My Secret Lover Is Actually My Boss novel · Chapter 11 of 32

Chapter 11: Thursday

He didn't move out of the doorway.

He didn't reach for me either.

"You said not while I could sign your severance," he said.

"You can't anymore. You took yourself off my studio this morning. In front of everyone."

"That's not why I did it."

"I know. That's why I'm here."

He looked at me for a long moment.

At my hair, which I'd blown out. At the white blouse, the same one, off one shoulder.

His eyes stayed there.

"That's the blouse," he said.

"That's the blouse."

"Della."

"Say my whole name."

He almost smiled. "Della Ruddick."

"Now yours."

"Leon Winship."

"Hi, Leon," I said. "I'm Della. I write greeting cards. I work for you, sort of, and I'm not going to anymore if you sell my company, and my dad thinks you can't grill."

"I can't grill."

"I know."

"I own fifty-one percent of a card company I came here to sell," he said quietly. "I'm thirty-four. I live in this hotel. I've been in love with you since about the second Thursday, and I've never once said it, because you made a rule about it."

I couldn't breathe.

"There wasn't a rule about that," I said.

"It felt like there was."

"There isn't now."

I stepped over the threshold.

He shut the door behind me and didn't touch me until I put my hand flat on his chest.

"Yes," I said. "Tonight. All of it. As us."

"As us," he said.

His hand covered mine on his chest.

His pulse was a hard steady beat under my palm.

I could feel it through the shirt.

"Della Ruddick," he said, like he was testing how it fit in his mouth.

"Say what you want from me."

The words came out before I knew I was going to say them.

"I want to undress you. I want to see all of you and know your name while I'm doing it."

His jaw tightened.

"Then do it."

I didn't rush.

I unbuttoned his shirt one button at a time, slowly, and I watched his face while I did it.

His eyes didn't move from mine.

I pushed the shirt off his shoulders and let it fall.

His chest rose and fell and I put both hands flat on it.

Skin.

Warm.

Mine.

"You've seen me like this before," he said quietly.

"I've seen Win like this. I've never seen Leon Winship half naked in a hotel room at nine at night."

"Is it different?"

"Say your whole name again."

He caught my wrists and held them against his chest.

"Leon Winship."

I leaned in and kissed the center of his chest, right over the sternum.

He made a low sound that I felt through my lips.

"Again," I said.

"You like hearing it."

"I like knowing whose skin this is."

"Leon Winship," he said, and his voice had gone rough.

I pulled my hands free and went for his belt.

I worked the buckle open and I didn't hurry.

I wanted him standing there while I took him apart, one piece at a time.

I got his trousers open and pushed them down and he stepped out of them.

He was hard already.

I'd known he would be.

I looked at his cock and then back up at his face.

"Tell me what you thought about," I said. "At two in the morning. In the studio. When I said not while you can sign my severance."

He inhaled through his nose.

"I thought about you against that glass. The first time. The way your skirt was up and your hand was in my hair and you said my name like it was a secret."

"That's what you thought about?"

"That's what I thought about while I took my hands off you. One at a time. Because you asked me to."

I slid my hand down his stomach and wrapped it around his cock.

He let out a breath through his teeth.

"What do you want tonight, Della?"

"Everything. But I'm running it first."

He nodded once.

"Then run it."

I stroked him slowly, and I watched his face.

A muscle jumped in his jaw.

"Say my name," I said. "My whole name."

"Della Ruddick."

"Now say the other thing. The thing you said at the door."

"I've been in love with you since about the second Thursday."

My hand stopped.

I looked up at him and I didn't hide anything.

"The second Thursday," I repeated.

"I know. It's been killing me not to say it."

"Then say it while I'm touching you."

"I love you," he said, and his voice cracked on the last word.

I squeezed.

He made a sound like the air had been punched out of him.

"Fuck, Della."

"That's the idea."

I went to my knees in front of him.

He was breathing hard, his hands at his sides, and he didn't touch me.

He was giving it to me.

All of it.

I looked up at him from the floor and I held his cock in my hand.

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