Page 21 of Not Safe for Work
“I’m going to guess that you would like to eventually join in.”
“I see. So you do know the rest of it. Well, there goes my aura of mystery.”
“Oh believe me, your aura of mystery is still intact. In fact, I think that’s one of the reasons you drive both of us wild with desire. All those hidden layers and secret kinks. Who could resist?”
“It isn’t a question of could. It’s a question of whether you should.”
“I think my answer to that is a resounding no, you shouldn’t resist it. And I doubt Abel feels differently.” She raised an eyebrow at Abel then, part of her still a little unsure if she was playing this right. But she need not have worried.
“I think you both know I don’t feel differently.” Abel paused, letting the words hang. “So I guess the only question now is whether you can resist, Tom.”
“You talk as though it’s easy. Just that easy to indulge yourself in such a way.”
“It is easy. I’ve told you time and time again it’s easy. You don’t have any real hangups. You’re not restrained by some tragedy from your past or problem with men or women. You’ve just let yourself gradually be governed by a set of rules you barely believe in any more. Rules you’re just afraid of removing now, in case you no longer command respect or seem in charge.”
“I will always command respect. I will always be in charge.”
“Yes, exactly, you will. You know it and we know it. So what are you waiting for?”
“My good sense to abandon me, perhaps.”
“It isn’t good sense that has to abandon you, Tom. My good sense hasn’t abandoned me. I still know which risks to take and which ones to toss away. Which ones that are worth the cost, and which aren’t. This, to me, is worth the cost. But of course, everyone has to decide for themselves.”
“And what if I decide we all return to the way we were as though none of this ever happened?”
He was looking steadily at Abel—for reassurance, or maybe for persuasion.
But it was Amy who answered. Amy, who understood what he needed.
“Then it never happened,” she said.
They both regarded her, their expressions saying different things. Abel’s was almost nervous, as if wondering whether her words had tipped it to a no. Hartford’s was torn, quite clearly between some sense of duty and his own desires. Between holding onto the rules, and letting them go.
She didn’t expect him to eventually land on desire.
Yet somehow, he did.
“Unbutton your blouse,” he said, so abruptly it stole her breath.
It made her stomach flip, it made her hands shake.
Though of course she went ahead and did as told.
She did it more eagerly than she’d ever done anything. She almost tore a button off in her haste, and was on the verge of discarding her blouse entirely when Hartford spoke again.
“Did I say remove it?” he asked.
In response, arousal sung through her body. It was everything she’d thought it would be, hearing him say the words. Seeing him be like this, but in a sexual context. In fact, when she thought about it, most of his work-based commands had possessed a kind of frisson. She just hadn’t let herself think it. She’d forced her mind and her body away from it, sure that it was impossible.
It still seemed impossible, even as they actually did it.
She was going to do filthy things in front of her former boss.
And she wasn’t going to do them alone.
Abel now leaned on his desk, eyes on both of them, waiting for Hartford to strip her down—or for something more than that. He seemed to fizz with anticipation, impatient for the next part.
The part where he would get to unbutton and undress. When he would be told off for taking a step too far.
