“Since you’re talking about payment beyond the apprenticeship stipend, maybe you should consider getting a publicist. Or someone who actually knows what they’re doing.” She felt silly saying she didn’t want his money. Her entire trip to Scotland had been predicated on taking his money, though she was now going above and beyond anything she’d imagined her apprenticeship would entail. She was working hard and deserved payment for her work. But it felt . . . not great. Which was one of many reasons why she shouldn’t have slept with her boss.
“I don’t want anyone else,” Tav said, so quickly and definitively that her pulse raced to catch up. “But I understand if this is getting to be too much. It’s too much for me and it’s my life. Just let me know. We can go back to the original terms of the apprenticeship.”
His gaze searched her face and she tried to reveal nothing, like confusion as to why she would stay on as an apprentice—or anything at all—if he hired someone else. She didn’t think there was any going back to before, but she didn’t want to get into that.
“I don’t want to mess anything up,” she said. That was the truth, if not the whole truth.
“I don’t want you to assume you will,” he said. “It seems we’re at an impasse.”
“Tavish, this is serious,” she said. He didn’t know any better and was relying on the fact that she was already there. “This is your life. I don’t want you to put it in my hands because it’s the easy thing to do.”
“I think that’s exactly the reason I should put my life in your hands. It’s scarily easy for me. There’s that impasse again.”
A thought that had somehow been lost beneath all the madness pushed its way to the front, putting everything into a perspective of sorts.
“There are only a few weeks left in this apprenticeship,” she quietly reminded him. “You need to start thinking about what you’re going to do moving forward.”
When I’m gone. In a few weeks she’d likely assume her position at her parents’ company, cementing herself in her new, serious life and forgetting this had ever happened. Or pretending it hadn’t. Forgetting didn’t seem likely.
They stared at each other, and Portia was overcome with the urge to be hugged. It was the same feeling of homesickness that had overwhelmed her while talking to Ledi and Thabiso, except the hug she wanted—needed—was from Tav, who was about as far from home as she could get.
“How’s your system?” he asked. His gaze was weighted, and not by frustration as it had been a few minutes before.
“What?”
He swiveled back and forth in his office chair. “Your system. Am I out of it? We didn’t get to discuss before I flashed your friends and was almost seduced by an aristocrat.”
She should’ve given him a definitive “Yes” and continued about her business. But she’d mixed business with pleasure and, despite her intentions, after just one night they’d become hopelessly tangled. And like she’d just said, there were only a few weeks left of the apprenticeship. Whatever it was between them had an expiration date. It was only a question of sooner or later.
“I think—I think there are still some trace amounts,” she said.
She couldn’t even lie and say that she hoped pulling at this string would undo the knots last night’s roll in the hay had created. She knew very well that she was taking the express train to “Why the fuck did I do that?”-ville, but it was a very pleasant ride that made up for the final destination.
She wanted Tav’s mouth on her again, no more, no less.
“The thing with all these treatises I studied is that you have to be very specific when brokering a deal,” he said. “We were not very specific. Our agreement could technically be read as one day and done, right? It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours yet.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Portia said. “But we have to work on your statement. And—”
“It can wait. Come here,” he said, then added, “Please.”
He leaned back in his chair, but it wasn’t imperious. It was vulnerable somehow, the way he sat back just a bit awkwardly and hoped that she came to him.
“How polite of you.” She walked over slowly, placing her tablet down on the seat in front of his desk before making her way around. He reached out and tugged at the waistband of her workout pants. She thought he’d pull her into his lap, but instead both of his hands went around her waist and he marched her back until her ass was against his desk.
He leaned down and pulled off her sneakers, then her ankle socks, tugging them off slowly and stroking the bare skin of her feet. She ran her hand through his hair.
“Is this where you reveal you’ve got a thing for feet?” she asked.
He glanced up at her, smirk on his lips and gray at his temples. Damn, he was handsome. “I’m discovering I have a lot of ‘things.’ Feet. Ass. Collarbones. Nose. Freckles. One common denominator, though.”
Portia swallowed hard.
He stood, his hazel-green gaze boring into hers, then his mouth was on hers, lush, warm, tasting of coffee and pleasure. His hands skimmed over her chest, unzipping her hoodie and smoothing over her breasts, constrained beneath her sports bra. Even the specially designed elastic couldn’t suppress her hardening nipples, and he teased them through the fabric, rubbing his thumbs over them achingly slow before pinching, then repeating, lashing at her gasps with his insistent tongue all the while.
“Tavish,” she whispered, and his hands dropped back to her waistband.
“I’m gonna take these off now, love,” he said. She nodded into the rough kiss he pressed against her mouth before pulling away.
He hooked his fingertips into the waistband and pulled, dragging the material down to her ankles and off, finishing in the kneeling position. “See how easy that was after I was chosen by Pantscalibur?”
His voice was too low to carry the joke, and his intent gaze rested between her legs. His hands went to her knees and pushed them apart.
“Tav,” she whispered as the first soft kiss landed on her inner thigh. A shiver went through her at the scrape of his stubble against her sensitive skin. His hands slid up her outer thighs and up to her ass as his mouth and stubbled cheeks worked their way upward, upward until she could feel his breath hot against her mound.
“Tavish.” She couldn’t quite whisper anymore. Or say anything other than his name.
He pulled her forward, closing the space between them, and then she knew for certain she’d get no response because his mouth was busy giving her the best head of her life. Long, hard licks against her slit, followed by soft suckling of her clit that grew stronger and stronger until she was gripping the desk and grinding against his face trying not to shout.
Her toes curled and her abs flexed convulsively to some innate rhythm as Tav nuzzled deeper into her folds, alternating between soft and hard licks against her sensitive nub.
“Fuck, fuck!” She ground her teeth together and bucked up against his face as she came, maybe quicker than she ever had, just from the pleasant surprise of his intense focus.
She tried gathering her senses, which had been scattered like billiard balls after a wild breaking shot, but it was a fruitless endeavor. When she opened her eyes, Tav was watching her, cock in his hand as he rolled on a condom.
He approached, stroking himself as he bent over to kiss her. His arm brushed against her side as he placed a hand onto the desk for balance and pressed against her opening.
“God, we’re such a cliché right now,” Portia muttered. “Banging on the boss’s desk.”
“You know what a fan I am of dated clichés,” he said and pushed into her, eliciting a gasp. Her arms went around his neck and her head dropped back. Her hips swiveled to meet his short, controlled thrusts.