Beautiful Boss

  But it would be fine. I’d get through them all and we could talk about it when we had actual offers to discuss, rather than getting stressed over a bunch of hypothetical variables.

  That settled, I went over to the hood to feed some cells and check some cultures, barely registering that I still hadn’t eaten breakfast or even had a cup of coffee. When I finally resurfaced again, it was to the sound of my stomach growling through the empty room. It was well past lunchtime, and when I looked around for the first time in what had to have been hours, I realized I was still alone. It took a moment to realize why that was: it was Sunday.

  Everyone else had probably spent their morning eating brunch or watching mindless TV snuggled up to someone in their jammies—i.e., not here, trying to squint through a hangover at numbers that could easily be put off until Monday.

  Dammit. So maybe Will had a point.

  The apartment was quiet when I got home. And—I noted—clear of any leftover party debris. I frowned, feeling like a jerk for leaving the mess for him to clean up, and made a mental note to thank him later.

  I let the door close softly behind me and peeked out into the living room. It still looked a lot like it had before Will moved in, bookcases and books everywhere, family photographs on every shelf, and my dad’s old desk in the corner. But now Will’s books blended with mine: my first real adult couch sat next to his leather chairs in front of the television we’d bought together—our first joint purchase as a couple. The photographs of my family still hung on the wall in the hallway, but his hung right alongside them, soon to be joined by the framed prints from our wedding.

  Until we started packing for wherever I moved us, that is, and . . . I could barely bring myself to think about that right now. I’d ignored the growing stack of cardboard boxes that had been delivered and seemed to take up more and more of the spare room every day, but I knew I couldn’t avoid them for long. I was nearing the end of my interviews, which meant it was almost time to make a decision, but—ugh—I just wanted to be lost in Will for a few hours. To wipe my brain of everything but the way he felt and smelled and sounded . . .

  A toilet flushed down the hall, followed by the sound of running water, then the door opening. Footsteps carried along the wooden floors and then Will was there, standing with wide eyes in the doorway.

  “You’re home,” he said, not moving from where he stood.

  I placed my keys on the table near the door and slipped out of my shoes. “Yeah, sorry.”

  “Jesus Christ, Plum,” he said, crossing the room and wrapping his arms around me. “Where in the hell have you been?”

  I felt myself sink into his body, lost in the familiar, comforting scent of his skin, and hugged him back. “I went running.”

  “This morning. You went running this morning,” he said, pulling back just far enough to meet my eyes. “I talked to Max hours ago.”

  I placed my palms on his chest, feeling the solid shape of it beneath my fingers, the heat of his skin against the fabric. “Then to the lab,” I said.

  “Why didn’t you call? Or answer any of my calls and texts?”

  “Oh . . . my phone was in my jacket pocket I guess, probably on silent. I did send you a text saying I’d be gone for a while, though.” My eyes dropped to his neck, and I had to resist the urge to close the distance between us again, bury my face there.

  He sighed and I watched the way my hands mirrored the movement of his torso. “Hanna,” he said, tired.

  “I’m sorry, I should have been more considerate.”

  He nodded.

  I ran a palm over his stomach. “I was still upset.”

  Will pulled away and took a seat on the arm of the couch, and waited. “From last night?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t like that you just assumed I should take a position at a small teaching school.”

  “Plum, I didn’t assume anything. Is it what I’d prefer? Maybe? Believe it or not, I happen to like you. I like to spend time with you.” He shook his head, laughing a little. “I mean, today is a pretty good example of what I’m talking about.”

  “I’ll admit I shouldn’t have left for the entire day, but I told you, I needed to think.”

  “Well, not to be an asshole and point out the obvious,” he said, “but you go to the lab on Sunday all the time. Not just when you need to think. And we were married one week ago.”

  Oof. Okay, that one sort of hurt. I took a step away, unzipped my jacket, and placed it over a chair. “Going in to the lab is my job.”

  “I know it’s your job, and I love that you take it so seriously and are so fucking good at it. But I’m also trying to express that I want some of your time, too. And I’d like you to take that into consideration when looking at all this. To talk to me about it.”

  My head fell back and I looked up at the ceiling. “Are we going to argue about this again?”

  I felt his stunned silence before he said, “What we did last night was not argue. We can discuss something—even heatedly—without it being an argument. That said, what’s wrong with arguing? It doesn’t mean we’re in a bad place just because we’re two people with different opinions about how to handle something.”

  “If I were a man, would we be having this same discussion? Would a man be asked to take a teaching position over running a large academic lab?”

  His eyes went wide with shock. “Yes! You’re not seriously saying this has anything to do with you being a woman, are you?”

  “No, I mean . . . of course not. I know you wouldn’t do that. I just want—I don’t want us to argue about something until we know exactly what we’re arguing about, or whatever! Discussing!” I said, getting flustered. “We don’t even know all the options, so how can we possibly have a logical discussion about it? Can we just wait? Please?”

  Will sighed, reaching up to push the hair back from his face. He looked at me with soft, patient eyes, and then nodded, holding out his hands to me. “Come here,” he said, and I took the few steps toward him.

  This was what I needed: the closeness, the certainty I felt when wrapped in his arms. Everything else was up in the air, but this, this was my constant.

  “I missed you,” he said, holding me to him, palm smoothing my hair. “I don’t like waking up without you here, especially with the headache I had this morning.” He pulled back and placed a hand on either side of my face, examining me. “God, that had to have been a tough run.”

  “Max is lucky I didn’t hurl on him,” I said, turning my head to place a kiss against his palm, and then up, against the back of his ring. “I never want to drink again. I’m pretty terrible at it.”

  “You are pretty terrible at it,” he agreed, watching me. “But you’re okay now?”

  “Absolutely okay,” I said. “Very”—kiss—“very”—kiss—“okay.” He sucked in a small breath when I pressed my lips to his wrist, chastely at first, then wetter, sucking, opening my mouth to feel his pulse against my tongue.

  His reaction came in the form of another sharp inhale, and my eyes flickered up to his.

  “Yeah?” he said, and I dragged my teeth along his skin, pressed down until his brows lifted a little with the pain. “Right here?”

  I nodded, stepping back and lifting my shirt up and over my head. His eyes followed the movement and I watched as his features relaxed, every last bit of tension leaving his face.

  “Right here,” I said.

  We each knew what the other liked. Will liked it to be a little rough sometimes, and I liked to be guided, told where he wanted me and what he wanted me to do.

  Will gripped his shirt at the back of his neck and pulled it off, tossing it absently to the couch. “Turn around then,” he said, motioning with his finger.

  I did what he asked, turning to see his worn leather chair just behind me. I loved that chair, and so did Will. Loved to curl up in it while I worked, my legs tucked underneath me and my laptop balanced on the arm. I loved when Will sat in this chair and I sat in the other and we
were both quiet, no words needed as we read or watched TV. And I especially loved when he would let me climb into his lap, burrow my way into whatever blanket he was using, and watch a movie. And despite having had sex on almost every piece of furniture we owned, we’d never done it there, on one of his favorite possessions—the chair he’d taken with him from home to home throughout his adult years.

  I took a step forward. “Like this?” I asked, sinking into the seat, knees pressed to the cushion and facing away from him.

  “Just like that.” Warm hands unclasped my bra and pulled it from my body. Will’s fingers tickled over my ribs before moving to the waistband of my pants, toying with them for a moment before pushing both them and my underwear down my thighs to stop at my knees.

  Cool air moved over my skin and I felt bare for him, exposed. I closed my eyes as his fingers tiptoed back up my spine, counting every vertebra, registering every shiver. When he reached my neck, he slipped his hand into my hair, twisting where it was still loosely knotted on top, gripping it, holding it tight and using it for leverage to push me forward, my torso, my stomach, my breasts curved over the cold leather.

  “Good,” he murmured, and I was aware of him moving away, of the rustle of fabric as he undressed behind me. I wanted to turn and look, but by the time I’d worked up the courage to do so, the cushion dipped again and he was there, warm along the back of my body. His lips found my shoulder, my cheek. I felt him suck against the skin of my neck, surely leaving a mark. “Love you.”

  I turned into his kiss and gasped at the juxtaposition of the cool leather on my stomach and breasts and the fiery heat of his body against my back.

  Will reached between us and took hold of himself, dragging the head of his cock—warm and slightly wet at the tip—between my legs to brush over my clit. Back and forth, back and forth.

  “Want you to open your legs,” he said, and I did as instructed. “A little more.”

  I pushed my knees as far as they would go, flush against the arms of the chair. Satisfied, he placed a soft kiss on my nose.

  “You want this?” he asked, stilling just where I needed him, just the head slipping inside before pulling out again. “Want me to play, or just fuck you?”

  “Fuck me,” I said, rocking my hips to chase the feeling, to get him to move. “Will.”

  “Shhh,” he said. “I have you.”

  He teased me anyway, coating himself in the slickness there before pushing forward.

  Will had a tendency to lose himself for a few moments when he got inside me, to swear or say my name, to whisper incoherencies into my skin, as if he was so overcome to just be there that he might come at any second. Today was no exception, and he groaned against my hair, breath coming out in short, hot bursts as he moved slowly, inch by inch until his pelvis was flush against my ass, his flat stomach pressed to the curve of my spine.

  “It’s so good,” he said, teeth nipping at my shoulder, hips moving in slow, grinding circles. “So fucking warm around me.” He sucked at my skin and took my breasts in both of his hands, squeezing them, pinching my nipples before sliding one hand down between my legs.

  I was wet and slippery and his fingers migrated down, right where I wanted them. “There.”

  “Yeah?” Will asked, and I nodded, whimpering as I felt my body clutch him. I tried to push back, tried to hold him inside me before he pulled out again. We moved together like that, the sound of sex filtering through the room, broken up only by the occasional thump or voices from the people in the neighboring apartments.

  He sped up, relentless, and I searched for something to hold on to, some way to anchor myself. I reached behind me, gripping his hip with one hand and draping the other over the back of the chair, my cheek turned to the cool leather. His skin was slick with sweat and I dug my nails in, knowing that would only make it better for him.

  Will swore, his breath ragged and hot against my back, and I begged, not caring if the people upstairs could hear me, the people on the other side of the walls. “Harder. Harder, Will. Please.”

  “Fuck, Plum.” He sped up, frantic, and I could hear the slap of his skin against mine, the sound of the chair as the back legs cleared the edge of the carpet and scraped along the wooden floor.

  “Oh God,” I gasped, “oh . . . Oh—”

  I closed my eyes, feeling a wave of heat move from between my legs and across the surface of my skin before everything exploded into sensation. His teeth pressed to my neck, and his hands cupped my breasts, and his wild noises told me he was going to fucking come only seconds before he turned brutal and frantic, pushing so deep into me he was pressed all along the length of my body from thigh to shoulder.

  We lay naked on the couch, me on my back with Will’s head resting on my stomach. “I’m sorry I left this morning,” I said, curling my fingers through his hair. “I know you said it was fine, but I wanted to say it again.”

  He looked up, resting his chin near my hipbone. “I know, Plum. And for the record, you’re allowed to be mad and need space.”

  “I turned off your alarm clock. I wasn’t being very nice.”

  He laughed before leaning over the edge of the couch, returning with my backpack. “I’m sure we’re going to do or say a few not-nice things to each other over the next fifty years. If they’re all as nefarious as giving each other a couple extra hours of sleep, we’ll be in pretty good shape.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked, watching him rifle through the front pocket. He lifted a marker before returning the bag to the floor, and pulled off the cap. “Decorating me again?”

  He hummed as he began to draw.

  A tree, roots that started at the edge of my hipbone and moved down, spreading. He filled it in, eyes narrowed in concentration as the fine tip of the marker moved back and forth, right up to the very edges of the design.

  I lifted my head, peering down my body to get a closer look. “It’s like yours,” I said, motioning to the tree on his bicep, the roots that wrapped around the muscle.

  “A little.”

  “We should really look into getting you some coloring books,” I told him, smiling before letting my head rest back against my arm.

  “Wouldn’t be quite the same, though, would it?”

  I pushed my fingers through his hair again, watching the way the colors shifted in the dying light. I could feel the marker move, smell the ink, and when I looked again, I saw that he was carefully drawing individual leaves.

  “Now when you go away Wednesday, I’ll still be there,” he said.

  “You’re always here,” I said, touching the side of his face, tapping it gently so he’d look up at me.

  His blue eyes were almost black in this light, so open and honest I wasn’t sure I’d be able to walk out the door in the morning, let alone get on a plane and fly to California in three days.

  Five

  Will

  Hanna left before the sun was up on Wednesday, bending to kiss my forehead on her way out.

  “Bye, baby,” she whispered, thinking I was still asleep. “I’ll see you Friday.”

  She turned to leave, but I pushed up, shuffling behind her to the front door, where she had her suitcase and laptop bag packed and ready.

  “Can I make you some coffee?” I mumbled, squinting at her. “Put it in a travel mug?”

  She laughed when I absently reached down and scratched myself through my boxers. Shaking her head, she told me, “Go back to bed, sleepyhead.”

  “Think I’ll go run.”

  Stepping forward, she kissed me, and wasn’t fast enough to get away before I pulled her closer by her hips, held her tight against me.

  Hanna smiled into the kiss, wrapping her arms around my neck. “You’re so warm.”

  “When do you get home on Friday?” I asked against her mouth.

  “Mmmm . . . late. Around ten?”

  I stepped back, rubbing my eyes. “Wait. Where are you going this trip?”

  Laughing again, she stretched to kiss my
jaw. “Berkeley.” She pecked me one more time and then stepped back. “My cab is outside. I’ll call when I get there.”

  “You’re being awfully quiet over there.”

  Jensen’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts and I blinked up at him across the table. He was down in the city from Boston, and we had joined Max and Bennett for a late lunch at Le Bernardin.

  “Just wondering how things are going for Hanna,” I said. “She’s giving her job talk right now.” I tilted my wrist, looking at my watch, and corrected, “No, she finished about an hour ago.” Picking up my phone, I registered that she hadn’t even texted to let me know she’d landed safely.

  “What did she say?” Bennett asked, misinterpreting my attention to my phone.

  “Oh, just . . .” I waved him off, shaking my head. “No updates yet. I’m sure it went great.”

  “I’m sure they’re already begging her to accept an offer,” Max said, smiling reassuringly. Out of the three of them, he watched me the most closely today, having heard both Hanna and I occasionally ramble about the job hunt, the idea of moving, the idea of staying, what our lives might look like a few months down the road.

  Max certainly didn’t want us to move, but he didn’t seem all that concerned about it, either. I really could do my job from anywhere, though some cities would be easier than others.

  “She doesn’t believe me when I say the choice is going to be hers,” I told them.

  “Well,” Jensen said, “where do you think she’ll end up?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t actually know.”

  “And when are you guys planning to move?” Bennett asked.

  “Well, we may not be—”

  Bennett waved me off. “I mean, when is she hoping to start? Wherever that may be.”