No Kissing Allowed (No Kissing Allowed #1)(35)

Trevor hesitated, and I fought the urge to tell him to hurry up. After what felt like forever, he finally spoke up. “We love it.”

The creative team high-fived and Gayle grabbed my hand. “We did it,” she whispered. I smiled back, even though Gayle had next to no input on the mock-up. Aidan straightened, his face lit. “We’re glad. We’ll begin work immediately.”

The call ended, and Aidan clapped his hands together loudly to quiet down our zealousness. “Great work, team. You should be pleased with yourselves.” Then he looked at me. “And we should all thank Cameron for her creativity with the idea. She’ll run point on the campaign. Cameron, I want your eye on every element of this project. This is your baby. Help her grow.”

I nodded and Gayle beamed. She really was an amazing boss. She gave me assignments and supported me, but otherwise stayed out of my hair. The best kind of boss. Aidan started in on a few other campaigns the agency was working on, potential clients, and statistics for one of the latest campaigns, but I barely listened. My body felt light from the excitement, my heart warm from a weekend I couldn’t forget.

My phone buzzed as soon as I reached my cube after the meeting, and I picked it up to find a text from my mom asking if I had received my ticket for Thanksgiving. My what? I sat down in my chair, woke up my computer, and opened Outlook. Sure enough, three unread emails down from the top sat a flight confirmation. My heart warmed at the sight of it. Thanksgiving was a month away, and I’d assumed that I would spend it in the city, my account too low to support a flight home when I’d already booked one for Christmas. But I missed my family. I missed my mom’s muffins in the morning and the smell of coffee all the way up the stairs. I missed how Eric refused to talk to you until he’d finished reading the paper, and how their cat—Sasha—hated everyone but him. Sitting back in my chair, I typed back to Mom: You’re amazing. Thank you! I’ll pay you back. Promise!

After finishing up a few emails, I started down the hall for the bathroom when I felt the presence of someone behind me. I fought to keep the smile from my face as I took in his telltale spicy cologne.

Aidan.

He nodded to a door to the left, a room I’d never been in before, then slipped inside. “Aidan,” I whispered after him, but he didn’t reply. My pulse sped up as I went on to the women’s room, my thoughts everywhere. Surely he wouldn’t risk something here, behind closed doors or not, but then why meet there instead of his office if this was work-related? I contemplated ignoring him, the good girl in me freaking out that we could get caught, and even talking in some random room looked suspicious, but then I stepped back into the hall, my eyes on the door. There was no one walking by, so I knocked once, and then when no one answered, glanced down the hall again and whispered his name. Once again he didn’t answer. I bit my lip, my stomach in knots, but then I thought of Aidan inside, waiting for me, and the worry was replaced with excitement.

I pushed open the door. It closed quickly but quietly behind me to expose a small meeting room with nothing more than a tiny round table, three chairs around it, and a desk with a computer on it in the far left side. A few boxes were stacked here and there that appeared to have found their final resting place. The room looked like it had once been someone’s office and was now used primarily for storage.

I turned toward Aidan, prepared to ask him what he was doing, when he placed a finger to his lips and pulled me against him, his mouth on mine before I could say another word. Mixing the Aidan I knew out of the office with Aidan, my boss, became too much, and before I could control myself, my hands were in his hair, tugging him closer, my insides awakening, begging for a repeat from the weekend.

His hands slid down my back, gripping my backside, and all I could think about was the table and whether it could support our weight. I had just decided that I was willing to take the chance when the doorknob to the room jiggled. And then the jiggling became knocking.

Oh, crap.

I jumped away from Aidan, my heart hammering away in my chest. This was it. We’d been officially together for one weekend, and now it was over. Fired. I tried to tell myself to calm down. We hadn’t been caught doing anything. We were just in an abandoned storage room. Alone. In the dark.

Forget oh crap, this was a full-out f*cked.

Aidan took my hand and raised it to his lips, kissing my palm easily, his entire demeanor the very definition of calm. He mouthed that it was okay and pointed to a small door beside the desk. I mouthed back closet and he nodded. I shook my head. There was no way I could close myself inside a tiny closet without a complete claustrophobic meltdown. But this was my job on the line, and if things got bad, I could just open the door.

“Is someone in there?” a voice called from outside the door, and suddenly all the blood drained from my face, the fear of losing my job greater than the fear of suffocating. Drawing a deep breath, I opened the closet and tucked myself inside, my hand ready on the knob.

My pulse sped up as my breathing became labored, thoughts rushing through one after the other. He knew I hated small spaces; he knew what this would do to me. Anger burned through me as I listened for movement outside the door, my head throbbing now from the effort to stay quiet, to control my breathing—to keep from shouting at Aidan through the door for making me do this. Only, he wasn’t making me do anything at all. I had walked into this room. I had stepped into the closet. I had closed the door. And now my anger turned on myself, which made me all the more irritated at him.