Niall didn’t look away from me once, and I swear this situation could only have felt dirtier if he’d had me spread out naked on the floor. And then, only barely. How did he do that? We’d hardly touched, and yet it felt like he’d touched me in ways that nobody else ever had.

“I’ll never get this sight out of my head. Never.”

I crossed my legs and pressed them together, shifting in my seat. I could feel how wet I was, how ready my body felt to do exactly the things he was talking about.

“I’m coming. Ruby. Ruby. Please . . . please let me come inside.”

When the group broke for lunch, I noted the way Niall hesitated to leave. He’d have to face me now—now that I’d listened to his hit single—without the safety net of twenty feet, a wall of glass, and fifteen engineers and transit authority workers between us. He was nervous, and fuck if it wasn’t the most endearing thing I’d ever seen.

Unable to put it off any longer, he gathered his things and stepped out.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Starving,” I told him, wondering if—hoping—he got the implication of my words.

Judging by the way he reached up and began to fidget with the knot in his tie, I was guessing he did.

I tilted my head toward the hallway. “Walk with me?”

I led us out of the office and down a slowly emptying hall. A man from the meeting stopped us on our way.

“There’s lunch on the floor above us. It’s National Taco Day or something, if you’re hungry. Should be . . . interesting.”

Well, the most interesting thing this guy was going to have happen today, anyway.

“We need to touch base with the London office,” Niall said smoothly. “But we’ll be up as soon as possible.”

And I had to admit, I was impressed.

With a nod, the intruder was off and we continued on, down one hall and then another, until the sounds of voices were just a hum in the opposite direction.

“We’re calling London, are we?” I asked.

“Not exactly.” He glanced over at me, smiling. “I assume you’re taking me somewhere quiet to talk?”

“Talk?” I said with a little smile.

He pursed his amazing lips. “Perhaps.”

“Speaking of ‘talking,’ here are your notes,” I said, handing him the notebook.

“Ah. Thank you.”

A dark room stood at the end of the hall, and I led him inside, closing the door behind us. Then, leaning back against the cool wood, I said, “Your messages were very . . . engrossing.”

“Engrossing, you say?” He took a step closer.

“They affected me,” I said through a giggle. “Deeply.”

Tilting his head and wearing a smile that tilted half of his mouth deliciously, he murmured, “How so?”

I moved to answer, to give him something playful and coy, but when our eyes met, every coherent thought left my brain. My heart started beating so hard with the sudden, surreal understanding that this wasn’t a fantasy, this wasn’t just flirtation. I wasn’t sitting in the middle of a Thursday meeting imagining all of this.

We’d blazed past so many Niall Stella Moments that I’d stopped keeping track.

The Number of Times Niall Stella . . . Touched My Calf, Tucked My Hair Behind My Ear, Looked Me in the Eye and Asked If I Came.

Told Me He Wanted Me to Swallow His Come.

Recorded Himself Masturbating to Share with Me.

Was About to Kiss Me.

This was a thing. We were a thing.

“Answer me.”

I lost the ability to play for the moment, ducking my head. “I ache.”

“Tell me.” His voice was somehow both commanding and gentle as he bent, kissing my neck. “When you ache, what does that mean?”

He knew. He had to know. He wanted me to say the words. “It means I’m wet.”

He inhaled sharply through his nose, running it up my neck and along my jaw. “Bloody hell, Ruby, will you look up and kiss me?”

I tilted my head, completely out of breath and heart crashing around the cage of my lungs. The smell of his cologne permeated the darkness and I felt almost drunk on him, on his nearness and the realization that I was actually going to touch him. Kiss him. And he would kiss me back.

He bent to meet me, lips parted with a shaking exhale. He’d been expecting a small kiss, a quiet slide of his lips over mine. I could tell because I knew him better than maybe I should at that point, but also because of the careful way he bent to me and the gentle brace of his hands on my waist.

But I couldn’t do small and quiet. I’d wanted this for too long. The relief—the awareness of him, his scent and the warm Stella skin—clawed up my spine, jolting through my arms, and I pulled him down into me. I gave him anything but small and quiet. My lips slid over his, pulling his bottom lip in between and he huffed a little breath against me, groaning.

I wanted to swallow it up, wanted to consume his sounds and keep them inside me so I could save them for later and listen to them on a loop, again and again.

His mouth was unreal: firm lips and that perfect man combination of soft and hard, giving and commanding. My world was spinning. I dug my hands into his hair, pressed my breasts into that solid wall of his chest, and let loose the most ridiculous sound of relief and need I’d ever made.

He groaned louder now, surprise and thrill making his hands grip me reflexively before sliding around my back and clutching me close.