I sighed into his mouth, finally bringing my hands up to lock together behind his neck. Then, an image of his arrogant grin when he’d heard Charlotte’s words about him flashed through my mind again and once more I was pushing him away.
“You’re such a dick,” I insulted him, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Don’t you mean-” he began with a wicked grin, but I put my hand over his mouth.
“Don’t you dare,” I said seriously. “Or I swear to God, I really will throw you out.”
He just shook off my hand and leaned down to kiss me, and then rubbed his rough stubble teasingly in the hollow of my neck until I was squirming. “Show me what you bought at the store,” he instructed with a whisper in my ear.
“No,” I told him stubbornly.
“Put it on for me,” he cajoled, giving my shorts a tug in the front so they rode low on my hips. He ran his fingers between the waistband and my stomach momentarily before slipping them down underneath the fabric.
“I’m taking it back,” I told him, my breath hitching and my hands grasping his shoulders as his tongue traced my earlobe and his hand did shocking, extraordinary things to me. “You’ll never see it.”
“That’s too bad.” He nipped my neck then soothed it with his tongue. I was beginning to think he had a fetish for marking me. “But it’s not like you don’t look sexy just as you are, in a ratty old shirt and someone else’s underwear,”
“This shirt-” I gasped, momentarily distracted, “is not ratty,” I finally finished, though it came out more as a whimper and I couldn’t quite remember why I was saying the words. “Will,” I whimpered again instead of arguing further. With his free hand, he quickly got rid of the boxers I was wearing and lifted me up onto the nearby desk.
Our hips were now aligned, although he didn’t seem inclined to move his hand and take advantage of that fact. I was not really in the mood to discourage his ministrations, but I did have one request.
“Let’s go to my room,” I said into his neck, gripping his shoulders, I imagine, rather painfully.
“No,” he replied, cupping my jaw and tilting my head back so he could kiss me. “I want you here, where I can always look at this spot and remember you crying out my name.”
“You’re so egotistical.” I said it with as much annoyance in my voice as I could manage, to cover up the fact that the image he just presented sounded incredibly hot.
He immediately stilled and I almost cried out in protest. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“Fine,” I rocked my hips against his hand and, mercifully, he continued doing that incredible thing he was doing. Instead of taking the time to remove my shirt, which honestly might have required two hands, he used his free hand to pull one side down and immediately latched his mouth onto my exposed breast.
“Jesus,” I said, tossing my head back.
“Will,” he reminded me with a playful bite. “Darcy, if you prefer.”
I didn’t forget again. He got his wish; I was crying out his name in almost no time. It was, in my opinion, a fair trade.
While I was still recovering, he had me lifted in his arms and on our way into my bedroom, where I found out he had just been getting started. Apparently the title of best sex I ever had was something he felt needed to be continually proven. I did not discourage whatever thought process led to this.
Later, my head was resting on his chest and I was graciously ignoring the incredibly smug grin he couldn’t seem to wipe off his face. As I drifted, however, I felt him kiss the top of my head.
“Lizzy?” he murmured.
“What?” I asked a bit warily.
“You’re the best I’ve ever had, too,” he said softly.
“Oh.” I don’t know what affected me more, the words or the tone he used. I squeezed him tightly around the chest. “Good.”
As you can see, things between us were becoming a little bit more than casual sex; I think where it really shifted, however, was a few weeks later.
Part Two:
Getting Closer
“Now be sincere; did you admire me for my impertinence?”
“For the liveliness of your mind, I did.”
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
CHAPTER SIX
New Girl
I came into work one morning to find Charlotte talking to a girl I didn’t recognize. After I put my things away at my desk, I headed over to greet them.
“This is Abby,” Charlotte introduced the mystery girl. “She’s a coder who’s starting today.”
Abby was friendly, maybe a year or two older than me, which put her closer to thirty. She seemed eager to be here; she’d just moved to town and didn’t really know anyone, so she was happy that Charlotte and I were being so welcoming and friendly. She told us she had just gotten out of a yearlong relationship and was glad to be starting over someplace new and exciting.
Charlotte was our best coder, so Abby was going to be under her wing until Charlotte felt she was comfortable enough to work independently. We exchanged a few pleasantries but didn’t really have much time to chat.
Charlotte would have some leeway today because she was training, but she was still expected to get some of her own work done as well, and I was under a time crunch because we were already a week behind schedule on our current project and Darcy was not happy about it.
Right before lunch, in fact, he came by to get an update.
Charlotte’s workspace was right next to mine; there was no barrier between us, actually. We sat at a large table meant for four, with two of us on one side and two on the other. Currently we had the whole table to ourselves as Jeff and Dave, our normal desk mates, were both off, one on vacation and the other unexpectedly home with his young son, who had strep throat. Abby had pulled up a chair next to Charlotte as she basically looked over Charlotte’s shoulder to get a feel for our system.
“Whoa,” I heard Abby say under her breath. “Who is that?”
Curiously, I looked over.
“Who’s what now?” Charlotte asked distractedly with her brows furrowed, though she didn’t turn from her computer screen.
“Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome standing with Judy,” Abby clarified, her eyes never wavering. Judy was the head of our department. As this field is generally very dominated by men, the fact that Judy, Jane, Charlotte, and I all worked in the same department was a bit of an oddity. As a result, we all were closer than just work acquaintances. Of course, Jane was my sister, but even so we all got along exceptionally well.
“Oh, probably Mr. Darcy,” Charlotte said in an offhand manor.
“Mr. Darcy, the big boss man?” Abby asked with interest.
“Look out, Lizzy,” Charlotte kind of smirked. “You know what he’s going to ask.”
Just as Charlotte predicted, both Judy and Darcy made a beeline for our desk.
“We’re still behind,” I said before he could start. “With Jeff on vacay, Dave off for the week, and Charlotte slowed down by training, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get even further behind schedule.”
Darcy, of course, did not like that. Judy looked… not nervous, perhaps, but definitely uneasy.
“Was it really necessary to approve time off for both Jeff and Dave?” he asked with irritation.
“We could keep on track with Jeff gone, and Dave is only home because his son is sick,” Judy replied with confidence.
She always seemed just a little bit intimidated by Darcy, but she was also very good at her job and it was easy to stand by her decisions when she had the experience and skill to back it up.
“How is his son?” Darcy asked softly, irritation forgotten for the moment. I did have to say this about him, Darcy truly cared about the welfare of his workers.
“Getting better. It doesn’t look like he’ll have to have his tonsils out after all, so Dave is relieved.” Judy informed us.
Darcy’s eyes flicked to Abby, and I wondered if he would have enough social grace to wait until
he and Judy were alone to complain about the timing of having to train this new hire.
“It’s so good to meet you, Mr. Darcy.” Abby gushed as soon as his attention was on her. She stood, shaking his hand. “I have always admired your work, of course, and having the opportunity to be a part of your company and contribute to your projects is like a dream come true.”
“Ah, well, thank you,” he looked a little flustered at the praise, though I did see his pride showing. I tried not to roll my eyes, and bit my tongue against warning her not to inflate his already oversized ego.
She went on to tell him how she studied his early software programs and presented a paper based on his very own techniques on creating educational simulations. I wanted to gag on how thick she was laying it on, but Darcy was eating it up. I looked to Charlotte to gain her reaction, but she was taking this time to switch over to quality-check some lines of code on the very project Darcy and Judy had come to get an update on.
“If you ever have any time to talk about your experiences, I would love to learn from your expertise.” Abby finally seemed to be winding down. This time I glanced at Judy, and she kind of smiled indulgently, as if it was natural to have this reaction and she was used to seeing it.
“Of course,” Darcy said stoically, though I could tell by the tilt of his chin he was loving the admiration. Eventually, he turned back to Judy and me. “Let the floor know I’m offering overtime for anyone who wants to help us get back on schedule.”
“It would be a lot more enticing if we can log into the system remotely and work from home,” I replied. He looked less than enthused with my suggestion, as I knew he would. Darcy hated the security vulnerabilities that came with remote access into the system; we’d had many discussions about it. The upside, of course, was that more people would be willing to stay up late in the comfort of their own home, sitting on their laptops in their underwear, and we could actually get caught up in almost no time.
“Get a list of volunteers.” He turned to Judy with his customary frown. “I’ll set it up.”
“Damn,” Abby said not long after, while we were sitting in the breakroom eating lunch. “He is so freaking hot.”
I was beginning to become irritated with this new girl. The way she blatantly sucked up to the boss one minute, then couldn’t shut up about how hot he was to us – God, what was this, high school?
“You won’t find any members of his fan club here, I’m afraid.” Charlotte, without the distraction of her work, threw me a sly grin.
“Are you kidding me?” Abby practically gasped and I found my irritation growing. “How can you not think he’s the hottest guy you know?”
“He’s okay,” I shrugged a little bit uncomfortably, my mind supplying me with unwanted images of a shirtless Darcy. Yeah, okay might actually be insulting when it came to describing him. “But he knows how hot he is – you haven’t seen the size of his ego yet. Plus he’s kind of a jerk.”
“He’s cute,” Charlotte nodded. “Too quiet and too intimidating for me though.”
“Please tell me he’s single,” Abby said.
“Who cares?” I finally sighed. “He’s our boss, it’s not like anything can happen.”
“Ooh, a secret affair- that might make him even hotter,” she giggled.
I looked to Charlotte incredulously, but she only shrugged indifferently.
∞∞∞
The rest of the week I put in overtime at home, along with a good chunk of people, and we managed to get back on schedule by Friday. Abby continued to make comments about Darcy anytime he passed by or his name came up and I found myself more and more irritated with her.
Finally, it was Friday night and even though I was wiped out from all the extra work I’d put in, Jane, Charlotte and I met up with Darcy, Charlie and Richard at a club Richard owned. We got the special VIP treatment with a private booth on the second floor. Richard greeted us and hung around for a while, but left about the same time Charlie pulled Jane out onto the dance floor. Darcy was characteristically quiet, sipping his top-shelf Scotch and seeming to half listen to Char’s and my conversation.
“I can tell you don’t like her.” Char had eventually brought Abby up.
“She’s okay,” I said, though I frowned.
“I almost invited her out with us, but I thought better of it,” she said with a significant look to Darcy. Before I could comment on that, a guy Char knew from the club scene appeared and asked her to dance.
“You don’t like the new girl?” Darcy eventually asked after a few minutes of silence. Well, not so much silence as the absence of conversation at the table.
“She’s okay,” I repeated.
“She seemed nice to me,” he observed.
I snorted.
“Of course you would think so,” I said before I could think better of it.
“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked with a curious frown.
“The way she was falling over herself to tell you have perfect you were? Of course you liked her.” I explained.
He looked affronted. “She was just letting me know about her interest in the field and in the company.”
“Yeah, the company,” I scoffed. He narrowed his eyes.
“Just because someone pays their boss a compliment, doesn’t mean they have an ulterior motive,” he told me. “Anyway, not everyone thinks I’m an asshole.”
I winced a bit. I wanted to point out that I hadn’t called him an asshole in a long time, but the fact that I had done it at all probably wasn’t going to help my argument. Also, I did just tell Abby he was a jerk.
“No, some people can’t shut up about how hot you are, or stop from asking stupid questions like if you’re single instead of focusing on important things, like what Charlotte’s trying to teach her,” I finally replied.
“Who am I trying to teach?” Charlotte was already back; she flopped into her seat, her face pink from dancing. She immediately downed the rest of her drink.
“Abby,” I clarified.
“Oh,” Charlotte snorted a little. “Watch out for that one, Mr. D. I heard she finally wrangled a lunch meeting with you.”
This was the first I was hearing about it, and I couldn’t help but become even more irritated.
“She asked to learn more about the company, and how she can best contribute to it,” Darcy said to Char with frustration. She shrugged in an easy manner, either ignoring or misreading our tension.
“You’re the boss,” she said, her tone clearly conveying how little she thought of Abby’s excuse to get together with him. “Come on, Liz, let’s dance.”
The matter was dropped for the moment, but at the end of the night when Darcy and I were alone again, it resurfaced when I made a snarky comment about his lunch date with Abby. We went back and forth, our mutual annoyance and frustration slowly seeping into anger until he said, “Of course not – why would I want to spend time with someone who didn’t insult and argue with me at every turn?”
Char had returned to tell me the cab was here, so I bit my tongue and walked off before we really fought in earnest. I shared a cab with Charlotte back to her place, where I crashed on her couch rather than make the ten-minute trip home.
∞∞∞
That weekend, the image of Abby and Darcy together kept invading my thoughts, and the more it happened the more I was convinced something would begin between them. It wasn’t that I felt betrayed – I knew what we had wasn’t a real relationship and neither one of us had any claims on the other. My problem with it was that it was bad enough I was sleeping with my boss, someone, as I’ve said, with whom I had no real relationship. There was no way I could also be the other girl at work he slept with. Whether that was vanity, self-respect, or my own pride slipping out, I couldn’t say.
I thought about whatever we had and how it was probably a good thing that it seemed to be coming to an end sooner rather than later. I always knew there was an expiration date on what we were doing, and if I wanted to be able to w
ork with him and socialize through Jane and Charlie with him, it was probably better that we used this excuse to break things off before something big happened that we couldn’t come back from.
It also wasn’t far from my thoughts that, as much as I criticized him, I never thought he was the type to jump from woman to woman, especially women he worked with. I did find myself feeling guilty when I thought of his last parting comment, about how I insulted and argued with him all the time.
It was true that I did think his pride was so inflated that I was always wary of paying him any compliment, but now I thought perhaps that was unfair. He was handsome, and brilliant, and although I argued with him at work often enough, he did have the skill and expertise to end up being in the right more often than not.
Maybe, when I brought up the idea that we should break thing off, I could tell him that despite not voicing it, I did think highly of him. At the very least, it would soften the blow, if he were inclined to be moody about it.
∞∞∞
The next work week was crazy busy, and we didn’t actually get a moment to talk privately until he invited me into his office around six next Friday afternoon, when most of the staff had gone home.
“Judy showed me your solution to our bug; I have to say I’m impressed you were able to come up with a fix so quickly.”
“Thanks,” I said with a bit of a shrug. “It was really just good timing. When we got word it needed to be done ASAP, I had just finished my work for Jim so I could jump right into it.”
We talked a little more about work, and then I saw him hesitate.
“Look, Elizabeth.” I waited, expecting that he, like me, had spent the week thinking that it was time to pull out of this situation before it got any worse. I was surprised, therefore, when he went on to say, “I should apologize. I… you were right about Abby’s motives for wanting to have lunch with me.”
“Oh,” I said with some surprise. All week long, the woman in question had been suspiciously tight-lipped about the lunch meeting she had with Darcy on Monday, and to be honest I had wondered what that had meant from someone who literally couldn’t shut up about him before that.
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