Page 46 of Living with Fire
“You’re my boss,” she says, and I can hear the hesitation in her voice, even though her expression hasn’t changed.
“I won’t be tomorrow. As your boss I’m giving you the weekend off, remember?” I blow out a breath, some of the nerves gone now that I’ve gotten the question out, though the rest will remain until she answers me.
“Look, I know the working thing complicates it a bit, but I get to make the rules, and there’s no rule that says we can’t go on a date. Maybe more than one if things go the way I hope.” I lean back across the desk, my gaze intent on her. “I like you, Savanna. I want to take you out. I want to keep getting to know you. If you’ll let me.”
She’s picking at her fingers again, casting her eyes down to the desk where her hands lay. The smile has faded some, and I can feel real concern trickling out of her. “I don’t want anyone treating me differently here.”
I can understand her apprehension. It’s something I thought about. When I went through the list of my employees, there isn’t one that I could see being upset about this, or who would change the way they treat her. My uncle never hired those kinds of people, and neither do I.
Reaching a hand out, I take one of hers and run my thumb over the back of it reassuringly. “They won’t. I know them, Sav. They wouldn’t do that.”
I don’t bother adding that if they did all she would need to do is tell me, because I know she wouldn’t. It would make her feel like a bigger outcast if she were to do that.
When her gray eyes lift back to me, I can see my answer, and I can’t help the grin that starts to spread across my face. I think she knows I’m right about everyone at work, but she had to say it out loud and get the confirmation before she said yes to my date.
“Well then, to my boss Nate, I’m letting you know that I will be taking the weekend off.”
My grin widens. “And to the Nate who asked you on a date?”
“I was starting to think you’d never ask,” she says with a cheeky smirk.
I can’t help laughing, giving her hand a squeeze before I link our fingers, enjoying the way that our hands fit together. “Believe me, I’ve wanted to ask for days, but I wasn’t sure if you’d say yes for the very reason you brought up.”
Her expression slowly falls and she turns pensive, releasing a sigh as if she’s just let go of a weight she was carrying. “I wasn’t sure either. I mean, I would have wanted to say yes even if I’d told you no. But with staying at your place, and now working for you, I didn’t know if it was a great idea.”
Slipping her fingers from mine, she turns my hand over so my palm is facing up, and runs a fingertip in a circle along my skin, making me shiver. “But I feel this,” she says in a whisper. “I’ve felt it since you introduced yourself to me in the hospital. Maybe even before that.”
I know exactly what she’s talking about, and right now, I want nothing more than to pull her straight across the desk and into my lap so I can kiss the hell out of her. The electricity that crackles around us every time we touch is nothing short of magic. I can only imagine what it might be like to put my lips on hers.
It’s not just when we’re touching, either. I can feel the hum of it whenever she’s near, and it drives me crazy in a way I didn’t know I could like. It might be a miracle that we’ve both been able to ignore it for this long.
“I feel it too,” I tell her, gazing at her as she watches her finger trace patterns along my palm.
With each stroke of her finger, I find it harder to resist dragging her across the desk to me. I take a deep breath to try and help keep my mind clear of fantasies I’ve dreamt up over the last week. I’m fighting a losing battle, though, my eyes dropping down to watch what she’s doing on my palm. Makes me wonder what else she can do with those fingers. I’d love to feel them running down my chest, my stomach, straight down to my cock where they could stroke me. And Christ, if she added that pretty little mouth of hers to it…
Fuck, I need to stop. I’m getting hard sitting here while she runs a finger over my palm. A finger! When did a single finger become sexual enough to get me going?
“Savanna?” Bryn’s unexpected voice sends both of us flying in our seats.
I whip around in my chair to look at her, knowing my neck is turning red as hell as her eyes dart back and forth between us. The smirk on her face tells me she knows she walked in on something.
“What’s up?” Savanna says, clearing her throat. She withdrew her hand when we both jumped. I know she has no intention of giving it back, so I pull my hand away, fighting the urge to reach down and adjust the semi I’m sporting.
I’m half turned in my seat so I can see both women when Bryn says, “There’s some guy asking for you at the bar.”
I glance at Savanna and watch the color drain from her face. It puts me on edge, and I turn back to Bryn, the conversation about Savanna running from someone flickering in the back of my mind.
“Who is it?” I ask sharply.
Bryn rolls her eyes, oblivious to Savanna’s anxiety. “He told me not to say, but his name might start with an L and end with an M.”
Liam. Christ. Sometimes I feel like punching him, and right now is one of those times. Not because he did anything wrong, but my protective instincts are flying high after seeing the petrified look on Savanna’s face.
“Tell him we’ll be there shortly,” I tell her. When she nods and leaves, I turn back to Savanna and reach out to take the hand that she’s picking at nervously. “You okay?”
The way her body relaxes almost immediately when I take her hand brings my own uneasiness down. Her lips still form a thin, tight line, but she nods. I’m not sure if she’s trying to convince me, or herself. “I’m good. I just don’t like surprise visits.”
I give her hand a squeeze, tucking that information, and her reaction to the situation, into my mind for later analysis. In the meantime, it sounds like the crew is arriving.