Don't Move Your Desk: Chapter Twenty-Nine

In which Keaton becomes two Keatons

Oct 19, 2024

A summary for you on what to expect in this edition in case you want to scroll down to the interesting bits: content warning; the Crowhill Kitchen covers revealed; Chapter Twenty-Nine of Don’t Move Your Desk; and the progress report with an update on my week-on-week sales and writing progress.

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CONTENT WARNING: This chapter does contain some actual (whisper it) S-E-X. Therefore, if you’re not into reading spice, you may want to skip ahead to the next chapter. But don’t miss the below first…

And don’t forget to go back and vote on what I serialise here next!

This week, I’m revealing the covers for books 2 to 5 in the Crowhill Kitchen series!

(Because book 1 was already revealed)

So, without further ado, please keep on scrolling down to unveil the covers for the rest of the series, coming between late 2024 and mid-2025…

Which is your favourite? Let me know in the comments!

Next week I’ll have preorder links for you. Don’t forget that if you subscribe as a founder member before any of these books are released, you will get them ALL for free as part of your subscription in ebook format.

As a quick reminder: this chapter will go behind the paywall 60 days after publication. Don’t miss the chance to read the next chapter for free by subscribing for email updates!

Okay, that’s it! On with the chapter!

Keaton

His kiss sent sparks of electricity all through me, lighting me up from the inside. My sudden need to babble was just as suddenly gone. All the plans and machinations I had been making disappeared.

“Right,” I whispered. There was no arguing with those blue eyes. “I’m staying right here.”

Olly looked like he wanted to say something, but he paused and bit his lip, one hand still holding me firmly in place. Then he moved abruptly away, striding off and leaving me to cradle my own cheek as if I could capture his warmth and keep it there.

Until I saw what he was doing.

Locking the office doors.

He moved efficiently, reaching up to trip bolts I couldn’t even reach at the top of the door and then bending to the very base, triple-securing them from opening even if someone had the key. Only then did he turn back to me, and at the look in his eyes I actually found myself backing up against the wall.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. He looked like he was joking, but I could hear the undercurrent: that he was worried I had changed my mind about all of it. “Scared?”

“Nope,” I said, through a throat that was suddenly very dry.

He moved in close to me, leaning his hand against the wall above my head just like he had at Coleman’s house. I swallowed hard. He was so close to me that it was like the entire world was made up of Oliver Harvey.

I didn’t want to run away.

I lifted my hands and placed them flat on his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing for a long moment.

He tilted his head down and kissed me again and it was like the whole world was ending. I wouldn’t have been surprised if, when I opened my eyes, everything was gone: the office, the building, the city, all of it. I had waited so long for this. I had built it up so much in my head. But the reality couldn’t even compare.

He was everything.

I felt like I was melting into him as he pulled me towards him, his arms no longer trapping me in but now embracing me, one huge hand braced against the small of my back. He held me so tightly that I lifted just slightly off my feet and he didn’t even seem to notice, taking my weight like it was nothing just so he could kiss me deeper.

He broke away and searched my eyes, his own blazing with something indescribable. “Keaton…” he said.

We were beyond words. Beyond needing them to communicate. Which was good, because by now I knew Olly, and I knew that the most important things were the ones he didn’t say. But I knew what question he was asking me now.

“Yes,” I said breathlessly. “Yes, I want to.”

He lifted an eyebrow as if to question whether I really understood what he was asking, but I did. I knew I did. I reached up my arms around his neck and stood on the balls of my toes to kiss him, then purposefully walked him back a few steps so that we were more towards the center of the room.

“Where?” he asked, which was a pretty good question, considering where we were.

There were the chairs around the coffee table, but the table itself was low and the chairs, though comfortable, were not big enough for both of us. Certainly, there was going to be no lying down anywhere but the floor, and we walked all over that all day long in our outside shoes.

So, then, a different option. Not lying down. Bending over.

The desks were the perfect height.

I nodded my head in the direction of Olly’s desk, expecting to hear some objection about the fact that it was covered with work, but that didn’t seem to bother him. At least, that was what I had to assume by the fact that he turned and strode over there, pushed all of the paperwork into one big heap at the side with a single sweep of his arm, and then looked back at me with a gaze so expectantly heated it almost boiled me alive.

“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath. My voice sounded small and weak, but I wasn’t afraid.

I was so turned on, it was almost intimidating.

I took two steps towards him before Olly grabbed the front of my jacket and hauled me closer, half-sitting on the edge of his desk and pulling me flush between his legs. I groaned at the feel of his hardness against my hip, unable to resist grinding my own hips forward so he could know I was just as ready for this as he was. He engulfed me in a blazing kiss that stole my breath as his hands fumbled for the button on my jacket, then pushed it down over my shoulders.

I didn’t care about it crumpling as it hit the floor. I didn’t care about any of it. I pushed my hands up to do the same for him – and stopped, caught in my tracks by the feel of his massive shoulders under my hands.

He watched me admire him for a moment before he loosened my tie, pulled it off over my head, and went to work on my buttons. I felt a moment of self-doubt – could he really be impressed by me, my physique, when I was standing next to what felt like a god? – but that moment disappeared at the reverential look on his face as he dropped my shirt right on top of my jacket.

Olly nuzzled at my neck, dropping his head to kiss and nip my bare skin. I gasped and shuddered under his attention, my hands uselessly dropping to rest on his knees.

“Perfect,” he murmured, and I could have died on the spot.

He must have sensed I was having some trouble with getting my hands to function because he straightened and began taking off his own jacket. I began to move back instinctively, giving him some room, but he grabbed me by the hips and yanked me back into place. We both hissed at the renewed contact and friction between us, and the possessive growl that tore from his throat as he firmly placed my hands back on his knees all but undid me.

I watched with bated breath and wide eyes as he lifted his turtleneck up over his head, balling it into his fist and letting it sail across to the other side of the office. The bunch and pull of his muscles was hypnotic. Bare-chested, he was so much more than my imagination had ever been able to conjure: despite the years that had been and gone since his professional career, he still had the body of an athlete. Thick muscles corded his arms and pumped up his chest and shoulders, and his stomach was ridged with six-pack abs I could have eaten dinner off.

He was perfect. Not me.

There was that feeling of inadequacy again.

Olly’s fingers found my chin and lifted it to look at him. “You’re beautiful,” he said evenly. It was like he could read my mind. Maybe he could – I’d never been all that great at hiding my feelings from my face. It had gotten me into a lot of trouble in high school, where I ended up coming out against my will, and in college, where being out had seemed like an adventure but just ended in a lot of heartbreak.

I understood him there, at least.

“You’re…” My breath hitched in my throat. I couldn’t say the words. How could you tell someone they were like a god to you without them either freaking out or getting so big-headed there was never any talking to them ever again?

If he understood, he didn’t say another word. He just leaned down and kissed me again, drawing me up close to him, and this time when I laid my hands on his chest it was the warmth of his bare skin under my fingers.

Olly leaned back and cleared his throat sheepishly.

“What?” I asked. Panic lit me up from the inside. What was wrong? Had he changed his mind after all?

“I don’t have any…” he trailed off and seemed to stop searching for a better word. “Thing.”

“Anything?” I raised an innocent eyebrow to pretend I didn’t understand, but I couldn’t hold it for long. Not only did he look uncomfortable – I guessed, at the revelation that he’d started something he didn’t think he could finish – but I was also impatient myself.

I gave him a lazy grin and sauntered back over to my desk, opened the very bottom drawer, and moved aside two packets of staples and spare tape for my tape dispenser that I had placed there as decoys. I could think of very little reason why anyone would look past staples and tape in search of anything else in the drawer. But there was something hidden back there, as it turned out.

I walked back to Olly and placed two items on his desk – one on either side of him.

A box of condoms and a bottle of lube.

Olly raised his eyebrows. It was my turn to clear my throat. “Yeah, well, I like to be prepared for any eventuality,” I said.

He leaned past me to look back at my desk. “Any eventuality?”

“Let’s just focus on this one,” I suggested.

It was like showing a defenseless lamb to a wolf.

His mouth curved into a hungry grin, and before I could say another word, his hands were making short work of the button on my pants, pulling the zipper down, and sliding underneath my waistband. Not just the waistband of my pants – but my briefs, too. His hands didn’t stop sweeping around until they landed firmly on my ass, one on each cheek, his huge span almost covering both sides entirely. The warmth and heat of him –

Was nothing to the fact that he squeezed.

“Oh, god,” I shuddered, and I gave in completely.

There was no vanity here, no comparison anymore. No feeling like I wasn’t worthy. No worrying about how I looked or whether I was moving too fast or too slow or any of the rest of it. There was only desire, because Olly had swept everything else from my mind, and I was only too happy to jump into the raging river and be swept along, too.

I launched myself onto the balls of my feet to kiss him, almost overbalancing and sending him backward – but his arms were all the way around me and he steadied me easily, his hands kneading my ass in time with our kisses. I fumbled to get my hands between us and undo his fly, needing to get him in my hands – except when I did, I found myself breaking away from the kiss to look down and stare.

And stare.

“I guess everything about you is big,” I muttered.

Olly’s hands caressed my ass, softer this time, like he was trying to soothe me. “Can you take it?”

Not only could I – I was dying to. I nodded eagerly and wriggled my hips from side to side; with Olly’s hands already widening my waistband and the zipper undone, my pants slipped to the floor easily. That left me only in my tight underwear, and Olly made a growl low in his throat before leaning forward to tug those to the floor, too.

The absurdity of it struck me right at that moment. I was naked in his office. My office. Our office. Our workplace.

I grabbed Olly by his hips and spun him – though, in truth, he was in control; he stepped where I guided him, there being no way in hell I could physically force him to do anything. That left his spot on the edge of the desk free, and I was quick to take it, bending all the way over the dark wooden surface and looking back at him over my shoulder.

He had a look on his face that suggested he was very much trying not to have a heart attack.

“Keaton Dunbar,” he said in a strangled voice, and I laughed and grabbed the lube, holding it up behind my back until he took it.

I wasn’t watching when he slipped the first finger, cool and slippery with lube, inside me. I gasped in surprise and instinctively clenched, then forced myself to relax. I heard a hiss of breath behind me and then Olly’s finger was moving, slowly, gently, exploring in the most agonizingly pleasurable way.

I wanted him to hurry up – I wanted to feel him inside me already – but I knew this was necessary. It had been a while since Jordan, and I didn’t want to spend our first time together in pain. I wanted to enjoy it. Every inch of it.

Olly’s free hand slipped round to grab hold of me, and I tried unsuccessfully to tamp down on the strangled groan that burst from my throat. All I could do was grab his wrist to stop him.

“No?” he asked. He froze, no longer moving his other hand, either.

“Too much,” I managed through gritted teeth. “If you do that now, I’ll – before you’re even inside – and I want…”

“Okay,” he said, and leaned over me and kissed the ridge of my spine, and I had to grip the edge of the desk so hard the wood hurt my hand to stop myself from going over the edge anyway.

He stretched me with two fingers, then three. I found myself rocking back against him, almost keening with need, wanting him inside of me more than anything else I had ever wanted in my life. My skin was already slick with sweat, and I didn’t know how much more I could take. I needed him badly, so badly, and I…

“Ready?”

The single word was the most welcome one I had ever heard in my life.

I nodded urgently, not trusting my words any longer. Strangely, part of me trusted him to know even more than I trusted myself. He was there, preparing me, and I knew in my bones that he was the type of man who wouldn’t even think about rushing ahead and putting my pleasure in jeopardy. He would look after me. He would make sure.

If he was sure, I was sure.

And then I actually felt him lined up, ready, his head bumping against my entrance, and I was no longer sure. But I was needy. And there was no more waiting to be sure.

The moment he pushed past my rim, I cried out at the burn and stretch, so much more than what his fingers had simulated. But he paused, rubbed the length of my back with his steady hand, waited – and the burn died away. He rocked forward gently as soon as I was ready, piece by piece, agonizingly beautiful, until I felt his hips flush against me.

I breathed.

“How does that feel?” he murmured.

I knew he was asking if it hurt or not.

I wasn’t even in that realm anymore. Those weren’t identifiers I could recognize.

“Like the world just fell into the right place,” I whispered back, just loud enough that I knew he could hear me.

Olly’s warm hands ran down over my back and gripped my hips. I whimpered in anticipation and need. He sucked in a breath at the sound. I felt him adjust his stance behind me to plant his feet further apart, and then he began.

The first thrust almost knocked the wind out of me.

By the second, I was too far gone to care about a stupid little thing like oxygen.

From that moment, everything was a blur. The movement of his huge girth inside me, filling me so completely it was like we were one and the same; his hand coming round to grip me and stroke in time; the heat rolling from him, sweat dripping down my back, my head tipping back and falling forward again and again as each new sensation buffeted me; my voice, pouring out of me in an uncontrollable stream of curses and moans and pleas; and Olly’s – grunting and groaning and then giving way to just one word.

“Keaton.”

And the sound of it broke me into two separate people: the me of before, and the me of after, who was irrevocably changed.

Even after the afterglow had faded away and Olly had pulled out of me and we were cleaning up both the desk and each other, that word tugged at me. Circled in my head. It went deeper than coming together, further than the physical connection we had shared.

Maybe I was heading right towards heartbreak.

But what I knew now, after hearing him say my name, were two things:

We were heading there together.

And there was no way I was going to stop.

Here ends this week’s chapter! What did you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts below. I really appreciate your comments - what you like, what you don’t like, and what you’d like to see next.

Progress Report

Note: Changes are in bold, comments in italics.

TOTAL SALES:

Don’t Move Out: ebook - 743, paperback - 8, KU pages read - 366,591 (238 pages = 1,540 equivalent full-book reads), free downloads - 6,304
Don’t Go Outside: ebook - 117, paperback - 6, KU pages read - 146,368 (222 pages = 659 equivalent full-book reads)
Don’t Fly Home: ebook - 64, paperback - 4, KU pages read - 89,167 (224 pages = 398 equivalent full-book reads)
Don’t Leave Town: ebook - 65, paperback - 4, KU pages read - 64,317 (299 pages = 215 equivalent full-book reads)
Don’t Check Out: ebook - 55, paperback - 2, KU pages read - 35,551 (192 pages = 185 equivalent full-book reads)
CC 1-5 Boxset: KU pages read - 15,951 (1,068 pages = 14 equivalent full-set reads)
Don’t Move Your Desk: ebook - 21, paperback - 1
Serial Investigations full series (Pre-Substack releases: books 1-12, 2 bonus novellas, 2 boxsets): ebook - 483, paperback/hardback - 68, KU pages read - 374,705, free downloads - 546

WRITING:

Don’t Move Your Desk: written and edited fully, serialisation underway, all chapters queued up ready, ebook and paperback on sale
Kiss The Cook: ebook preorder up (secret announcement for those of you who read the progress report!), typeset done for paperback
Cook Up A Storm: beta draft underway
Too Many Cooks: loose plot done, full plot underway
(Books 9-16): all covers, themes, and titles done, Crowhill Kitchen release schedule and titles announced, all Club and Kitchen characters created and romances/interpersonal relationships between books set up

SUBSTACK:

Subscribers: free - 63, paid - 3 - hi new friend!
Followers: 267

By the way, please like this post if you enjoyed it and would like to see more! This helps me decide what to do for future content.

XO Rhiannon

Crowhill Cove

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