“I need…”

“I know what you need.” His breath catches in his throat. “But you started without me and now you have to wait for me to catch up. I promise it won’t take long. Hands on your br**sts, cup and squeeze. Tell me, how do they feel?”

My hands are already sliding over my body before he finishes his words. “Soft, hot, silky, swollen.”

Another groan. I imagine him in his office in his suit, pants undone, and his c**k hot and heavy in his hand. My sex clenches and I writhe on the bed.

“Now your ni**les, pinch them, roll them between your thumb and forefinger until they peak, ready for me.”

Already hard, the tingle in my ni**les becomes a deep ache as I imagine Jake’s mouth sucking and nipping until I am frenzied with lust. A whine escapes my lips, so soft I don’t think he can hear.

But he does.

“Good girl. Are you wet for me?”

“So wet.”

“Are you hot for me?”

“So hot.”

“I’m so hard, baby, so damn hard for you. When you go off, I’m coming with you.”

“Now?” I tremble with need.

“Now. Two fingers in your pu**y. Tell me how you feel.”

I exhale a relieved breath, and my fingers slide through the wetness between my thighs. I dip two fingers deep inside my throbbing center. “Wet, slick, tight.”

A growl tears from his throat and his breathing becomes raw, ragged. “Thumb over your clit. Slick that wetness around. Pump your fingers.” His voice cracks, breaks. “Tell me when.”

My body tightens as I ease my thumb around my swollen clit. Need coils tighter and tighter until I am only one touch away.

“When,” I whisper. I slide my thumb over my clit as my orgasm rips through me like a firestorm. Back arching, core pulsing, desire unwinding, I scream my release into the phone.

“Christ. Fuck. Oh God, baby.” Jake chokes back his own release, as my orgasm washes through me, rippling down to my fingers and toes.

Sated, wrung out, limp, and desperately lonely, I press the phone to my ear. “Jake?”

Silence.

“Jake?” My voice wavers this time, and a sliver of fear works its way through my chest.

“Someone’s at the door. I gotta go. Fuck. We shouldn’t have…I don’t want…you’re just… Fuck.”

A bruise of sadness forms in my chest, and I steel myself to pretend nonchalance. “Hey, it’s not like only one of us was involved. It was…fun. After a stressful night, we both needed to blow off some steam.”

More silence. And then he says, “I don’t want you to think my feelings have changed.”

My breath leaves me in a rush as he drives the sword home and it takes me a minute to get myself together. “Sure.”

We say good-bye.

In the end, I did have something left to lose: the chance to tell him how I really feel. I love him.

I know that now. Too late.

***

“Ah, there’s the quitter now, draggin’ her sorry ass into the office ten minutes late.” Ray rattles his newspaper as I walk past Penny’s desk and over to the coffee pot.

“If you’re going to insult me, Ray, do it to my face. I had a bad weekend. Normal people do. And when they have a bad weekend, sometimes they’re late for work. Normal people don’t get up at four am, run a marathon, eat a healthy breakfast, then work out for two hours, do all their work, and then swan into the office to laze around reading the paper.”

His eyes flash with amusement. “Mornin’, quitter.”

I pour my coffee and then settle myself on the blue couch across from him, inhaling the rich, buttery aroma of Ray’s favorite Columbian roast. “That’s nice. Just what I need when the world is dumping on me and I’m facing Evil Reid in court this afternoon. I’ve been trying to dig up some dirt on Farnsworth with discovery requests for HR and personnel files, and they’ve blocked me at every turn, so today I’m taking my requests to a judge. How about giving me your unequivocal support? Rah, rah. Go, team, go.”

“More like ‘Run, team, run,’” he says evenly. “Isn’t that what quitters do?”

The blue couch, now returned to its rightful place front and center in my corporate office, is damned uncomfortable. Hard as nails. How the hell does he sit on it for so long? I shift on my seat and then put my feet up on the coffee table to distribute my weight just as Penny shuffles into the office.

“Another one late.” Ray huffs through his nose. “No wonder you’re throwing in the towel. Can’t run a viable business when no one gets here on time.”

I glance over at Penny, but she’s already sitting down and hidden behind her giant computer screen.

“How was your weekend, Penny?”

“Fine.”

Curious at her unusually quiet tone of voice, I round her desk. “You don’t sound like it was really fine. Last week when you said ‘fine’ it was in a completely different tone of voice.”

She turns to look at me, her face hidden behind an enormous pair of sunglasses. “Really. It was fine.”

A chill races through my veins and I drop my voice to a whisper. “Why the sunglasses?”

“Screen’s too bright.”

I gently tug the sunglasses off her face, knowing before they slide into my hand what I will see. My stomach clenches at the sight of her eye, bruised and swollen. Gently, I tug at the scarf around her neck only to gasp at the sight of finger-shaped bruises around her throat. My vision turns red. But because Ray is across the room, I keep my voice low. “Who did this to you?”