Chapter 13
Casey
Show?
Don’t show?
I debated back and forth the entire car ride to Leashes and Lace. Telling Preston about the blog hadn’t been as hard as I’d thought it might be, but there was a huge difference between telling him the bare facts about it and actually showing it to him.
But keeping it from him felt like I was hiding it from him.
There was also the part where I wanted to really make sure he didn’t mind me posting more. I wasn’t crazy active with it, but I’d gotten used to showing my friends a few new things once in a while. I wasn’t exactly asking permission from Preston to post, but I felt weird doing it without him knowing.
It was probably stupid and just me obsessing, but my nerves wouldn’t let me do it without talking to him. It’d have been easier if they liked the idea of showing him, but that wasn’t easy either. To say the whole thing was messing with my head would be an understatement.
The fact that I was this worked up after only thinking about it for a few hours said I’d be nuts by the end of the week if I let it go that long.
That realization didn’t help any, either.
By the time I’d parked next to the building and turned off the car, I still hadn’t made any decisions. As I got out of the vehicle, I tried to push it to the back of my mind so I didn’t look like a nervous wreck in front of the other employees.
Preston wouldn’t mind if I was insane, but I wanted to look somewhat functional in front of his family. I felt a bit more normal as I walked up to the door and entered the building. The downstairs was quiet except for a few people I saw as I made my way toward Preston’s office.
I got a few smiles and waves that I tried to return, but it was hard. All I could think of was that they knew what I was doing with Preston—which was stupid. They knew I was dating him, but that would be it, and they probably didn’t care.
Peeking my head around the corner, I smiled when I saw him stretched back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling. I couldn’t see enough of his face to guess what he was thinking, but the way his shirt stretched over his chest as his muscles flexed made my mouth water, and I wanted to reach out and touch him.
He must have heard me at the door because he glanced down, grinning. “There you are.” Holding out his hand, he straightened and pushed back from the desk to stand. “Come here.”
Ignoring the fact that anyone might see us, I walked around the desk and into his arms. He wrapped them around me tightly and tucked me against his body while he just held me. I took a deep breath and sighed as his arms loosened and started stroking along my back.
He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “How was your day?”
I chuckled, but left my cheek resting against his body so I could breathe in his scent. “Let’s just say I’m counting down the days until I give notice.”
He gave a low laugh, but I could hear the stress in his voice. “Good, because I just had to send back an entire shipment from your company. Let’s just say I’ll feel better when your new business is completely up and running.”
I’d never been able to decide about conflicts of interest or oversharing with him, so I only nodded. “Me too.”
His arms tightened, and I felt another kiss being pressed to the top of my head. “How is that going?”
I shrugged but then stopped and forced myself to answer. There was nothing wrong with telling him how good things were going. “Pretty good. I have a few smaller clients who don’t take up much time and a few others that just keep growing bigger. I’ve also been getting some calls from larger clients who need something more, but I just don’t have the time to take on that many more people right now.”
“Do you need to go get some work done? I know I’ve been taking up a lot of your time lately.” He sounded sorry for that so I wrapped my arms around him and gave him a hug.
“No, I’ve got it. I need to get some hours in this weekend, but I’m not behind.” I wouldn’t have wanted less time with him even if there had been other work waiting for me at home.
“Good.” I felt his lips press against me again. “I won’t keep you out late tonight. That way you can get some things done.”
That didn’t sound like fun at all, but it was practical.
“Okay.” I relaxed my hold on him and looked up. “How was your day? I mean, aside from having to send the stock back.”
Preston sighed. “Not bad if I don’t include that. Just a bit stressful.” One hand came up, and he cupped my cheek. “I’m glad you could stop by, though.”
It hadn’t been that many hours since I’d seen him, but going home to an empty house hadn’t sounded good. I was used to having my own space and a lot of quiet, but suddenly, without Preston there the quiet wasn’t as appealing.
“Me too.” I leaned in and kissed him quickly. Before I could say anything else, I was interrupted by a crash from the front of the building.
