Eruption

39

Sierra clapped her hands as I walked toward James' office. She probably thought I was out of earshot.

I wove my way through the different departments. Tonight I thought I'd play up the student/professor role playing idea I had come up with. If anything could get James to cave, it was whispering Professor Hunter seductively in his ear. That dynamic between us never got old. It reminded both of us about when we first started our relationship. And no matter what anyone else said, I loved how we met. I could relive our first time together in his office over and over again. I absentmindedly licked my lips. s*x seemed to be the only thing on my mind recently.

The blinds on James' office windows were open, so he saw me approaching before I even knocked. He immediately smiled and waved his hand, gesturing for me to come in. I walked in and closed the door behind me.

"Sounds good," James said into his desk phone. "Reach those numbers and then we can discuss it." He smiled at me as he listened to whatever was being said on the other end of the line. He stood up, eager for the phone call to be over. "Thanks. You too." He immediately hung up the phone and grabbed my waist, pulling me close to him. "I was just thinking about you."

"I'm always thinking about you." I stood on my tiptoes, drawing my face toward his. James' lips were immediately on mine as his palm pressed against the small of my back. The past few days had been filled with the sexiest make out sessions imaginable. Apparently we were both addicted to s*x, because not taking it further than a kiss always took all of my restraint. I laced my fingers behind his neck, making the heat between us almost palpable.

He groaned and grabbed my thigh, lifting it around his waist.

I laughed and pulled back, but he kept my thigh in his hand.

"You're killing me," he whispered. "I need you."

"I need you too." I looked up into his eyes and ran my hand down the side of his face. "It's just going to make our wedding night that much better, you know."

He smiled and kissed my forehead. "There's no way you can wait until then."

"There's no way you can wait until then," I said and poked the center of his chest.

"You're right. I can't." He grabbed the back of my neck and kissed me hard. When he pulled back, I was completely breathless. He released my thigh and smoothed my skirt back into place. "And neither can you, baby."

I pressed my lips together and shrugged. "Are you hungry?"

His eyes gravitated down my body. "Starving."

I laughed. "For lunch, James." I sat down in one of the chairs in front of his desk.

"In that case...I guess I could eat." He grabbed our sandwiches out of the small fridge and sat down beside me.

"So, the other marketing interns want to go out for drinks tonight. And they were hoping my fiancé could come too." I smiled at him as I slowly unwrapped my turkey sandwich.

"Should we meet up with them after the cake tasting?" He took a huge bite of his sandwich.

"You actually want to go?"

He shrugged as he finished chewing. "If that's what you want to do. You keep saying you want to bond with them. Wasn't that why you didn't want them to know we were together in the first place?"

"For some reason I thought you were going to say no."

"When do I ever say no to you?"

I smiled at him. "You usually don't say no. You just do whatever you want regardless. Or else I wouldn't even be eating lunch with you right now. I'd have a different internship."

"Fair enough. But I think it'll be fun. I should know all my employees better. It will be good for me too."

"Are you sure?"

James laughed. "If you don't want to, we don't have to."

"No, it's not that." It's just that Zach jumped to conclusions because of the bruises on my face and Sierra has a crush on you. "I don't want to force you to do things you don't want to."

James leaned forward and kissed me again. "All I ever want to do is hang out with you. And I'm excited to meet your new friends."

"Just to give you a heads up, I'm pretty sure Sierra is going to try to steal you away."

"I love how jealous you get."

"I'm not jealous."

He smiled back at me. "And maybe after drinks we can go home and reevaluate this whole no s*x before the wedding thing?"

"You're incorrigible, James Hunter."

"Is it working?"

I shook my head, but we both knew he was wearing me down.

Thursday

I took another bite of the dark chocolate mousse cake.

"Is that one your favorite?" James asked as he took a bite too.

"I don't know, they're all amazing."

After the pastry chef had reprimanded us for waiting until a week before the wedding to pick a cake, he had laid out an assortment of the most delicious cakes I had ever tasted. It was good we had skipped dinner because I apparently didn't have any self control around wedding cakes.

"You know what this one reminds me of?" James asked.

I nodded. "I was thinking the same thing. Even though it's not lava cake, it tastes like that chocolate cake from your country club."

"Our country club."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"It kind of takes me back to our first date. Our first real date I mean. Not just when I seduced you in my office." He took another bite of the cake.

I smiled up at him. "I seduced you."

He laughed and shook his head.

"You pretended that I was your wife on that date. Do you remember?"

"I remember." He was looking at me in the most loving way.

"Did you ever think we'd be here right now?"

"At that moment?" He ran his hand through his hair. "I think I was just terrified by my own reaction to you."

I knew he was referring to his addiction problem. I looked down at the cake.

"I wasn't really in a good place when we met, Penny."

"I know, I just meant..."

"You saved me."

He had never said that to me before. I swallowed hard. I felt tears welling in my eyes.

"Suddenly the only thing I wanted in life was to see you smile." He reached out and took my hand. "So yeah, I thought we'd eventually be here. This is everything I've always wanted. We certainly had our ups and downs getting here, though." He smiled at me.

"You mean, you certainly enjoyed pushing me away?"

"I'm not going to ever push you away again." He ran his thumb along the palm of my hand.

"I know."