I laid her back on my bed and stripped her clothes off, taking my time as I removed her work suit and admired every inch of her beautiful body. I almost couldn’t believe she was mine.

“God, I love you, Olivia,” I said, standing up and admiring the view.

“How many times are you going to say that?” She laughed.

“As many times as I can.” I pulled my shirt over my head, not bothering with the buttons. “As many times as it takes for you to believe it.”

“I believe it! Trust me, I believe you,” she said in mock exasperation. “Now take your pants off and fuck me please.”

“There will be no fucking tonight.” She pouted, but then smiled as I undid my belt buckle and pants and let them fall to the floor. “No, tonight, I’m going to make love to you.”

“I don’t really care what you call it, as long as you do it, and soon,” she said. After our impromptu make-out session on her office floor, we’d barely made it back to my apartment without ripping each other’s clothes off.

“So, is that how this relationship is going to be?” I asked.

“I didn’t say yes to your proposal yet,” she teased.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll have you screaming yes in just a few minutes,” I said, reaching in my nightstand for a condom.

“You don’t have to wear that you know...” she whispered, nodding to the wrapper in my hand. “I’ve had an IUD for years.” She bit her lip and looked away like she had just told me a secret. Her statement took me by surprise, and I stood there staring at her for more than a few seconds. “I’m clean, too,” she added.

“Me too, baby.” I smiled and climbed on top of her. She closed her eyes and moaned when I slid inside her. It felt like heaven, just her and me and nothing between us. I pushed all the way inside and relished in the feel of her skin around mine.

“Jesus fucking Christ, you feel so good,” I grunted and began moving, thrusting in and out, her moans filling the air, her arousal covering my naked cock. I looked down at Olivia writhing beneath me and was suddenly overcome with emotion. I leaned down and kissed her, my thrusts never slowing as our tongues tangled, matching the rhythm of our bodies.

“I love you, Olivia,” I whispered against her lips.

“I love you, too,” she breathed.

“Say it again,” I commanded.

“I love you.”

“Say my name.” I was being neurotic, but I needed to hear it again, needed to hear my name roll off her lips after those three magical words.

“I love you, Jameson.” She grabbed my face and pulled me down for another kiss.

“Fuck, baby,” I groaned. I thrust harder, and she moaned loudly. I used one arm to hold myself up and pushed the other between our bodies, finding her swollen clit and rubbing my fingers over it. Her whole body shuddered in response.

“God, Jameson, that feels so good ... don’t stop.” I thrust harder and faster, bringing us both higher and higher with every push and pull. I was close, so close. Olivia’s body clenched around me, and she screamed my name as she came seconds later and pulled me over the edge with her. I buried myself inside her and came, her name a whisper on my lips as I did.

I collapsed on the bed on top of her, both of us breathing hard.

“I love you, Jameson,” she whispered in my ear.

It was, without a doubt, the best sex I’d ever had.

* * *

Jack and Dan had been surprised and upset when I’d told them I wasn’t going to sign the contract for partnership, but they had believed my bullshit about wanting to get my feet on the ground in New York and get in more work with the other attorneys before I accepted such an offer.

True to my suspicions, they didn’t even offer the job to Olivia. She had been furious when she’d realized they had been playing her for all this time. It’d taken me several hours and several glasses of wine to get her to calm down.

But if I thought they were mad about me not taking the partnership, it was nothing compared to the reaction they had when Olivia and I had told them we were both leaving the firm.

“What do you mean you’re leaving? Both of you?!” Jack erupted when I told him Olivia and I would be taking our talents elsewhere. I left out the part about us starting our own firm. They’d find that out soon enough.

It had been more than two weeks since I’d turned down the partnership. We had intentionally waited a few extra weeks to give them the news, giving us time to start the process of opening our own firm and letting the dust settle from the Delaney trial. We already had a few clients knocking on our door, even though we weren’t officially opening for another few months.

Despite my objections, Olivia had offered to keep her cases and stay on until they were wrapped up, but that didn’t happen. Two security guards watched as we cleaned out our offices, gave instructions to Bev on where to have our things shipped, and we were escorted from the premises.

“I’ll call you, Bev!” Olivia said cheerfully over her shoulder as we left.

“Well, that was a disaster,” Olivia sighed when the elevator doors closed.

“I thought Dan was going to bust a vein when you said you were leaving too.”

“Fucking idiots,” she mumbled. “They were too busy courting you to even think about keeping their best employee happy.”

“Second best employee,” I corrected. She cornered me in the elevator, pushing her finger into my chest.

“It’s not too late for me to change my mind,” she said. “If we are going to be partners now, I’m going to be treated as your equal. And that means enough with the comments. Got it?” She glared at me, as serious as could be.

“Whoa...” I put my hands up. If there had been anywhere to go, I would’ve backed up a step. The look in her eyes told me she wasn’t messing around. “Got it.”

“I’m serious, Jameson,” she warned. I grabbed her ass and pulled her closer to me.

“But you’re so hot when you get mad.”

“No, no, no. You don’t get to turn this serious conversation into sex.”

“Why not? Angry, argument sex is the best kind with you,” I said, and she glared at me. “Well, maybe second-best to I-love-you sex.”

“You are impossible, you know?”

“That’s why you love me.”

“I’m starting to regret saying that.” I leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips, her body relaxing into mine as I did.

“We both know that’s a lie,” I said when I pulled away.

“Damn it, fine,” she said, not moving from her relaxed position against my chest. “I do love you, but I’m serious about the other thing. We’re equals now.” She pressed her lips to mine again, lingering there until the elevator pinged and the doors slid open on the ground floor.

I grabbed her hand as we exited the building and steered her toward my car that was waiting at the curb. I opened the door and waited while she got inside.

“Where are we going?” she asked when I slid into the driver’s seat.

“I have a surprise for you.” We drove toward Chelsea, and it wasn’t until I pulled up outside an unfamiliar building that Olivia realized we weren’t going to her apartment. The building was small, only four stories, two of which were residential units. The modern building bore no name or anything other than the building number. I opened her door and helped her out of the car.

She looked at me suspiciously but didn’t say anything as she followed me inside. The space was nearly empty, except for a built-in reception desk.

“What are we doing here?” she asked. I turned and spread my arms.

“Welcome to the offices of Beck and Beck,” I said. She sucked in a breath and looked around, peering closely at the marble floor and the fixtures on the wall. She turned and looked outside the windows. I had convinced her to sell her apartment and move in with me, but I knew she loved this neighborhood. I had been looking at buildings every day for the past three weeks, so when this one became available I pounced.

“You picked an office without me?” she asked, a hint of anger behind her voice, her back still to me as she stared outside.

“I wanted to surprise you … I know how much you love this neighborhood,” I said, walking over to her. I kissed her neck softly and turned her around. “Are you mad?”

She looked at me closely, like she was trying to figure out what to say.

“I do love this neighborhood, so for that, you get a pass.” She walked past me and down the hall. “But I get to choose my office first.”

She looked inside every room as she passed, flipping on the lights and considering the vacant offices before moving on. There was a conference room and four offices on the main floor, none of them I imagined she would want.

“There are more upstairs,” I said. She didn’t even wait for the elevator, instead taking the stairs up to the second floor. Her process repeated as she looked inside every office, all empty except the one at the end of the hall. She poked her head into the last office, then entered completely.

It wasn’t the biggest of the offices, but it had big windows in the back that had a view of the Highline. The soft sunlight filtered in and landed on the large desk I’d already had put in the room.

“I want this one,” she said, walking over to look out the windows.

“I know, which is why I already put your desk in here.”

“Were you hoping I’d be so excited we could christen the new space?” She smirked and turned back around. “What if I don’t even like this desk?”

“Then we can get you a new one. We can get whatever you want.”

She pulled open the side drawers, looking inside and closing each one before she moved to the next. When she pulled open the middle drawer on the top, she stopped, her hand retreating momentarily before she reached inside and pulled out the jewelry box I’d left there. She turned it over in her hands a few times.

“It’s not a bomb, you know,” I said. She didn’t say anything, didn’t take her eyes off the Tiffany blue box in her hands. She opened it with a small gasp. When she finally tore her eyes off the ring and looked up from the box, I was kneeling in front of her.

“Olivia Roberts, will you marry me?”

“Oh my God,” she whispered, tears forming in her eyes. “Jameson.”

“Is that a ‘yes’?” I asked. She laughed.

“You are too impatient.” She looked down at me, her eyes swimming with tears. I took the ring from her now shaking hands and slipped it on her finger, the stones and rose gold metal sparkling in the sunlight. She looked at her finger and then back at me.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I’ll marry you.” I stood and pulled her into a deep kiss.

“A new office building, a fancy ring,” she said. “You’ve been very busy, Mr. Beck.”

“Shhh, don’t talk, just kiss me,” I said, covering her mouth again. I lifted her up and set her on the desk, and felt her laugh beneath my lips.

“See, I was right about the desk.”

I couldn’t even argue with her.