by Opal Carew
And he did it hard.
He did it fast.
The table shook under the pressure of his thrusts; she could hardly keep her balance. She had to hold on after a second—though it wasn’t the wood that she clung to. It was him. She reached behind herself and grabbed at his waist, his hips, his thighs. And when he hauled her up, she pushed a hand back into his hair. She found his throat with her searching fingers and left marks there as he whispered into her ear.
“I can feel how close you are,” he said.
And he was right. Her legs were starting to tremble. Hot, thick pleasure pulsed through her lower belly like a fist clenching and unclenching. She had maybe thirty seconds before she spilled all over his cock, and even less when he found her clit with his fingers.
“I want you to do it hard, sweet Amy,” he said.
Then she realized with a start that was the first time he had spoken her name out loud. They’d given each other oral sex, and fucked until they were both shaking, but he’d never used her first name. Though she supposed it was only right. They barely knew each other. They had spent no more than two tiny days in each other’s company. He didn’t know her. He wasn’t her boyfriend.
He was the guy who’d helped her get fired.
And yet, when he said sweet, she trembled.
When he groaned in her ear that he was coming, all she wanted to do was kiss him and kiss him and touch him until the end of time. He was everything she thought only other people got: exciting and gorgeous and smart. And his desire only made it worse.
“Come for me, my darling,” he said.
And she did, in great startling bursts.
She had only the vaguest impression of how they ended up naked and half tangled in towels on her bathroom floor. She thought he might have mentioned taking a shower—maybe even taking one together. But they hadn’t made it that far. As soon as she’d slipped out of her clothes completely he had given her that look. That heavy-lidded, bright-but-dark look, and then somehow she had ended up seated on the cabinet in the bathroom with him between her legs. Followed by a shimmering mess of sheer pleasure.
And more pleasure astride him, on the floor.
But now there was this, sweat still cooling on their bodies, both of them still breathing hard.
Then his voice, that glorious voice: “Just so you know, this isn’t typical for me.”
“What isn’t typical for you? The crazy sex or the crazy sex with someone you met for the first time at work like five days ago.”
“Both. Everything. All of it. The last time I dated a woman we didn’t even get to the fucking. We went out to dinner six or seven times and then politely decided it was best to go our separate ways.”
She couldn’t help looking at him sharply, then. Just to see if he was joking, maybe.
But he wasn’t. His expression was completely free of mischief.
“That is the most shocking thing I’ve ever heard,” she said, and he looked genuinely surprised to hear it.
“Really? What makes it shocking?”
“Well to start with . . . just look at you.”
She gestured at his face, his body.
Still he didn’t seem to get it at all.
“That sounds pretty ominous.”
“Are you kidding? It’s the opposite of ominous. Your face is like a recently unearthed statue that Michelangelo forgot to tell everyone he carved.”
He laughed, full throated, full bodied. “And that means she can’t politely decide to separate from me?”
“I would at least expect her to scream and claw at you while begging you not to go.”
“You seem to have a vastly inflated sense of my worth.”
“That would be impossible. You’re smart, sexy, funny, and handsome, and earn more in five minutes than I do in a year. Face it, pal, you’re the whole package.”
“Strange, I was thinking the same of you.”
“You were thinking that I was rich and handsome?”
“More like smart, sexy, and funny.”
“Before that day in your office I felt about as sexy as a straitjacket.”
“And now?” he asked, voice suddenly low and husky. One eyebrow raised in a way that turned her to jelly. She had a heavy urge to kiss him again even though they’d only recently stopped.
Instead, she said, “I’m all undone.”
“Oh, I love that answer. That answer makes me crazy.”
“I suspected that was the thing you liked about me. Getting to undo all the buttons.”
“I won’t deny that was one part of it.”
“So there are others then?”
Now his expression shifted, from suggestive and amused to something closer to concern. “You can’t have honestly thought that there weren’t.”
“I don’t know what I thought. I went home wondering if you tripped and fell into my pussy, and then you called me and I kind of had to rethink that.”
“You should rethink it,” he said, as low as before but now there was also his hand reaching out for her. He took a curl of her hair between two fingers, then ran the back of them over her cheek, then her jaw. By the time he got to her collarbone she was already a goner—and then he added words. “See yourself through my eyes: that deep blue gaze, that perfectly pinned hair, the dimple in your right cheek. The way you move like liquid inside those restraining suits. The wit at the back of your every word. The way you look when desire starts to take you over. How could any man resist?”
“I thought they did it pretty easily before now.”
“They were all fools. I see you. I want to see you. Often.”
Silence fell after his words, in part because she’d just dissolved into a puddle. But there was another thing that kept her quiet. The thing they were going to have to talk about, now. Or at least, the thing they were going to have to talk about after a minute of just basking in the soft, reverent touch of his fingertips.
One more minute, and then, “There might be a slight problem with that.”
“You don’t want to see me? You don’t imagine this going beyond crazy sex?”
“To be honest I feel like it already is going beyond crazy sex. Or maybe crazy sex is turning it into something else. I don’t know. It’s too early to tell. But the thing is . . . you know . . . the Hartford thing.”
“Hartford won’t be an issue. He doesn’t even have to know yet, if you’d prefer it.”
Now it was shock that made her pause.
He had no idea about Hartford and the recording.
“Oh god, you don’t know. He hasn’t said anything to you.”
“Said anything to me about what?”
She winced, and looked away from him. It was easier, when she was looking away from him. “Okay, maybe you should brace yourself here.”
“I’m already bracing myself. Mostly for whatever rude thing he’s done now.”
“It was more the rude thing that we did, to be honest.”
“Ah, so someone told him we had sex.”
“No one told him.”
“Then how on earth did—”
He stopped in the middle of his own sentence, and she glanced back at him just in time to see his gaze going hazy and far away. Realization was dawning all over his face, and it finished with him looking both mad and rueful. “He had video surveillance installed in my office,” he said, finally.
“To be fair, he has video surveillance everywhere. I don’t think he specifically didn’t trust you.”
“No, I don’t believe he wouldn’t trust me. I do, however, believe that he is supremely irritating.”
“Well, that goes without saying.”
“How awful was he?”
“He wasn’t great. I had to sit through a play-by-play,” she said, and winced again.
It was a good one this time, though. A lighter one, that ended with him groaning and commiserating.
“Oh man, I’m sorry, honey.”
“Then he implied I corrupted you.”
>
“That you corrupted me?”
“Yeah, I thought that was strange at the time.”
She paused there, studying him. He didn’t seem too bothered by the whole thing. If anything, he seemed more concerned about her. And he definitely didn’t agree that she was at fault.
So it seemed safe to get into the thing she’d been dying to share.
“In fact, quite a lot of it was strange.”
“He recorded our sexual escapades and then made you watch with him. I imagine it qualified for the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to anyone.”
“Well, yeah. That is true. But there was something else, too.”
He raised an eyebrow again.
Only this time, there was that devilish gleam in his eye.
“More weird than his usual weird?” he asked, with just a hint of amusement in his voice. God, she loved it when she heard that amusement in his voice.
“A little, yeah. I think . . . I think he sounded . . . almost jealous.”
“Did he, indeed. Well, isn’t that interesting.”
“You don’t seem as surprised by that as I thought you would be.”
“No, not surprised in the least, to be honest.”
“So . . . did he . . . has he . . .” She swallowed thickly, heart thumping. Her mind racing over the idea that Hartford really did want Abel. “You know. Suggested this to you before?”
“Oh yeah, lots of times. Even when he doesn’t know he’s doing it.”
“But there are times when he does know?”
“I suppose you could say so, yes.”
“Like, he made an actual pass at you?” She saw Hartford doing it in her mind’s eye. His hand on Abel’s thigh, those blue eyes hot with lust.
But before the tingling sensation that followed could get out of control, he laughed.
“A pass at me? I thought you were talking about you,” he said.
And suddenly everything was in disarray.
She made a face that could best be described as zuh?
“That’s ridiculous. He couldn’t possibly want me.”
“Why on earth not? You realize he talks about you as constantly as someone like him can. And in a way that actually verges on praise. Last week he called you the fuel for his fire.”
“Yeah, but I was going to say the same thing to you. He can never bring himself to compliment anyone. Everything is always wrong. But he compliments you. He practically waxes lyrical about your business acumen and your loyalty.”
“Acumen and loyalty aren’t exactly pillars of romantic praise.”
“I think to him they might be. He sounded devastated when he talked about you doing all those things to me. Like you’d betrayed him.”
Abel shook his head, mild mystification all over his face. “He hasn’t said a word.”
“I don’t know what word he could say. In fact, I think he fired me just so he wouldn’t have to explain why he was so shaken and hurt,” she said, so lost in the memory of her hand reaching for his trembling shoulder that she completely missed the thing she’d just given away.
But Abel didn’t miss it. He propped himself up on one elbow, brows suddenly thunderous over those pitch-black eyes. “Wait a minute. He fired you?”
“A little bit, yeah.”
“Just for fooling around in my office?”
“That seems to be the case.”
He threw up his hands. “My god, he can be such a huge asshole.”
“No asshole is as huge as his.”
“His asshole could swallow our sun.”
“He sits down with no pants on and our sun is a goner.”
He laughed, at first with a little bitterness, but then less so. Thirty seconds later he was the Abel she was coming to know and like a little too much: rueful and amused and weary.
“I’ll talk to him,” he said with a sigh.
“You don’t have to do that. I wasn’t even going to tell you to be honest—only then I realized that I kind of have to tell you so you don’t accidentally Skype his new assistant while stark naked.”
“You already know me so well,” he said, and she got a little shock of pleasure just thinking about him sending her video messages of him without his clothes on. “But seriously, he’ll listen to me.”
“He won’t. Not about this. He can’t take sexy stuff in stride like you.”
“You think I’m taking it in stride?”
There was that eyebrow again. Only this time it was joined by one other thing: His tongue curled out to lick his upper lip, and suddenly that shock of pleasure was a flood.
“I just told you your male friend of many years has probably sexy feelings toward you and you barely blinked an eye. The most you managed was a kind of amused shock.”
“I’ve probably always suspected on some level.”
“I don’t know how anyone could suspect Hartford has human desires.”
“Well then, maybe I just don’t have many hard limits when it comes to sex.”
She let out a little breath when he said it. She couldn’t help it. She also couldn’t help telling him, too: “That is easily the most amazing thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“Yeah, you like that?”
“I like that.”
“Been thinking about it?”
“Been thinking about what, specifically?”
“Him jerking off over the sight of me fucking you.”
Several things dropped at that: her heart, and her good sense. Even her voice was suddenly a salacious whisper: “You think he really did that?”
“I think there’s a strong possibility, if he got as agitated as you say.”
“He was really agitated. He had to jump up and turn his back to me.”
“Good god. He must have really gone at himself.”
“No way. Not Hartford. He wouldn’t,” she said. But she sounded like the town gossip, reveling in every detail. Her eyes had gone big. Arousal was pooling thickly in her belly. She had a hand on his taut stomach even though she couldn’t remember putting it there.
“You say that, Amy, but I can see you imagining it.”
“I wouldn’t do that when I’m with someone else.”
“Why not? I’m doing it.”
She tried not to gasp over that.
Tried, and failed.
“Oh man, really?”
“Sure. It’s one of the things that drives me crazy, after all.”
“What’s one of the things?”
Men, she thought. He likes men, too. Then she flushed even hotter—and not just at the thought of them together. It was at the the thought of Hartford specifically, and of those beautiful eyes darkening with desire. Or those hands, god, those hands . . . How many times had she pretended that she didn’t want to see those hands running over something aside from a spreadsheet? And now here she was, thinking of him touching gorgeous Abel . . . And all while he did his best to make her sudden shock of feelings worse.
“Seeing someone come undone. Watching them unravel at the seams—and with him there’d be a lot of seams to unravel. I imagine it took him an age to finally slip a hand inside his neatly pressed slacks.”
“That sounds right to me. Maybe an hour before he could bring himself to do it.”
“You think only an hour? I think that’s being generous. I think at least an entire evening. An entire evening sat studying every curve and line of your body . . . and every line of mine.”
“Oh god. I can’t believe that sounds right,” she said, one hand coming up to cover her eyes.
But Abel stopped her before she could. He drew that hand back down, his own voice now as hushed with arousal as hers. “And yet it does,” he said. “I bet you can see it now, can’t you? Him hunched over his desk, face flushed red, breathless and desperate and just furiously masturbating.”
“In my head, he doesn’t do it furiously,” she answered, before she could stop herself. Before she could pretend that she had never fantasized about Hartford.
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br /> Until this talk, she had sort of blocked the idea out—he was so cruel, sometimes. So cold and awful. To want him in any way was obscene.
Or at least, it had been until right now.
Now, it was threatening to swamp her.
“No, no you’re right. He probably does it rigidly, meanly,” Abel said.
And suddenly she couldn’t remember why she had ever denied it. Why she was fighting it, when it felt so sweet to say in a hot whisper? “Almost like he’s trying not to feel any pleasure at all.”
“Hand really tight on his cock.”
“Almost painful.”
“Kind of short, tense strokes.”
“Like this?”
He asked the question quite calmly, as if it were nothing at all. Then she saw what he was doing. She saw his hand on his cock. After that, it didn’t seem to matter what she said or did.
“Oh yeah. Just like that,” she groaned, her own hand already sliding between her legs.
“And then when he sees your nipples sticking through your shirt . . . when he hears your first soft moan, that sexy soft moan you did when I started to touch you . . . maybe he speeds up just a little, just enough.”
“That sounds good. That sounds right.”
“He watches you rock against my hand, and his control starts to splinter.”
“Do you think it would? I can’t imagine it would.”
The truth was: she could imagine. She was doing it right now. She was thinking of her aloof nightmare of a boss—while masturbating.
While masturbating with her lover.
It was insane. But it was also intoxicating. It was freeing, the same way the removal of her shoes had been.
“How could it not, when you look so gorgeous as you come? He must have seen that flush all over your cheeks, and your throat. Heard you make that filthy, guttural noise as you creamed all over my face . . . Do you think he imagined himself in my place?” he asked, and she hesitated a little before answering.
“No, god no. I think he imagined himself in mine.”
“Ohhhh, fuck that’s hot.”
“You think so?”
“Fuck yes,” he said.
Then just to illustrate, his hand sped up on his swollen dick.