After Hours

by Melinda Di Lorenzo

  “Took the rest of you long enough to wake up,” she teased.

  “You’ve been molesting me for a while now?”

  “Hmm. From the way this—” She gave my erection an emphatic and oh-so-fucking sexy tug. “Was nudging my ass when I woke up, I figured maybe a bit of reciprocal violation was in order.”

  “How very deviant.”

  “You arguing?”

  “Fuck no.”

  She laughed, then tipped up her mouth to mine. She tasted like peppermint, and when she pulled away, I shot her a suspicious glare.

  “Did you get up and brush your teeth?” I asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Did you use my toothbrush?”

  “I’m deviant, not weird. I found a spare, unopened one in the drawer.”

  She lifted her face again and ran her minty tongue over my lip. Her hand was still closed on my cock, stroking it a little faster now. I fought to control myself. My balls were already tightening in anticipation. If we didn’t dial it back a notch—or maybe two notches, if I was being honest—I was going to embarrass myself.

  I leaned back a little and lifted an eyebrow her way. “What made you so sure that toothbrush didn’t belong to the previous owner? I’ve only been living here for a week.”

  Her eyes widened for a second and her hand went still. “Did it?”

  “What if it did?”

  “It was sealed.”

  “Still be weird.”

  “Marc…tell me it was your new toothbrush.”

  “It was my new toothbrush,” I replied obediently.

  “Thank God.”

  Her hand started up again, and I fought a laugh. My amusement was quickly forgotten, though, when her thumb swiped across the sensitive head. Then back again before she returned to wrapping her fingers around me. She held me a little looser now, her hand rising up and down on my full length, quicker and quicker. I groaned and pushed forward with unrestrained eagerness.

  She wriggled a little closer, pressing me to a spot just above her pubic bone.

  “Holy hell,” I swore as her other hand dropped between my legs, too.

  She cupped my balls tightly with her palm, one finger pressed just underneath them.

  “Aysia.” Her name was a guttural noise, ripped from my chest, and I could barely make the subsequent warning come. “If you don’t stop—”

  She cut me off by dropping to take me in her mouth.

  Fuck.

  With her finger still pushed into the sweet spot underneath me, and her lips closed on my cock, I was helpless. She sucked me hard, then soft, then hard again, and that was it. I couldn’t take anymore. My hands tore into her hair, and I bucked up underneath her. In a series of throbs that rocked my whole body, I exploded into her mouth.

  “Aysia.” Now her name dropped from my mouth as a groan.

  Then as a thick, heavy sigh. “Aysia.”

  She gave me a final tug with her lips, then dragged her body up and tucked her head against my chest.

  “That was…I don’t…fuck.” I mumbled incoherently.

  “You’re welcome,” she replied cheekily.

  One of my hands was still tangled in her hair, and I tried to give it a punitive yank. My fingers were far too weak.

  “Having a recovery issue?” Aysia teased.

  “Mm. That’s putting it nicely. Give me a minute. I promise I’ll be back in action.”

  “You don’t have time to be back in action.”

  “I’ve always got time to be back in action.”

  “You start work in thirty minutes.”

  “Shit. Seriously?” I tried to push up, failed, then thumped back onto the bed. “What about you?”

  “I have the day off,” she said, stretching out beside me.

  “How’d you make that happen?”

  “I’m owed a bunch of vacation hours, so I took off four Fridays in a row. But you have fun.”

  “Maybe I’ll take the day off, too.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Not approved with human resources. And since the acting human resources manager is planning on sneaking around with you all weekend, she’d like to act in a way that’s above suspicion.”

  “That has an extremely sexy ring to it.”

  “Twenty-seven minutes.”

  “Fine.”

  I tried again to get to a sitting position, and this time I succeeded. I swung my legs over the bed and turned to look at her. The only thing covering her body was the corner of my sheet, and that offered just the barest hint of modesty. A triangle between her thighs, a little piece of white fabric over her taut nipples…

  As I watched, she smiled then pushed her knees apart. The sheet slipped up. My cock twitched, clearly forgetting its recent, one-on-one celebration with Aysia’s mouth. Or maybe remembering it all too well.

  “Twenty-five minutes,” she said.

  I made myself back up and reached for my underwear drawer, fumbling for the nearest pair without taking my eyes off her. “What are you going to do all day?”

  “I think I’ll stay here.”

  “And do…?”

  Her hand slid to her thigh. “Things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “It’s a half day, today. Only four hours and twenty-four minutes until it’s over,” she said. “How much trouble can I get into?”

  I shoved my feet through my boxer briefs, then moved toward my closet. I grabbed a suit and worked my way into that, too. Aysia’s hand was under sheet, and I could see it caressing her stomach.

  “You’re going to fucking kill me,” I groaned.

  “That would be a real waste. There’s things I want you to do to me when you get home.”

  I buttoned my shirt, still watching her. “How many minutes now?”

  “Twenty-two and a half?”

  “You sure we can’t—”

  “No.”

  “Killing me,” I repeated, doing up my tie.

  She pulled the hand free and used it to blow me a kiss. I couldn’t decide if I was relieved she’d stopped, or disappointed.

  “Behave yourself while I’m gone,” I said, “and when I get home, I’ll show you the one thing I ordered that they got right.”

  “Ooh. A surprise.”

  I bent down to give her a light kiss. “You like surprises?”

  “Nope. Hate them.”

  I chuckled. “Okay. Then feel free to look in the bathroom. Just don’t use it without me.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Now I’m worried.”

  “Don’t be.”

  I tried to kiss her again, but she put a finger up between our lips.

  “Less than twenty-one minutes,” she told me. “If you don’t call a taxi now, you won’t make it on time.”

  I reached for the nightstand—my phone’s usual spot—then remembered. “My cell met with an untimely demise yesterday.”

  “Mine’s on the kitchen counter.”

  Moving quickly out of necessity, I exited the room. I placed the call and tossed a piece of bread in the toaster at the same time.

  “Seventeen minutes!” called Aysia from the bedroom.

  “Got it!” I hollered back, mouth full.

  Cursing the fact that there was no time for coffee, I snagged a bottled water from the fridge, then made my way back to the bedroom.

  “You’ve got peanut butter on your chin,” Aysia informed me as I searched through a still-unpacked box for a fresh pair of socks. “Come here. I’ll wipe it off.”

  Socks in hand, I kneeled down on the mattress beside her and tipped my chin her way. I anticipated a swipe of her thumb and maybe a succulent, post-swipe lick. Instead, she got onto her own knees and pressed her nearly naked body to mine as she su
cked the peanut butter off directly.

  “There,” she said when she was done. “All better.”

  “Great,” I groaned. “Now I’ll be thinking about that all day, when I should be thinking about how to get Eco-Go prime magazine-advertising space without violating our sustainable resources mandate.”

  “Online editions.” She leaned back. “You make that a condition of the ad space you buy. Ask for a discount. And approach some smaller companies, too. They’ll appreciate the business more.”

  I flopped down beside her and closed my eyes. “Perfect.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “You did my work for me. Now I don’t have to go in.”

  She gave my knee a playful shove. “Fourteen minutes.”

  I cracked one eye. “Are you even wearing a watch?”

  “I have a perfectly tuned internal clock. Unless that taxi’s already outside, you’re going to be late.”

  “Pushy, pushy.”

  I dropped a final kiss on her cheek, stepped to the en suite to brush my teeth and hair, then moved to leave. I made it all the way to putting my shoes on and grabbing the door handle before her voice stopped me one more time.

  “Marc?”

  I turned to find her standing in the hall wrapped in the bed sheet.

  “Yeah, honey?”

  “When you’re thinking about the peanut butter…think about this, too.” She dropped the sheet, stood there for just long enough that I could devour her head to toe, then grabbed the sheeting and strutted away, laughing.

  Christ.

  With a renewed hard-on that I knew would last the day, I forced myself to leave before I gave in to the need to take her right then and there.

  Hell, I thought as I climbed into the cab. This is day is going to be absolute hell. A better kind of hell than the rest of the week. But still hell.

  Except it wasn’t. It was amazing.

  Carl called in sick, and I didn’t care if it was because he’d died, was faking it, or had come down with a very unpleasant case of syphilis. He wasn’t in my way. Two hours in, and I felt like I’d been there for minutes.

  It only got better.

  As I sat down for a quick coffee break, a messenger showed up with a padded envelope, and when I opened it, I found my phone and an accompanying note from Aysia.

  Some guy found this in a beer, the bubbly, girlie handwriting read. He put in it RICE. When it dried out, he found your address in the contacts and very kindly dropped it off here. (Told you everyone knew about that trick.)

  Even better than that…when I powered on the phone, I saw that she’d changed my screensaver. In place of the generic blurry bubbles that had been there since I bought it the week before, was a picture. It was her. Or a piece of her, anyway. I would’ve recognized that delicate hand of hers in a sea of a hundred. In the photo, she held it pressed to her stomach, her thumb and forefinger curved in a half-heart around her bellybutton. It was sexy as fuck. Sweet, too. I stared for a long time, smiling so I hard I expected someone to offer me a straightjacket.

  When I finally finished ogling my own phone and drank the rest of my coffee, I managed to interview and hire a perfect office assistant. Since the woman was not only old enough to be my grandmother, but also a retired drill sergeant, who’d been married to another woman for the last thirty years, I was sure Aysia would approve. I snuck in time to buy a half a dozen online magazine ads at a fraction of Eco-Go’s budget, and I booked a speaking spot at a conference in Seattle.

  As I packed up at noon along with everyone else, I decided to upgrade my day from amazing to fucking awesome. It stayed that way through the cab ride home, and up the elevator to my floor. To my front mat and through my door.

  “Aysia?”

  Into my living room.

  “Honey?”

  Then the bedroom.

  “Aysia?”

  It wasn’t until I realized my apartment was empty that my high finally came crashing down.

  * * * *

  Aysia

  I slid the door shut, waiting for the automatic lock to click before angling my suitcase in the other direction. I could feel the smile on my face. I knew Marc would be home by now, wondering where I was. Maybe he’d found the note I’d stuck to the living room table and was trying to figure out what the mystery was.

  As I pulled the wheeled bag up the hall to the elevator, I had a tiny moment of self-doubt. After all, my plan kind of hinged of the fact that I’d accidentally answered Marc’s phone right before sticking it in the envelope to send to the office. I hit the answer button without thinking about it. And I’d been too embarrassed to correct the guy from the car dealership when he addressed me as Mrs. Diaz. Or maybe I liked it a little bit. But I hadn’t started out with a devious plot in mind. Really. It just kind of fell into my lap.

  Marc had a car. A very sexy car. The car needed picking up from some dealership forty kilometers east. In Chilliwack. Just far enough away that our weekend together could be a little more out in the open without quite losing its clandestine appeal. And the thought of walking down a public street while holding Marc’s hand made my knees almost as weak as the memory of the way his hand felt all over my body. But we’d have time for that, too. The bed and breakfast I’d booked had a giant bed. And it promised luxury in the heart of the country.

  The elevator door slid open and my self-doubt slipped away. If Marc was bothered at all by my unintentional pry into his business, I’d make up for it in other ways. Starting with a wood-burning fireplace and ending with one of the many pieces of lingerie I’d packed in my bag.

  I stepped through the sliding doors and pressed the button for the lobby. Just because I didn’t like receiving surprises didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy doling them out.

  The elevator came to a halt and I started to move forward. Without a warning, a rough hand came up to my shoulder and stopped me. Startled, I stumbled sideways. I flailed, trying to catch myself before I hit the ground. But my imminent fall was aided and abetted by both my suitcase and my three inch heels. The shoes made an effort to spin me and make me wobble, while the bag worked its hardest to get in position to trip me.

  My head flew backwards, smacking the handrail that lined the elevator. My ass hit the floor. And for a second, I sat there stunned. Then an unpleasantly familiar cologne filled my nostrils. It made me choke, and before I even looked up, I knew who I’d find standing over me.

  “Carl!”

  “Aysia. I’m so sorry.” His voice was dripping with false regret, and one of his hands dropped down in an offer to help.

  In an automatically defensive reaction, I skidded away. Out of reach. And farther into the elevator.

  Shit.

  The doors slid shut behind him, hissing ominously as they met. Carl’s presence filled the small space, and not just because of his cloying cologne. He held his feet set apart, and his shoulders seemed wider than I remembered. Like he’d juiced himself up on steroids and asshole growth hormones with his toast this morning. The intimidation factor grew worse when he turned and slammed a finger into the button that kept the elevator from moving.

  You are not scared of him, I said to myself. He’s just your asshole ex with something to prove. Little dick syndrome.

  But as I glared up at the jerk, my pulse thundered with the nerves I couldn’t quite settle. How had he managed to get in the building?

  And just as importantly…

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

  “Obvious, isn’t it? I came to see you. All I want is a second to talk.”

  “Not that it matters…but why?”

  “Because you’re making a mistake.”

  A tickle of worry tugged at my heart. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I have somewhere I have to be.”

  “Somewhere to be because someone is w
aiting for you?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I think it is. One name. Marcelo Diaz.”

  I fought to keep from sucking in a breath. He knew. How?

  “What about him?” I said with careful indifference.

  In reply, he reached into his pocket and dragged out a piece of yellow paper. I felt the blood drain from my face as he held it up.

  “Found this little gem outside on the ground.”

  Shit.

  I kept my face impassive. I could swear I’d left the note in the middle of Marc’s coffee table. But there it was. In Carl’s slime-ball hands.

  “So?” I made myself say.

  “Let me read it aloud. Good news. Our weekend is about to get sexier and less secretive. Pack a bag and I’ll explain when I get back to your place.” He looked up and smiled derisively before finishing. “Smiley face. A. You’re denying that’s you?”

  I pressed my lips together. After all, there was nothing in the note that gave away who it was to. Or who it was from.

  “Nothing to say?” Carl pushed.

  “No.”

  “So you’re just going to stay down there?”

  My face warmed. “Maybe.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Well. You might want to get up. Because I’m not going anywhere until you admit that I’m right. And I know how bad you are at doing that.”

  “Did you just come here to insult me, Carl?”

  “No. I came to let you know that I know. And I don’t like it.”

  “I have no clue what you mean. But I’d like to get out of the elevator.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The tickle of worry became a rush of fear. I fought it.

  “I have a line,” I told him. “And you’re crossing it all over the place.”

  “Really, Aysia? You want to tell me that conversation is a line for you, but letting your boss—our boss—put his tongue between your legs isn’t?”

  Now my face wasn’t just warm. It burned. In fact, my whole body sizzled unpleasantly. Like it’d been dipped in acid.

  Violated.

  That was the word that suited my feelings at the moment.