Chapter 21

Cade

Things were hazy and warm when I woke up the next morning. Or was it still morning? Hard to tell. Eloise and I had passed out at some point after we’d eaten our way through a room service tray of cake and nachos and sliders. We’d kept the robes on but sometime during the night I must have taken mine off, due to the fact that I woke up completely naked with her arms wrapped around me and her hair in my face.

“Mmmm,” I said, stretching and rolling so I could stare at her. She blinked her eyes open and smiled slowly.

“Good morning,” she said, her voice a little rough from sleep. Fuck. She was even more gorgeous this morning than she’d been last night.

“Morning,” I said, feeling like I couldn’t stop smiling. She was here, with me. We’d spent the night together. Something I never could have imagined actually happening.

Eloise had been a revelation last night. Obviously, the steamy scenes in her books had come from somewhere. Those dirty-talking men? Yeah, that was all Eloise. She didn’t stop talking and it was exactly what I wanted. Exactly what I needed. Sometimes I could get distracted during sex, or simply get so caught up that I couldn’t even think, and having Eloise telling me what she wanted, her telling me what she was going to do and how I was going to feel rooted me in the moment. Grounded me to her and what we were doing. I’d never been that completely focused during sex, ever.

It was like magic. She’d given me what I needed without me having to ask. Eloise just knew.

She seemed to have figured me out and that little revelation probably should have freaked me out, but it didn’t. Having someone know me, understand me, made me want to fall on the floor and cry.

I didn’t, thankfully, but I did have to excuse myself to visit the bathroom to compose myself.

When I got it together, Eloise was looking through the room service menu again.

“I was thinking French toast. How about you?”

She still wore the robe, but it was falling off one of her creamy shoulders as the sun streamed in through a crack in the curtains and it hit me all at once.

I loved this woman. I loved Eloise Roth. I loved my boss. I’d loved her for longer than this moment, I just hadn’t been able to see it. I loved her in all the big ways, and all the small ways. I loved the way she typed. I loved her eyebrows and her eyes and her nose and god, I loved her fingers. Her expressions and her laugh and the way she held her fork and told me what to do and clung to her schedules but was willing to throw them out for me.

“Cade?” she asked, when I didn’t answer her. I had no idea what the hell my face looked like, but I hoped my thoughts weren’t written all over it.

“Oh, uh, let me look,” I said, walking toward her like my entire world hadn’t fucking changed.

With numb fingers I took the menu and looked down, but I couldn’t make my eyes focus on the words.

“Whatever you’re getting is fine,” I said.

“And cake? Do you like breakfast cake?”

She really did know me.

“Yeah, definitely breakfast cake.”

After we ate in bed and made each other come with thrusting fingers, we realized that we had to check out of the room. A rush of terror swept through me. What if last night was an only once kind of thing? What would happen when we got back to the real world? Would she still want me?

I was quiet as we got dressed and checked out.

“We still need to try that,” Eloise said when I put my seatbelt on in her car.

“What?” I asked.

She pointed to my shirt. “We still need to try that.”

It took me a moment to understand that she meant scissoring.

I choked on my own saliva for a second.

“Uh, yeah. We can definitely do that. If you want.”

She gave me a heated look that raised the temperature of the air a few degrees.

“I want,” she said. “I definitely want.”

Well, shit.

* * *

“You probably wantto go home to change and so forth,” Eloise said when we got closer to the city.

“Yeah, of course,” I said, dread churning in my stomach.

“I should go home too. I need to start figuring out how to replace you,” she said with a sigh.

“What?” I asked, my heart actually stopping and my body turning to ice.

“Cadence. We can’t keep working together like this. It’s untenable, and it’s not something I can do. Morally. Things have changed and if we’re going to be together, you can’t be my assistant.”

Too many thoughts. I was having far too many thoughts. Thoughts piling on top of each other and all screaming at once and all I could hear was noise.

“You want… You want to be with me?” I asked, finally latching onto the most important part of what she’d said.

Eloise put on her blinker and turned into the parking lot of a gas station and turned to me.

“Yes, Cadence. I want to be with you. I thought that should be obvious?”

I shook my head a little violently. “Nope, not obvious. I fully thought you were going to tell me that last night was fun, but we should probably forget about it.”

“Cade,” she said, her voice soft as she stroked her fingers along my cheek. “I could never forget about last night. Ever. Last night was…it was everything.” Her voice hitched and I saw tears in her eyes.

“I know this is new. I know I’m probably rushing. I know logically, that none of this makes sense or was in my plan. But I have to tell you. Cadence, I love you. I think I have for a while, but I wouldn’t let myself. You’re in my thoughts, constantly. It’s been nearly impossible to focus on work when you’re there, and even when you’re not. You make me laugh and you made my world bright and I can’t imagine life without you in it. I want you. With me. I want us.”

Yeah, my heart definitely stopped and then started pounding double time as if to catch up.

“This can’t be fucking real,” I said. “How are you saying these things right now?” The tears that I’d managed to hold back earlier spilled out and rolled down my face.

“Oh, Cade,” Eloise said, pulling me closer. It was a bit awkward with the console between us. It dug into my hip, but I didn’t care.

“El, I love you. I do. I realized it this morning when I looked at you and I was so scared that this was all going to be over. I’ve loved being your assistant. I love the work, but I love being with you. If I have to give it up to have us, then I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I love you, Eloise.”

She shushed me with a kiss.

“No, no. You don’t have to give up being an assistant. I’m not sure if you know this, but I happen to know a lot of authors. You have skills and you’re excellent at your job. I’ll find you another. I promise. I owe you at least that much.”

Our faces were so close that she was blurry, but that might have been a fresh wave of tears.

“You’re so wonderful. I can’t believe it,” I said.

“Believe it, Cadence,” she said, pressing her forehead. “And I’m the one who is grateful. You set me free, Cade.”

Well, now I was really crying. She didn’t seem to mind as she kissed me and kissed me in a gas station parking lot. Not the most romantic of venues, but it was right for us.

“Do you want to see my apartment?” I asked when we parted.

She smiled. “I’d love to.”