Page 162 of Alive At Night

Her words drifted away, and I nearly toppled straight over, considering I’d been hanging onto every one of them for dear life. I wasn’t sure anyone had been worried about me before. I was always the one doing the worrying.

“Finish the sentence, Juniper.”

She steeled herself as though worried her vulnerability would have consequences. “I was happy when you decided not to go pro. I knew I’d probably obsess and worry over your games if you did.”

God, every day. Every single day since starting this job, I had some sort of conversation with Juniper that made it hard to breathe for one reason or another.

Juniper’s pulse hadn’t slowed.

“Are you worried now?”

She shook her head.

My lips split into a wicked grin. “You should be. Because you know what else I can admit to?”

“What?”

I let my voice drop. “Thinking endlessly about what you’d look like bent over my desk.”

Leaning down, I brushed my lips over hers right as she gasped at my words. I kept it light at first, kept my grip around her throat loose. But then Juni parted her lips, and I couldn’tnottaste her. I wrenched us closer together, plundering her mouth with my tongue. She strained toward me, and I felt her body shudder, needing more.

When she breathed my name against my lips, it felt like pulling away from her would destroy me, but somehow, I managed it.

“You feel it everywhere, don’t you?” I let my voice scrape over her skin. “The way you need me.”

She whimpered in response, gliding her teeth over her bottom lip as she blinked up at me.

“You did so good in that meeting, acting like you weren’t getting wetter for me by the minute.” I held her by the chin, not letting her look away. “I know what it’s like to pretend you’re not dying inside. I had to do it for so many years, Juni baby.”

“Not anymore, though,” she breathed. “So show me everything. Give me everything.”

A smile spread slowly over my face. She would regret those last words, but I was more than happy to oblige in doing them.

As soon as I held out my hand, Juni took it. She let me lead her to my desk and position her in front of it. I wanted her to have as pretty of a view as I was about to have.

“You’ve always been such a fucking princess.” I splayed my hand across her back, bending her over my desk precisely as I imagined. “And if you want everything, I’ll give you everything.”

Juni looked over her shoulder at me, a hot, simmering grin sliding into place. But then her eyes caught on something behind me, and uncertainty washed over her. She was staring at the door. I knew she was. So I waited for her to tell me to stop, to emphasize how bad of an idea it was to fuck in the middle of the day at our office. But she couldn’t find the words. We both knew she wanted it too fucking bad, andIknew that she had nothing to worry about. This wouldn’t take long.

She didn’t realize that, though. She didn’t yet realize how fast I could make her come if I wanted. And I’d follow her instantly; that was how badly I ached for her. Watching her get more and more aroused during that meeting had been torture.

But I still wanted to ease her worries, so I left Juni bent over my desk to snatch the headphones off hers. The noise-canceling headphones I’d gotten her for Christmas, of course. Then I double-checked the door before grabbing her phone, holding it in front of Juni’s pretty face to unlock it, and finding the exact thing I was looking for.

Of course Juniper had the audiobook version of my other Christmas gift on her phone. I would have expected nothing less. And I knew just what part to have her listen to.

When I placed one side of the headphones over her ear, she balked at me. I knew she could hear the audio, which just happened to be the dirtiest part of the book.

“How—”

“This book has been sitting around my apartment for the last week. Did you really think I wouldn’t want to learn about my competition?”

“My books are not yourcompetition, Julian.”

“Yeah?” I smirked, ignoring her. “I think after you experience both in real time, you’ll no doubt realize which is better.”

I dropped the other side of the headphone over her ear before she could say anything more and got to work, shimmying Juni’s dress over her hips like I did this morning. And also like this morning, I pulled down her tights and worked her underwear to the side to see how perfect she looked for me.

Fucking hell, I was dying. Absolutely dying at this point. Ineededher, needed to finish what we had started in my apartment. Should I be doing this? No. Just because I’d sent that email to HR last week didn’t mean we could fuck in our office whenever we wanted. But I also couldn’t stop. I would have to figure out some sort of method for resisting Juniper during the workday, but I wasn’t going to figure it out today. That was for damn sure.

---