“I’m just glad everything is fine. Have a great evening. Although, I’m sure you will,” she said and giggled. “I haven’t forgotten about your promise to tell me everything next week once everything has settled down.”
I chuckled. “Oh, trust me, Dana, I’m looking forward to it. And I promise to tell you everything.”
I put the phone down and made my way over to Josh’s house.
He frowned when he saw me and opened the door to let me in. “You took a while getting here. All okay? I hope you didn’t go home to get clothes. Because I really want to see you in my shirts again.”
I smiled. “No, I was just on the phone to Dana. She was worried about me. She’s the one that pushed me into talking with you, and she knew about the dinner tonight. I was supposed to call her as soon as I was done. After all, I did tell her that I was only going to be with you for an hour. I felt so bad. But I honestly forgot about it while I was with you.”
“She’s the one that convinced you? Well, I owe a lot to her then. That’s nice of her. She had every reason not to like me after I barged into her café like that.”
“Nah, she knows you’re a good egg. Don’t forget; she was also there to hear Frank try to convince me to join his team. She knows he’s the one that’s bad. And anyway, she says she has never seen me this happy before. Thanks for the lovely dinner, Josh. I feel so much better now that we’ve spoken.”
“It was the best. I don’t even know what I ate, though. I was too busy talking.”
I laughed. “Me too. Some sort of pasta I think. I think it was good, but I have no idea. But you know what was missing?”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Brownies. You don’t happen to have some, do you?”
Josh grinned. “As a matter of fact, I do. But, the last time you promised me a few things in return for that brownie. I’m afraid the same thing is going to have to happen tonight.”
“Are you really suggesting that I will only get brownies if I have sex with you?” I said in pretend shock.
He laughed. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”
I unbuttoned my shirt and slowly unzipped my skirt. He stood there watching as I took off my bra and then my panties. I threw all my clothes in a heap on the floor and smiled at him. “Well, you’re just lucky that I want those brownies so badly.”
Josh walked up to me, picked me up and lowered me onto the sofa.
“The sofa again?” I said.
“Oh, Reagan, I’ve missed you so damn much. There’s absolutely no way I’ll even make it to the bedroom.”
I lay on the sofa, watching him undress, my body responding to just the sight of him. He knelt down and pushed his tongue inside me, licking me and teasing me as I gasped and writhed at his touch. I had this. I had wanted this all week and had refused to think of what it felt like to be with him just because I knew it would be too hard to think about. I ran my hands through his hair and smiled at the sight of him in between my legs. I closed my eyes and moaned, biting my lip as I felt my body responding to the fervent touch of his tongue and lips.
“I’m going to come soon,” I said urgently. If he didn’t pull away, I was not going to be able to keep my control.
He stopped for a brief moment, looked up at me, and grinned. “Good,” he said and bent down again.
The moment his tongue touched me, I felt the control slipping away from me. I thought about pulling away so that I didn’t come so soon, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop him. I wanted him more and more and more. He stuck his tongue in a little deeper, and I let go, my entire body convulsing with delight.
When he was done, he moved on top of me and kissed me gently on the mouth.
“Come inside me,” I said.
“Really?” he seemed surprised that I’d want more after what he’d just done.
I nodded. “I need to feel you inside me.”
He smiled, kissed me, and gently moved over me. I gasped with happiness the moment he was inside me, and wrapped my legs around him to bring him in even deeper. He thrust inside me and cried out with pleasure, and I liked that I was able to do this to him. I liked that I could make him so happy. I found myself getting aroused all over again just at the feeling of him in me. He pushed and groaned, taking his time at first, the strokes slowly building in speed and intensity until neither of us could hold back any longer. With one final thrust, we came together.
“Thank you,” he said breathlessly, planting a kiss on my nose.
“Are you kidding me? I should be thanking you. I came twice, you know.”
“You did?”
“Oh yeah. Obviously it had nothing to do with you, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“I came twice so I could have two brownies. I thought it was obvious.”
He chuckled. “What if I told you that I didn’t actually have any brownies?”
“What? You tricked me!”
“Just kidding.”
“I wouldn’t have cared.”
“Oh yeah? So the sex was better than the brownies?”
“How about you give me two and I tell you?”
He laughed. “Reagan, I’ll give you brownies every day of your life if we can continue to do that together.”
After brownies and coffee, and a hot shower together, we climbed into bed, and I sidled up to him. I put my head on his chest and felt his heart beating. My own bed had felt so lonely without him this week.
“I’ve missed this,” I said. “The whole week I wanted to call you, or see you, or just to hear your voice. It was so hard without you.”
“Tell me about it. I had to look at your empty desk all week. It was a constant reminder to me. Not to mention my office, where we made love, as well as the sofa and the bed. You were everywhere.”
“And now I’m here,” I said.
“And now you’re here. I couldn’t have gotten through the election without you. I’m sorry for firing you. You’re re-hired by the way,” he said.
I laughed. “It’s good to be back on the team.”
And as I closed my eyes I thought about how good it felt to be with Josh again. I hadn’t felt this way about anyone in a very long time. Actually, I was sure that I had never felt this way before. Now I knew what Dana felt. She’d always told me that I would know when I found true love, and I hadn’t believed her. I thought it was just something that people made up to make themselves feel better. But lying in bed, with the warmth of Josh’s naked body beside me and the feeling of his breath on my neck, I knew it was true.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Josh
I was in the office early that day, earlier than everyone. I’d asked Ralph to meet me before the rest of the team came in because I owed him an explanation about what was going on and I wanted to do it face to face. I felt so sorry for the guy. I knew that he blamed himself for what had happened even though I’d told him that it wasn’t his fault. He had looked stressed out all week over it.
“Guess what?” he said the moment he walked into the office. He was holding two cups of coffees and handed one to me.
He grinned. “You really don’t know?”
“I don’t know anything. What’s going on?”
“You won!”
“What? How do you know?” I couldn’t believe my ears. If it wasn’t Ralph telling me, I would assume it was just someone trying to prank me. But Ralph wouldn’t do that to me, so I knew that it had to be true.
“I got the call this morning. Frank stepped down! Can you believe it? There were all sorts of allegations against him, and he decided it was not worth continuing. He was only backing himself into a corner he couldn’t get out of, anyway. Congratulations! I’m so glad that I am the first to tell you.”
I grinned. I knew what had happened. There was only one person that could’ve gotten word out about Frank, and I couldn’t wait to thank her for it. She had obviously jumped straight back into her role as my public relations officer. I couldn’
t believe that she had managed to turn things around so quickly for me. She obviously knew what she was doing. She was incredible.
“This is amazing. I can’t believe it actually happened. After all our hard work, all these months of planning. It all came together. Thank you so much, Ralph. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you being here for me. I’ll be honest; I did not expect to get this sort of news today. I thought we were all going to be down in the dumps.”
“Yeah, I’ll be honest, after everything that happened I couldn’t help but think the same thing. I was dreading coming to work this morning. I couldn’t have supported a better guy. Is there a reason why you called me in so early though? You’re not firing me are you?”
“Firing you? Are you kidding me? I would never fire you. You’re the best guy on the team. Sorry for not talking to you right away, you just completely baffled me with the news of me winning,” I said and laughed. I’d almost forgotten that I was the one that had called him in for a meeting that day. “I just wanted to be the first to tell you that Reagan will be in the office today and that she did nothing wrong.”
“What? Are you serious? She’s still going to work with us?”
“Yeah. I’m serious, and I know she can’t wait to talk to you about it all. I was the one that got all my wires mixed up. I feel so bad for firing her. It’s a long story, and I will take the time to explain it to everyone. But I wanted you to be the first to know because you are her friend and I made you think badly of her.”
The relief was evident on Ralph’s face. “Oh, I’m so happy to hear this. I was going to phone her after the election. I was devastated to hear that she was a spy. I already had the conversations all planned out in my head. I was going to demand that she tell me everything and I was going to tell her that I would never be friends with her again. But I’m glad to hear she wasn’t in this. I thought it was very strange. She’s always been the most dedicated person here. And I know how much she cares about all of this. It was just so unlike her. Thanks for letting me know. I’m so relieved. I’m glad I don’t have to have those awful conversations with her anymore. Well, this day is starting out better than the others.”
“It sure is. It’s our best day so far, and now that we have won, it’s only going to get better. Do you have details on the speech today?”
“Yes. It’s going to be this morning. Nine thirty.”
“Perfect. Can you gather everyone in the conference room at nine, then? I’d love to do a little pre-speech before. And if you can make sure that nobody comes to see me until then. I have a few things I want to do before the meeting, and I would prefer not to get disturbed.”
“Absolutely. And thanks again for letting me know. If you hear someone screaming and then sobbing, it’s probably me. That’s more than likely what I’m going to the minute I see Reagan again.”
I laughed at the image, went to my office and closed the door. I wanted to get my speech ready and to make sure that I had everything written down that I wanted. I had been so sure that I would lose that I had barely given my speech any thought. My confidence had taken a dive over the course of the election despite my initial cockiness when I’d felt so sure of winning. Thankfully, I had gotten the basics down back when I had still thought I had a chance. I just needed to fine tune it now. I spent the next two hours working on it, and by the time it came to go to the conference room, I felt happy with it. To be fair, before everything happened I had probably practiced the speech a million times in my head. I took a deep breath and made my way to speak to my staff.
The moment I walked through the doors, everyone burst into applause. It was a far cry from the last time that I had been in the office. I looked around the room and smiled at all the faces that had helped me get to where I was that day. It was so good to stand there with such a big feeling of pride and happiness. I grinned at the sight of Reagan standing in the corner. She didn’t look tired anymore, and I assumed I didn’t, either. On Saturday night we probably had the best sleep of our lives. We were both the sort of people that woke up earlier than anyone else in the mornings, but that Sunday we’d both slept in late. I saw a few people glance at her strangely and I knew they were all wondering what was going on. I cleared my throat.
“We did it!” I said, and everyone burst into applause all over. I waited for the noise to die down before carrying on. “I just wanted to gather you all in before I went to give my speech because I couldn’t have done this without you. This is not just me winning today; this is all of us winning. So thank you. Thank you so much. I will take the time over the coming weeks to have a meeting with each and every one of you, but for now, please accept this collective thank you. Now, there’s one other thing that I wanted to address with you before I get out there. As you know, there was a spy in the office. That much was true. Ralph actually caught the one woman stealing some of our papers. What wasn’t true was that one of the spies was Reagan,” I said, and everyone turned to look at her. She gave them all a nervous smile and wave, and I carried on. “I had some false information that led me to believe that she was one of the spies, and I cannot tell you how awful I feel for firing her, especially after all that she has done for us. So I’m very sorry for that, and I hope we can all move forward from it. I’m sorry that I made you all think so badly of her when she did nothing at all. I’m the first to admit that I did wrong, and I will endeavor never to make that mistake again.”
I continued talking to the team and telling them how grateful I was to have them until it was time to go.
“I promise we’ll have a proper party soon with champagne and cake. But now, I have to go and deliver my speech.”
Everyone clapped again as I made my way to give my speech.
“Hang on,” Reagan said and quickly ran up toward me. I thought she was going to kiss me, but instead, she sorted out my crooked tie.
She smiled. “Much better.”
I heard someone whistle, and when I turned around one of the team members laughed.
“Uh, you do realize how obvious the two of you are, right?” he said.
“What? What do you mean?” I said and tried to keep the smile off my face from giving away too much.
The boy groaned. “We’ve all suspected that there was something going on between you guys for the past few weeks already. It’s pretty obvious.”
“Oh dear,” I said and laughed. “And here I thought we’d been discreet.”
“Oh, you have been. But we all knew anyway. It’s a little bit hard to hide something like that. You like the pants off her,” he said, and I burst out laughing. I looked at Reagan and saw that her face had turned pink. I resisted the urge to tell her how beautiful she looked right there. I’d have to tell her later, when the two of us were finally alone.
“It’s okay,” the boy said. “You don’t have to feel bad about it. We’re just finally glad it’s out in the open. The two of you are perfect for each other.”
“I haven’t admitted a thing,” I said and winked at Reagan.
“You don’t have to,” the boy said.
I laughed and walked out the room. So the team had been talking about Reagan and I all this time without us even realizing it? We had no idea. And there we were thinking that nobody knew about us. Goes to show how lost we were inside our own heads.
I made my way up onto the stage and smiled at the crowd. It felt good to be there, and I knew it was where I belonged. This was the moment that I had been waiting for.
“Thank you so much for appointing me today. I couldn’t have done it without you, and I thank you for putting your faith and trust in me,” I said. Everyone applauded and whistled, and I grinned at them. Then I looked down at my papers and read through the speech I had prepared. Afterwards, I looked up and smiled. “I’d like to end by thanking my amazing team for helping me on this journey, and a special thank you to the very talented Reagan Knead for showing me the importance of integrity, as well as the value of a good suit.” The crowd laughed, and I winked a
t Reagan who was standing in the corner with Ralph.
As I walked off the stage, I pulled Reagan aside and thanked her again for everything.
She grinned. “You were amazing up there. I’m so proud of you. Nice suit by the way,” she said.
It was the suit that she had made me buy the first time we went shopping together. I laughed. “Oh yeah? You like it?”
“I do prefer you without any clothes on, but yes, I love the suit. And you know what? You’re actually starting to get less and less cocky.”
“That’s because you’re blinded by lust for me,” I said.
She laughed. “Okay, I take that back.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Reagan
On Monday night, Josh invited everyone to the conference room for a party. He’d thought about having the party at a restaurant, but we decided it would be better not to include anyone other than those that were part of the team. The office had been a place of stress the whole week, maybe even the whole month, and he now wanted it to be free of it. I helped him figure out the champagne and the cake, and we organized someone to bring in some music. We all danced around the office like teenagers and drank to our success. After the party, Josh hired cabs to take everyone home so that they didn’t have to drive.
“Want to share a cab with me?” he asked when we were walking out the door.
“Well, I’m going to the same place as you, so it would be silly to take separate cars,” I said and grinned at him. There was no way I was going back to my empty apartment when I could be spending the night with him.
That morning I woke up early and was surprised to see that Josh’s alarm hadn’t gone off. I’d asked him the night before, and he’d assured me that he had switched it on. It was late, much later than we usually woke up. My head was pounding slightly from the champagne I’d had the night before, but I was grateful for the half a liter of water that Josh had made me drink before going to bed. I would’ve been so much worse without it. I nudged him until he finally opened his eyes.
Dirty Boss (An Office Romance) (The Maxwell Family) Page 21