The Boss (37 page)

He had slowly approached me as I ranted, and
now his kiss cut me off mid-sentence, which I would have normally
been furious about. It helped at the time, though; I had felt
myself emotionally escalating with every word that came out of my
mouth. With his lips on mine, his hand in my hair, I felt
considerably calmer.

Neil lifted his head. "Nothing has to change,
Sophie. I love you. If this is finally happening, if we're finally
going to be together, I'll take it. Even if it means you don't
spend your holidays with me or introduce me to your family. If you
never even want to keep so much as a toothbrush here." He kissed my
forehead, and pulled me into his arms.

"I'm arguing with you about being in love
with you,” I muttered, feeling foolish. “I was trying not to bring
love into this. I didn't want to complicate things."

"Well, I'm sorry I'm so damn lovable." He
tilted my chin up to smile down at me, then he kissed me. His
undamaged hand cupped my jaw, his nose brushed against mine. It was
the softest, most romantic kiss I'd ever had in my entire life. And
that knot in my chest came completely untied. I was in love with
someone, and he loved me back, and nothing bad had happened. The
world hadn’t ended.

I was so relieved; I almost failed to notice
what he'd actually said a moment before. I pulled back, frowning
mildly up at him. "Um. Finally?"

He did the prey animal freeze thing
again.

"How long have you been in love with me?" A
thrill of trepidation curled through me. I ordered it away.

"Six years." Absolutely no hesitation on his
part. His arms still encircled my waist. "I fell in love with you
that night in L.A."

That
freaked me out, but way less that
it probably should have. "Are you kidding?"

"No. Not at all." He paused, his expression
pained. "I could tell you the exact moment, it's that fresh in my
memory."

I didn't say anything. I wasn't sure there
was anything to say.

So, he told me, anyway. Looking into my eyes,
his own full of raw emotion, he told me the exact moment he'd
fallen in love with me.

"We were in the bar at the airport. And you
shrieked in total outrage because I didn’t like William Faulkner’s
writing.”

My mouth fell open. “Neil… that was like ten
minutes after we met.”

"I know. And I’m aware that it sounds crazy.
Better than love at first sight, you must admit.” He said the rest
in a rush, as though he were trying to talk over the fact that he’d
just admitted to loving me for six years when he hadn’t even known
me for a full day at the time. “You didn’t hide a contrary opinion
to impress me. You were so young… It amazes me now that I know just
how young, and yet you were so self-confident. Here you were, a
journalist - well, you let me think you were a journalist - and you
thought I worked for a magazine, but you didn’t kiss my ass or try
to network.

“And you were utterly fearless. You were
flying to a foreign country for the first time in your life, to a
place where you didn't speak the language and you didn't know a
soul. And you didn't even have money for a hotel room. But you
weren’t worried about that. You were more interested in defending
Faulkner. I knew then that you were the perfect woman for me." He
smiled sadly. "And that I had met you too early in your life to do
either of us a bit of good. I wrestled with the idea of continuing
a relationship with you in Tokyo, but I was afraid. I thought I
would ruin you, try to mold you into what I thought you should be.
So I tried to let you go and move on. And I've been making a
ridiculous mess of my life ever since."

I didn't know what to say. Neil was really,
actually, not-fucking-around in love with me. Apparently, he had
been for some time. It was my turn to go all
lizard-in-the-desert.

"I shouldn't have told you," he said, his
expression falling.

"No." I shook my head and smiled. "No, I'm so
glad you did."

He kissed me again, his lips warm and soft,
and I melted against him. He loved me. Neil Elwood and I were in
love.

And I was still pretty pissed off at him.

"You shouldn't have said that, you know." I
pushed my hair back from my forehead as I leaned away. "About my
job. Being
just
an assistant editor. That was a cheap
shot."

"I know. I meant it to be. I'm not proud of
that." He looked at me with such earnest sincerity my heart ached.
"I really am sorry."

"I won't hold a grudge against you forever.
Just maybe like, forty more minutes." I gestured at the counter.
"You can make it up to me by finishing breakfast. And not bleeding
on it."

We ate at the island, because there was more
room for our gadgets. That sounds demented and sad, but Neil liked
to read the paper on his iPad, and I liked to make my morning
perusal of
The Huffington Post
on my phone, so it was nice
to share the comfortable silence while we ate. I got up to get more
coffee, and on impulse I stepped over and refilled Neil's mug, too.
When I sat back down, he casually took my hand and squeezed it,
without looking up.

Sometimes, the simplest things can take your
breath away.

I pulled my hand back and stood, stretching
with a loud groan. "I think I'm going to go take a shower. Do we
have anything on the agenda today?"

"Nothing at all. If you want to go out, I
wouldn't be adverse to a jog through the park, maybe one last time
before the snow really hits. But if you want to stay in, I'll serve
my sentence on the elliptical." Neil was pretty careful about
exercising, which was awesome, because it meant he didn't encourage
me to slack off on the weekends, either. I'd gone running with him
a couple of times, and then we'd come back to the apartment all
sweaty and exhausted to tumble straight into shower sex. But this
morning, I just wasn't feeling the urge to hit the crisp winter
air.

"If you don't mind, I'd rather not. I'm super
tired. And my knees are killing me. It’s like some perverted
billionaire fucked me on a hard marble floor last night or
something." I stood beside him and leaned my head on his shoulder
as he flipped a page on the screen of his iPad.

"If it’s any consolation, I’m sure his knees
suffered, too.” He pulled my hand to his lips and gave it a quick
smooch. "Go on, get clean."

So, my bathtub at home is great, but spoiled
as I was when it came to getting wet and soapy, I had to admit that
Neil's master bath was pretty impressive. It was accessible only
from his drool-worthy closet, making it this private little oasis
cut off from the rest of the house. In addition to dark wood
cabinetry and relaxing golden light from glass fixtures, there were
more of those marvelous floor-level forced air ducts warming the
natural stone tile. The toilet was in its own little room, beside
the his-and-hers vessel sinks of brown stone. The shelves on one
side of the counter were bare, waiting for the day I would be
comfortable leaving something there.

I opened a cupboard and pulled out a few
fluffy white towels. Another really great thing about Neil was that
at his house, I could use as many towels as I wanted, and I didn’t
pay for it on laundry day. Staying with him was a bit like staying
at a hotel in that respect. I giggled to myself as I reached
through the shower door to turn on the taps. The shower was a
spacious cube with corners of matching natural stone and three
glass sides. There was an amazing square shower head in the ceiling
that was like standing in the rain, as well as a gleaming metal
detachable head and the standard wall-mounted spray. There was a
garden tub in the bathroom, too, but with a shower ripped from my
wildest plumbing fantasies, I'd never bothered to try out the
alternative.

As I stood under the downpour from the
ceiling, washing the shampoo from my hair, my mind spun. We'd said
it. We'd admitted that we loved each other. Now that it was in the
open, it made things... different.

At dinner, Rudy had said Neil couldn't do
anything halfway. Did that mean we were into serious relationship
territory? Was the clock ticking on the "leaving a toothbrush"
front?

Worse, would things get boring between us? It
seemed like a petty thing to worry about. Neil loved me. Shouldn’t
I just be happy with that? But if we were "in love," didn't we have
to leave all the fun, kinky stuff behind?

In the past, when relationships had gotten
stale or we’d argued over something, I’d been okay with cutting the
guys loose, because I didn’t want to do the work. Neil was
different. Without meaning to, I'd gotten exactly what I'd been
afraid of for most of my short adult life: A real, grown-up
relationship that was going to require actual investment.

"Sophie?"

I opened my eyes at the sound of Neil's
voice. He had a towel wrapped around his waist, and nothing else
on.

My heart did a crazy little flip-flop at the
sight of him. Glass shower walls didn't hide much, even if they
were a bit steamy, and I felt oddly exposed before him. He pushed
open the shower door and shut it behind him with a soft click,
deftly avoiding the falling water in the center of the small
space.

"I hope you don't mind if I join you?"

"Not at all," I breathed, pressing my thighs
together. The last time we'd been in here, he'd fucked me hard from
behind while my tits pressed against the cold glass wall. I was not
going to argue with him if that's what he had in store for me
today.

He motioned me away from the center shower
and turned off the water. "Come over here, would you?"

With his back to me, I noticed the silver
gleam of a pair of handcuffs tucked into the top of the towel at
his waist, and a thrill shot through me. "You're not in here to get
clean, are you?"

He shook his head slowly, and reached for the
cuffs. He turned to face me, and held them out. Obediently, I
presented my wrists. Goose bumps popped up all over my wet skin,
and the chill only heightened my anticipation. He locked one cuff
around my left wrist, not too tight, then closed the second clasp
around the other one. He positioned me in front of the gleaming
steel fixtures and pushed my arms over my head, ducking beneath
them so our bodies were pressed together, my hands helplessly bound
behind his neck.

"I would appreciate it if you didn’t pull,”
he warned me. “I don’t want my neck wrenched or your wrists
bruised. So, do me a favor and try to keep from falling.”

"This sounds a bit intense," I teased. Inside
though, my libido was rioting.

"It's going to be, I assure you." He reached
for the detachable faucet and deftly unscrewed the head from the
hose, tossing it aside to clatter on the tile.

Oh, good lord.

Look, if there is one thing any reasonably
horny woman knows, it's the value of good water pressure and
accessible plumbing. Apparently, at least one unreasonably horny
man knew it, too, and he had just handcuffed me to himself in the
shower. He grinned at me as he reached over my shoulder to turn the
tap on. When he tested the water from the hose on the inside of his
arm, I couldn't help but notice how the stream dented his flesh. My
thighs trembled.

He trailed the hose down the front of my
body, splashing the warm water over both of us. Then he smiled
maliciously and said, "And here we go."

I rose up on the balls of my feet, my breath
whooshing from my lungs as the spray hit my clit directly. He
pressed the opening of the hose lightly against me, intensifying
the pressure. I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but I think it
took me all of eight seconds to groan with an orgasm that set my
skin tingling.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" he asked,
wrapping his arm around my waist to hold me still as the water
cascaded down my legs. "I missed that. You'll have to do it
again."

"Oh, fuck!" I cursed, trying to twist away
from the relentless sensation of the water on my post-orgasmic,
over-sensitive clitoris. This was worse than the hair tie, because
there was no change in intensity, no let-up. The muscles in my
thighs were jumping and I called him every name in the book, hurled
every swear word I knew at him as I sobbed and broke over the edge
again.

The only word I didn't say was "red." I had a
sick desire to see just how far I could go, how much I could
endure, and when I realized that, it was enough to bring me over a
third time. By the fourth I was screaming, writhing against his
body as he held me captive over my instrument of torture. I tried
to close my legs, and he forced his knee between my thighs. I could
feel his hard cock against me through the wet towel. I wanted to
hold on to him, wanted to collapse, but all I could do was stand
there on the balls of my feet, my calves cramping as I came again
and again, until they felt more like explosions of pain than
pleasure, and with one final howl of desperation from my hoarse
throat I shouted, "Red!"

He turned the water off with one hand and
released the safety latch on one of the cuffs with the other. He
was quick enough to catch me as I fell into his arms, as boneless
and exhausted as if I had gone running after all. If the entire
experience had taken a full ten minutes I would have been very
surprised, but it had felt like hours.

He held me at his side and helped me stagger
from the shower, wrapping me in the towel I'd gotten for myself and
leaving his sodden one behind. He led me through the closet, into
the bedroom, and very thoroughly dried me. Then he pulled back the
still-mussed bedding and ordered, "Get in."

"Are you going to fuck me?" I asked,
wriggling under the covers.

To my surprise, he pulled the duvet over me,
leaned down, kissed me briefly, and said, "No. I told you, I have
to serve my time on the elliptical."

"Oh." I felt a little silly, being
disappointed by that. After all, I'd just practically passed out
from orgasms in the shower. I might not have survived
intercourse.