Rogue Passion (The Rogue Series Book 5)

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  They each replied-all to the email with gratitude and a commitment to accomplish the changes. Their work was just beginning.

  She had to cling to her chair to keep from leaping up and running to Phillip’s office. She wanted to celebrate with him, to enjoy it together and take satisfaction in their big steps toward progress.

  But she couldn’t. She knew as soon as she walked in his office the temptation to touch him, kiss him would be too great to resist. So instead, she sent him a one-line congratulations email. He replied immediately with an echoing one-liner.

  She cringed and turned away from the computer. Was this all their relationship would be now? Cold? Perfunctory? How could she live with this? Everyday was now doomed to be a misery of missing him. She didn’t know how or when it had happened, but nothing in the job would bring her joy anymore if she couldn’t share it with him.

  There was a tap on her door. “Can I come in?”

  Regina sat up to see Ned, the dean of students, standing in her doorway. “Of course.” She motioned to the chair across from her desk. “Please have a seat.” She’d been semi-avoiding Ned since Olivia had told him to check the security cameras the morning after—well, the morning after. When Ned closed the door behind him, she sat up and her palms began to sweat.

  “What can I help you with?” She folded her hands on her blotter and lifted her chin. Show no weakness.

  Ned gave her a soft smile. He was at least twenty years older than her, was five years or less away from retirement, but despite his being squarely in the demographic of white-straight-cis-male, he’d been easy to work with. He had always appeared an outsider of the old boys club. She suspected he was too sensitive to fit in with such narrow-minded men, which made him an excellent dean of students, even if she did wish he’d be firmer with the school’s code of conduct at times.

  “I have a somewhat personal subject I’d like to bring up with you,” he said easily. “But I want you to know first, there’s nothing wrong.”

  This didn’t help her. It only made her more anxious, but she couldn’t show him that. “Okay.”

  Ned cleared his throat and tugged on his blazer. “I know Olivia told me not to look over the security cameras outside your office last week, but I did anyway.” He avoided her eyes and twiddled his fingers. “I think you know what I saw. Which was actually nothing. There’s no reason why you can’t have Chinese food in your office with someone.”

  “Indeed.” She thought she heard a smile in his voice, but since he kept his gaze averted she couldn’t tell.

  He nodded and continued, “I made a small inquiry with the human resources office this week that you might be interested to know about.”

  “And what is that?”

  “There are no rules at this school against employees being in intimate relationships.”

  “I’m his boss, and we’re administrators. Different rules apply.”

  He smiled. “No. The rules are clear. It’s the same. Perhaps at other businesses but not here. Not officially. While it might create complications, there are no grounds which any person could be fired for dating a co-worker at this school. Even administrators.”

  Regina couldn’t hide a sliver of interest in her voice. “Really?”

  Ned met her eyes then, and there was a warm smile, a gentle almost fatherly regard. “It wouldn’t be without challenges. Some people might give one a hard time, but I see no reason why two people who work well together couldn’t date.”

  “Oh?”

  “Mm-hm.” He nodded cordially. “You and Dean Young, for instance. Were you to ever decide you wanted to be more than work colleagues, there would be no one here who could stop you.” His expression stayed even with no censure or inappropriateness to his comments.

  His sincerity was oddly comforting. “I appreciate this, Ned. Very much.”

  He moved to stand but added one more thought, “Though I imagine one might consider meeting outside the office. Like going to the headmaster’s residence where you live, for example, might be a more pleasant setting.”

  Gratitude spread through her chest, and she couldn’t help a small smile. She stood to walk with the dean toward the door. “Thank you.”

  “Of course,” he nodded. “And congrats on your latest successes with the school board. It’s exciting.”

  He left and Regina closed her door behind him. Holy shit. She and Phillip could see each other. Ned wouldn’t judge them, and if he didn’t, many others would follow his lead. He was right, meeting at her “headmaster’s residence” (she was still working on the community to change the gender specific name) would be a perfect place for her and Phillip to start out.

  She couldn’t wait, there was no reason to. She opened her door and walked across the hall to Phillip’s office.

  He stood from his desk, his too-sexy glasses perched on his nose. A deep navy tie around his neck and a studious tan blazer gave him the button-up untouchable academic air that made her salivate hard to see him naked.

  “Dr. Masterson,” he said with formal surprise. “How can I help…” His voice trailed off as she closed the door behind her and clicked the lock. His eyes narrowed and his tone deepened, “Regina, what are you doing?”

  “Celebrating.” She walked to him, grasped him by the shoulders and maneuvered him to the back corner where no one could see them through the external window. “Kissing you.”

  A low groan resonated from his chest, and he grasped her hips with tight fingers. “Not if I kiss you first.” He pushed on her hips, pressed her back against the wall, and sealed his lips to hers.

  Heat and desire, all the pent-up feelings they’d been suppressing for over a week, flooded between them. She opened her mouth, and his tongue was a thorough caress against hers. He left no corner of her mouth untasted, no inch of her lips unkissed. She wrapped her arms around him, reveling in the relief of him against her.

  She didn’t know if it was part of the celebratory moment or if it was part of something else, but as his mouth travelled down her throat, she found herself holding him close and him holding back.

  He buried his face in her neck and hugged her. “I missed you.”

  “I missed you, too.” She’d meant it to be a physical joining of lust, but this was something else. Something she hadn’t expected.

  After she started to feel better, calmer, comforted by his touch and the warmth of his strong body, he pulled his head back to look in her eyes. He stroked a finger gently down her cheek. “What changed your mind?”

  She nuzzled into his hand until he cupped her cheek. “Will you come over to my place tonight? I’ll bring dinner this time.”

  He stilled standing away from her. “You’re sure? There are any number of people who could see me walking across campus and through your front door.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Phillip adjusted his button down and checked to make sure his belt was centered. He couldn’t help feeling like this was a date. The path across campus to the residence where Regina lived was well lit but a long walk, plenty of time for him to ponder what was going to happen, and if this was as much of a date as he thought it might be.

  He didn’t want to get his hopes too high, but he wanted to dress nice just in case. He couldn’t deny how much he wanted this to be real, how much he’d begun to repel the need to be cautious. His career was important to him, but he was an in-demand candidate on his job search last year. He could find another job somewhere else, if that’s what it would take to be with her—if she would be with him.

  He could leave this job, would leave this job, for her. For them. Hiring season would start next month, now was the time to make the decision. The walk was long enough to help him decide he was prepared to tell her tonight. This might be his only chance.

  He walked up the stone steps to the front door of the house. Hell, it wasn’t a house. It was a mansion meant for entertaining large parties of donors on frequent occasions. He knew the staff helped take care of the property, but
it struck him how lonely it might be for her to live by herself in such an enormous place. But who knows, maybe she enjoyed it. It certainly beat living in his apartment in the student dorm. He’d have to ask her.

  The door opened before he could ring the bell.

  “Hi,” she said a little too quickly as though she were impatient.

  He got the answer to his date question as soon as he looked at her. He’d seen her dressed casually at informal student events, but her black skinny jeans, her low-cut top and her hair waving tantalizingly over her shoulders was not her typical casual wear. It was far too sexy for her usual relaxed wardrobe.

  He felt a surge of hope that maybe she had chosen to dress like this for a date, too. “Hi,” he echoed her.

  She stood back to let him inside. The door was barely closed, and her eyes were wandering all over his designer jeans that were fitted to his hips. He had a humorous thought, maybe he should turn around to give her a shot of his ass, too, knowing she might like that.

  “You look really nice,” she said, her voice a little breathless, her breasts moving up and down more quickly than normal.

  He took the invitation to check her out, letting his gaze move over her without slyness or hurry. Her figure was defined and shapely beneath her tight clothes, and he had to lick his lips thinking of all the things he hadn’t gotten to do to her the last time, but still wanted to do. “You look…” He couldn’t help exhaling a hard breath. “…really nice, too.”

  His gaze finally made it back to hers, and he was turned on even more by what he saw there. Jesus, she wanted him. She was leaning toward him, her lips parted, her eyes straying to his mouth. He saw no reason to deny what her eyes and body told him she wanted.

  He rushed her and clasped her to him, crushing his mouth over hers with all the hunger he felt and all the need steaming from her eyes. She moaned and rubbed herself against him begging for his touch.

  He moved his hands over her the way he’d restrained himself before in his office. He cupped her breasts and kneaded. He toyed with the nipples that pebbled in his palms. He grasped her ass and squeezed, pulling her against him where he was hard and incapable of hiding it beneath his fitted jeans.

  She writhed against him then slid her hand over his cock through the denim. In response, he glided his hand below her waist, waiting to see if she wanted the same.

  “Touch me,” she whimpered.

  He obeyed and rubbed his hand over the apex of her thighs. She crooned, grinding her hips against his hand. She was so greedy for his touch. Her hand stilled on his cock and instead, she clung to his shoulders. Her mouth lifted from his with needy gasps protesting from her throat.

  “Come for me,” he demanded with a guttural tone.

  To his pleasure, she arched into him and cried, “Yes!”

  He pulled open her jeans, slid his hand inside and sought her clit with his fingertips. He found it swollen and wet with her arousal, too much to have responded so much in the minutes since he’d walked in the door.

  He licked the shell of her ear. “You were thinking of me before I got here, weren’t you?”

  She cried out again, circling her hips in an apposing direction to his fingers. “All…day…” Her knees softened, and she leaned into him.

  He held her upright with one arm and pressed deeper into her still swelling clit. “Have you been thinking about having my cock in you again?”

  She moaned agreement against his neck, no longer able to hold up her head.

  He continued his torture, growing harder just thinking about her fantasizing about him. “You were imagining us fucking again, this time naked and in your bed.” He’d thought about it, too. Something so simple and so domestic sounded like the most erotic thing they could do together right now.

  Rather than answer him, she started moaning his name, “Phillip…”

  It wasn’t just a turn on. The sound reached in his chest and wrapped around his heart. He hadn’t known he needed to hear it, but it satisfied a desire in him even deeper than the need to be inside her.

  She orgasmed against him with a tensing of her body so strong, she squeezed his neck until it hurt. The shuddering of her breath and the wracking of her body, the post-climactic pulses of her hips and her continued murmurings of his name in his ear, they nearly undid him.

  He pulled his hand out from her jeans and wrapped both arms around her, to hug her, hold her. “Regina…”

  “What are you doing to me?” she whispered.

  He swallowed hard to keep his voice from shaking. “The same thing you’re doing to me.”

  She relaxed into him more and, sensing she wouldn’t be standing on her own soon, he closed her jeans then leaned down and scooped an arm behind her knees. He picked her up and carried her toward the living room.

  She laughed a giddy carefree sound so unlike the professional woman he worked with every day.

  “I like that,” he said glancing down at her.

  “What?”

  “You laughing. I’d like to hear you do that more.”

  She tucked her head beneath his chin. “We don’t laugh much at work, do we?” She pointed to a different room. “Go to my den. It’s much comfier than the stiff antiques in the front sitting room.”

  He glanced in the room he passed and, yeah, there was nothing comfy about that room with its stiffly upholstered furniture and fastidious decoration meant purely for entertaining. He followed where she pointed and found a lumpy suede sofa with cushy throw pillows.

  He eased them down, and she rested her head on the cushions but kept her legs in his lap.

  She was so relaxed and glowing with her post-orgasmic bliss, he made plans to keep her looking like that for the next few hours.

  He clasped her hand and rested his arm on her knee. “There are a lot of things I’d like to do with you outside of work. Things that would be more possible if I found a job at another school.”

  She balked and shook her head fiercely. “No, no, no. You’re not leaving me. I won’t let you.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Regina, I wouldn’t be leaving you. I’d be committing to be with you.”

  Her mouth formed a silent “O,” which was both encouraging and not helpful.

  “If that’s something you want,” he added.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I do. Phillip, I’ve become so attached to you. I can’t imagine not having you in my life.”

  His heart took a leap, and he couldn’t help smiling.

  “In fact,” she bit her lip and then said so low, he almost didn’t hear. “I may be falling in love with you.”

  It was his turn to be speechless. He hadn’t hoped. He’d never imagined, even in all his scenarios of how tonight would go, that the love word would be part of this conversation.

  “It’s okay if you don’t feel the same,” she rushed ahead. “I just want you to know that I’m committed to finding a way to make us work, too.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her, lingering and slow, a far contrast from their hot hurried kisses in the hallway. He rested his forehead against hers. “I’m all for falling in love with you, too.”

  She gave a short, excited chuckle, and so did he. “It’s unbelievable, isn’t it.”

  He leaned back and gazed at her, more relieved then he could say to find out their feelings were so aligned. “This is real. We’re real.” He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers.

  “We’ve barely spent any time together outside the office and yet…” She gazed back at him, seeming to lose her words.

  “I know how you work,” he supplied. “I know what you’re passionate about, I know what drives your ambition and feeds your soul, and what your greatest goals are in life. And you know mine.”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “Which would take just as much time to learn and understand about someone while dating as it has for us while working.”

  She smiled the biggest most carefree and satisfied smile he’d ever seen
on her. “That’s what it is. You’re right.”

  “Though, it doesn’t mean I don’t need to catch up on time spent hearing you laugh and seeing you naked.”

  She burst with laughter as he’d hoped. “I agree.”

  “I don’t want to wait until I find a new job. I want to start now.”

  She sat up, and a different kind of excitement lit her eyes. “I had a little meeting with Ned today.”

  Phillip cringed. “What about?” This could be bad.

  She patted his arm for reassurance. “It’s good. He saw you come into my office last week that night on the security cameras, but he had nothing bad to say. He was encouraging actually. He wanted me to know there are no rules at the school about us not being able to date.”

  His jaw dropped open. “Well, damn.”

  “It’s perfectly okay for us to be together. Neither of our jobs are in jeopardy.”

  “People will talk, though. I should still find a new job.”

  “I want us to try it. Give the school community a chance to accept us. It might be good for them.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And if they don’t, if it gets uncomfortable, then we can both look for new jobs and see who gets one first that’s nearby.”

  He liked this plan. They’d make this work, no matter what. “I want to keep working with you. I love working with you.”

  “I love working with you, too. Hell, we can decide neither of us wants to stay here. We could start a consulting firm together. A company to help other private schools do the same kind of work we’ve been doing at Huntington.”

  The options were endless. They would find a way. They’d work together if they wanted, work separately if they wanted, but most importantly, be together.

  He remembered something he’d heard that day but had been too excited about their date to tell her before their work day ended. “I heard a rumor that the students are planning a walk out.”

  She sat up with widened eyes. “What for?”

  “Protesting gun violence.”

  She clapped her hands and bounced in her seat. “That’s fantastic. Their parents are going to hate it,” she said like it was the best news she’d heard all day.