“Only if you want me to,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes at him as he stood and started to undress. He took his time undoing each of the buttons on his shirt, keeping his eyes on me the entire time. When he pulled his shirt off, I had to marvel at the chiseled abs and pecs that had been hiding beneath it. He slowly pulled his pants off, and I bit my lip as he revealed that he was already hard. I knew he saw me looking, but it didn’t embarrass me. I could stare at this perfect man all day long.

  “Do you like what you see?” he crooned as he stepped closer to me.

  “Hell yeah,” I whispered.

  Noah climbed into the tub behind me and wrapped his arms and legs around my body. He wasted no time as he started kissing my neck and playing with my nipples. I leaned into him and closed my eyes, trying to enjoy the moment before I knew it had to end. I felt his erection stiffen with every passing moment, and I lifted myself up, so he could slide it inside of me. He let out a long sigh as I moved myself up and down on his cock. He grabbed my hips and helped me move before slipping a finger to the front to pleasure me under the water.

  As his moans got louder and his hands got more vigorous, I bounced myself up and down as my entire body started trembling with pleasure. We reached our climaxes at nearly the same moment, and I collapsed back into the water on top of Noah’s chest.

  We laid there for another moment, trying to catch our breath, before there was a knock at the door. Noah looked at me suspiciously as I hopped out of the tub and wrapped a towel around myself. I opened the door to see a man who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old with a cart full of food for us. He wheeled it inside but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Noah leaning against the doorframe to the bathroom, completely naked.

  “You kind of interrupted something,” Noah said to the man.

  I audibly gasped at Noah’s brazen and confident stance as he stared the man down.

  “Uh— I— Um— sorry,” the man stammered as he whirled around and ran out of the room.

  “Noah!” I gasped as the door closed.

  “What? He interrupted.”

  “I was under the impression that we had finished,” I said.

  “Oh, Hazel,” Noah said, walking over to me, “I’m never going to be done with you.”

  He grabbed my chin and pulled my lips to his, and I felt his hand searching for the knot on the towel. It dropped to the floor, and Noah looked down at it. Or maybe at me, I couldn’t quite tell.

  “That’s more like it,” he grumbled as he grabbed my ass and picked me up. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and Noah walked over to the window and pressed my back up against it. The glass was cold against my skin, and I let out a little gasp of surprise.

  I felt Noah smile as he propped his leg up on the chair next to us and pressed his dick back inside me. He kept his balance with one hand on the window and the other on my hip as he slid himself in and out with excruciating slowness.

  “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “We can’t go back to Chicago,” he said as his hips continued to work.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “I need you, Hazel,” he said.

  “You have me.”

  “I need you in my bed next to me every single night,” he said as he began kissing my neck.

  As my body started to shake, I said, “I think I can arrange that.”

  Noah looked at me with a soft smile, and I placed both of my hands on his cheeks and pulled his face to mine. I pressed my nose to his and closed my eyes, feeling his cock get further and further inside of me with every gentle thrust.

  Noah grabbed me around my back and walked us over to the bed, never once letting his lips leave mine. He laid me on my back and pulled my ankles up to his shoulders before sliding into me once again. It only took a few more thrusts before the room was spinning and my body was pulsing with pleasure.

  Chapter eighteen

  Noah

  The week that I spent in New York with Hazel came and went far too quickly for my liking. I wanted to spend every moment of every day touching her, tasting her, kissing her. As we flew back to Chicago, we both knew that the moments we had spent together could never happen again, but we didn’t discuss it. Instead, we drank wine, laughed, and had a quickie in the plane’s bathroom.

  The more time I spent with Hazel, the more I was completely enamored by her. She was brilliant, thoughtful, kind, brave, and unbelievably sexy. Every time she pushed her blonde hair off her shoulder, it sent shivers through me. When she looked at me, my pulse picked up just a bit. And when she touched me…sometimes, I couldn’t even think when she touched me.

  Sometimes, I couldn’t believe my own good luck to meet a woman like her. But I also couldn’t believe my own damn bad luck that I had to meet her under these circumstances. I didn’t want Harry to know. I didn’t want Hazel to be ridiculed or ostracized by her colleagues because she had a relationship with her boss. Though I guess this didn’t really count as a relationship, did it? I would have loved to be in a real relationship with her, but I knew that wasn’t a possibility, at least not now.

  I tried to push these thoughts from my mind and enjoy the last bit of time with Hazel before we had to go back to being colleagues who definitely didn’t sleep together. I looked over at Hazel, and she seemed to be having the same thoughts that I was. She saw me watching her and blushed a little bit and looked away. She was so perfect. How could anyone be so perfect?

  “What are you looking at?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Just enjoying the view,” I said.

  Hazel smiled at me, the skin around her eyes wrinkling just a bit. “So…” she started to say.

  I raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to go on.

  “This was a really great week,” she said.

  “It was,” I agreed.

  Looking down at her hands, she said, “I wish it didn’t have to end.”

  I reached over and lifted her chin, so she could look at me again.

  “Me too.” I paused for a moment before continuing, “But I don’t know what other choice we have.”

  “I know. It’s just not fair,” she said, her eyes growing dark with sadness.

  It pained me to see her like this, and I needed to figure out a way to make everything better. I pulled her into my arms, and she rested her head against my chest. We sat there for a moment, soaking up the feeling of our bodies being pressed against one another before Hazel pulled away to look at me, her eyes misty with tears.

  “Maybe we should just tell my dad,” she suggested quietly.

  “Is that what you want to do?” I asked, surprised by her suggestion.

  “All I know is that I want to be with you,” she whispered.

  I kissed the top of her head and grazed my thumb along her cheek.

  When we landed, I had arranged for separate cars to pick us up, but before we parted, I did something that I wasn’t expecting. I just didn’t want to be apart from her.

  “Hazel,” I said as her driver took her suitcase from her hand.

  She turned to look at me, her hair fluttering in the wind from the runway.

  “Will you join me for dinner tonight?” I asked.

  “What?” She was just as surprised by the question as I was.

  “I want to cook for you. I’ll have my driver pick you up at 7,” I said.

  “You cook?” she asked with a smile.

  “I’m an excellent cook if I do say so myself,” I bragged.

  “I would have never guessed.”

  “So, you’ll come over?”

  She hesitated for a moment, considering the offer. Finally, she said, “Sure, I’ll come over.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. Hazel made me smile more often than I ever had in my life. I kissed her cheek and ushered her into the car. As I closed her door, I said, “I’ll see you tonight.”

  I spent the rest of the day in anxious anticipation for Hazel’s arrival. I may have just spent an entire week with her but having her in my home-made things feel a bit more serious. At this point, I didn’t care that we could never be together publicly. I was happy just to have her to myself in private. I had my chef prepare all the ingredients for the meal I was going to cook for her, but then I excused him, giving him the night off. I wanted to make this meal entirely by myself. The truth was, I enjoyed cooking, and it was something that I tried to make time for, but my skills had gotten a bit rusty.

  When the concierge of the apartment building announced Hazel’s arrival, I immediately told him to let her in, and my heart started racing faster than ever. The private elevator doors opened into my front room as she emerged, looking even more stunning than usual. She was dressed in black jeans and a cropped black top, and the bit of skin that was peeking out above her pants made me catch my breath. She could wear anything she wanted and still look absolutely phenomenal.

  “Hi,” I said, a bit speechless.

  “Hi,” she echoed.

  She crossed the room towards me, and I jumped over the back of the couch to get to her, wrapping her in an embrace like I hadn’t seen her in weeks. I had one hand on the back of her neck and the other on her lower back, my fingers tingling at the feeling of her skin. I pressed my lips to hers, and I felt her smile as I slid my tongue into her mouth. She sighed a bit, and a rush of excitement ran through my body.

  “Should we just skip dinner? Head to the bedroom?” I whispered.

  Hazel laughed and pulled away from me, only to grab my hand to lead me to the kitchen. “No way. I’m starving, and it smells amazing in here.”

  Hazel looked around at everything I had prepared, and I hoped that the look on her face was one of delight. She looked up on me, and I had to believe that she was impressed. “Honestly, I expected a professional chef to be hiding in here.”

  “You have no faith in me, do you?” I asked.

  She grinned as she continued to inspect the food. “How did you learn to cook? I always thought of you as the type who had people to do this for you.”

  “Well, normally, I do have people do this for me. Life is just too busy most of the time,” I said.

  She nodded her agreement.

  “My mom taught me how to cook when I was young,” I said.

  Hazel smiled up at me, her eyes a bit sad, perhaps remembering her own mother.

  “She was an excellent cook. Some of my earliest memories are sitting on the kitchen counter and helping my mom prepare food for us,” I said.

  “Didn’t she die when you were pretty young?” Hazel asked.

  “Yes, she did. I guess she instilled a love of cooking in me from a young age. But she did try to teach me as much as she could. I’m sure I wasn’t always the best student,” I said.

  Nearly every time I thought about my mother, I felt regret about not appreciating the time I had with her before she was gone. I tried to honor her and remember her in various ways, but it wasn’t always easy. I was sure that Hazel probably would have agreed with that sentiment, but I really didn’t want to ruin the evening by talking about dead mothers, so I tried to change the subject. Peeking into the oven, I asked, “How was your afternoon?”

  “Absolutely awful,” Hazel said, hopping up onto the counter.

  “What? Why?” I asked.

  I crossed the room and stood in front of her, placing myself between her knees. She set her arms on my shoulders and cocked her head at me, a slight smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Because I wasn’t with you,” she whispered before kissing me.

  I wanted Hazel more than ever in that moment. I wanted to lay her down right there on the kitchen counter and make her scream my name. I grabbed her ass, pulling her closer to me, and she pressed her breasts towards me as she arched her back. I kissed down her neck and towards her chest, letting my hands wander up the back of her shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra, I noticed, which made things even better. Just as I was about to slip her shirt over her head, there was a knock at the door. Hazel jumped, and I turned my head towards the noise, even though I couldn’t see the front door from here.

  The only person who could get up to my front door without being announced was Marisa, and I instantly remembered that she had told me she was going to drop off some time-sensitive documents for me to sign tonight.

  “Are you expecting company?” Hazel asked.

  “It’s Marisa. I just need to sign a few things. Come with me, it won’t take long,” I said.

  Hazel hopped off the counter and grabbed my hand, following me towards the front room. She plopped herself on the couch as I went to open the door.

  “Uh, hi,” I said, opening the door and seeing a young woman standing there.

  “Hi, Mr. Hyde. Sorry to just drop by like this. Marisa wasn’t feeling well, so she sent me to have you sign these,” she said.

  “Please, come in.” I ushered her inside, even though I still had no idea who she was.

  “Hazel?” The woman said upon seeing Hazel sitting on the couch.

  “Courtney? What—why—hi. What are you doing here?” Hazel asked.

  Apparently, I was the only one who didn’t know Courtney.

  “I have some budget documents that need to be signed tonight, so I can get them back to Mr. David,” she explained.

  There was a name I did know. Alan David was CFO for the Bees. Courtney must have worked in the finance department, and apparently, she and Hazel were acquainted.

  “What are you doing here?” Courtney asked Hazel suspiciously.

  “I—um—well—” Hazel stammered, looking to me for assistance.

  “Hazel was just explaining a new social media campaign that she has been working on,” I said, hoping that my voice sounded more confident than I felt.

  Courtney nodded and looked back and forth between us.

  “Well, shall I sign?” I asked when the silence had gone on too long.

  Courtney handed a stack of papers to me, each one with a little flag pointing to the space for me to sign. I quickly scanned each document, but I knew that Marisa had probably looked over them more thoroughly, so I wasn’t too concerned with the details. I signed each one and handed them back to Courtney. The entire time, the room was silent, and I could feel the tension between the two women as they both watched me and tried not to look at each other.

  Finally, I made it through the stack, and I ushered Courtney to the door. When I turned around and looked at Hazel, she had her head in her hands. Rushing to her side, I placed an arm around her shoulders. She looked up at me with a pained expression. “What are we going to do?” she asked quietly.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Courtney is the biggest gossip I have ever met. Everyone is going to know that she saw me here if they didn’t know already,” she said.

  “Oh,” I said, “I hadn’t even thought about that.”

  “I should have stayed in the kitchen,” she said.

  “I thought it was going to be Marisa, and you know she would never say a word to anyone,” I said.

  “I know. I’m not blaming you. I just don’t know what to do now,” she said.

  I pulled her into me and let my head rest on top of hers. “We will figure something out,” I said, planting a kiss on the top of her head, “I promise.”

  Chapter nineteen

  Hazel

  The rest of the evening at Noah’s apartment was heavenly. He cooked us an amazing meal, we talked and got to know each other even more, and we had incredible hot tub sex on his rooftop patio. And then again in the shower. Truly, it didn’t get much better than that. Expect for the fact that in the back of my mind, I was still thinking about what it was going to be like to go back to work on Monday. There was no way that Courtney would keep this information to herself. It was going to be the hottest gossip that the Bees have ever seen, at least in my time with the team.

  I considered quitting right then and there, but I really loved my job. And even if I did quit, I would still have my dad to deal with. I felt completely stuck with no good options, and even with Noah’s attempts to distract me, it still kept me up all night long.

  In the morning, Noah had breakfast brought to me in bed, and we enjoyed a slow morning of eating, talking, kissing, and just holding each other. I thought that I might burst from happiness, but at the same time, I knew it all had to end.

  We could always just deny everything that Courtney said. Why would anyone believe her over Noah? Or maybe we could just accept the consequences of our actions and deal with the repercussions. Neither option sounded appealing to me, but I wasn’t sure what else to do.

  I got up to take a shower when Noah retreated to his office to catch up on some work. He was the hardest working person I had ever met, but somehow, he was able to balance all of his companies and still make time for me. And going to the gym. And cooking. And all of the other countless things that he filled his time with.

  When I got out of the shower, Noah was sitting on the bed, completely naked, with a large bouquet of flowers in his hands. I couldn’t help but smile at the image. He was so thoughtful and kind, I wasn’t sure how I got so lucky. Sure, I may have thought he was a bit of an asshole at first, but that was definitely not who he was deep down.

  “Well, what do we have here?” I asked.

  “Lose the towel,” he said with a smile.

  “Yes, sir.” I let my towel fall to the floor and hopped into the bed with him.

  He wrapped his arms around me and held me tight, warming my skin that was still a bit damp from the shower. He kissed the back of my neck and shoulders, and I couldn’t think of any place I would rather be.

  “I was thinking,” he said.

  I turned to face him just a bit.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “Maybe we should tell your dad about us.”

  “What?” I asked, shocked at the words that were coming out of his mouth.

  “I think it would be a good idea,” he said.

  “Why in the world would that be a good idea?”