I’ve been embarrassed at the office before. Everyone has. Usually it’s a “reply to all” mistake or some inappropriate use of office supplies.

But my boss seeing me half naked? That was a first.

Rob pivoted on one heel and walked out again, but the damage was done. Fuck my life.

I yanked my skirt down so quickly I elbowed Ash in the gut.

“Oof! Uh, should I go lock it now?” he asked.

The withering look I gave him was somewhat negated by my flaming face. “That kind of killed the mood for me. And my career.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“Am I?”

Ash grinned at me, his hands wrapping around my waist again. “Didn’t you say something about Dara and Pete sneaking in here?”

Oh yuck. “Yeah, we’re supposed to be better than that.”

“Oh, I’m sure we’re much, much better. Wait, where are you going?”

I wriggled out of his grasp and straightened my clothes. Then I stalked back to my desk, ready to be a model employee for the rest of the day. The week. The month.

It wasn’t until I lay in bed alone that night that I felt guilty over leaving Ash there in that state. Wow, I was a cock tease, after all.

---

By the time another week passed with no gossip reaching my ears, I was satisfied that what had happened in the storage room, stayed in the storage room.

I was almost sorry.

I missed salacious stories.

The news department was serious journalism—politics with purpose, investigations into shifty finances, and legal problems. It was important work that was often undervalued by society at large, as well as many of the higher-ups in the government. It was a privilege to be part of the news machine.

And I was bored out of my mind.

Here I finally had achieved one of my professional goals, and I found it exhausting, depressing, and demoralizing. The more I read and wrote, the more I felt as though it didn’t matter. Sure, I knew that every story made a difference on some level, but it sure didn’t feel like it from my little cubicle.

At least with Miss Behave, I felt like I was helping real people. Well, mostly real people. Once I’d discovered that Cubicle Crush was Pete—although Dara swore it wasn’t him—I’d begun to second-guess everything.

Which questions were fake? Whose emails were sincere?

Did it really matter?

I’d always approached the column as though everyone deserved a legitimate reply. Maybe that was idealistic, but I had to live with myself. What if I blew off an email coming from a depressed person and they harmed themselves? I couldn’t take that chance.

So, I’d always assumed the best of people, and given them my best in response.

But in the news department, assuming the best of people was getting me nowhere. In fact, it was making me think that society was just corrupt, uncaring, and dishonest.

One evening, after staying late to write a story on city taxes, I reached a breaking point. It was like I could feel my soul bleeding out through my fingertips with every word I typed. I felt drained and discouraged. I needed advice.

So I went to Ash.

“Hey.” His smile was the sincerest thing I’d experienced all day, when he opened the door to his apartment. “How was your day?”

Before I could burst into tears like a hormonal teenager, I just walked into his strong, warm arms and shuddered.

“That good, huh?” His hands smoothed up and down my back.

He smelled so good, felt so perfect. “Can I just stay like this?”

He chuckled as he pressed a kiss to my hair. “Okay. For how long?”

“Forever?”

“I’m meeting Mike at the gym tomorrow night.”

“Bah. You suck.”

Ash pushed me back a little to look in my eyes, his forehead creasing. “What’s going on?”

“I need some advice. Some honest, ‘the truth hurts’ kind of advice. I know you’re good at that.”

“I am. Come,” he said. “Lie down on the couch and tell me all your problems.”

It was a joke, but I flopped down on the sofa, my head propped up against the armrest. “I think I hate doing news.”

He froze halfway through lowering himself, then sat and put my feet in his lap. “You hate doing news.” His thumbs pressed into my soles.

“Oh god, that feels good.”

Maybe it was the foot massage. Maybe it was the comfy couch. Maybe it was just Ash himself. Regardless, I felt my tension start to drain away. My eyes drifted closed.

“I thought that was what you always wanted,” he said.

A lump formed in my throat. Guilt? Remorse? Shame? “Have you ever wanted something so badly, for so long, and then when you got it… it wasn’t what you thought it would be?”

His grip tightened on my feet. “Yeah.”

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “Maybe I just loved the idea of being a ‘real’ reporter or something.”

“What’s a ‘real’ reporter?” Amusement filled his voice.

I shrugged, my shoulders pressing into the couch. “I don’t know. A press badge. Talking fast. Meeting in dark garages. A well-used passport. A smug sense of superiority.” My eyes opened, taking in his dark head bent over my feet. “Huh. Maybe you’re more real than I am.”

“I think you’re confusing real life with movies.”

That was entirely possible. As a kid, I’d loved movies about the press, old and new. His Girl Friday, Broadcast News, All the President’s Men… I’d watched them all.

I’d watched The West Wing with my parents when I was too young to understand the nuances of the writing. But it made me feel so alive, like I was experiencing some kind of intellectual or spiritual osmosis. I always thought that it was politics and human drama that would fulfill me in life.

Turned out, it was just the human drama. I blamed Aaron Sorkin.

“What if,” Ash asked me throatily, “you had it all backwards? If what you thought you wanted, you really didn’t. And maybe a future you never imagined…”

“Was suddenly all you could think about?”

The foot massage ceased. His gaze was on me, uncomfortably direct and penetrating. Thoughtful. “Would that be so wrong?”

“No,” I said slowly, frowning. “I guess it would just mean that I was wrong all along.” I hated being wrong. Surely Ash did, too.

But life was too short to chase the wrong dream, wasn’t it?

Silence filled the space between us.

“What makes you happy, Lizzie?” he finally asked in a low voice.

It was a good question, a valid question. One that I’d probably asked dozens of people who’d written in to my column. And, I was ashamed to realize, one that I hadn’t asked of myself in a long time.

I’d been going through the motions, being Miss Behave without questioning who I really was or what I really wanted. When he’d asked it, though, the first thing I thought of was my blog, not my column.

He cocked his head. “Does news make you happy?”

“No.” The answer was so automatic I hadn’t even realized I’d spoken until it was out there. I wanted to clap my hand over my mouth after it escaped.

Wow, I was an ungrateful brat! There were hundreds of people who would kill for the opportunity I had right now, and instead I was whining about it.

I cringed as I admitted, “Honestly, I think if I did this all the time, I’d start hating humanity.”

“Not good.” He looked down at my legs. “What about Miss Behave? Did writing it make you happy?”

I considered it as his hands swept up my shins, making me shiver. “You know, I never thought that it did. I was always waiting for something else to happen. But now I’m realizing that yeah, I liked it.” I smiled. “Still like it.” But not as much as my blog, I was beginning to realize.

He looked pleased. “So, what else makes you happy?”

“Writing my blog. Sleeping in. A good book. You—” Oh. I paused, then stuttered, “Y-youTube videos of baby animals.”

The corners of his eyes creased in all sorts of sexy ways as he watched me. “You-YouTube videos,” he repeated.

My face heated.

He swiveled where he sat, then spread my ankles apart and crawled up on the couch between them. One of my legs bent and my foot fell to the floor.

Still, his gaze was on me. Ash would definitely be a better reporter than I was. He could probably get someone to confess to embezzlement or murder simply with that basilisk stare.

He hummed thoughtfully. “You want me to be honest with you, right?”

As I nodded he nudged closer to me, his knees pressing into my inner thighs. Bending over me, he stretched one arm out on the back of the couch and braced his other hand on the armrest by my head.

I was caged in by him.

“I think,” he said in a husky voice that made my stomach quiver, “that you said ‘you’ make you happy. You meant to say ‘you’.”

“You?” I repeated. I blinked as his face drew closer to mine. “I make me happy?”

“No.” The side of his mouth curved up in the crooked grin I’d grown to—oh.

“Y-you make me happy?”

He tilted his head. “Is that a question?”

No. No, it really wasn’t.

Being with Ash made me happy—so happy that my heart felt like it was expanding in my chest just from the warmth of his body against mine.

He made me feel like I could be myself—not some goody two-shoes Miss Behave, and not some reckless rebel trying to shed the image. Just somebody… somewhere… in between.

With him I could be naughty or I could be prim. I could laugh or rant or say nothing at all, with comfort and confidence. It was a heady feeling, knowing that I didn’t have to put on any kind of act.

He wanted me to just… Be. Me.

And I loved him for it. Oh my god, I loved him.

“Yeah, you make me happy,” I told him, grinning like an idiot.

“Just so we’re clear on this…” He knelt over me, his hands moving over my body, a similarly gleeful expression on his face. “You mean like being tickled? Or going to Disneyland, or free chocolate cake? Which kind of happy?”

Suddenly my mind went to a place where he was tickling me at Disneyland while we ate free chocolate cake. It was a beautiful, heavenly place. I couldn’t stop smiling. It was starting to hurt my facial muscles.

I nodded. “I mean all those things, plus being naked.”

“Naked in Disneyland?” he gasped in mock horror, but he didn’t bother hiding his grin.

Reaching up, I curled my fingers in his shirt and pulled him down to me.

Ash lay flush on top of me, cradled between my legs and his chin propped up on my chest. The backs of his hands swept up my neck and over my cheeks.

“What happened to Miss Behave?” he asked.

“She grew up into Miss Believe.”

He stretched up to kiss me. I met him halfway.

We explored each other slowly, taking our time to open up to each other. I felt like he was memorizing me—every inch of my skin, every line and curve was being filed away in his mind. It should have unnerved me, being examined so meticulously. Instead, it made me feel free and real.

Breathless from kissing, he shifted off me and stood up beside the couch. With one hand, he pulled me up and led me to his bedroom.

I suddenly became nervous. This wasn’t our first time, but there was a naked honesty between us that made me feel vulnerable. This man could hurt me. I had to trust him. I had to trust how he made me feel, and embrace it with all my body and soul.

He moved his open laptop off the foot of his bed to the top of a dresser, pressing a few buttons to either save or put it to sleep. Then he stood before me at the foot of his bed, his hand on the back of his neck.

“You make me naked, too,” he rushed out.

I laughed, wondering if he meant to say “happy”. “Really?” I asked shyly.

“Really, really… naked.” His grin was wolfish, playful, and hungry.

And then he demonstrated, pulling off my clothes as though peeling away all my inhibitions and doubts. I helped him with his, eager to match his every move and get rid of any barriers between us.

When we fell onto the bed, time began speeding up. Hands and mouths, reaching and searching, over and under.

I pressed him down, using both hands to grip the silky steel of his cock, and then I lowered my mouth over it. His groan sent a thrill through me, and the more I tasted, the more I wanted.

Licking and sucking, twisting and squeezing, I gave it my all. I wanted nothing more than to hear him moan like that again, and know that it was because of me. All I could taste and smell was him—his skin, his arousal, his breath as he panted. His hands wound in my hair, the gentle tug of his fingers guiding my movements. God, my own arousal was probably dripping on the bed, the pulsing in my core speeding up.

“No,” he growled. When he pushed me away, I was hurt until I saw the raw hunger in his eyes. I’d driven him to the brink, and we both knew it. “Not yet.”

My cheeks were hot as he tested my readiness. I should have been embarrassed by how wet I was for him, but he made me feel proud of it instead.

With determination, he dove between my legs, bringing me to the edge with his tongue and his fingers until my mouth was dry from panting.

Enough. More. Too much.

“Please, I need you inside me.”

With one sinuous movement, he slid up over my body.

Ash laced his fingers through mine and raised our joined hands above my head. Lowering his mouth to my breasts, he teased and sucked and stroked each nipple until they were aching and swollen like ripe raspberries at the end of August.

There was a moment, just a brief one, when I cradled him between my thighs and the head of his cock nudged against my entrance. My eyes fluttered closed, a feeble defense against the overwhelming sensations crowding my body.

“Look at me,” he demanded.

I opened my eyes. The expression on his face was fierce but tender, his eyes dark with need. A gasp escaped me as he began to slide into me, an inch at a time.

“Oh god.”

“We’re naked,” he said, his gaze still locked on mine.

I nodded, frowning a little. Duh.

“No, Lizzie,” he urged, his body trembling as he entered me in what seemed like slow motion. “Nothing between us. No doubts. Just be… happy.”

I cried out as he slid home, filling me in a way I’d never felt before. It wasn’t just physical, but he commanded all the space in my heart and my soul.

Until then, I’d never realized that the most vulnerable I could ever feel was with another person inside of me. But I trusted him completely—more than I trusted myself, probably. It was terrifying. And liberating.

Our linked hands fell apart as we needed them to touch each other. Faces, shoulders, necks, flanks—any part we could reach and caress as we rocked together.

Lightning cracked through my body, threatening to shoot sparks out of my fingertips and toes, as I became so swollen with pleasure that I thought I would burst. When I exploded, intense joy radiated through me like a rock dropped in a pond.

Ash’s movements became choppier, his body tensing as he arched against me. Grinding into me. His mouth covering mine as he stole what breath was left in my lungs. I felt him grow within me before his spine shuddered from his climax, and he filled me with warmth.

He dropped his head, swearing into my neck. Satisfaction? Disbelief? I just wrapped my legs around his hips tighter and my arms around his back. Keeping him with me.

I groaned a little as he eventually withdrew, and turned us on our sides. He pulled the quilt up to create a little cocoon of love, sheltering us from the world. Ash fell asleep, and when our hot breath became suffocating, I emerged.

Thirsty and needing to go to the bathroom, I slipped out of bed. At least, I tried to, until my foot got caught in a fold of the blanket and I ended up hopping right into the dresser.

“Dammit!” Ouch. The corner got me right in the ribs, and I’d jostled Ash’s laptop—thankfully not to the ground. The screen woke up, bathing me in a soft blue glow and making me wince.

Then squint.

I wasn’t trying to snoop. It was just. Right. There. In an open document.

Dear Miss Behave…