“Can you?” His eyes look like he’s on drugs. Pupils inked, irises hazy.
“Yeah.”
We kiss with a new intensity, sparked by our shared boardroom fantasies. Lucy and Josh starring in graphic, sweat-slicked pornography.
He arches against me. His hard-on is pressing so hard against the back of my leg my hamstring feels bruised.
He breaks the kiss. “Slow up. I want to ask you something.”
He sits back a little and we stare into each other’s black eyes. His mouth is softened, pink and I want it all over me. Licking and biting mouthfuls of my flesh. My breathing is so loud that I almost can’t hear what he says next.
“When you called me tonight, did you nearly call Danny instead?” I start to protest but he smoothes his hand down my arm.
“I’m not being a jealous psycho. I’m just interested.”
“You already won that competition with him. He’s my friend now. We are only going to be friends.”
“You haven’t answered, though.”
“He’s the sensible option. I’m not doing many sensible things with my evenings these days. I’m glad I didn’t call him. I’d probably be sitting in a movie, instead of here.” I bounce a little on his lap.
Josh tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite work. “I’d go to a movie with you. Look, it’s getting late.”
His hands slide down my back to grip my butt. He tilts me, and drags me down the hardness of his arousal. Then he lifts me off and sets me aside.
He sits forward on the edge of the couch and puts his face in his hands. He’s breathing as heavily as I am. It does my ego no harm.
“Fuck.” He sighs it. “I am so turned on,” he says with an embarrassed half laugh, and I completely understand his desperation.
He’s surely got to be wondering why he’s subjecting himself to this. He’s an adult man, reduced to teenage make-out sessions with his weird colleague.
“Do you want to hear how turned on I am?”
“I’d better not,” he manages.
“I guess I should go home.” I pray he tells me to stay. He doesn’t.
He talks through his hands. “Give me a minute.”
I take our mugs and my bowl into the kitchen and rinse the bowl. I look at the frying pan and put it in the sink and fill it with hot water and suds. My legs are trembling and doing a poor job of holding me upright.
“I’ll do it,” Josh says behind me. “Leave it.”
My eyes badly want to drop below his waist, but because I am a lady I resist.
He feeds my arms into my coat and we both put our shoes on. We carefully stand on the opposite ends of the elevator, but we stare at each other like we’re one second away from slamming the elevator to an emergency stop to put ourselves out of our misery.
“I feel like your Easter egg.”
He catches my hand at the curb and walks across the street with me. When we reach my car, I tilt my mouth up to his. He carefully takes my face in his hands and he kisses me. A simultaneous shocked gasp rocks us. It’s like we haven’t kissed in an eternity. He presses me against the car door and I whimper.
Tongues, teeth, breath.
“You taste like my Easter egg.”
“Please, please. I need you so badly.”
“I’ll see you at work tomorrow,” he replies. He turns me in his arms, and presses his mouth against the back of my neck. Even through my hair, the heat of his breath makes me inhale so hard it’s more of a snort.
“Is this an asshole control-freak thing?” I wriggle free.
“Possibly. Sounds consistent with my character.”
I have a thought. “Are you planning on sexing me comatose on the morning of the interview so you beat me?”
Josh puts his hands in his pockets. “It’s worked for every other promotion I’ve gotten in my life. Why stop now?”
“You want to make sure I’m all over you like a rash at the wedding.”
Something about the look on his face makes me step back and press my back to the cold door of my car.
“You haven’t lied and told them all about the brain surgeon you’re betrothed to?”