Page 72 of Direct Action

“It’s not a handout, it’s vacation time you earned.”

“I don’t get vacation time,” she rightly told me.

“You do now. And before you argue, all employees will now get three days’ paid vacation after working at the Plank for six months, and a week after a year.”

She opened her mouth, closed it, then glared at me. I took her silence as an opportunity to push out the chair, move around the coffee table, and scoop her off the couch.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking you to bed.”

“Ryan—”

I stopped moving, tightened my arm under her legs, and shifted so she was fitted against my chest.

“No more arguing. We’re calling a truce.”

“A truce? What kind of truce?”

“The kind where I try my best to stop being a bossy dick and you try to understand why I’m struggling with this situation. The kind where you understand that not every gesture is a handout, and I try to remember how I’d feel if someone was trying to help me when my pride was on the line. The kind where we both stop pretending we haven’t been waiting a really long time for this to happen, and enjoy it instead of both of us building walls to protect ourselves.”

“In other words, behave like adults,” she muttered miserably.

Her eyes dropped to my lips before they slowly journeyed back to mine.

“I’ll accept the terms of your truce if you promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You try really, really hard to remember how you’d feel if someone was trying to offer you help you didn’t want. I get not all help is a handout. But it’s important to me that I can take care of myself.”

“I was serious about the vacation pay. We have a good, loyal, hardworking team—we should be offering benefits.”

She looked skeptical for a moment, but the expression quickly ebbed.

“Okay,” she agreed.

“One more thing.”

“You’re already pushing the bounds of our treaty,” she grumbled but did it through a smile.

“We’re not hiding.”

“Ryan—”

“Baby, did you miss the part about both of us waiting a really long fucking time for this to happen? I don’t know why you never made your move, but I know why I didn’t. And now I’m telling you, I would not be standing in your apartment holding you, having this conversation if I wasn’t serious about exploring what we have. And straight up, you’ve starred in a lot of fantasies over the last year. I thought about fucking you in every position imaginable. But yesterday and last night wouldn’t have happened either if I didn’t know where I wanted this to go. I do not want a secret fuck buddy or friends with benefits or a casual relationship that includes us seeing other people. This is me and you out in the open.”

“Okay, you have a deal.”

I was not a man who romanticized moments. I didn’t have crazy, fanciful ideas about love. But right then, holding Chloe, her staring up at me with her eyes glossy, making the hazel sparkle, her lips parted, a sweet soft expression on her pretty face, I knew this was it.

I’d never kiss another woman.

I’d never take another woman to my bed.

I’d never love another woman.

Only Chloe.