Page 30 of Not Safe for Work
Chapter Six
It was strange, to work with him after that. Different, in all kinds of ways. He didn’t enforce so many of the rules anymore—but it was more than just that. Sometimes he seemed almost awkward around her, as if the sexual component of their relationship had poked a thousand holes in him. Now he didn’t quite know how to be or what to do without jostling that delicate arrangement. Or rubbing up against it while they were in a meeting with clients or discussing some proposal or at lunch with someone important.
His knee would brush hers during a presentation or an interview, and something would happen when it did. A kind of frisson usually passed between them, in a way that always filled her with joy.
But she didn’t know if it did the same for him.
Sometimes it seemed like an inconvenience.
A line between business and pleasure that had become too blurred.
And though it should have been a comfort when he pushed her into his private bathroom and took her hard against the sinks, it wasn’t. It felt more like something he had to do, so he could carry on functioning. Not something he wanted, or desired. Not pleasure, for pleasure’s sake. She wasn’t even sure if he was the kind of man who could feel pleasure for pleasure’s sake, and she didn’t get surer as things progressed.
When he told Abel that he had fucked her from behind during work hours, there was no delight in his voice. He moaned over Abel’s reply—Did you leave your come inside that sweet pussy for me to lick away?—but that seemed more like something he simply couldn’t help. Abel said a dirty thing, and he reacted.
Tom stroked his cock as Abel tasted the come that still lingered between her legs. He even slid over to her as she bucked and gasped, and urged her to suck him as Abel licked and kissed her to climax.
Yet still, she couldn’t tell how he really felt about all of this.
Beyond hair-trigger lust, what drove him?
With Abel it was easy. He said he loved her like it took barely any effort at all. Once or twice she had even heard him say it to Tom. And true, it had happened as Tom fucked his ass and she sucked his cock, but it had held true in the light of day, too. Both of you, I do, he had said, as they lay tangled up in each other on Tom’s bed.
And that almost made things good enough.
But not quite. Not until she knew for sure how Tom felt.
What if it’s hurting him in some way?she found herself thinking. What if it’s too much of a rule break for him to stand? She even tried, on a number of occasions, when he seemed the most open to talking about it.
“Are you okay with this?” she asked, as he lay beside her in the early light of dawn. And in return he always nodded and kissed her.
He said yes.
It was just that she couldn’t quite trust his word.
He was an unreliable narrator in his own life, wanting her without whispering a word, unable to act until someone else pointed out that he could.
So she had to come at things another way.
And she had a good idea how to do just that.
* * *
It was on the way to the airport that she decided it was best to ask Abel. Partly because they were alone together in the quiet calm of his chauffeur-driven car with no time for any of the usual passion to get in the way. But mostly because he was going away for a week, and she simply couldn’t wait that long for answer.
She needed to know now. The question was important.
Yet she had to look away when she asked.
Out of the window, at nothing in particular.
“Do you think he’s happy?”
“Who is happy? Tom?”
“Yeah. Tom.”
The name felt less odd on her tongue, now.
