Shit. Shit. Shit. I adjusted my clothes so I was decent again; glad to have even the low flicker of the candles to light my way for me. I couldn’t even make eye contact with her, and she was staring straight at me as though she was expecting a reaction.
“That was amazing,” she murmured, still leaning up against the table. She wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’t what was on my mind right then. She was acting so nonchalant. Did she even know that she’d said it? Maybe it had slipped out as she came, maybe she never intended to say it. Maybe we could breeze right by this, and we could pretend it never happened.
“Yeah,” I muttered, my head elsewhere. I glanced over at her - she looked incredible, her hair messy and her face lightly flushed. She looked blissful, beautiful, beyond anything I’d seen before. My cock twitched in my pants as my eyes skimmed across her legs and the way her skirt hugged her thighs, but I had to get out of there. No time for round two. At least, not yet. I wondered how much screwing her again was worth - getting caught, getting found out, getting arrested? At that second, I would have handed over anything to get close to her again.
“Thanks for dinner.” I nodded towards the plates, pushing any thoughts of screwing out of my mind. “It was great.”
“Thanks for everything.” She fluttered her eyelashes up at me. “You’re welcome back anytime.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” I replied, glancing away again. The effect this woman had on me, it was ridiculous, but I knew I had to leave. If she knew I was the one who had saved her… shit, she wasn’t stupid, I couldn’t exactly be taken aback by it. But if she knew, then chances were she’d told someone else, and that could put the both of us in a whole lot of trouble if we weren’t careful. I doubted that the cops knew - it was an odd way to go about getting them involved if she had. But I couldn’t risk it, I had to get out of there. I knew that if the cops made an appearance, I could be going down for a whole lot more than just dealing with those two assholes.
“I should probably be going,” I commented, feeling awkward. It had only been moments ago that I’d been inside this woman, but right now, my entire body was practically seized up with nerves. She must have thought I was crazy. Maybe this was her way of thanking me, and she just wanted to let me know there was a reason behind her going all-out for a night like this?
“It is late,” she agreed, standing up and running her fingers through her hair in a futile attempt to get it to sit straight again. The messy look suited her, though. I liked the way her loose hair curled around her ears and down to her neck. “You want me to call you a taxi?”
“No, it’s fine, I’m just around the corner,” I said with a wave of my hand. I didn’t want to have to wait around for a taxi at this time of night, and potentially have to spend even longer in her company as the two of us tried to avoid what she’d said.
“Will you be okay getting home?” I asked. It hadn’t crossed my mind until now, but considering what had happened last time… I would do it if I had to, but I didn’t want to have to save her again. It took me by surprise, that realization - I hadn’t really considered it until then, but I knew in that second I would do it all for her another time around if it meant I could keep her safe. I glanced away from her, trying not to think too hard about what that meant.
“I’ll be fine, one of the chefs is stopping by to pick me up soon.” She shrugged. “Don’t worry.”
“Uh, good.” I nodded. “I guess I’ll… catch you later, then?”
“Guess so.” She smiled up at me, sashaying over to the door. She was glowing, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. If I was to just reach out and touch her hip, turn her around to face me, maybe we could…? Just one more time before I went…?
I punched myself lightly in the leg to get myself to snap out of it, and followed her to the door. No. Get out now, while you still can. She unlocked the door, giving me a look with her striking eyes as I reached her.
“I had an amazing night,” she murmured, and before I could stop her, she leaned up to kiss me goodbye. It was a sweet, chaste kiss, no tongue, but somehow it was even more tempting than what we’d been getting up to before. I had to squeeze my hands into fists to distract myself from how much I wanted her. I lightly patted her waist and moved back from the kiss, my head spinning.
“Me too,” I replied without thinking, and put my hand on the door.
“I’ll be seeing you,” she called after me as I made my way out onto the street, and I offered her a quick smile over my shoulder as I finally hit the road again. Then I heard the door lock and the shutters come down once more, leaving me out in the cold once again. Jesus. What the hell had happened there?
I couldn’t deny that I was attracted to her. She was beautiful, intelligent, successful, ambitious, all the things I struggled to find in most of the women I ended up dating. But… I’d be a fool to make anything more of it than we already had. If she knew, and I knew that she knew, we could be in for a lot of trouble down the line if I kept things up. Working for a guy like Leo, your personal life was always going to come up, no matter how hard you tried to keep it separate from your work. When you spend all your time around these people, it was impossible to avoid the fact that they would get to know you more intimately than you might have liked. And if Leo found out that I was dating the very woman who was in the way of the expansion of his business… well, there would be hell to pay. For both of us. And I personally wasn’t willing to put both our asses on the line for a connection that we had barely even got started yet.
I knew this was my fault for going there at all in the first place. I was pushing my luck, curious, and undeniably attracted to her. I could pretend like I was just being a gentleman by checking up on her, but there had been something more there from the first moment she’d kissed me. Maybe I was just lonely and looking for some kind of connection; maybe it was something more. But I could hardly handle infiltrating Leo’s operations on top of keeping her on the side and expect my two worlds not to collide.
I looked up - it was raining lightly, the drops beginning to form small puddles of the street. And suddenly, that seemed pretty appropriate because right then, I felt like I might drown under the intensity of everything that was going on. Keeping my head above water for the next few months was going to be tough, and even with years of experience behind me, I wasn’t certain that I’d be able to find a way to do it.