Page 23 of Charmed by the Obsessive Boss

The throw drops to the floor. I get my hands in his shirt and haul, buttons give, and the stairs, God, the stairs, we take them one at a time with our mouths together, laughing against each other's lips when I trip and he catches me by the hips and says, with real reverence, "Careful. I'd like you in one piece."

My bedroom's small and dim, with a yellow quilt and a basket of laundry I kick under the bed. I reach for the lamp and then my hand hesitates on the switch, and I hear myself say, too quickly, "I should turn this off."

"Leave it. Please." He's standing in the doorway with his shirt open and his chest rising and falling, and his eyes are the color of river water at night. "I've been imagining your skin in lamplight since Friday morning."

My face goes hot. I leave the lamp on and it throws a low gold wash over the room, over the quilt, over the two of us.

He undresses me slowly. It's the most agonizing, tender thing anyone has ever done. He takes the flannel first, one button at a time, with his eyes on my face and not my chest, as if he wants me to know where he's looking.

The cardigan slides off. The bra, and I cross my arms by instinct, an old reflex, a lifetime of apologizing, and he kneels in front of me with his hands at my waist and looks up. "Rosey. Look at me."

I look.

"Don't hide from me. I'll never ask you to." His thumbs move over the soft curve of my belly, where the silver lines run like rivers on a map. "Is this where she was?"

"Yes."

"God." He puts his mouth there, right on the stretch marks, the place I've spent nine years pretending wasn't mine. It's not a kiss of pity or even tenderness exactly. It's the kiss of someone who's been told a secret and is honored to keep it. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

I put both hands over my mouth and begin, helplessly, to cry.

"Oh—" He's on his feet at once. "Rosey, did I—"

"No. No." I'm laughing too, wet and ridiculous. "Don't you dare stop."

He doesn't. He backs me to the bed and lowers me onto the quilt, and I pull him down with me. The weight of him is a perfect, welcome pressure. His mouth moves down my throat and over my collarbone, where he stops and with great concentration begins to count my freckles.

"Ninety-one," he murmurs. "Ninety-two."

"You're not counting my—"

"I've been counting since Friday. I thought you'd noticed." He kisses the next one. "Ninety-three."

I'm shaking with laughter and want, and he lets me laugh, and when I'm done he kisses lower. His hands are everywhere, reverent and hungry and not at all hurried, mapping the curve of my breasts, the dip of my waist, the generous flare of my hips under his palms, and he says "Mine" into my skin so low I almost miss it.

"I'm mine," I say, breathless.

He lifts his head. His hair's a mess and he's grinning, wide and crooked and undone. "Good," he says. "Be yours. Let me be nearby."

And then his mouth is between my thighs.

I've never been wanted like this. I don't know where to put my hands. He's slow and patient and utterly absorbed, as if I'm the only problem in the world he's ever wanted to solve, and when I try to say his name it breaks apart.

He sets my hips on his palms and holds them still, holds me still, the full soft weight of me in his hands as if I weigh nothing and mean everything. I come apart with my fingers knotted in the quilt, in a long shuddering wave that leaves me gasping at the ceiling.

"There she is," he whispers against my thigh.

I haul him up by the shoulders. I lean over the edge of the bed for my cardigan and the paper bag in its pocket, and I tear it open like a woman with a deadline, and he laughs, and then he stops laughing because I've got my hand on him and he's lost the ability to speak. I roll him onto his back. It's not a decision so much as an instinct, and he goes, eyes huge, hands coming up to my hips.

"Rosey—"

"Shh. Let me see you."

I take my time. I'm over him with the lamp behind me and my hair coming down, and he's looking up at me as if I'm something he's been walking toward all his life. I sink slowly and we both make a sound I'll hear for the rest of my days.

He's wide and warm and perfect, and his hands tighten on my hips, not to guide but to hold on. His eyes don't leave my face.

"Look at you," he says, thick. "God, look at you."