“It is, and entirely not your fault. But I want to know why you left last night?”
I look down at the floor, “I thought you would be angry, and I thought that the board was going to tell you to fire me. I just…I couldn’t face it.”
“I’m not angry at you, obviously,” he says, smiling. “And even if the board did tell me to fire you, I wouldn’t. It’s my company. I can do what I like. And all I wanted to do last night was to kill the piece of shit who thought he could make you feel less than what you are.”
“You’d do that for me?” I ask, still sniffling.
“I’d do anything for the people I love.”
We both freeze, the admission shocking and unexpected. Then warmth fills me and I’m smiling and happy crying. “Me too.”
He kisses me and I can’t stop laughing even though he’s kissing me and Noodle is trying to sit between us, tail wagging and wanting to know why we’re so happy.
“Please come home with me,” he says. “I missed you last night and I wasn’t nearly finished—”
“Before you finish that sentence,” I say, putting a finger to his lips. “Alice, you can come out now.”
She emerges from her bedroom with a sheepish look on her face. “Sorry, I heard all the noise. It’s nice to meet you,” she waves. “Now get the hell out of here and go have fun. I don’t have any doubts that I’m going to see you again, Chance.” She gives him a wink even as he’s pulling me up off the couch and toward the door.
“It’s nice to meet you too,” he says with a giant grin on his face. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to have a lot of sex.”
Alice snorts, “Better at your place than on my couch.”
“Love you!” I shout as the door closes behind us. “Now,” I say, turning to Chance, “you can finish your sentence.”
Epilogue
One Month Later
“You’re never really going to know, but when the right time comes to say it, you’ll feel it in your bones. Don’t ignore that feeling—or you’re going to regret it later.”
—When to Say ‘I Love You,’ Heartmakers.com
I open the door and Chance comes through with the last of my boxes, setting them down inside the door with a small grunt of effort. Now my new apartment is a maze of boxes and sunlight, and it’s going to take forever to get everything unpacked and in place. “I still think,” Chance says, wiping sweat from his forehead with his shirt and revealing those amazing abs that I’m thinking about licking now, “that it would be easier if you just moved in with me.”
“And my reason for saying no is still the same,” I say. “I’ve never lived on my own before. I want the chance to have my own space, even if you are going to be here most nights.”
He grins. “Fair enough. By the way, I got a heads up from the lawyers just now. Strict house arrest and a ban on accessing the internet for the duration of that house arrest, which is five years. He’s going to be pretty bored.”
I raise my hand and he high fives me. “Thank you, you’re my hero.” Chance has been so great through this whole ordeal, making sure that I had to see the hacker, who’s name is David, as few times as possible while still making sure that he got the absolutely harshest punishment for the crime.
“Does that make you a damsel in distress?” he asks, pulling me closer so that I’m pressed against his body and can feel his growing erection.
“It makes me a damsel who’s horny,” I say, rocking my hips into him. “Even though there’s no furniture to fuck on.”
Chance sweeps me off my feet and then we’re on the floor together. I wore a skirt today, because it’s hot as fuck and I needed something light. He has my skirt up around my hips and his pants undone in record time. “I think I’m not the only one who’s horny,” I say, laughing.
“You’re right about that,” Chance says. I hear the wrapper of a condom, and his erection is resting against my ass. He guides it into me with certainty, and I gasp, because this position allows him a different kind of deep thrust, and I know it’s going to make me come apart.