“So, look,” said Jon, looking just as uncomfortable as she felt. “Just... whatever you can do to stay under the radar.”
She had to snort at that. “I didn’t do anything to get above the radar,” she snapped.
“I know.” But she could see he thought that getting involved with Kane was a bad decision. “Look, I hope you’ll... see that I’m speaking as your friend, not your boss. I told Claire that your private life is none of the company’s business.”
“Well, thanks for trying.” They both knew it was an empty gesture; Ellen didn’t have a private life anymore. And as soon as her name was linked with the Rosette in the papers, it had become their business.
She sagged back against the wall for a moment. “It’s not fair, Jon,” she said quietly, running her hand through her hair like Kane did. If she was doing half the things with Kane everyone thought she was, maybe the gossip would have been warranted. She’d be having a hell of a lot more fun, anyway.
“No,” Jon said. He patted her arm a little awkwardly. “I’m on your side, though, okay? For what it’s worth.”
She appreciated it but could only smile rather weakly at him and let him walk away, before putting her weight back on her own two feet and going to the stairwell—the employee stairwell, this time. She had no intention of facing the stares of anyone in the lobby.
She no longer feared every dark corner and isolated stair. She didn’t check under her car, and only one key stuck out from her knuckles. Kane had made her feel safe. The memory of the way she’d been, and how far he’d brought her, made tears prickle behind her eyes.
As she got into her car and began to drive home, she thought of Jon’s face, and Francesca’s, and the man she’d turned down two years ago, and the woman who was with him. And the smirk on the face of the guy at the gym. And her parents’ assumptions, her mother’s instant rejection of Kane based on some gossiping woman thousands of miles away.
By the time she stopped at the first traffic light, she was steaming. If they only knew just how boring her relationship with Kane was—they couldn’t go anywhere, they couldn’t do anything, and he’d been sick for days so even if she’d got over her fear of not being any good in bed, they hadn’t been able to do anything about that either.
She pulled away at the light with a squeal that turned the head of a policewoman at the street corner. Her jaw set, Ellen made sure to keep her foot off the gas as she turned toward home. But she just got angrier and angrier. Her full mailbox. The cameras outside. Cat and her sneers. Two strangers who were fucking up Kane’s life and some nutcase who seemed determined to destroy him.
Suddenly, what Ellen could do to make Kane feel better, and herself at the same time, became abundantly, gloriously clear.
Instead of turning right, she turned left; drove up to his parking garage, flipping the photographer who was still there the bird as she did so, parked in a visitor’s spot, and stalked to the elevator.
Kane had stayed home that day on her and Anna’s orders. They hadn’t planned to meet up that night, but he was grinning when he opened the door. “Hey,” he said. “This is a nice—”
Ellen pushed him inside the door and slammed it behind her. She kept pushing him until he came up against the wall of his entryway, and then she pulled his head down to her and kissed him.
How the hell had she stayed away from him for so long? His height was intoxicating all by itself, and the woodsy smell, unsullied by cigarettes after his days with her, surrounded her as he happily put his arms around her and lifted her so he could reach her better. She felt as though her body had been a useless appendage until just this moment.
He was still in pajama pants and a T-shirt, and Ellen, her anger not abated, almost ripped the T-shirt right off him in her hurry to feel his skin against her palms. She kissed him hard, opening her mouth, taking great open kisses from him, her hands gripping his hair.
He yelped a little when she bit his lip, and pulled away. “Whoa,” he said, smiling but puzzled.
“Whoa, indeed,” she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him through the living room toward his bedroom.
When he saw where they were headed, though, he slowed her down. “Honey, wait a second...”
“No,” she said, pulling on his hand. “Now.” She walked backward, looking at him so that he could see exactly how serious she was. “Now, Kane. I don’t give two shits how sick you are. Now.”
They got a few more steps toward the bedroom. “Why?” he said. “I know I don’t care, but... why now?”
Ellen got him the rest of the way into the room and slammed that door, too, shoving him up against it and grabbing at the bottom of his T-shirt. He obediently lifted his arms so she could pull it off, but she kept the material tangled around his hands and held them above his head with one hand, pressing her chest against his and kissing him again, lightheaded with the power she had over him. “Because,” she said, using her other hand to run her nails down the middle of his chest, making him gasp. “Because fuck ’em, that’s why.” She moved her hand to the waistband of his pants and slipped around to the back, scratching the base of his spine. “And me,” she added hoarsely. “Do that to me.”
Kane shuddered, and Ellen pressed her entire body against him, using her hand behind him to cup his buttocks and push into him further, feeling exactly how ready he was.
“Are you—ah!—sure?” he said one more time, and she loved him even more for thinking of her first, when she was obviously offering herself up to him on a plate. She’d never been so sure of anything in her life.
In answer, she pulled his hands, still wrapped in his T-shirt, down and led him by them to the bed. She got him flat on his back, straddled his legs and leaned forward and kissed him, long and slow. “We’re going to do what I’ve wanted to do since the second I met you,” she went on, flattening her hands over his chest, enjoying watching him grit his teeth when she grazed his nipples. “Since before then.”
She crawled down his legs and pulled his pants off with one movement. Kane had shaken the T-shirt off and started to reach for her, but she pushed his hands away. “Not yet,” she said. She ran her hand up his leg, grasped his thigh, and followed her hand with her mouth. “Your damn thighs,” she said, kissing and biting her way up them. “They’ve been driving me crazy since that first day in your office.”
Kane groaned. He was biting his lip, unable to touch her, his hands gripping the sheets in fists. She stopped kissing his thighs before she got all the way up and sat down on them so she could take off her suit jacket. She was exploring his chest and shoulders again, flicking her thumbs over his nipples, digging her nails into his biceps. Kane had closed his eyes. “Ellen, please—let me—” But she pushed away his hands again, unbuttoned her pants, and stood up to remove them.
He managed to get his hand around her leg before she could back up, and pulled her close. She put her hand on his chest, so he couldn’t pull her onto the bed, but he took the opportunity to explore her thighs as she’d explored his. Each sweep of his fingers against her skin, the brief touch against her buttocks, made her shiver and arch her neck.
“Ellen,” he said, and she realized she’d nearly given up control. She got away, went back to sitting on his legs.
