But first, phone calls.
Camp is in fact more fun than reading reports or even fighting with Stew.
I find myself wondering if Ellie likes animals, and shove that thought away as fast as it pops into my head.
The most amazing discovery about the camp I make this afternoon is what a difference the experience makes for kids who are struggling in school. So, after I spend nearly three hours being taught by children how to care for the animals and manage the other farm chores, I get a little pissed off when the first question I get from the press is about how much my shirt cost—because it’s now smeared with mud.
“I’m going to be lucky if that’s mud. Pretty sure I got that when we were mucking out the horse stalls,” I tell Rick Stupes, a reporter with CAN News who is always out to make me look like Richie Rich. I don’t respond to the rest of his question because it’s stupid.
He tries again. “When your staff set up this photo op up, did they advise you to wear anything different?”
Seriously, what is this guy’s problem? I’m only slightly more GQ than the last guy.
Okay, no, I’m a thousand times more GQ than the last guy.
I kick my foot out from behind the podium. “I’ve been wearing these boots since I left the house at half past five this morning, because I’m not a toddler, and I know how to dress myself appropriately. As a side note, they’re the boots I hiked Golden Ears in after we won the most recent election.” Take that, Rick. “Nobody had to remind me to put them on. Coming to City Farm Camp has been the highlight of a difficult week, something I’ve really been looking forward to, and if I didn’t have a full day of work tomorrow, I’d be back in a heartbeat.”
The next question is similarly off-topic. Inside my head, I’m calling the press corps all sorts of names, but we’ve practised this over and over again. My natural propensity to snap at stupid people is well and truly beaten out of me now. Or at least well internalized.
I smile and give a short answer. Rinse and repeat, until the fifth question gets to the heart of the announcement I’ve just made, about funding for such activities needing to be a two-fisted approach, because not all parents can wait for a tax credit to justify the upfront expense.
And sometimes, those are the kids who need the alternative learning experience the most.
I smoothly reiterate what the camp director has already said, about how the hands-on care of animals instills empathy and compassion that translates well back to human interaction.
I know as soon as I finish the spiel, with an extra charming smile for the reporter who asked the right question, that’s the clip that’ll run on the news.
We don’t always nail it this well, but when we do, it makes the rest of it worthwhile.
3
Ellie
I don’t leave the office until after eight. I only stumble as far as a sushi restaurant three blocks away, where my roommate, Sasha, is waiting for me.
“That bad?” she asks, flagging down the waitress. “We’re going to need sake.”
“No sake. Green tea. And then I’m hitting the last yoga class of the night.”
“Ew.”
“I’m not making you come with me.”
Sasha’s a runner. Uptight, controlled…she’s practically allergic to finding her resting place and just breathing.
Me? I’m spastic, anxious, and a chronic worrier. I hold it all at bay by doing yoga five days a week.
Not usually this late at night, but hello real world. I’ve been spoiled by being a grad student—it’s hard work, but I can mostly do it on my own schedule.
Not anymore.
I have to be back at work at six thirty tomorrow morning. Tell the PM he’s wrong at seven. Then probably fight with people all day as I convince them I’m right. If I don’t centre myself and get a good night’s sleep, that’s not going to go well.
4
Gavin
The first thing I notice when my senior team files into my office for our daily briefing at seven is Ellie Montague. This doesn't surprise me, because I haven't been able to stop thinking about her since yesterday. She looks tired and my imagination takes off in search of a likely explanation. Most of them involve her being kept up all night by a man. Narrowing down her type was proving problematic. She didn’t seem like she’d go for the muscle-bound studly type with more balls than brains, but I’ve been surprised more than a few times by what can get a woman wet and needy.
I watch her from the corner of my eye as Stew talks to my staff—his staff—about what's come up overnight, what our priorities are for the day, and a number of other things that he doesn't need me to listen to. Which is good, because I'm too busy cataloguing all the ways she fascinates me. What I notice most is Ellie’s fidgeting. She keeps catching herself, and I find it hard not to smirk.
She smooths the front of her skirt with her hand and leaves behind a long streak slightly darker than the khaki fabric. Her palms are sweaty. She’s nervous. I barely have time to wonder why when Stew invites her to speak.
Her head comes up at the sound of her name and our gazes lock for a moment, then she drops her clear grey eyes to the binder she’s holding in her shaking hands. I’m glad I’m sitting down because I’m pretty sure waving my raging hard-on around the room is not on the briefing agenda.
I watch her lips as they form the words I’m not really hearing because I’m busy imaging what they would feel like on my cock.
I should be paying more attention to what she’s saying, but I already know I’m going to agree with whatever plan she’s laying out.
She wouldn’t be speaking right now if Stew wasn’t already going to back her recommendations on how to keep these outrageously expensive rubber chicken dinners that are supposed to be party fundraisers from becoming opportunities for big business to buy some private time with the prime minister. Pay to play, they call it.
Confident this embarrassing little hiccup is already handled, I drift back into my fantasy. Something I shouldn’t be doing for so many reasons, not the least of which is she’s young enough to be my niece.
But I can’t help myself.
She’s on her back, draped over my desk with her head tipped back over one edge, her legs dangling over the other.
I unzip my trousers and free my long-suffering erection.
“Open,” I demand.
Her lips part and I trace them with the tip of my cock until they’re glossy with pre-come. I want to be rough, make her take me all the way down, but for some unknown reason, I hold myself back. Her tongue swirls around the head as I slide in.
The sight of my fluid smeared all over her lips makes me want to mark her other places. Her tits, her back, her ass.
As I slip farther into her hot, eager mouth, I take her hands, weaving our fingers together. I hold them against the surface of the desk and lean forward, stopping just above her mound of soft red curls. In my fantasy they're a bit darker than the strawberry blonde waves I've seen her twist her fingers into more than once.
She’s ethereal and bright. Impish and totally captivating. “Spread your legs, Sprite.”
I slide out and in with shallow strokes as I move my head lower so I can tickle at her clit with my tongue. She squirms and I stop.
“Don’t move.”
Curious to see how much she can take, I push my cock in until it barely touches the back of her throat. Her belly lurches a little, but she swallows against it. Her mouth is hot and wet and tight around me, and I want her to take even more but I won’t push her. Not the first time.
“Good girl,” I say. Because she is. I resume my shallow thrusts into her mouth and lower myself back down to feast on her pussy.
This time she stays perfectly still while I suck and lick at her clit. I catch that firm nub between my lips and tug gently. She struggles to keep still and I get a thrill from her obedience.
While I’m consumed with her delightful pussy, she’s working away on my cock. Even with the position of her head restricting her mo
vement, she does an excellent job of giving me all the suction and friction I need to get me where I want to go. She’s gotta come first, but her mouth is unbelievable. Distracting.
Fuck, I want to rut against her and let myself go, but I can’t.
I concentrate harder on my goal. She starts to moan and—
Ellie’s lips stop moving and I’m yanked back to reality. Not that I was all that far away. I may have been having wildly inappropriate fantasies about my Chief of Staff’s far-too-young-for-me intern, but I was present enough to keep from making a complete fool of myself.
“Thank you for your presentation, Ellie. I’ll take it under advisement.” Stew gives me the look. The one that says I am going to have some explaining to do. And I am going to have to do some fast thinking, because I sure as shit won’t tell him the real reason my mind wasn’t where it should be.
“Okay everybody, I think that’s everything for today.” Stew gestures towards the door, but doesn’t exit with the rest of the group.
I watch as Ellie leaves. Damn that skirt looks good on her from the front, but it hugs her ass tight, and the rear view is spectacular.
The last person is barely out of the room before Stew shuts the door.
There are only two men in the entire world who know me for who I really am. Who would watch me in that briefing and see where my mind really went. One of them is safely on the other side of the country living his own life.
The other is standing in front of me, trying his damnedest to keep my life on track.
Stew shakes his head. “What the fuck got into you?”
I haven’t thought fast enough and I’m saved from having to give an excuse by his ire, because he's already worked up and intent on pointing out how much of an ass I just was.
“That girl was working all night because yesterday at lunch I told her to have that presentation ready for this morning’s briefing. The least you could have fucking done, you inconsiderate piece of shit, was listen to her proposal. Instead, you had your head up your ass thinking about God only knows what, and I don’t want to know.”
I wince. “Was I that obvious?”
“Only to me. You’ve got to come up with a new phrase when you mentally return to meetings because it won’t be long before others will figure out I’ll take it under advisement means my brain had more important matters than whatever twaddle you’re peddling.”
“Twaddle?”
“Gavin, it was her first briefing. She was nervous and you were unbelievably rude. And that’s not like you.”
“You’re right. I should apologise.”
“Nah, she was too nervous to notice you were being an asshat. I think you’ll do more damage than good by drawing attention to it.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’re willing to blindly accept my recommendations when it comes to how we deal with this fundraiser business, but on something as trivial as this, you question my wisdom?”
“Fuck, Stew. How did I even get here? Two years ago I was happily spanking shitty employers for mistreating their workers and now I’m running the fucking country.”
“Not for much longer if you don’t keep your head in the game. What if that had been Question Period instead of your morning briefing?”
He’s right and I know it. “Point taken. Now, don’t you have work to do?”
Stew shoots me his middle finger and walks out the door.
I lean back in my chair and prop my feet on my desk, crossing them at the ankles. The same desk I’d just been—Fuck. I need to get laid. This dry spell is completely fucking with my judgement.
And I need to stop thinking about Ellie Montague's ass. Her mouth. How pink her pussy will be when she's wet and swollen for me.
Most of all, I need to stop finding her fidgeting so damn endearing.
5
Ellie
By Saturday, I’m totally ready for the weekend.
Except Stew emails me at six in the morning and I end up working until noon. There are a few people in the office, but everyone is heads down on their own stuff. I’m in and out in five hours, and I’ve still got two days of down time to enjoy.
Okay, so I’ll get a day and a half. Maybe a day and a quarter, because there’s some serious reading I need to do tomorrow night to be ready for Monday morning.
But a day off still sounds heavenly. Yoga, brunch, lying on the couch like a vegetable and watching something on Netflix. I can squeeze all of that into a day and a quarter. Maybe brunch can be something delivered and easily consumed while lying on the couch.
I check the yoga studio’s schedule. My favourite teacher has a class at three today and another at seven tomorrow morning. That is not happening, so this afternoon it is.
I change out of my work clothes and pull on red yoga pants, a bralette with fancy braided straps, and a floaty black scoop-neck t-shirt that falls off one shoulder and shows off the twisted black and red fabric. I’ll pull it off when I get to yoga, but I’m not so one-with-my-body that I’ll walk to the studio in a top that anyone outside of the studio would see as a bra.
I’m halfway there when my phone pings again.
I wince as I check it.
Another email from Stew. Apparently getting lucky and proving myself helpful in the first week has consequences.
No good deed goes unpunished. Or…I’m establishing a reputation in a city where I want to have a long and productive career. I take a deep breath. The environmental report on the pipeline needs to be read from a youth jobs perspective. Can I have some thoughts for him by Monday?
I can, and I will, but I need the report, which can’t be transmitted electronically yet. Crap.
So much for yoga. I glance at the clock on my phone screen. Quarter after two.
A gentle screech of bus brakes behind me makes the decision easy. It’s a quick trip up the street. I can get to the office, get the report, and get back here in time for class. I spin around and wave my bus pass at the driver.
Twelve minutes later, I’m sprinting past the security guards, who laugh at me because I was already there once and it’s Saturday and ha ha ha, not funny.
New girl is trying to make a good impression, okay?
Upstairs, pretty much everyone is gone. I let myself into the office I share with a couple of other junior staffers and grab the confidential report from the locked cabinet beneath my desk. The cover is stiff, though, and I need it to roll up so it will fit into my yoga mat bag.
Stew’s copy has a floppy cover. I head to his office, but I can’t find his copy anywhere. Frustrated, I check my phone. I’m not making that yoga class. Maybe I’ll go to the one at four, even though the instructor is way too obsessed with the sound of her own voice for it to be truly Zen.
Then I call my boss. “Stew, I’m standing in your office. Where would I find your copy of the environmental report?”
“What’s wrong with your copy?”
It won’t fit in my yoga mat bag probably isn’t the right answer. But it’s the only one I’ve got, so I tell him the truth.
It takes him a while to stop laughing, so I lean on his desk and consider just taking a nap there like that, bent right over.
Once he stops laughing and tells me where to find it on his bookshelf, I say a muffled thanks and hang up the phone.
I don’t get up right away.
It’s been a really long week.
I groan and mumble to myself, “Might just stay here for a while.”
“Are we working you that hard, Ms. Montague?” a voice asks from the doorway. A rich, warm voice with a now familiar-in-person rough edge to it.
The PM.
And I’m sprawled across my boss’s desk in yoga pants and a bra. Kind of wearing a t-shirt, but when you’re in front of the nation’s leader, does kind of count?
No, no it does not.
“Sir,” I gasp, pushing myself upright, suddenly aware that my ass was just in the air.
“I thought I told you not to call me that,
” he says.
I spin around and he’s looking at the floor, and then the shelves, and finally his gaze settles on a point just past my shoulder.
That’s weird, because he’s usually such an eye-contact kind of guy. And it makes me self-conscious, like, he was also aware that my ass had been in the air, and is now behind me, but the rest of me is still clad in yoga wear.
And normally, this is not a big deal. I didn’t think twice of wearing it in front of the security guards, for example.
But after a week of trying very hard to not be aware of the PM as a man, and at the same time being rather painfully aware that he is a man, with eyes, and…
All of that.
Sigh.
He’s not the person I want to be standing in front of in skin-tight cropped yoga pants.
I’m not even wearing underwear under them, and I swear he’s got Superman’s X-ray vision right now, which is why he’s not looking at me. Because he already did and he saw under my clothes and oh God, I need to work under him for another two months and three weeks.
With him.
I really need to stop making that slip inside my head. One of these days I’m going to say it out loud and everyone will know that I’m thinking about how big he is and how heavy he would feel on top of me.
While all this is rioting through my head and he’s waiting for me to say something, not looking at me, I consider hiding behind Stew’s chair to remove the inappropriate clothing from being a factor. But at some point he’s going to expect me to leave this office, so I just stand where I am, suddenly feeling very, very naked.
Naked and slowly turning red.
“My apologies. I was just here to get…” Something I can’t remember. Luckily the PM doesn’t have that problem.
“The environmental report. I heard. Stew keeps his on the bookshelf.” He clears his throat and points behind me. “Over there.”
“Right.” I turn and look at the second shelf.
Prime Minister (Frisky Beavers #1) Page 2