“Okay,” she agrees amiably, turning for the door and taking a step.
She’s almost out of reach when the urge to have just a tiny part of her overwhelms me. With a quick snap of my elbow, I grab her just above the waist and pull her back, her body twisting on the balls of her feet and falling soundly into the bulk of mine.
Wide eyes and lips in a tiny circle of surprise, she looks up into the center of my gaze just as my mouth comes down on hers in a crush. Open and easy, she meets my tongue with her own in the sexiest fucking dance. She tastes like the black cherry gum I’ve seen her chew, and my dick jerks against the fabric of my dress pants. My hand sinks into the spiraled curls at the back of her head, and I tilt the angle of her mouth to go deeper.
One second leads to two, and before I know it, two seconds lead to thirty. When I finally regain the sense to pull away, her whole face is glazed and relaxed in a way I know would only be better if she’d had my cock in her cunt.
“Ready for lunch now?” I tease, and she giggles softly before nodding her forehead against my chest.
“Uh, yeah. I think I’m ready now.”
“Good,” I praise with a squeeze of one cheek of her ass. “I’ll meet you at the elevator.”
She nods again, this time hustling out of the office without my interference. I round my desk back to the side by the windows and open my top right drawer to grab my keys and phone. Right next to those, I see the letter I pulled out of the mailbox at the apartment this morning—from USCIS.
I grab all three and load them into my pockets, and then follow in Daisy’s wake to the elevator. She’s waiting dutifully, though I can tell that the stress of waiting for an elevator that might arrive before I do is already counteracting the hard work of our kiss.
I pick up my walk to a jog just to make her feel better, and Valerie eyes me suspiciously the whole time. I roll my eyes at her, and she narrows hers.
She’s known me a long while and, quite frankly, knows things about me that no one else does—including the reason Daisy and I got married as she’s the one who put the damn USCIS packet in the mail for me. But right now, she needs to mind her own damn business.
I put my hand to the small of Daisy’s back as the elevator dings its arrival and escort her inside. Valerie meets my eyes one more time as the doors close in front of us, but I ignore her, turning my focus to my wife instead as she starts to ramble.
“This building is really nice, but it’s also kind of confusing.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, when I came in downstairs, I was expecting the lobby to be a straight shot to the elevator, but it’s more like a matrix or something. Like, I kind of felt dumb, to be honest. All the hallways lead back to the beginning, but they’re like a hexagon and remind me of being in one of those fun house mirror maze things, you know?”
I smile, but I don’t say anything because I know by now, I don’t need to. Daisy has absolutely no problem carrying on a conversation herself.
“It actually reminds me of the building where they get into the huge firefight at the end of that movie…you know, the one with Gerard Butler…Angel Has Fallen!”
Having seen the movie a couple times, I know immediately that she’s actually right. It is startlingly similar to that building. I chuckle.
“I finally had to split my hope between finding your office and finding the office where they were hiding President Morgan Freeman, you know?”
The elevator eases to a stop on the ground floor and opens its doors, and I put my hand to her back again to lead her out of the building. There are a few turns, but if you take the most direct route, it’s pretty easy. When we make it to the front doors quickly, she scoffs. “Sure. Work your voodoo magic or whatever, just as I’ve made it all sound dramatic.”
I grin. “I’ve worked in this building for the last fifteen years, so I think I have a little bit of an advantage.”
“Fifteen years? Really?” she asks.
I nod.
“That makes sense, I guess. I’ve just never been anywhere for fifteen years. It seems so…long.”
I laugh. “If it makes you feel any better, I move my desk chair around a lot.”
Daisy’s answering smile is so mesmerizing, I don’t even look before pushing the front door open onto the sidewalk and almost take out a guy with a giant inflatable lollipop. He stumbles to the side and swings the thing like a sword, and Daisy’s eyes sparkle. “New York is wild, man.”
I grin. That it is.
Thankfully, the little diner I like to frequent for lunch is only right across the street, and after a quick jaywalk, we’re inside again.
I escort Daisy straight to the table in the back where the framed reservation sign with my name on it sits. She reads it aloud as we scoot into our respective sides of the booth. “Reserved for Flynn Winslow.” She snorts. “Come here often, do you?”
I shrug. “Just about every day for fifteen years.”
“Wow! Holy shit, you’re a creature of habit! I can’t believe it. The guy nobody knows anything about does the same dang thing every day.”
“You make it sound like I’m some sort of phantom,” I say with a laugh. “No one has ever asked me where I have lunch, so I haven’t offered it up. That’s it.”
“No one has ever asked you?”
I shake my head, and Barbara, my favorite quiet waitress, sets a couple of plates with burgers in front of us along with two glasses of water, and then heads back for the kitchen. I glance to the food and then at Daisy. “Is this okay? She obviously just assumed you wanted what I get.”
Daisy waves off the food faux pas and pops a fry into her mouth before leaning into her elbows on the table and whispering intently, diving right back into the conversation we were having before Barb brought the food. “Your sister talks like you’re ex-CIA, and you’re telling me it’s all because people don’t ask you?”
I shrug. I mean, yeah. If they asked, I’d answer. But I’m not going to fucking gab for no reason. I pick up my burger and take a bite.
“Holy shit. That’s…groundbreaking, really.”
I roll my eyes with a shake of my head and a dry laugh, and Daisy reaches across the table and grabs my hand to stop me.
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Black.”
“What’s your favorite holiday?”
“All of them that bring the family together.”
“What do you do with your free time?”
“Work out. Scope out real estate investments. Volunteer at the homeless shelter Uptown.”
She stops her continuous giggle then to get serious. “You volunteer at the homeless shelter?”
I shrug. “Once a month or so.”
“God, Flynn.” She shakes her head as if to clear it. “You’re…well, you’re kind of a catch of a husband, you know that?”
“Oh,” I murmur, her comment reminding me of the envelope in my pocket. “I almost forgot.” Pulling it out, I toss it into the center of the table, her eyes following it and scanning until she makes out the address of the sender in the top left corner. I lean over my plate and take more bites.
Daisy stops eating altogether, and as soon she understands what it is, her whole demeanor changes.