Unfortunately, time refused to stand still so we could repeat that experience as many times as I would’ve liked, namely, infinity. Unfortunately, I was also technically a responsible adult, and when you’re a responsible adult, people make you have responsibilities. It was the worst.

On the bright side, having so much stuff to do made the following week just fly on by. Filming for the sizzle reel had finished, but the editing team was still working night and day to make that raw footage into art, and some days it seemed an hour couldn’t go by without me getting a text to make a judgment call on two or three different cuts of the same material.

I’d even flown down Sandra and two other artists she’d personally recommended to work on a new vintage-style label for the bottles, crates, and print ads. And speaking of print ads, I was working around the clock on the copy, running each of them past Hunter and wishing I had the kind of supportive work environment where I could have run them past my peers as well, without worrying that said peers would steal and/or sabotage them.

I especially wished this since Hunter wasn’t currently the most available person for running copy past. No matter how much this ad campaign felt like the whole world to me, it was really just one small moving part of the machine that was Knox Liquors, and Hunter had to keep an eye on all of those pieces. This week, he was on the other side of the state touring a small town named Charter Peak, where he was hoping to erect another distillery—if the revenue generated by the ads proved sufficient.

‘Cause, you know, I needed that extra pressure.

I missed him with a burning ache in my chest, and my nights were filled with dreams of his touches.

I was doing my best to focus on the upside: without Hunter around looking all fine and smelling really nice and moving all sexy, it had been much easier to focus. I’d gotten a lot of work done.

I paused and surveyed the work I had done. It was indeed quite a lot.

Enough that I felt I deserved a reward.

I called up the messages on my cell phone, and scrolled through the long list of sexts that we’d been sending each other every evening. Just reading Hunter’s words, carefully chosen and grammatically correct at first, then more and more fragmented as he got more excited, made my heart speed up, my nipples harden against the smooth silk of my brassiere.

My finger hovered over the button as I considered what to send him next.

I briefly considered a topless pic before discarding that idea; if someone from work ever found our dirty texts, I could claim someone else had sent them from my phone, but how that hypothetical someone had got their hands on a topless shot of me would be much harder to explain away.

I filed that idea away for a day in the future when I worked at a company where my colleagues weren’t untrustworthy sexist shitheads, and sent ‘miss u’ instead.

I immediately regretted it.

Not because it wasn’t true, but because it wasn’t sexy. And since our night together, Hunter and I had been keeping our conversations strictly sexy, and far, far away from feelings territory.

The phone rang.

Shit, had that been too much? Was he calling to say I should back off? Had he rethought things completely?

Calm the fuck down, I told myself sternly. You sent him a two word text, not a dozen roses. It’s not a big deal.

I answered the phone. “Hey.”

“Hey, Ally.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “It’s good to actually talk to you. I’ve missed you too.”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

“So, how’s it going over there?”

“Oh, you know, a complete madhouse. So, the usual.”

“Oh yeah?”

“My boss is calling every fifteen minutes, the editing team can’t find any of the stable footage, Sandra keeps having to ice her hand to stop it cramping up…” I trailed off, and then laughed. “How do you do that?”

He sounded confused. “Do what?”

“Make it all seem so manageable. So okay. Just by listening.”

“One of my secret ninja powers,” he informed me, deadpan.

I raised an eyebrow. “Got any others you’d care to show me?”

“Oh, I’ve shown them to you,” he drawled, and even though it was only his voice over a phone line, I blushed fire-engine red. “And you’ve shown me a few as well.”

I eyed the door, toying with an idea. I couldn’t hear anyone rushing my way with an urgent development…I rose swiftly and locked it. “Care to see if those powers work over the phone?”

I knew exactly the face he would be making right now, that slow-spreading sweet honey grin as he took in the meaning of my words. “I surely would.”

Having suggested it, I found myself suddenly shy. “You start.”

“I’ve been thinking about your legs,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “Been thinking about that smooth pale skin, thinking about running my hands along it, right from the dip of your ankle on up, sliding my hands under your skirt, stroking those soft pale thighs.”

I squirmed in my chair. “I love your hands. They’re so big and strong. I press up against them, but you pin me down, and that makes me so ready for you.”

“What kind of underwear are you wearing?”

“Satin. Red satin.”

He groaned. His voice was strained. “Damn, Ally, keep talking.”

“Are you touching yourself right now, Hunter?” My hand slid beneath my waistband to stroke slowly over the thin fabric of my panties. “I’m touching myself right now, thinking about you thinking about my legs, rubbing yourself through your jeans, or maybe you’ve unzipped your pants and you’re tugging on that big beautiful cock, making it bigger and bigger, just for me, God, Hunter, I’m so wet just thinking about it.”

“Gonna fuck you so hard,” he grunted. “Fuck you till you’re screaming, begging for more. I’m so hard right now, it feels like my balls are going to explode. I wanna give it to you so good, give you everything you need.”

“Oh, yeah,” I moaned. “Oh yes. Tell me how you want to fuck me, Hunter. I’ll be so good for you, I promise. I’ll suck you so good, swirl my tongue around it, take it into the back of my throat.”

“I want to bend you over this desk,” he groaned, and I let my other hand trail up my side to unbutton my blouse, pinch my nipples, already stiff against the fabric of my brassiere. “See those long legs and that perky little ass jutting, see you wet and dripping for me, your tits bouncing in the mirror across from me, your pussy open and just begging me to fuck it.”

“Oh God, yes…” I panted.

His voice grew even more ragged. “Or maybe I’ll bend you over the hood of my Rolls and fuck you there till you’re screaming, just like you want me to, you’ll love it—”

“Oh God yes, yes, Hunter, oh God, I’m so close—” I let my hand dive under my panties, rubbing myself.

“Do you want me to make you come—” his voice deep and commanding, “so hard you’re seeing stars, so hard it’ll ruin you for any other man but me—”

“Oh God, Hunter, I only want yours, I only want you—” And then I was coming, my entire body seizing in a transport of pure sensation, my only thought yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

Only you, Hunter.

Only ever you.

* * *

We’d said our goodbyes almost an hour ago, and yet I was still lounging in the library armchair in a blissfully post-coital haze when I heard the sound of approaching footsteps. I hastily rebuttoned my blouse and smoothed down my clothes, grabbing some hand sanitizer from my purse and squirting a generous dollop onto my palm as well. Did the whole room smell of our lust? God, I hoped I was only imagining that.

“Ally! How’s my favorite refugee from Mad Men Land?”

It was Martha, bearing gifts of coffee and a greasy pizza. I took them both from her gratefully.

“I’m bearing up, getting through it. Couldn’t do it without you, though.”

“Now, now, let’s not exaggerate,” Martha says. “Pizza Hut delivers, even all the way down here in the backwoods.”

“But would they also deliver my doctor-recommended dose of sass and backtalk?” I asked, taking a long draught of coffee and closing my eyes in bliss at the taste. Oooooh, that was almost as good as sex all by itself. “Plus, you know, you do lots of other stuff besides bring me caffeine and grease.”

“That’s right,” Martha said. “I also give you something to strive for by showing off the latest acquisitions to my ever-expanding man-harem.” She grinned, delighted and predatory. “Have I shown you pictures of the latest one? He’s an actual honest-to-God underwear model. I thought they were a myth!”

“Another time,” I said. “But seriously, Martha, you’ve been invaluable. Offering feedback on the designs, organizing the paperwork, making calls, fielding messages for me—you’re a lifesaver. Have you considered ever going into advertising?”

Martha raised an eyebrow. “Is that a job offer?”

I sighed. “Oh, I wish it were. As it is, all I can offer you is a good word with an internship, and even that might count against you, the way the feeling is at work lately. But one of these days I’m going to strike out on my own, and believe me, there will be a job reserved just for you.”

Martha smiled, scrubbing at her eyes as if something had got in them. “You’re sweet, Ally. I can’t tell you how tempting that is…but I’d have to move up to D.C., right? Not sure how I’d feel about leaving home. I really love it here.”

“All the resources are in D.C.,” I confirmed. “As soon as this job’s done, I’ll be heading back.”

And how will this affect Hunter and our…whatever we have? Will he still want to be with me? How would we even make that work?

I pushed those troubling thoughts aside. There’d be plenty of time to worry about that later. Hell, right now there was plenty more to worry about.

My phone rang, and as I looked at the caller ID, I groaned.

Another thing to worry about: family dinner.

Martha saw it too. After fielding a few dozen messages from my mother, she knew exactly how I was feeling. She gave me a sympathetic smile and a pat on the shoulder.

“Stay strong, Ally girl. I’ll stick around here and make sure these files don’t sneak off on you.”

* * *

“And his investment portfolio was just…just…perfect!”

My mother was very nearly sobbing into her mashed potatoes. Paige rolled her eyes behind her back as she patted her hand, and I tried not to giggle.

“I thought you liked him,” Mom moaned. “You said you liked him, you said he was a gentleman!”

“I did, and he was,” Paige said evenly. “There just wasn’t a spark.”

She met my eyes again and we both smiled secret smiles, thinking of Sergei and art shows and Paige having an apartment of her very own. I’d never felt closer to her.

My mother’s head snapped up just in time to see Paige smiling her unconcerned smile. “Paige! How can you sit there making juvenile faces when you’ve let the best prospect you’ve seen in years slip through your fingers, my goodness, that man’s stock options alone—”

Paige looked me, her face asking permission to tell.

I didn’t really relish the thought of Mom knowing, but Paige had pulled my bacon out of the fire many a time before. I could take the heat this time to get her off Paige’s back. I nodded.

Paige gave Mom’s hand another pat before withdrawing with a mischievous smile. “Don’t worry so much, Mom—”

“Don’t worry! She asks me not to worry when I sweat and bleed to get them both married off, but are they grateful, are they—”

“After all, he might still be your son-in-law. I’m not your only daughter.”

Silence fell as the words worked their way through Mom’s skull.

Then the tears shut off like a faucet, and she turned to me with the biggest smile she had ever directed toward me. And that included college graduation.

“Oh, Allison! Who ever would have thought you had it in you? I told you that job of yours was the perfect way to meet eligible men!”

Yep, there went the Mom Express, rewriting history as fast as the speed of sound.

“Well, now this means I simply must meet his parents, that will help cement things, we can’t have him trying to slip out of this one! And with your complexion we’ll have to completely change the color scheme of the bridesmaid’s dresses, and the house I was eyeing down the block is all wrong, you’ll have to knock out the back wing and redo the floors completely, thankfully I’ll be right here to offer advice—”

Whoa whoa whoa. Rescuing Paige’s bacon was one thing, but I sure as hell had not signed up for this roller coaster.

I held out my hand like a traffic cop. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. We’re…seeing each other, but it’s not official, and we’re definitely not at the stage of discussing marriage plans, okay?”

Mom looked at me with wide eyes, a wounded look suggesting that I had said I was not at the stage where we were discussing not murdering puppies. “But whyever aren’t you discussing it? Don’t you want to make it work? Aren’t you thinking about your future?”

I opened my mouth to reply—

And realized I didn’t know what to say.

Hunter was hot. There was no denying it. Just thinking about him could make my breaths come shorter, my pussy grow wet. Being in the same room with him—I couldn’t keep away. Being without him—I missed him like I would miss one of my own limbs.

And more than that—he was a sweet, considerate, mind-blowingly skilled lover, and an ambitious, driven, decent man. He saw my talent and gave it its due. He had introduced me to new places, new experiences. He supported me.

But could I ever make it—could I ever make us—work, long-term?

Could I even make it work short-term, with so much at stake in my career?

We were both such busy people, working on things that we cared so much about, that we weren’t going to want to stop devoting so much time to. He would never ask me to give up my career in advertising, and likewise, I could never ask him to give up Knox Liquors.

And besides, I knew so little about him, only the tidbits he had seen fit to share with me. There were still huge gaps in my knowledge of his life. Did I even really know if he was a person I wanted to share my life with?

Mom was still waiting expectantly for an answer to her question. So was Paige.

I did the best I could.

“Yes….?”