Too Late, the Alpha Lost Me After Two Weeks' Notice novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Not About the Money

In her kitchen Ebba says she has loved him for six years, he says he didn't know, and she lets him make her come against the counter.

"Come in before you drown," I said.

He came in and stood dripping on the rag rug in my kitchen, which was too small for him.

He set the yellow legal pad on my counter and squared it with the edge.

"Read it," he said.

I read it.

It was in his block capitals, with numbers down the margin.

Number one was nine thousand dollars more a year.

Number two was a second accountant, so the work would be split.

Number three said SATURDAYS OFF, and he had underlined it twice.

Number four said NOBODY CALLS YOU AFTER SIX, and under that, in smaller letters, EXCEPT ME IF IT'S A FIRE.

I looked up.

"Cass, this is a good offer."

"Then take it."

"I'm not going to."

"Why not?"

"Because you wrote it to keep an employee. I'm not leaving because of the pay."

"You said it was the hours."

"The hours are true. They aren't the reason."

He put both hands flat on the counter on either side of the pad, and the muscles in his forearms stood out.

"Then tell me the reason," he said. "I'll fix it. Tell me what I did."

The rain drummed on the roof.

I had planned this day for two years.

In every version I was calm and I was gone before I said it.

I was not calm.

"You didn't do anything," I said. "That's the whole thing. You've done nothing for six years."

"Ebba."

"I have loved you since the first month I worked here. I've loved you for six years, Cass, and you've never looked."

The kitchen went silent except for the rain.

He didn't move.

His face went blank.

Then it opened in a way I had never seen.

"I didn't know," he said.

"I know you didn't."

"I never." His voice cracked. "I'd have known. I'd have smelled it."

"You'd never have smelled it. You don't read your people. It's the one rule you never break."

"Then I'll break it now." His eyes came up. "Ebba. Let me."

"I'm telling you to," I said. "Read me. Go on."

He crossed the floor in one step.

He put his face against my neck, under my ear, and breathed in slowly through his nose.

I felt him go rigid against me from knees to jaw.

"Six years," he said into my skin.

"Yes."

"Every day. Every time I said thank you."

"Every time."

"Christ."

His hand came up and cupped the back of my head, and the claw clip fell out.

My hair came down over his wrist.

"It's all over you," he said. "How did I not?"

"You were polite."

He made a sound that was half a laugh and half something rawer, and I turned my face and kissed him.

It was clumsy for one second and then it wasn't.

His mouth was hot and tasted of coffee and rain, and he kissed completely and without hurry.

I got my hands in his wet shirt and pulled.

He walked me back three steps until my hips hit the counter edge.

The legal pad slid off and hit the floor.

Neither of us looked at it.

"Tell me what to do," he said against my mouth.

"Touch me."

"Where?"

"Everywhere you've been not touching me."

His hands moved down my back, slow and heavy, and they stopped on my waist and then shoved my turtleneck up.

He lifted me by the hips and set me on the counter.

The Formica was cold through my trousers, and his body between my knees was the opposite.

He kissed my throat and my collarbone and the swell of my breast above my bra.

I dug my fingers into the back of his skull.

"You're so soft," he said, like he was telling himself.

"Take it off."

He unhooked my bra with two crooked fingers and a good one, which took him no time at all.

Then he put his mouth on my nipple.

I arched into it so hard my head hit the cupboard.

He sucked, and his tongue flicked, and he made a low sound in his chest that I felt in my stomach.

"Cass."

"Mm."

"Your hand. Lower."

He unbuttoned my trousers without raising his head.

He pushed them down my hips along with my underwear, and I lifted so they would go.

Then I was bare from the waist on a kitchen counter in front of the Alpha.

He drew back to look.

It was only a second, but his eyes went over me from my face to my knees.

The muscle in his jaw jumped.

"Look at you," he said, hoarse.

"Don't look. Touch."

"You're soaked."

"I know. Do something about it."

He slid two fingers through me, slow, right up the middle, and I jerked.

He circled my clit once with the wet and I said his name out loud.

Loud enough to scare the neighbors if I had any.

"There," I said. "Right there. Don't move."

"I'm not moving."

"Good. That's good."

His whole body shuddered, and I didn't understand it yet.

He kept his thumb exactly where I'd told him, small tight circles.

Pushed two fingers inside me, curled, up toward my belly.

I came apart almost at once, because six years is a long time.

I locked my thighs around his hips and opened my mouth against his shoulder.

It went through me in long hard pulses while he held on and kept the rhythm.

"That's it," he whispered. "Ebba. That's it."

I was shaking when it let go.

He did not stop touching me, but he slowed, and eased his fingers out.

He rested his wet palm flat on my thigh.

I opened my eyes.

His face was wrecked.

He was hard against the inside of my knee, thick and straining through his jeans.

His breath was ragged, and he had not asked for a single thing.

"You didn't," I said.

"No."

"Do you want to?"

"God, yes." He closed his eyes. "But tonight is yours."

"Tonight is mine." I pulled his mouth down and kissed him slowly, tasting myself on him. "That was very good, Cass."

His whole body went tight at the words and then loosened.

"Say it again," he said, rough.

"It was very good. You did exactly what I told you."

He pressed his forehead to mine and exhaled, long and unsteady.

I held his face in my hands.

Then I said the other thing, because he deserved it before he walked back out into the rain.

"I'm still leaving."

"I know."

"The job is mine. I picked it. I'm not giving it up."

"I know. I'm not going to try to talk you out of it."

He lifted his head, and his eyes were steady and grey and fierce.

"I'm going to apply."

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