Into You Series: The Complete Collection

37. Grace

CHAPTER 37

GRACE

Y ou would think with work and Cameron Kaufman being so intertwined, it would be easy to balance the two.

BZZT!

Wrong.

Nice try. Please spin the wheel again.

My life is split between long evenings in Cameron’s bed, and even longer nights completing work with only the light of my tablet to guide me into the following day.

Cameron and I went back to staying late at the office. We could have worked at the complex, but the office has the network with all the files we need. Plus, if we stay at our apartments, then I’d get zero work done. However, I would have a nice handprint on my ass which, you know, is a perk.

Instead, we’re confined to late nights where we steal occasional kisses in the break room. He may or may not have made me orgasm under my desk once, but how am I supposed to say no to a man burying himself under your dress begging to taste you?

Not me.

But, as far as we know, everyone is none-the-wiser by the time we wrap up our project with Mr. Feldman on a Friday a month later.

We’ve gathered in a circle in the back of the warehouse, all our drinks raised to the ceiling as we toast to the end of a project.

Cameron and Ian get refills while I stay and stare at the finished art.

It’s weird how much of a balancing game this has become. It’s little things, like how I get a sense of relief when someone else asks to refill my drink before Cameron can. It feels more obvious if Cameron tries to do it for me.

I’m sure nobody notices, but I do. I feel an itch on my neck whenever he’s nice to me. It’s an unspoken privilege of sleeping with the boss that I do not want.

I look up at the poster we printed with the new logo for Mr. Feldman’s company. It’s gone through many iterations since our first meeting, but they still chose to keep the ’80s magenta I’d pitched on day one. My heart swells at the sight of it.

“You did that,” says a warm, husky voice behind me. Without looking away from the poster, I reach out my hand and a beer is placed in it, foaming at the top with a dark, rich color to it. Not an IPA. He’s learned.

“I did that,” I echo, eliciting a chuckle from him.

I look to my left and see Cameron shaking his head as he raises the glass to his mouth. “You were supposed to be more modest and say ‘we’ did this.”

“No,” I muse, narrowing my eyes. “Because I did this.” I look behind me and then back to Cameron. “Where’s Ian?”

“Talking to Nia,” he laughs. “What’s new?”

I shrug. “Good point.”

“You know what is new, though,” he says. “We have another client asking for you to head the next project.”

“What?” I ask. My heart thumps in my chest. “I mean—I am an obvious choice.”

“Hey,” Cameron warns, and I grin.

“But they don’t even know me.”

“Apparently Mr. Feldman’s been spreading your name around town like wildfire,” Cameron says.

I try to open my mouth, but it keeps closing before I can speak. I can’t find the words to form what I’m thinking.

“Are you serious?” I whisper, leaning in. Cameron’s dimples deepen on one side with his lopsided smile.

“Yeah, Holmes.” He looks left and right, seeing that most people have moved away from the back wall and have started playing beer pong. He steps up next to me, letting the outside of his pinky discreetly brush along mine. “You did that.”

I’m taking deep, staggered breaths. I feel the electric sensation of his skin on mine, traveling through me, lighting up every vein and setting my nerves aflame.

Someone might see us.

My head feels like it’s floating above my body, light and airy and disconnected from what may be right. But it’s so beautiful in the clouds—who cares?

And then I look at our team’s design—a design I had a heavy influence in creating—and I’m proud of myself. I’m so proud that the sensation is less like floating, but maybe like an ocean with the waves rising and falling over my chest, the tide pulling me deeper into my passion.

But I also know that at any minute the tide could take me, and then where would I be?

“What’s got Little Red Riding Hood in a daze?” asks Ian, making me jump.

Cameron’s hand jerks from mine as we both turn from the wall to face Ian, but it’s too late. His gaze travels down to our hands, an eyebrow lifting. One small exhale from Ian tells me everything I need to know.

“We should talk,” he says, scanning between the two of us, but gesturing at Cameron, “Now. Right, Big Bad Wolf?”