Page 55 of All’s Well that Friends Well (Lucky in Love #2)

“Rod,” I say as my anxious insides squirm. If anyone is going to tell Juliet about this, it should be me.

But Juliet isn’t paying attention to me; she just shrugs. “Because he’s rude?”

Rodney’s lips press into a thin line I know to be a smile. “Well, yes. But?—”

“Rod,” I repeat, holding out an arm now.

Rod raises one bushy eyebrow at me, and although I glare at him, I also sigh.

“Just—let me, please,” I say, exasperated. “All right?”

His stooped shoulders twitch into a shrug. “Get on with it, then. I think it’s time, don’t you?”

I do think it’s time, actually. But I didn’t count on Rodney forcing the conversation.

Juliet is look back and forth at the pair of us, her brows raised, her expression confused. “What are you talking about?” she says, turning her attention solely on me. “What’s going on?”

“I—nothing. I just—” When I break off and glare at Rodney, he snorts.

Then I sigh. “Rodney would like—he wants—” Again I stutter to a halt.

I clear my throat and spit the words out.

“He would like me to take over the company, theoretically. I’m on assignment here as the branch manager, but my technical position is—is the senior vice president. ”

Juliet blinks at me.

“Of the company,” I mumble, and I half hope those words get lost on the way to her.

They do not.

“Senior vice president,” Juliet repeats after a second of silence. She’s staring at me, uncomprehending, her expression blank. “Of the company.”

I nod at her slowly. Then I move to the edge of my desk and lean against it, because I think we might be here a while.

“Like…senior vice president of the company company. This company.”

When I shoot Rod another glare, he’s still watching with pleasant interest—reveling in my discomfort like a psychopath.

“This company, yes,” I say with a sigh. “Explore.”

Juliet is still standing near the couch, her arms hanging limply by her side.

“But…” she says as her gaze finally leaves mine.

Her eyes dart back and forth unseeingly for a second until they jump back to me, and when she speaks again, her voice is faint.

“But I told you to email me at [email protected]. ”

She startles and looks over her shoulder as Rodney lets out a bark of laughter. Even my lips twitch, because I had forgotten about that until just now .

“You did do that, yes,” I say.

She whirls around to look down at Rodney, whose expression plainly shows that he’s having the time of his life.

“So you’re, like…in charge, ” she says, the words still faint. “Of everything. All the things.”

He ducks his head into a surprisingly humble nod. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” he says, his voice gruff but sincere.

Juliet stares at him for a second, her jaw open, and then she turns back to me. “Are you going to apologize?” she says, and for one tense moment, I examine her closely—her expression, the set of her shoulders, her hands still loose by her sides.

But she doesn’t seem angry, just shocked, and tentative relief trickles through me.

“I’m very, very sorry I didn’t tell you,” I say, as serious as I can manage despite the strange laughter that’s trying to escape.

She’s cute. That’s all. And I want to hug her.

When she remains silent, I push off the desk and stand up, approaching her carefully. “Is that all?” I say.

Her gaze trails up my neck and my face until her gaze meets mine, vivid and blue. “It’s just…” she says with horror as I close the distance between us, and when she goes on, her voice is higher-pitched. “ I told you to email me at [email protected] .”

“Still stuck on that.” I can’t keep my smile in any longer, and I can’t rein in this feeling, either—this surging joy in my chest, overwhelmingly bright and giddy.

Because it’s hitting me, right here and right now, that I absolutely don’t want someone like her.

I want her . I want to feel like this all the time.

I want to choose this woman every day. She is my white picket fence, my dream of the future.

No one else makes me feel the way she does.

No one else makes me smile the way she does, and no one else drives me as crazy, either.

We could have something real, Juliet and I. Something lasting. And I want it.

“Rod, you should go,” I say absently as I lift my hands to Juliet’s face. When the couch squeaks, I glance at him, more alert. “Do you need help?—”

“Shut up,” Rodney says, waving me away. “You have a woman like this in front of you.”

So I turn back to Juliet, sliding my hands into her hair, moving impossibly closer. Her hands have found my waist, wrapping around me and holding me tightly, her eyes bright as she looks up at me.

From behind us the blinds rattle as the office door opens. “I’m closing these,” Rodney says in his creaky voice, and I hear another rattle of blinds. “You’re welcome. We’ll discuss your promotion later.”

I hum my thanks, but it’s all I can give him at the moment, because Juliet is everywhere and I want her. I want her days and her nights and her laughter and her tears.

“I have to say, Mr. Slater,” she says when the door has closed and we’re alone again, “the way you’re looking at me is not very office appropriate.”

“The things I want to do are not very office appropriate either,” I admit as my heart thuds against my ribs, trying to escape, to reach the woman to whom it now belongs.

She gasps, her gaze flashing with amusement. “How scandalous. Please tell me more.”

“Well, first”—I slide my hand out of her hair and tug her headband off, tossing it carelessly onto the sofa—“ I want to get rid of this.” Something stirs in my chest at the sight of her hair cascading down, and when she pouts up at me, I exhale roughly.

“I told you to stop making that face,” I say, the words hoarse as my gaze lingers.

“Hmm,” she says, her arms trailing lightly up my back. “What are you going to do about it?”

I lean forward and nip her bottom lip, pulling it between my teeth and swallowing the gasp that escapes her.

“I’m going to kiss you,” I breathe. I shiver as her fingers curl into my back, like she can’t hold on tight enough.

“I’ll kiss you all the ways I want to kiss you—and I’ll kiss you all the ways you want to be kissed. ”

“There are a lot of ways I want to be kissed,” she whispers as I trail my lips up her jaw. “A lot of ways and a lot of places—” But she breaks off as I find the spot just below her ear and press a kiss to her skin—then I skim my nose down her neck, breathing her in.

“Heaven,” I mutter. “You smell like heaven all the time.”

And I could explore her forever. I want to.

But her lips are calling, begging, and I finally let myself give in.

I find her mouth with mine, fuse our lips as she melts into me, matching me stroke for stroke; I explore this part of her the way I’ve wanted to since the moment we first kissed that day in my office.

Fire roars in my chest and grows, spreading throughout my body as longing flares to life.

Her hands are in my hair now, digging painfully into my skin, and everything is hypervivid—her gasped breaths as our lips slide, the desperate curl of my fingers at her waist—closer?—

More. I want more, but it’s too much, too fast, and I know instinctively that moving too quickly will kill whatever we could have.

So I slow down. Relax my grip, ease the tension out of my body, and let myself feel her—gentle hands up and down her spine, slow breaths instead of frantic gasps. She senses the change, I can tell, because her grip loosens too as she slides her hands to my shoulders.

I was so reluctant to fall for her. So reluctant to let her into my messy life, into my messy heart.

But she barged her way in anyway, and now that she’s here…

I want to see how she looks in my space.

So I tilt my head to kiss her more deeply, more languidly, a lazy exploration of her lips.

I count the notches in her spine. I revel in the sensation of her fingers sliding through my hair, the soft press of her curves.

And when she smiles, it’s an expression I feel rather than see. “Hi,” she whispers.

My legs are strangely weak, my chest full of something odd and fluttering but infinitely pleasant. “Hi,” I breathe.

She licks the word from my lips, steals it away as I groan.

This woman will be the death of me. She’ll drive me insane, and I’ll love every second. I let my forehead drop to hers, moving my hands and smoothing them over her hair. “You’re trouble,” I say in a hoarse voice.

“And you’re mine,” she whispers, still out of breath. “Right? You can’t kiss me like that otherwise.” A faint smile flits over her lips, bright red.

“I’m yours,” I agree.

“My list was successful?”

“I guess so.” I pause, trying to remember all the things she wrote. “Just—get rid of the last part. The part about moving on to someone else if you and I don’t work.” Clearing my throat, I add, “We work just fine.”

“It’s already gone,” she says, her voice serious. “Disappeared. Poof.”

I pull her into a hug of the kind I haven’t given in years—all-encompassing, curled around her, the only way I know how to hold a woman I’m falling in love with.

And that’s why I’m scared to fall, isn’t it? Because when I fall, I plummet.

“I’m yours,” I repeat. My heart still races in my chest from our kiss, my pulse pounding in my veins, so I inhale deeply before I speak again. “Only yours, Jules.”