I had not slept worth a damn. The little sleep I did get came in scraps, broken up by too much memory and not enough relief. I woke with my body still carrying the ghost of his fingers like it had not gotten the message that the night was over and I had a job to go to.
That truck had stayed with me all day.
Because I had been ready.
Still was.
Ready to give in and let that man take me wherever the night wanted to go. Only Micah, with all that maddening patience and sense, had held the line for both of us, which was noble and sexy and inconvenient as hell.
Work helped some, but not enough.
Meetings. Budgets. A sponsorship check-in that could have been an email. Zaria catching me staring at my phone once and pretending not to. Mariah catching me doing it a second time and very much not pretending. Somewhere in there, I changed my lipstick after lunch for no reason anybody respectable could defend.
Micah had been with me all day too.
Sweet, yes. But risky.
Early that afternoon, while I sat at my desk in one of my fitted dresses and tried to act like my body had not spent half the morning replaying a man’s fingers inside me, he texted:
Micah: You always go without a bra under those dresses?
I stared at it so long Zaria had to say my name twice.
Then I typed back:
Me: You want me to?
His answer came fast enough to make my thighs press together under the desk.
Micah: There’s no need to wear anything under your clothes with me. I’ll take care of that.
I had to keep my face still in an office full of people while heat moved through me so hard I almost lost the thread of whatever budget line I’d been pretending to review. My nude Gianvito Rossi pumps were crossed under my desk, and for one brief, shameful second I really did think about shutting my office door, putting both heels up on the edge of that desk, and fingering myself to the thought of him taking care of every bare part of me just like he said.
Only Zaria and a run of work interruptions saved me from acting like I had lost all home training before three o’clock.
Later, closer to five, he sent another one.
Micah: Walked around on hard most of the day behind you.
I laughed into my hand, then typed back before I could think too hard about dignity.
Me: So the women at your job got to see all that dick you slanging?
He reacted with a laughing emoji, then answered:
Micah: Hardly. Literally. I stayed at my desk after my morning meeting which is well enough since I need to catch up on some shit I’ve been delaying since my head is in the clouds, messing around with you.
That one got me worse than the dirty talk.
Because yes, the sex in it was hot. Yes, the image of him hard at his desk somewhere downtown had done something low and mean to me. But the sweetness sitting under it? The ease? The fact that I had gotten into his day the same way he had gotten into mine?
I sent back two little heart-faced emojis before I could stop myself.
He left a laughing reaction on them almost immediately, then sent:
Micah: dangerous, Talia.
And that was when Nicole’s voice cut right through the middle of my foolishness.