One of his hands moved under the back of my sweater, rubbing my bare upper back and pulling me closer into him. The other one fisted my hair. Our kiss had moved from slow and gentle to full on passion and desire. There was no time, no space, no memory, just his heated, desperate lips on mine. I was completely lost in his kiss and I felt it in every fiber and bone of my body. Damn, he was a good kisser.
He finally pulled away, but only enough so our lips parted; our foreheads remained touching. We were both breathless and panting, trying to gain back our equilibrium. I finally opened my eyes and looked up at him. His eyes were smoky and hooded. What was that? I was still gasping for air. The chemistry and attraction between us was palpable.
He mumbled more to himself than to me, “I’m in so much fucking trouble.”
I bit my lip and looked at him with a mischievous smile. I was a little confused by his comment, but didn’t have the coherency to ask him about it.
“Goodnight, Julia,” he almost scowled, his breathing still a little labored. He was as affected by the kiss as I was.
“Goodnight, Ryan.”
Neither of us could seem to say much more.
Then he was gone.
“Oh my God, Julia! You’re totally going to marry him!” Anna exclaimed with absolute certainty.
I arched an eyebrow and gave her a look like I thought she was nuts—because she was. She’d said this about at least two other men in my past, Andrew included, but I decided not to remind her.
“You two just seem so perfect for each other. You guys were totally acting like a couple already.”
I helped zip up the back of her wedding dress, trying my hardest not to play into her hand and gush about Ryan.
“I really liked him, Julia. Ethan thought he was super cool, too. Plus, Ethan appreciated the fact that Ryan was closer to his age.” Anna rolled her eyes with her last comment. Ethan was thirty-four and always making self-deprecating old man jokes. It’s not like he was that much older than we were, but I was glad he and Ryan had something in common.
Earlier, I had filled in Anna about yesterday’s events with Ryan, including his job at MS and how I came to discover who he really was. Anna worked as a second grade teacher for the city school district, so she really didn’t get the whole corporate culture or the office romance taboo thing. She didn’t think that his position, relative to my own, was all that important. As long as we weren’t on the same team and I didn’t report to him, she considered him fair game.
“I just feel weird about sneaking around at the office,” I said with concern. “I feel like we’re doing something wrong.”
“Like you said, if you both just keep it to yourselves, no one else needs to know your business.”
“Yeah, but I think if people were ever to find out, one of us would have to leave or quit our job. Most likely me, since I’m more replaceable than him. I think it would be way too weird otherwise; people might think I have an unfair advantage.”
“You always worry about the rules, Julia. Screw the rules for once. He’s obviously into you and I know you’re into him, so what’s the big deal? If things go well, then changing jobs will seem like a minor sacrifice. If things go badly, no one will know, so it’s a moot point.”
I sighed. She was right. I was making it way more complicated than it needed to be. But according to Ryan, all great love stories were complicated, so maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing. Oh man, I was way overthinking this.
“We’re going to have to limit our public outings, I think,” I muttered, distracted now by the thought of dating incognito.
“You looked really great last night, by the way. Was the pink dress new? I noticed he couldn’t keep his eyes off of you. You guys look super cute together.” She was apparently done with interoffice dating topic.
Anna stood in front of the three-sided mirror to view herself in full regalia. Her dress was ivory, simple, and strapless. It had a fitted bodice in crinkled silk chiffon with a full ballroom skirt in French tulle and a waist sash. I placed the veil on top of her head and stepped back.
She looked breathtaking. We were both silent, taking it all in.
I started tearing up. I clasped my hands together below my chin and started legit crying. “Oh, you just look so beautiful, Anna,” I gushed. “Ethan is going to lose it when he sees you. He’s the luckiest man in the world.”
Anna gazed at herself in amazement, as if she couldn’t believe that was really her standing in front of the mirror. I tried on my maid of honor dress next and Anna stayed in hers. I couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t even my dress, but it was hard to think of taking it off and putting it in a garment bag for two more weeks. My dress was made of pale pink silk taffeta cut in sleeveless, streamlined silhouette with a cinched waist. It was very pretty as far as bridesmaid dresses go—I could re-wear this to a nice cocktail party someday.