The mention of Harper opened a necessary doorway. The question burned on my tongue for at least thirty seconds before I found the courage to speak. I looked over at Jessa, who stared quietly out the window.
“Hey.” I leaned toward her in the backseat, keeping my voice low. She turned to me, and in the darkness, I could tell we were much closer than we otherwise would be in daylight, where the stark clarity of our better judgement would add a few extra inches for good measure. Her knee brushed mine as she leaned back against the seat. “I gotta ask you something.”
“What is it?” Even in the dimness of the back seat, I could see the vibrancy in her eyes. My entire body buzzed at our nearness. I inched my hand closer to see what I might find.
“Be honest,” I said.
“Okay…”
I cleared my throat, looking to the heavens for some form of support before I launched into this. I wasn’t just going after something I wanted. I was forever adding a new layer to our relationship history. A new layer that could potentially not end well, given our work context. But to hell with it. I was too drunk to care right now.
“Did you lie to Harper today?” I blurted. “About my meeting with her.”
“Oh God.” Jessa pressed her hands to her face. “I’ve been waiting for you to bring this up.”
“You knew I would?”
“I figured she would reach out to you and tell you.” She started playing with the clasp of her bracelet again. “I’m so dumb. I’m sorry. I-I-I just…I don’t know, I got flustered. I thought I was helping cover for you, and then I realized I’d said the wrong thing, but I just wanted to run with it…”
“You asked her what the nature of her business was.” I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as I said it. That was a power move, plain and simple.
“Well, I didn’t know who she was.” Jessa crossed her arms and looked out the window.
I chuckled, leaning closer again. “You knew who she was. Every single person in my contacts comes with a summary.”
The truth sizzled between us. Besides, Jessa had walked in on Harper giving me a fucking blow job in the middle of the afternoon. How could she not remember that?
“I’m sorry, Damian,” Jessa went on, uncrossing her arms to fiddle with her clasp again. “Should I call her and apologize or something? I knew she wasn’t happy when she left, but I—”
“No.” I grabbed her wrist when she lifted it to fiddle some more. I pressed my fingers against her skin, easily finding her pulse. She inhaled sharply, and I caught the confusion in her eyes in the flashes of city lights.
“You don’t need to apologize.” I squeezed her wrist, bringing it down between our legs. The thrum of her pulse calmed me and told me she was just as intrigued and possibly aroused as I was. “It was an innocent mistake, right?”
“Yeah.” She nodded emphatically. I swiped my thumb back and forth over her wrist, desperate for more, but unsure how to get it. “It was a mistake. I thought I was protecting your company, I don’t know. You guys fight so hard to uphold the integrity of what you do, I just wanted to do the same. And it didn’t seem like a good idea to tell her you’d just forgotten about your…appointment.”
Did this even make sense anymore? I couldn’t tell. Even through my drunk haze, I could tell that Jessa was genuinely apologetic for what had happened. Though she’d misread entirely what I was looking for here.
“I’ll make sure Harper goes on the VIP list,” Jessa barreled on. “Sorry,Ms. Bennett.” She couldn’t hide the sarcastic lilt from her voice that time. “I mean, this is my learning curve, right? Now I know how important she is.”
Fuck. She was misreading this altogether. The car slowed to a stop.
Jessa gasped. “Oh, this is me.”
Disappointment crashed through me. I released her wrist, feeling a lot like the main character in some chaste Victorian drama. Here I was, limited to touching wrists, when the passion pumping through me demanded nothing less than Jessa’s legs in the air and my absolute suffocation between her thighs.
“Sleep tight, Jessa,” I said, because there was nothing else to say. I was dying to take it further, but there was still that part of me that knew better.
I shouldn’t go there with Jessa. So I wouldn’t.
No matter what.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JESSA
On Friday, Damian wasn’t in the office.
I’d gotten a curt message from him around nine that simply said “Working from home today.”Which meant he was thirty stories above me, probably in his pajamas, eating leftover bagels sent from Heaven. I was half-tempted to ask if I could join him, but after what had happened the night before on the drive home, I also knew that I needed some more time.