Bet On It: An Age Gap Billionaire Office Romance(58)

“Analyn.”

I forced my eyes open to look into Reed’s. “I want to watch you come.”

Before Reed, the idea of a man watching as I succumb to an orgasm would have made me self-conscious. But with Reed, I wanted him to see what he did to me.

He continued to move, thrusting in and out, each time a little faster, a little harder. “Come, Analyn. I can’t hold back much longer . . . fuck, I’m almost there.” He lifted my thigh, opening me to him as he drove in deep. My orgasm peaked, stealing my breath. He pressed his lips over mine to muffle my cry, or maybe his, as he bucked and let his release carry him away.

Slowly, the high of orgasm drifted away, and all the old concerns returned.

Reed lifted his head to look down at me. His eyes searched my face, presumably trying to decide whether I was going to run again.

As if he knew all the thoughts running in my head, he said, "I know nothing has changed. I'm still your boss. I'm still too old. And what was the other issue? I still have too much money?"

My lips twitched up, but I didn't feel much humor in his comment. His expression didn't show a lot of humor, either.

"Don't forget you're being shaken down by a mobster."

"Oh, right." He stood up and began to straighten his clothes. I felt his absence deeply. Like all of a sudden, a chasm had opened up between us.

I sat up and straightened my clothes, not quite sure what to say.

He sat down on the couch next to me, his hands on his thighs. "Is your only objection to me that I'm your boss, I'm rich, and I’m older?"

"That's enough, isn’t it?" I decided not to add the mobster bit. After all, he said he didn’t want to do business with Paradise Limited.

His head turned to look at me, his expression filled with something I couldn't quite name, but it tugged at my heart. "Is it the totality of those three things?"

I continued to look at him, not sure what he was saying.

"I mean if it was only that I was rich, only that I was older than you, would that be something that could be overcome? Is this only because I'm your boss?"

I looked down at my hands clasped in my lap. I looked so prim and proper considering what I’d just done with him on the couch.

"What I'm asking, Analyn, is if none of those issues existed, would things change with you? I'm asking, is this just sex?"

My heart thundered loudly in my chest. He had to have been able to hear it. Did I tell him the truth? What good would that do? The fact remained that there was too much in the way. The biggest hurdle between us was that he was my boss and I didn't want to be the woman who moved up in the world because she was fucking the boss. Something that not long ago, he was accusing me of.

I turned to look at him because he deserved an answer, even if it wasn’t the truth. But what I saw in his eyes made my heart stop and I was unable to fudge the truth.

“It's more than sex,” I admitted. Now I felt guilty for his believing that was all that was between us. How could he think any differently when every time we had sex, I ran off?

He let out a breath, and it was only then I realized he'd been holding it. My answer mattered to him.

His fingers gently tugged a tendril of my hair. "I know that the situation hasn't changed. But considering the fact that we are helpless against this attraction between us, and that there are feelings here, maybe we need to find another solution."

"You mean that proposition where we indulge it until it burns out?" The memory of that had me rethinking admitting that I had feelings. After all, he believed we could have sex until the attraction died away. I knew that wasn’t possible on my side. I’d simply fall deeper for him.

His jaw tightened. "That's one option. Another is I can walk out of here with you on my arm and announce to the world that you and I are together. And if anybody has a problem with it, they can go fuck off."

The tension in his face told me he wasn't joking, and yet there was something about his statement that released the tightness in my chest.

Not that I wanted him to go tell everybody to fuck off, because I didn't. "That still leaves people thinking that I’m sleeping my way up the ladder." Before he could respond to that by telling me they could all go fuck off, I pressed my hand to his chest. "It matters to me that people believe I'm in this job because I earned it."

He straightened and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. His head was down, and he looked defeated.

It tore my heart in two. "Do you have any other ideas?"

He let out a humorless laugh and sat back, letting his head drop onto the back of the couch. "Short of selling the company, no. Of course, if my financial status is a problem, I can give my money to charity. The age thing, though, Analyn, I can't change that."

"If the fact that my world is so different from yours doesn't bother you, or that I'm a lot younger than you—"

"Why would any of that matter to me? I wasn't born rich. And my interest in you has nothing to do with your age, background, or bank account. I don’t give a shit what people think about it. Maybe I'm a cliché. I know I am. I'm the CEO who's fucking one of his employees, who’s nearly twenty years younger than me. Anyone who was a problem with it can go—"

I gave him a wan smile. "Fuck off?"