Page 30 of Our Little Cliche

Chapter Twenty-Nine

HOLLY

I should ask him… I have him by the scruff, all I have to do is ask.

Cyrus clearly has a thing for all things dark desires , it’s all in the books.

Even in his eyes when he looks at me. Dark, elusive and dangerous.

He wouldn’t judge me for asking, would he?

Besides, it’s his fault I’m acting this way, anyway. He owes me.

I practice the words in my head like a recital.

Cyrus, can you please fuck me in my sleep?

Cyrus, can you please fulfill my new and appalling—and highly illegal—fantasy of you waking me up with your cock inside me?

And while you’re at it, with a mask on. Like the books you write.

That’s just insane… I’m insane.

I drop my glare from his captivating blue gray eyes down to my closed fist that’s scrunching his clothes the way that Rose should have held Jack in Titanic, then back up, and back down again.

The amount of heat that’s burning between my knuckles to his obscenely large, and scrumptious pecs could start Black Saturday fires all over again.

I’m so close to him. Too close. To my boss…

Yet somehow I’m not nearly close enough.

Knocks, thumps, throbs and whomps are the sensations of my heart racing uncontrollably in my chest, spreading to my throat and head.

I can’t do it.

What is it about something that you can’t have, only makes you want it more? Like a juicy, succulent cake that oozes with dripping wet chocolate when you’re on a diet, or a BookTok trending romance novel everyone is raving about, but you’re on a book buying ban.

I tell you what, FOMO is real! And I’m smack bang in the middle of it. I want, no— need Cyrus more than I need air at this point.

“Cyrus…” It’s barely a whisper.

“…Yeah?” He mirrors a similar volume with a curtailed breath, it’s like a purr.

A rumble . Fear mixed with arousal reflects in his eyes as I hold this six foot something, grown ass hunk of muscle in the cusp of my hand.

I’m going against everything I’ve been fighting myself over since I met him.

My body splitting in two between morals and desire.

I’ve said it to myself so many times that it’s like a tattoo in my brain: if we do this, we lose our entire careers.

Cyrus is famous. A bestseller, climbing the ladder to be on that New York Times leader board.

If it gets out to the press that I’m screwing my boss, then not only will my digital footprint be ruined, but his writing career would be thrown in the bin, totally un-redeemable.

For our whole lives. I’d be forever known as the slutty editor, personal assistant, sleeping her way to the top.

I’ve worked so hard to get to this point in my life— despite getting absolutely maggoted and moving countries, but that’s neither here nor there —and now I’m working for an amazing author, with opportunities to travel across the globe, to fuck it up now would be an abomination.

And not at all Holly Cate style. Besides, I don’t sleep with just anyone.

Isn’t that the whole point of why you want him to annihilate you in your sleep in the first place, because he’s not just anyone? If he can write it, he can do it, right?

“Ahh, shut up already!” I screech, not intending to express my frustration out loud.

His brows rise, then he blinks four or five times. “Me?”

“What?”

“You just told me to shut up?”

“No… I was…” I sigh, still holding him prisoner in my hands. “I was just talking to myself.” Because I’m sick of arguing with my brain about you , I want to say.

I can’t believe I even gave it a thought.

There is no way or how I’m going to ask my boss to have sex with me while unconscious.

I barely even made it through him reading me a few chapters of his manuscript before I made some kind of sound from my mouth— a moan .

Meanwhile I’d been fighting the urge to strip off my clothes, spread my knees apart, and show him how wet he made me.

Wet. Wet. Wet.

Bucket and mop type wet.

“Why?” His tone is desperate for an answer.

“It’s—”

He looks down at my hand then back up again. Shit.

I release his shirt and my breath halts in my chest, very much not expecting the abrupt attack of his hand banding around mine. Cyrus returns it to where it was, having no choice in the matter but to let him. Not that I’m saying no. Not that I feel controlled.

“You were saying.”

“It’s nothing,” I lie. It’s very much not nothing. It’s very much everything right about now and my head feels like it’s going to explode with all of the overwhelming feelings I have for you.

“It’s not nothing, Holly. I’m asking you to please tell me what’s on your mind.

Your body is screaming a thousand different things, and I don’t want to make the wrong move on you if—” he takes a sharp breath, squeezing my hand affectionately.

And then, his voice does the signature move and drops an octave, vibrating my core like my Satisfyer Pro. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Lose me?

“You can tell me anything, I hope you know that. You’re safe here.

With me,” he adds and I know he’s telling the truth.

I could tell him anything and he wouldn’t judge me—just like he didn’t when he learned the reason I’m here, or when I fell down the ladder, or bit my lip, or when I sprinkled pastry over my hair.

Under the intense, yet fully controlled gaze he has pinned on me as though I were a novel he’s trying to read, I soften.

I can’t believe I’m about to do this. I purse my lips, blowing a resounding breath.

“I’ve been… torturing myself since I met you.

Not just for how much I’ve wanted to kiss you again, but something worse since I…

” He stays silent, brushing his thumb over my hand, patiently waiting for me to find my words.

“Read your book. I can’t even be in the same room with you without wanting to kiss you.

Actually, kissing is just scratching the surface. And I know, it’s insane, but?—”

“It’s not insane, Holly.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say,” I whisper.

Does he…

Does he know?

Cyrus’s eyes trail down to our hands and I follow as if our bodies are in sync. “I don’t need to, angel.”

Angel .

He turns our hands out so that mine is palm side up, cradling it in his like a newborn infant. Gentle, but firm and safe. My eyes retreat to his as he loosens, but he doesn’t look at me, rather he’s focused on caressing the side of my palm with his thumb.

Holy moly.

“I told you, I pay attention. When I say it’s not insane, I mean it. Because I want it, too,” he adds, all too easily as though he knows EXACTLY what I meant, then plants a soft kiss on my hand before putting it down on my lap.

“I really doubt you and I want the same things,” I disagree, dejected, tucking my knees into my chest.

“Holly.” He yanks my legs back down by the ankles with an I will fuck it out of you if I have to, kind of look.

His tone is serious. His eyes almost pitch black with desire, fueling the moisture between my legs to multiply.

“I observe you, and your body. Right now you’re testing me and I can’t tell if you’re doing it to avoid telling me what you truly want or because you enjoy making me lose my mind over you.

I’m trying so hard not to do what I want with you Holly.

I don’t want to overstep my boundaries.”

Not a single word can be articulated from my thoughts right now, other than kiss me, fuck me… love me, but they don’t leave my lips. He curls his hands under my thighs, then squeezes them, lifting my legs over his—spreading me in the process.

Crap, please don’t have a wet patch down there, please don’t have a wet patch, I pray silently.

Cyrus drawls the words like an erotic audio book. “I. Know. What. You. Want, Holly .”

“You… do?”

He can’t possibly know that I want to be railed in my sleep. Be loved, possessed, and obsessed over like the books. He can’t know that I dream of being given an orgasm without me needing to do it—because I’ve never had an orgasm from someone else.

“Say it.” It’s a demand. We’re playing a dangerous game here. “Say you want me.” His breath is hot, hanging on the edge of temptation. Even with this much demand, Cyrus is giving me full control—the ball is in my court. He’s prepared to ruin everything… for me. He wants me. He… needs me.

A rush of that same adrenaline spikes through me and I have nothing left in me to stop it. “I… w-want.” I stutter. “You.”

“Better. Now say what you really want,” he teases, tapping on the manuscript beside him.

Holy fucking shit.

He does know.