“These are so good,” Jer exclaims, popping another hors d’oeuvre into his mouth. The lights cast a golden glow over the crowded space. The two-piece band is loud but not enough to drown out the voices and laughter of everyone here. Everything is birch and green. The fine bone china is an ode to our mother, who loved the stuff so much she had multiple sets. The name, Amy and May’s, is a nod to her as well. Laura May Chambers would be proud of her daughter tonight.
Amy’s restaurant is packed for her launch and my chest swells with pride even though I’ve done absolutely nothing to make all of this happen.
“That’s what you said about the last one,” I laugh. Jer’s eyes get wide again as more food comes his way. He throws back the rest of his cocktail and swipes a falafel thing off a tray.
“You have to leave some food for the rest of the guests,” Amy chimes in behind us.
“I’ve been telling him,” I say, leaning into her. “I think we’re going to have to send him home soon.”
She nods.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Most likely another message from Corrine. When I saw the preview from her first text, I can’t come, I decided not to read anymore. Spiteful maybe. But after her performance in the Pit this afternoon, for her not to come anyway, I’m tired of being Corrine’s second best.
That doesn’t stop the little pool of dread that builds in my stomach as I let Corrine go unanswered.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Amy says, reaching up to hook an arm around my neck and reeling me in for a kiss on the cheek.
The dread pool gets soaked up a bit by my sister’s love. Corrine can wait awhile longer, especially since it’s clear that she’s not coming. And besides, it’s necessary. I’ve put her before Amy for too long. Maybe if Corrine were willing to return the favor it wouldn’t feel like the right move.
My phone is a dead weight in my pocket, so that I can’t truly forget about it. But I won’t check it, at least until the end of the night. I can go that long.
I think.
“This place is going to make a ton of Amy, money,” Jeremy slurs as I hold him up and Amy opens the cab’s passenger door. Laughter and music spills out of the front of the restaurants along this stretch of street. The night is so cold that just my suit feels like not enough clothes and I resist the urge to turn to Amy and say, in our mom’s practiced delivery: I told you to bring a coat.
“Okay there, buddy.” I half heave Jeremy into the back of the car and he has a hard time sitting upright. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
“S’fine,” he says. “Hey. Hey.” He grabs my hand in both of his. “I’m really glad we’re hanging out again. I missed... I missed you, man.”
Ruffling his hair, I say, “I missed you, too, buddy.”
His smile is fuzzy. He turns toward the cab driver. “Excelsior, sir.”
“I think I need to talk to my bartenders about overserving,” Amy says, biting her lip and wrapping her arms around her middle.
I wince. “Yeah. Maybe. Though Jeremy isn’t known for his tolerance levels.”
She nods. “Thanks again, bro.” She pumps her shoulder to mine. “It means a lot that you’re here.”
“Are you kidding, Amy?” I wrap her in a hug. “I’m so wicked proud of you.”
She pinches my side to release the hug, walking backward to the restaurant. “I’ve gotta get back inside. Are you coming?”
“In a minute.” I wave and pull out my phone. The little red notification lights up my message app. With a sigh, I open them.
I can’t come. Call me. It’s an emergency.
Please come. I need you.
My stomach clenches in a moment of panic. But an emergency to Corrine could be work related. These are work-related texts. They have to be. There can’t be an actual emergency.
“Her mom,” I breathe, the words sinking in my gut.
Pressing her number, I put the phone to my ear. I step to the curb and lift my hand as another cab approaches. With each ring the knot in my chest tightens. The cab stops and I throw myself in, hurling the address at the driver.
Boston has never seemed bigger than it does right now, when I’m trying to get back to her.
The cab pulls up in front of our building and I jump out.
“Hey,” the cab driver calls from his open window. “You forgot to pay.”
“Ahhh.” I run back to pay, not waiting for change. Wendy the security guard frowns at me from behind a crossword puzzle book as I run through the doors. The elevators require another long wait. I calculate how long it would take me to run ten flights up the stairs but decide I’ll be too sweaty and might throw up even if I somehow get up there faster.
I burst through the door to her office too many minutes later, my tie flipped over my shoulder and my pulse pumping against the collar of my shirt. She looks up from her desk. Her eyes red and her cheeks blotchy.
“What happened?”
“Where were you?”
“I...my sister’s...? What happened?”
Corrine slumps in her chair, her face in her hands. “Everything happened,” she mumbles through her fingers. “My mom,” she warbles and my heart plummets somewhere to my knees region. “I have a flight booked for Minnesota tomorrow.” She gestures at her desk. “I was trying to tie up loose ends but...”
Relief hits my bloodstream like amphetamines. This is something I can do. “Okay. We can go get you packed right now.”
Still she sits in the chair, staring at her desk. “Corrine?”
Something uncomfortable and a little terrifying claws up my throat. “Did something else happen?”
She nods, slowly. “Yes.”
She takes a deep breath and comes together in front of me. The red glasses on her nose, the severe bun, the tight lips. A corporate general.
“Richard happened.” Her jaw pulses a fast rhythm. “He barged in here half an hour ago demanding that I...god, I don’t even know. He’s been...” She looks away, like for a moment she’s ashamed. “Pursuing me for weeks, longer. I think he offered that promotion as a ruse. He showed up at my apartment the night before my last migraine.”
“W-What?!” I try to do the math in my head, of how long ago that was, if I was with her that night.
“He’s an obsessive, entitled asshole.”
My mouth hangs open but I can’t make it form any words. “I had no idea it was that... I thought your mom...do you want to...” I still feel like I can’t catch my breath, can’t catch up to what’s happening.
“Report him?” she asks. “I already am. I have a letter drafted to Sue in HR.”
“Okay.” I nod. Her energy is charged, almost angry. It’s a little terrifying but also wildly impressive. And maybe a little sexy. “I’ll help,” I say, even though I have no idea how. “I’ll help.”
“I’m not going to let him do this anymore, Wesley. He doesn’t get to control my job and my personal life.”
I keep nodding. “I’m proud of you,” I say, my voice soft, and it’s the softness I think that breaks her.
She shakes out her hands and her face falls. “Oh god.”
She rushes around the desk and I meet her halfway.
“Oh god,” she says again. Her whole body shudders against mine. “I don’t want to lose my job but I can’t keep living like this, waiting for him to corner me again.”
“You won’t lose your job. I won’t let you.”
“Say it?” Her eyes are wild. “Tell me it will be okay?”
“Everything will be okay.”
Her chest brushes mine with each breath. She still doesn’t look like she believes me.
“You don’t have to believe it yet. I believe it.”
She buries her face in my chest. The shakes that wrack her body start to slow and then stop. We stand together, my hand running through her hair, over and over until she feels loose and soft against me. Guilt riots through me. This whole time I thought she was ditching me tonight. Meanwhile, Richard was harassing her while I drank and ate with my friends. She needed me and I wasn’t here for her.
We sway slightly, like we’re dancing to a song only we can hear. Her arms come around me, moving up and down my sides, and I follow the path she makes on her own body. She presses her open mouth to my pectoral. The heat of her tongue through my shirt sends a bolt of lust to my groin.
“Corrine?”
Her hands move to my ass. Rubbing her stomach against my hardening cock. I try to push myself away. I don’t want her to think I want anything from her right now.
“Corrine?” I ask again.
“You have to be quiet,” she warns, as she pulls at my tie.
“What are you doing?”
She convinces me with her hand on my heart. “I need this. Us. I need to feel you or else I’m afraid I’ll never stop shaking and I’ll never get past this moment.” She kisses my chest again. “I know you think I use sex to distract you but...” She grips the lapels of my jacket in her hands. “It’s not sex, Wesley. It’s you. I need you.”
I laugh, pushing my thumb against her lips. “You did it,” I say. “You told me exactly what you wanted.” I breathe into the skin at her neck. “Are you sure?”
She nods, her chin bumping my chest. “Yes.”
And it’s all the convincing I need. I turn her, hitching her bum onto the end of the desk, and begin working on her buttons.
“Can I kiss you?” I ask, my hand resting between her spread legs.
Her eyes are desperate. “Yes.”
I sink to my knees as she pulls her shirt from her shoulders. She unzips her skirt and I pull it down her legs. She shimmies and almost falls off the desk and I laugh as I try to steady her while kissing her knees and thighs. Hooking my finger in her panties, I pull them down her legs.
At some point she got my suit jacket and tie off, my shirt open. She puts her hand, small and warm, at the spot where my neck and shoulder meet, pulling me into her. I let her reel me in. I think I’d let her lead me anywhere if I could see this look in her eyes again. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes so big they’re black, like I am the answer to her most important question.
My first taste of her sets me on fire; I moan, my eyes falling closed as her hand twists in my hair. I spread her wider, scorching my fingerprints into her skin. She answers each thrust of my tongue with a pulse of her hips.
I suck at her clit, flick my tongue over her, let her fuck my face, her breath catching, until she comes hard and fast. She rides her orgasm out on me, until she’s still, her fingers lax on my head.
Using the edge of the desk to steady myself, I wipe my hand over my mouth. Corrine turns between my arms. She leans against the desk, tipping forward, and I devour the sight of her; the tan lines on her shoulders left over from her summer runs, the dimples on her lower back, the round globes of her ass, and her feet—my god, Corrine—still in her heels.
“Wesley?” she says and I bring my eyes back to hers. “Fuck me?”
She has ruined me for other women. The pleading note in her voice, the way this woman begs me to fuck her—as if she has considered the possibility that I might—that I could—say no.
I am ruined in my love for her.
My belt buckle hits the carpeted floor with a dull clang. I push my boxers down my legs and take myself in hand.
She presses back into me and I groan.
“Fuck me,” she hisses and I smile into the skin at the back of her neck. Sliding my hand up her body to cup her breast, I push into her. She bends until she is flat against the desk.
“Like this?” I nuzzle into her ear, moving slowly.
“Yes,” she cries and somewhere in the back of my mind I remember that we need to be quiet, but I’m just not sure I care anymore.
Our last time here was desperate and confused. I want to erase that. I want this memory to be the one we think of for years to come when we think of Office Sex.
This time, every touch, every place our bodies come together, is about pleasure, yes, but also about trust. It’s about love.
I want to keep teasing her like this but the wet heat of her, hugging me, is too much. The way I am so much taller than her and yet, like this, we fit together perfectly. I have to let go. I bend my knees, roll my hips, and fuck her in earnest. My hands on her hips hold her in place as she grips the sides of her desk. I watch the side of her face, her eyes wide open, staring but unseeing, her mouth caught in a silent scream.
My skin is so hot, too tight. I’m going to come so much sooner than I want to.
Like she can read my mind, she spreads her legs wider and I slip my hand between them, finding her clit still slick and swollen. I roll my fingers over her, my orgasm barrelling down my spine, and somehow, mercifully, she’s coming, too. Squeezing me tighter while she lets out one final cry.
Corrine lies on the desk, her breathing slowing. She shudders as I rub one hand up her back and slowly pushes up, her back against my front.
She is wet down her thighs and sticky where we’re joined together, and becomes even more so as I slowly pull out of her. But she laughs, resting her head against my shoulder. I wrap my arms around her middle, looking over her shoulder at the way her breasts push up as her back arches.
“Thank you,” I whisper, biting into the skin at her neck.
She moans, softly. “For what?”
“For letting me fuck you at work,” I say with a small laugh. For letting me fall in love with you.
Her eyes close but her smile stays and I bury my face in her hair. I know that if I were to smell my skin, hours from now, I would still smell like her.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Richard’s voice is a whip cracking through our post-sex haze.