Brothers of Paradise Series

“That was amazing.”

He smiles against my lips. “Amazing? That’s mild praise. I know you know a lot of good words. Try another.”

I wrap my legs around him, locking him in place. “Extraordinary. Phenomenal. Marvelous. How effusive do you want me to be?”

“That’ll do,” he says, pressing a kiss to my neck. I want to stay here forever, in this bed, this town, where we’re just us. Just Henry and Faye, exploring this thing between us. No expectations, no titles. No office to return to.

I told Henry I wouldn’t regret this, and I meant it. What I have with him… it’s not something I’m willing to give up easily.

We’re going to solve the inconvenient puzzle of being assistant and boss. I’ll quit or transfer somehow. This thing between us is stronger than that-Henry is stronger than that, and so am I.

But in the back of my mind, a niggling doubt creeps in, impossible to stop. I have more on the line than he does, and at the moment, I’m not his girlfriend, and I’m not an architect. I’m just a woman who’s slept with her boss.

Henry

Faye and I wake up late the next morning, and this time, she doesn’t get up before me. Her body is warm against mine, her hair draped like black silk across the pillow.

Sleepy eyes meet mine. “Hey,” she whispers.

“Hey.” I curl my hand around her waist.

A smile is playing on her lips, and I smile back, until both of us are grinning for no apparent reason.

“Wow,” she says.

“Wow, indeed.”

She buries her face against my chest, her lips pressed to my skin. “I can’t believe we did that.”

I pull her closer, fitting her against my body. Her skin is like satin. “No regrets?”

“No, none. Just surprise.”

“And satisfaction, I hope.”

Her smile turns crooked. “Yes, there’s that.”

I tip her head back and run a finger over her full lips. Just woken up, with her hair messy and her eyes dazed, she’s almost too beautiful to handle.

“I’m going to tell you something,” I say.

“What is it?”

“It’s serious. Are you ready?”

Her eyes narrow. “Henry…”

“You already know I think you’re stunning, but it’s worse than that. You’re quite literally the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

She laughs. “Asshole! You made me think it was actually serious.”

I smile at her laughter and bend to break it off with a kiss. Heat travels through me at the soft touch. “You’ve told me how your looks mean people don’t take you seriously, though,” I say. “I’ve resisted commenting on them.”

Her smile deepens, her eyes glittering. “You take me seriously, so you’re allowed to compliment me.”

“I might abuse that privilege.”

She chuckles. “Flatterer.”

I flip over on my back and pull her atop me, her head resting on my chest. It makes it easy to reach out and run a hand over her hair and the soft skin of her neck. “Will you tell me about it?”

Faye takes a deep breath and nods, settling in. When she finally speaks, I listen, as she tells me all about the little insulting compliments given at Elliot Ferris’s office. About the colleague at her internship who refused to accept that she didn’t want to go out with him. About an architecture professor who regularly made pointed jokes in class after she spoke, saying things like apparently everyone can become an architect these days, even the pretty faces. When investors took a coworker’s portion of the pitch more seriously than hers.

Practically every anecdote makes me angry, and Faye can tell, because she laughingly runs a finger over the furrow in my brow. “This isn’t supposed to bring us down.”

“It’s not bringing me down. It’s infuriating.”

“Yes, well, it’s in the past.” She rises up on her elbows, cocking her head. “How about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah. You’re very hot.”

I blink in surprise. “Hot?”

She bursts into laughter, and it rains down around me. “Your expression is priceless. Yes, you’re hot. Handsome. You look good, you know.”

“I get by,” I say.

“If you merely get by, I’d hate to imagine how other men feel.”

I sit up in bed, pulling her up with me. “All right, time to change the subject.”

“Wow, you really can’t take a compliment,” she says, the smile on her face wide. “We’re going to have to work on that.”NôvelDrama.Org © content.

“Mhm. Shower first, though.” The en suite bathroom is large, the shower doubly so, and it’s an easy fit for the both of us. It doesn’t take long until showering is the last thing on my mind-not when Faye’s hands, slippery with soap, slide over my skin. She wraps them around me, already painfully hard, and I have to brace myself against the shower wall.

“Whoops,” she says, her beautiful eyes glittering with desire.

“Whoops?” I run my hands down the silken skin of her arms, down her back, cupping her breasts. “You know where this is going to end.”

Her laughter is cut short by my kiss. It’s one of the longest, least efficient showers of my life.

It’s also one of the best.

It’s midday when I finally crack open my laptop in the living room. Work has been the last thing on my mind this weekend, but for once, there’s no stress involved with that thought. Faye heads to the sofa next to me, but I grab her instead, pulling her into my lap. She’s a delicious weight against me.

“Henry!”