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I don’t know where it comes from. It’s out of my mouth before I’ve decided to say it, and I keep my back to him because I’m not brave enough to watch him hear it.
“What do you mean?”
“That night, you made me believe you were just a customer. I had no idea you were my boss, or else—”
“You wouldn’t have kissed me?”
A tremor runs through me. “It was inappropriate,” I whisper. “It complicates things, Mr. Cassidy.”
“Does it?”
I don’t hear him move. That’s the thing about him, I’m learning—there’s no sound, and then he’s there, close enough behind me that the air changes.
“Why won’t you look at me? Are you scared of me, Margot? Now that you know who I am, does it scare you?”
I don’t say anything.
“I didn’t take you for a coward that night.”
I whip around, glaring up at him, and it works exactly the way he wanted it to. “I’m not scared of you.”
“Most people are scared of me.” His thumb strokes over my cheek, catching the corner of my mouth, and just like that I’m back in my office with my jacket half unbuttoned. “I don’t want you to be.”
“I’m not,” I whisper.
“No?” He leans forward until there’s a hair’s breadth between our lips. “Then why are you trembling?”
I don’t have an answer. He leans in and I brace for the kiss, and it doesn’t come—he pushes his face into the curve of my neck instead and groans, and the sound goes through me like something dropped. “Fuck me, sugar, you smell like something I could eat.”
“Mr. Cassidy…”
“Bishop. Call me Bishop. We’re past formalities.”
“That would be inappropriate.”
My hands lift to his chest and stop there, and I genuinely don’t know whether they’re going to push or pull. They settle for holding on.
“Is this some kind of perfume or just your natural scent?”
“I don’t use perfume,” I say shakily, tilting my head back and letting him have my throat. “I want to be able to smell the food and…Bishop.”
His mouth opens against my skin, tongue dragging over my pulse, and the sound that comes out of me isn’t one I’ve made before.
“W-what are you—? Oh, God.”
“I want you.” His mouth moves up the side of my neck, teeth catching my earlobe. “Tell me I can have you.”
“Bishop, I—I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not right.” My fingers find his nape and dig in. “You’re the boss, and this is not appropriate.”
He goes still. Not gentle-still, not patient-still—he simply stops, and takes his hands off me, and puts enough space between us that the cold air of the kitchen gets in.
“Then say no.”
He doesn’t reach for me. He doesn’t fill the silence, and he doesn’t tell me what saying no would or wouldn’t cost me. I understand somewhere underneath everything that this man has never in his life needed to talk a woman into anything.
