I watched her walk away down the hall before closing the door behind me. It was almost a shame. I thought that fire in her eyes had been a spark for something more. But it was just an ember swept up on the wind to shrivel and die.
At least that's what I thought. Until I addressed a full conference room of my peers and subordinates on the television screen, only to lift the binder Abbi prepared and have the entire five hundred pages slip free and spread like fresh snow across the floor. I stared in stunned silence at the pages at my feet, embarrassment making my cheeks hot.
I barely managed to keep my voice steady long enough to excuse myself, grab a fistful of pages, and gently close the conference room door behind me.
Abbi saw me coming down the hall and again grinned that mischievous grin, the fire in her eyes flaring back to life.
"Afternoon, boss-o," she chirped, resting her arms casually behind the back of her head. "How's the meeting going?"
I slammed the crumpled pages onto her desk and jammed my finger onto them. "What the fuck is this, Abbi? You made a fool of me in there!"
Abbi frowned and leaned forward. "You told me to hole punch the legal precedents," she said, pointing to a single hole in the very centre of the page. "I hole punched it."
I'd had enough. I'd tried to maintain some level of professionalism, but she'd pushed me too far. I grabbed each armrest of her chair, spun her to face me, and loomed over her.
"Is that how it's going to be? Huh?" I growled.
Abbi jutted her chin defiantly up at me, her only answer.
"Because if you want me to ride, Ms Miller," I said, grinning wickedly myself, "then I will ride you. Hard."
The corners of Abbi's seductive lips quirked up into the hint of a grin. "I'm not sure you can handle me, Mr O'Sullivan."
I laughed darkly. "As I remember, I had no problem at all handling you."
My hands moved to Abbi's thighs, gripping them tightly. Her eyes darted down to her lap and then she shoved me back. She tugged her chair back into place and returned to her computer.
"Mr O'Sullivan, you're very behind on your schedule," she said. "For some reason you've been very distracted today."
I moved to stand behind her and tucked her blonde hair, now cut shoulder-length, behind her ear. I leaned forward and felt Abbi tense as my lips brushed the sensitive skin of her earlobe.
"Two can play at this game," I whispered, my hot breath causing goosebumps to cover her forearms.
Abbi quickly rolled down her sleeves, but the damage was already done: I'd already seen her reaction to me. She looked at me over her shoulder, fire dancing in her eyes, ready to spread into a wildfire.
"Perhaps," she said, grinning. "But only one can win."
I should have been working. I should have been focusing. I should have been doing the job I was paid, and paid very well, to do. But Abbi wanted to play a little game.
And for the first time in a long time, I wanted to play, too.
Abbi
Neither of us seemed to be able to stop.
It'd been a week of our wicked little games, a week of push and pull, a week of tug of war with a rope that nobody could see or feel but us. It'd been a week of glares across the conference room—glares of disgust and arousal. It'd been a week of us biting at each other's throats and trying our best not to tear off each other's clothes.
Neither of us seemed to able to stop. I wasn't sure if this was better or worse, but neither of us seemed to want to stop.
He drove me mad with frustration, with anger, with irrational irritation, but I wanted, I needed more of it. I hadn't felt that…much in a long time. I hadn't felt my heart beating that fast in a long time, even if it was beating with rage and fury. One thing was certain: Michael was making me feel something.
And I missed that.
It was into our second week of working (though perhaps working wasn't exactly the right word for what we were doing) when I received a text from Sandra late into the afternoon. She was sick and wouldn't be able to pick Zara up from school as usual. With a sigh, I leaned forward and spied through the cracked door into Michael's office. Asking to leave early felt like admitting a weakness, leaving myself open to an easy attack in our wicked little games. I drummed my fingers against the edge of my desk, thinking.
I unbuttoned a couple more buttons on my blouse, perked up my tits, and inched up my skirt to show a bit more leg. Then I walked into Michael's office, head held high.
"I'm leaving early," I announced.
Michael's attention was fixed on his computer and he said without even glancing away, "No."
"I wasn't asking," I said, willing him to look over at me.
He didn't.
Instead he clicked his mouse and said, emotionless, "And I wasn't making a suggestion, Ms Miller. You leave when I leave."
I glanced at the clock on the office wall. Zara got out of school in forty-five minutes. With traffic I needed to leave in fifteen or
