by Poppy Flynn
"Are you making an accusation of sexual harassment against Mr. Griffin," he demanded pointedly, looking her up and down as if he was categorising every tiny detail of her appearance so that Laurel was glad she had taken the extra time to make sure she was decent. This dude couldn't tell she was missing her knickers, no matter how much he might make her feel that way.
Now, both pairs of eyes were on Laurel—Connor's, flinty and reproachful, the rep's, narrowed and suspicious—and the silence in the room was suddenly deafening.
"What? No!" Laurel exclaimed "I was…I just…" Laurel swallowed heavily around the sudden dryness in her throat, finally realising that she had jumped right in with both feet and damn the consequences.
"Look, I'm sorry," she said into the weirdly suspended vacuum that the room seemed to have been sucked into, while those present seemed to be hanging on her every word, waiting to see what would come out of her mouth next.
Heck, Laurel was wondering exactly that, herself, and she could feel the tell-tale prickle of heat crawling uncomfortably up her back and between her shoulder blades as a light perspiration popped out on her forehead. It would be fine. She could still talk her way of this…if she could just think what to say! Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she attempted just that.
"Umm, okay. No!" she huffed. "I am not making any allegation of sexual harassment against Mr. Griffin. I was just angry when I realised what you were talking about and I spoke without thinking."
Laurel could feel the embarrassment reddening her face even as she said the words, and couldn't bring herself to look at either of the two men.
"Hmm," the HR rep murmured, managing to imbue the single syllable with a wealth of suspicion, disbelief, and scepticism all in equal measure. "Well, be that as it may, you will still need to come down to the HR department and fill out the necessary paperwork for the complaint that has been filed against you, Miss Stanton. Try to make that today, please," he finished shortly.
Across the room, Connor sighed. "Isn't there any way this can just be wiped from the record?" he asked with visible consternation.
"We've already been through this, Mr Griffin. Allegations and complaints have been made, which you, yourself, have admitted resulted in verbal warnings being given to your PA. Those things cannot be undone just because you now allege that they were done on the spur of the moment while things got a bit heated. There is already evidence to uphold your claim that Miss Stanton…" The weaselly little man turned his squinty gaze in her direction as he referred to her. "…left before the end of the work day, which you also alleged meant that her time sensitive, scheduled workload remained unfinished. The CCTV cameras in the building also log you coming in at 5:00 am this morning, even though your online diary shows a breakfast meeting at 7:00 am…" He didn't finish his sentence, but the implication was clearly there. Connor had come in to finish the work she hadn't done. But God damn it, that hadn't been entirely her fault. Still, the humiliation continued to burn as she recognised how bad it all looked, and that just fuelled Laurel's temper at this injustice of it all.
"Of course, if Miss Stanton has a justified reason for her actions, then she can make a counterclaim. I will expect you in my office before the end of the day," he addressed to Laurel before turning and walking from the room.
The door had barely closed behind him before Laurel finally lost her shit and turned on Connor. "What the hell?" she screamed at him.
Connor was across the room before anything else could come out of her mouth, grabbing her around the waist and clamping a big hand across her mouth to quell the stream of furious epithets that were muffled by his actions.
"Shut up, you idiot. He's right outside the door!" Connor growled.
Incensed and seeing red, Laurel ignored his words and, instead, sank her teeth sharply into the fleshy area at the base of his thumb where it covered her mouth.
"Argh! Fuck!" Connor shouted the oath as he pulled his hand away, instinctively backing up, shaking his injured hand before inspecting it for damage and then sucking the throbbing injury into his mouth to soothe it.
Laurel spun around, but before she could say any more, the door burst open and the guy from the Human Resources department was there again, eyes wide and frowning between the pair of them.
"What's going on? I thought I heard a commotion in here," he accused, giving each of them a dark look. "Is everything all right?"
"Yes!"
"Fine!"
Both of them answered at the same time, but the man didn't look convinced. He took in the scene in front of him, and it was clear to see that he was making his own conclusions, though what those might be was anyone's guess.
"I've got my eye on you two," he finally declared after what seemed like a long minute but was probably just a few seconds. "I don't know quite what's going on, but you can guarantee that I will get to the bottom of it. This is a work environment of the highest standard. The company will not tolerate any degree of disruption from anybody, regardless of their position," he threatened as he backed out of the door, not taking his eyes off of either of them.
This time, Connor marched out of the room right behind him, leaving Laurel seething but rattled, and not quite knowing if she should stay and confront him, turn tail and run for the sanctuary of her own office, or hot tail it down to HR and make a counterclaim…or at least a denial. In the end, the decision was made for her when Connor came stalking back into the room.
Chapter 11
"For crying out loud, Laurel. Sometimes I wonder if you even have the sense you were born with!" he gritted out.
"Well, you're the one who started it!"
"And I was the one who was trying to sort it all out."
"Oh, yeah, because that was going so well for you."
"It was going a damn sight better before you came storming out my private office cloakroom and making everything seem a whole lot more suspicious!"
"I'd already heard him say that whatever you said couldn't be retracted."
"And yet I had almost persuaded him to do so before you threw a spanner in the works. Now it just looks a whole lot worse for both of us."
"And what exactly do you need to worry about? I'm the one with the warnings and complaints against me!"
"Oh, of course! And that little stunt of stomping around and implying that I'd sexually harassed and compromised you in some way did nothing to throw suspicion at me, did it?"
"Well, it isn't like it's not true!"
Silence.
"I think you'd better return to your office," Connor eventually said, sounding glaringly quiet after the heated exchange.
"Damn it, Connor, you know I didn't mean it like that!" Laurel argued.
"Then, just how did you mean it?" Connor asked, looking pointedly at his injured thumb where Laurel could still see the redness of the bite mark she had given him. Well, there was something legitimate he could report to HR, she thought almost hysterically.
"I meant that it impugned my reputation just as much as yours."
"Do you really think that will be the case? How many men do you think get hauled up on sexual harassment charges compared with women? Don't be so bloody naïve!"
"Oh, please! Everybody knows that it's the woman who comes off as some kind of slut when those things come to light."
"Whatever," Connor sighed flatly refusing to go another round with her. "Just leave, Laurel. The damage is already done."
The situation did nothing to improve for the rest of the week. Everything between Connor and Laurel seemed to swing violently from one extreme to the other.
She had trotted off to HR and explained that there had just been a misunderstanding due to lack to communication and defended her early retirement on the day in question as a late, late lunch, since she had worked through. Her exemplary track record and the number of hours unpaid overtime she had clocked up in the past would speak for themselves as far as she was concerned.
She never did work out what had happened to her missing un
derwear that day. Whilst she had been relieved to see that her panties weren't in plain sight and lying glaringly obvious in the middle of Connor's office floor, the ensuing conversation had not been at all too conducive to her asking after them and she had decided to leave well enough alone. They were destroyed anyway, so it wasn't as if they were of use to her any more.
Laurel had spent the remainder of the morning sitting carefully at her desk, bare cheeked and embarrassed, until the earliest possible opportunity for her to take a lunch break presented itself, and then she hot tailed it to the closest store she could find with the breeze constantly reminding her of her state of undress. She didn't even care that the convenient pack of plain white knickers she grabbed more closely resembled what her friends would refer to as 'granny pants'. She was just relieved to be finally covered up. She may well proudly flaunt her assets to all and sundry at Club Risqué, but even she had some qualms.
Of course, Connor had been vaguely reprimanding about her taking an early lunch after she'd had a late start and she'd been equally catty back to him. In the afternoon, she'd fielded another phone call from Maura Murray. The woman was a complete cougar and prowled on younger men with the same ferocity as the jungle namesake. Laurel knew she'd been putting the moves on Connor and was jealous and resentful enough to blow off her usual professionalism and give the woman the run around. Plus, she was still smarting from the previous occasion when the infuriating Ms. Murray had spoken to her as if she was a little kid, so she'd told the woman with saccharine sweetness that Connor was unavailable and offered to take a message, instead. Of course, it was just her luck that Connor caught her in the fib and gave her the whole growly look and furious hand signals telling her to put the call through to him. Laurel just glared back at him. Fine! If he wanted to get his hands full of 'mauling Maura', as Laurel had nicknamed her, then he could deal with it by himself.
"Oh! You're in luck," she told the older woman cloyingly. "He's just this second walked in. I'll put you through."
Laurel threw a gleefully sarcastic smile at Connor as he made his way back to pick up his private extension.
Thirty minutes later, he had come steaming out of his office, ranting and raving once again and Laurel knew that the call had wound him up. Served him right, she thought peevishly. Not that he said as much to her, of course, but Laurel ended up bearing the brunt of his bad mood for the rest of the day.
The following day, things were still no better, and Connor started bitching about the length of her skirts, suggesting that she wear something altogether more respectable to the office and that had led to yet another round of heated arguments and recriminations, on both sides. Until she had shocked the both of them by pushing him boldly and bodily into her stationary cupboard, ripping at the buttons of his shirt in order to reveal that superb expanse of muscled chest which she had proceeded to sink her teeth into. Connor had reacted much as she had expected him to, spinning her around and pinning her against the wall. This time, the panties stayed on and he just yanked them to one side before plunging home.
The release of sexual tension didn't seem to help matters at all, though. The afternoon found them back to snipping and bitching at each other, slinging an uncomplimentary, crass and unprofessional variety of names between them and nit-picking faults once again.
Thursday night, she walked into Club Risqué seriously wondering where the night was going to lead. It had been a weird and emotionally exhausting week, with the constant Ping-Pong of swinging emotions and sexual tension, which seemed to have become the normal state of affairs between Connor and herself.
Sooner or later, something was going to have to give. They couldn't keep this erratic love/hate mixture of emotions going on indefinitely. It had already started to become too much for her. She was pretty sure Connor was feeling the strain, too, since he was still sporting the bruised looking eyes and the hair trigger temper which inevitably led to a catch-twenty-two situation.
Laurel would start worrying about him and try to lighten his workload or grab lunch or coffee to ease his day, and for a little while, he'd be grateful and things would be good and the pendulum seemed to have stopped swinging, giving them both a tiny shred of much needed relief. And then, suddenly, something would happen, often something completely insignificant, and it would catapult them right back into the minefield they'd been tiptoeing around, and before they knew it, there were slinging barbs and shrapnel flying between the two of them all over again.
Laurel was looking forward to this evening to unwind and find a bit of blessed relief, but she was uncharacteristically nervous. For the past year, she had scened with no one but Connor. Now that everything was so crazy between them, she really wasn't sure how that was going to influence their club time. Connor hadn't mentioned Club Risqué at all, so, for all she knew, he might not even turn up tonight, but Laurel really felt like she needed some kind of release from the stresses of the week.
It was just an overall weird situation. While she desperately wanted to scene and feel that powerful sense of relief and unwinding, she didn't really know how she felt about playing with anybody else after all this time. Never mind her feelings for Connor. For all that he'd acted like a complete and utter dick for the past two weeks, it didn't really change the way she felt about him. She loved him. Whatever was going on between them at the moment, she still loved him, and regardless of his unusually obnoxious behaviour, she knew the kind of man he really was when things weren't being quite so freaky.
On the other hand, they certainly weren't any closer to maintaining any kind of reasonable relationship. In fact, if she was honest with herself, they were further away than ever.
So, where did that leave her? Perhaps she should just find someone else to play with, regardless of whether Connor was there or not, and just enjoy the sweet sensation of all her frustrations seeping away. As much as Connor owed her nothing and had promised her nothing, in turnabout, the same was true of her. Maybe if she negotiated a scene with another Dom, Connor would realise that she wasn't going to wait around forever. Was it wishful thinking to imagine that he might be jealous? After all, Connor hadn't scened with anyone but her for the past twelve months, either. Well, no one here, anyway, and if there was anybody back at the south coast, then it certainly wasn't something that had come to her attention. Laurel tried not to let that irrational spear of jealousy, at some unknown woman touching her man, devour her usual level headedness but knew she wasn't entirely successful. She pushed the thoughts aside, not ready to deal with them. Connor was hers and no one was going to stand in the way of her getting her man.
Connor was clearly on the edge right now. Laurel just had to push a little harder and make sure that he fell in the right direction. It wasn't so hard, really. It was obvious he had a hard time resisting her. The risky and clandestine ways they tore at each other, determined to fulfil their lust-fuelled needs, during office hours, when both of them should know better, was evidence of that. Despite the way they raged at each other in between. Maybe because of it.
Laurel was no amateur psychologist by any means, but she was sure someone like Micah would have an absolute field day with their behaviour, and Laurel knew, deep down, that her own behaviour was really no better than Connor's. Maybe it was worse, if she was honest with herself, because whilst Connor's was an honest outrage and anger, hers was equally as bitchy but undoubtedly a whole lot more manipulative. But that was for his own good. Connor would see that, eventually, when everything sorted itself out the way she wanted it to.
However things turned out tonight, Laurel had put a lot of thought into her outfit for this evening. She had chosen a balcony corset that pushed up and presented her already generous assets as if they were being offered on a plate. It was in a shade of blue that matched her eyes and made their colour pop out despite her pale skin. Although there were complicated looking criss-cross laces that decorated the front, it had the added benefit of having a concealed zipper in the back. Her hair was up in a high pon
ytail because she knew Connor loved to use it as a kind of handle for all sorts of kinky play and because it also kept it out of the way if he decided he wanted to indulge in some impact play. She'd eschewed the usual leather and latex for her skirt and, instead, gone for a flippy navy satin number for ease of access so that Connor wouldn't lose his hair trigger temper and give up on it. Not that she was dressing for anybody but herself, of course. Well, that's what she kept telling herself, anyway.
She pushed down the wave of uncertainty she felt as she entered the lower dance floor and bar level of the club, irritated with herself for feeling that way. She had been in this club hundreds of times, turning up alone and confident, and had never suffered a moment of hesitation or indecision. There was no reason for that sensation to rear its ugly head right now. None at all, she told herself furiously.
Looking around with a confidence she wasn't quite feeling, Laurel tried to school the disappointment she felt when she couldn't see Connor immediately among the crowd at the bar. It didn't mean he wasn't here. He might be upstairs already. Her stomach turned slightly at the idea that he might already be negotiating a scene with somebody else to work off his own frustrations. The thought had her stomping angrily to the bar so that she could grab a drink to soothe her fraying nerves. He probably wasn't here yet. Laurel wasn't quite sure if that idea made her feel better or worse.
She threw back the single, neat brandy she allowed herself and relished the burn as it fired down her throat and warmed her stomach before she set off with a determined stride and made her way through the security for the second floor. She'd break through the barrier that Connor kept holding between them if it was the last thing she did. He was hers; she just needed to get that through to him, and if Trinity's warning rang quietly in the back of her mind, then she was happy enough to close her ears to it.