Dear Grumpy Boss: A Brother’s Best Friend Office Romance (The Harder They Fall)
Dear Grumpy Boss: Chapter 24

AS SOON AS WESTON closed his apartment door, he was on me, his hands in my hair, his mouth slanting over mine. The way he was kissing me was nothing like the sweet pecks in the bar. He’d been freed from his restraints. All the rules he’d been following had fallen away. His teeth scraped over my lips. His tongue licked into my mouth, deep, tasting. I moaned and fell backward, hitting a wall. Weston followed me, pressing himself flush.

My nails dug into his chest, wildness overwhelming me—everything about what was happening overwhelming me. We’d been finished with this side of our relationship. Just friends. Then everything had changed.

I was trying to catch up, but Weston wasn’t giving me a second to think.

Did I even want to?

This man was who I wanted. Friendship was never going to be enough, not with how close we had become and how strong my feelings were for him.

“West,” I moaned against his lips.

“Yes.” He tugged my hair and pushed his thick cock into my belly. “I’ve been waiting to hear you say that again.”

“West.” My lashes fluttered. He kissed my nose, then bent his head to lick a line up the side of my neck. My knees were weak, but he had me propped against the wall. Anchored.

His hand was in my dress, beneath my bra, squeezing and rubbing my nipple. I worked at his buttons, frustrated there were so damn many on his dress shirt. I was close to ripping it off when I got the last one undone and could drag my palms over his heated skin.

Suddenly, he straightened, meeting my eyes. He took my head in both of his hands, taking a long time to stare at me. I felt the weight of his gaze in my chest, so heavy and filled with a thousand words. There was vulnerability Weston almost never showed. It hit me hard.

“I’ll be your friend, Elise, but I can’t be only that. It’s impossible.”

I pushed up on my toes and pressed my lips to his. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too. You have no idea.”

We’d spent every spare moment together but had held ourselves apart. Now that was over.

Weston took me to his bedroom, shedding his clothes like old skin along the way. We’d avoided his bedroom in all the time we’d spent together. I hadn’t even set foot inside. Later, I’d explore it. Right now, the man sitting on the edge of his bed, pulling me between his spread knees, was my entire focus.

Weston tugged the bow at my hip, and my wrap dress fell open. He shoved it the rest of the way off, leaving me in my black satin bra and emerald-green lacy boy shorts.

He gripped my hips and rubbed his forehead on my stomach, releasing a shuddering breath. Then he kissed the indent of my belly button. I had never been comfortable with another man paying any attention to my stomach, but everything was different with Weston.

When we were alone, there was only us. Two people who craved each other. There was no part of him I wouldn’t kiss or savor, no part that didn’t turn me on and make me want him even more, and I knew from experience he felt the exact same way.

Weston didn’t do things he didn’t want to. He didn’t lie or pretend. If he told me I was gorgeous and kissed my soft stomach, it was real.

“My beautiful fucking girl,” he murmured as he edged down my underwear, kissing my exposed skin.

The fabric pooled at my feet, and Weston angled forward, kissing the top of my slit. I widened my stance, letting him in. His tongue breached my lips, teasing my clit. The barest touch and I had to hold on to his shoulders so I wouldn’t fall.

I really had missed him.

He lay back, bringing me with him to straddle his face. There was a moment of shyness, where I felt ungainly and overlarge, but Weston took me out of my head, gripping my thighs and pulling me to his mouth. The satisfied groan he released when my pussy met his lips erased my doubts.

He put me where I was because he wanted me there.

He made me want to be there.

My fingers curled around the top of his headboard, needing to hold on as his skilled tongue swiped over my soaked flesh. Like everything Weston did, he lapped at me with slow, measured precision. If I were brave, I would have peeked at his face. I was dying to see his expression. But this position had made me vulnerable, and I wasn’t ready to add another layer to it, so I closed my eyes and concentrated on what he was doing to my body.

His moans of pleasure.

His soft, insistent strokes up and down my legs.

The flick of his tongue on my clit.

His determined, unending devotion to licking every inch of my pussy.

My orgasm collided with me in a sudden burst, lighting me aflame. I cried his name and writhed over him, still careful not to drop down too low. But he obliterated my care, yanking me firmly onto his mouth and chin.

Weston was an intense man, which he brought to the bedroom and multiplied infinitely. His attention to my pleasure, to me, made me feel lucky, sexy, sensual. Being his sole focus was incredible. One orgasm wasn’t enough for him. He sucked on my clit until I was shaking and my bones were weak.

He rolled me onto the mattress, fitting his hips between my thighs. His thick cock slid through the dripping mess he’d made of me. Opening my eyes, I found him staring down at me with tenderness. I reached up, slicing my fingers through his hair then scratching the scruff on his jaw.

His cock slid into me easily, my inner walls pliant and stretching to accommodate him. He hissed when he was fully inside me, but he never took his eyes off me.

“This good?” he breathed.

“Perfect, West.”

He shuddered, his eyes closing for a moment. “You undo me, Elise.”

The truth in his words resonated. I believed him because he did the same thing to me. There were a thousand reasons we shouldn’t have been together, but when we were, they were all dismantled and stashed away.

He slowly slid out, taking his time working his way back in. And he went on like that, showing me what this was going to be. Weston was in no rush now that he had me, and the truth was, I could have spent a hundred years making slow, deep love with him. The way he looked at me when he was all the way inside me…he took my breath away.

It was a heady thing, being the subject of his attention.

His hips rotated in a deep circle, hitting parts of me that were tender and sensitive. I gasped, clutching his flexing shoulders, and brought my knees up alongside his hips to let him in even farther.

“Do you feel like you’re mine now?” he murmured.

I nodded, breathless from his deliberate, unflagging rhythm.

“I want to hear your words, baby,” he demanded softly. “Say it.”

“You make me feel like I’m yours.”

“Are you mine?”

I nodded again. His brow pinched. I knew what he wanted.

“I am. I am yours.”

A satisfied smile, then his mouth slanted over mine. His kiss was just as languid as his slick thrusts into my body.

When he let go of my mouth, he inched his face back so our eyes could meet.

“You haven’t demanded it, because you’re a better person than me, but you should know I’m yours too, Elise. There is no one else—and there won’t be.”

He brushed the hair from my face, sweeping his eyes over me.

“Good.” I lifted my legs higher, wrapping them around his waist. “I want you to be mine.”

It was crazy that he was. This was Weston. My Weston…what had been my fantasy a long, long time ago was finally true. He really was mine.

Something snapped in him. His head dropped to my throat, his mouth latching on with deep, hard sucks. I knew he was making his mark, and I should have cared, but I didn’t.

His movements picked up speed, and my hips rose to meet each pump. He hit me deep and hard, taking my breath away. At the same time, he continued to devour any piece of skin he could get to. Biting and sucking, he groaned like my flavor was the best he’d ever had.

My fingers were tangled in his hair, stroking his shoulders, the taut line of muscles along his spine. My beautiful man, I couldn’t get enough of touching him. Weston may have marked me to claim me, but I was claiming him too. Every inch of his skin that I touched, I stamped with possession, an invisible signature he could feel and I knew was there.

We writhed together in his sheets, kissing and holding on as our bodies collided and retreated until there was no going back. He slammed into me, and I tossed my head back, moaning from the pleasure-pain of having him so deep inside me. My inner walls flexed, pulling a guttural groan from him, and then we both let go.

I came, wet and visceral, so hard, I shook from it. He jerked once, then twice, plunging in as deep as he could go and stilling there. His cock throbbed, coating my insides as he emptied himself.

No condom.

It was a fleeting thought, one I didn’t care about.

Weston took my face in his hands and kissed me deeply, his tongue slipping into my mouth. I slid my palms up his arms, little aftershocks shaking my body as we kissed with no destination but each other.

Eventually, when we were breathless and our lips were red and swollen, we shifted to our sides. My thighs were coated with his release. It would start to bother me soon, but not yet.

He pressed his thumb into the center of my chin then stroked his knuckles along my cheek and brushed errant strands of hair off my face.

“I don’t want to miss you the way I have for the past two weeks. That’s finished now, Elise.”

“It is,” I agreed, rubbing his stubble. “I don’t want to miss you like that either.”

Thick emotion coated my chest. I sucked in a breath and pinched my hip to stop myself from tearing up, but it was almost impossible. We’d crossed lines in California, but this was something different. We were embarking on untested grounds, knowing there would be shaky parts but doing it anyway.

“It was when you were nineteen. Spring break.”

My brow pinched. “What was?”

“When I saw you as something other than a sister.”

My mind raced back to that spring break. I’d gone on a trip to Mexico with a bunch of girls then visited Elliot for a couple nights before I went back to the dorm. Weston had been there, of course. He had been a semipermanent fixture in the Levy home.

I had taken a thousand pictures of my first time snorkeling and casted them to the TV in the living room so I could show Elliot. He’d tried to get me to snorkel with him on vacations when we were kids, but I’d been too afraid.

“The bikini pictures?” I guessed.

His mouth twitched. “No, though they didn’t help. It was you.”

“Me? I’ve always been me.”

“You walked in wearing a yellow sundress. It was still cold as hell in Colorado, but there you were, all tan and happy, like you’d stepped off the beach. I remember hearing the front door open and walking out to help you with your bags. The second I saw you, I was literally staggered. I thought, that is my Elise, set on fire.”

My mouth fell open. “I—I don’t know what to say.”

He smirked. “I was twenty-three, almost twenty-four, and felt like the biggest perv checking you out. Then you tortured me with the bikini pictures, and I had to conceal an erection from both you and your brother.”

My eyes widened. “You left and stayed away the rest of my visit.”

His nod was solemn. “Do you have any idea how horrified I was? All you were doing was living your life in your own home, and I was salivating over you.”

I almost laughed at his expression. He really thought he’d done something wrong. I would never tell him what had changed, because I didn’t think he’d like knowing. I’d lost my virginity in college to a guy who appreciated my full figure. His stark, blazing attraction to me had flipped my own perception of myself. I’d gone from a self-conscious high schooler to a college girl finally exploring and claiming her sensuality.

“I wasn’t a child, West. You’re only four years older than me.”

“But those four years had always been monumental. They made it so I never saw you as a possibility.”

“And then you did.”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “You have to understand, I was running Andes then. Wearing suits every day, making million-dollar decisions, in charge of thousands of people’s livelihoods. I was twenty-three, but the difference between us had still been light-years. You were Elliot’s baby sister, and I was the CEO of my own company.”

I nodded. “I get it now. I’m sorry I made you hard.”

He chuckled. “That really screwed with my head, you little brat.”

I laughed, throwing a hand out. “I know, and I feel for you, I do, but I don’t know what to say. You’ve surprised me.”

He pulled me tight against him, smiling as he touched his lips to my cheek. “I wanted you to understand this isn’t sudden.”

“I like knowing that.” I grew serious, tipping my head so I could see him. “It’s not sudden for me either.”

“The timing is right.” He sounded so sure I had no choice but to believe him.

“Can we give it two weeks before we tell him?” I asked.

His breathing shuddered. “The longer this goes on and he doesn’t know, the harder it will be.”

I threaded my fingers through his. He brought our joined hands to his mouth, pressing a kiss to my knuckles.

“I know, but I think we owe it to ourselves to really become a couple before facing him. I want to know we’re solid first.”

Heat flared behind his eyes. I could tell he didn’t like my wording, but he nodded.

“We’ll give it two weeks before we go public, but I’m speaking to HR now.” His tone brooked no argument, and truly, I had none since I hadn’t even considered HR and office ramifications.

I groaned. “What will people at work think of me?”

His cheek twitched. “If they think anything other than you are a creative writer and a hard worker, they can share those opinions directly with me.”

I snuffed. “Oh, sure. I bet you’ll have a line of people waiting to spill their inner thoughts about our relationship.”

“As long as they stay inner, they can have their thoughts.”

From the straight line of his lips pressing tightly together, he didn’t mean that at all. If Weston could have policed people’s thoughts, he would have. Miles had been right. Weston was both controlling and nosy.

Well, I liked him anyway.

Sighing, I tipped my face up, and Weston answered my request with a soft kiss.

“Can I stay here tonight?” I asked, nuzzling into his throat.

“Elise.” His long exhale sounded irritable. “You’re my girlfriend. Do you not understand what that means?”

Girlfriend. Ah, swoon.

“Maybe,” I answered. “But you can elaborate if you wish.”

He chuckled against the top of my head. “It means I always want you in my bed. And if you’re not in my bed, I’ll be in yours. I don’t intend on asking if I’m welcome.”

I snorted a laugh at his pushiness, but I was pleased. “You are welcome.”

“Good. Now, be quiet and rest because I’m nowhere near done with you.”

And suddenly, I wasn’t tired at all.