Jozi, I wonder why that is,” I muttered. I smirked.

I sat up again, reaching for my phone. I felt restless. Maybe Kirk had responded already.

He hadn't, but I clicked through Instagram to Ian's profile. A new post. Posted only a minute ago. I seemed to have a sixth sense of these things. It was a photograph of a computer resting on a coffee table. A lovely coffee table appeared to be made entirely of glass. It rested on a faux-fur white rug tucked inside a circle of white leather couches. In the photo's background could be seen some potted plants, black bookshelves filled with books, and a large window overlooking a city at night.

"Is this your place, Ian?" I murmured, gazing, entranced, at the room. He had good taste. It was elite, but it also had some artistic flare to it. A wall painting resembled a reprint of an old jazz sheet music cover. I looked at the caption. The next one will be about a girl with brown hair and green eyes.

What? I had brown hair. And green eyes. I frowned, leaning closer to my phone as if that could tell me more about the post.

“What does that mean?” I murmured.

It wasn't a quote. Just like "Goodnight" had been Ian's own words, this wasn't in quotation marks and had no author cited.

"Maybe it is a quote, and he's just getting lazy with formatting," I thought, pulling up the search engine on my phone. I typed Ian's words into it, wondering if they would come up as a quote from a book.

Nothing. Images of girls with brown hair and green eyes. Magazine articles about celebrities. Facts about green eyes.

"Hmm," I said, returning to the post and staring at it.

I felt so close to the picture. I could enter it if I pressed my fingers against my phone screen in the right place. I felt close to Ian, almost like he was in the room with me.

Did it mean the next girl he would date had brown hair and green eyes? No, it couldn't. He'd said "about." "The next one will be about."

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