He knew how to push my buttons, almost as if it were instinct to him, almost as if he'd downloaded the user guide to my hardwiring. Just a look from him could get my pulse racing and my cheeks burning. He would always get close to me because I think he knew: I think he knew I was barely holding on.
Every time he cornered me in some dark hallway, I thought that was the time I was going to break. To fling my arms around his neck and crash my lips into his. Every time he loomed over my desk chair, thumb brushing against the delicate skin under my wrist, I thought that was the time I was going to grab his hands and guide them between my legs. Every time he called me into his office with a booming voice, I thought that was the time I was finally going to lock the door after me and sink into his lap.
I squeezed my eyes shut and then opened them, again checking the clock on the wall.
"Michael, I need to leave early."
He must have heard the seriousness in my voice, because this caused him to finally look over at me. His eyes narrowed suspiciously, suspecting this to be another round in our wicked little games.
"Why?"
Zara's face flashed in my mind. "That's none of your business," I blurted out without thinking.
This was clearly the wrong move, because Michael leaned back in his chair, bridged his fingers, and grinned. I'd just dangled a piece of meat in front of a shark and then told him to ignore it. Michael's eyes flashed in interest.
"I'll let you leave early if you tell me why," he said.
I rolled my eyes. "It's really nothing."
I couldn't tell him the truth, the truth about Zara. I wasn't going to tell him the truth. My chin fell to my chest as I remembered my undone buttons. It gave me another idea.
I looked back up at Michael, who was watching me intently. I sighed and carded my fingers through my hair, letting it fall seductively across one eye. I took a step forward and sighed.
"If you must know," I said, "I'm going on a date."
I relished the look of surprise in Michael's eyes. His gaze travelled down my body, noticing the undone buttons, the exposed leg, and I grinned when I could read his thoughts like reading a book: this isn't for me? I watched his face darken with something that looked a whole hell of a lot like jealousy.
"If you must know," I continued, moving to sit casually on the edge of his desk. "I haven't been laid in a long time."
I crossed my leg so my skirt rode even higher. I ran my fingers over the long stretch of bare skin. Michael's pupils widened, his body posture stiffened, that air of carefree nonchalance gone.
"So me and this guy, we're going to go have dinner and pretend that we're hungry and then go to a movie and pretend that either of us gives a fuck what's happening on the screen," I said, my voice low and gentle, like the purr of a kitten. "And then we're going to back to his place and do what both of us had been really wanting to do the whole time…"
I inhaled audibly into the silence, like a woman's last gasp before coming, and then whispered, "…fuck."
Michael shifted in his chair and sure as hell, I noticed. A thrill like a strike of lightning travelled all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes. I hadn't been this bold in years. I hardly recognised my own voice. But there was power in it, and I liked that.
I licked my lips, because I wanted to keep going. And from Michael's silence and the way he moved his hands to grip his armrests till his knuckles shone white, I knew he wanted me to keep going, too.
"If you must know," I said, "he's going to pin me up against the wall and rip at my blouse before bothering to close the front door. He's going to scrape his teeth along my neck, nip at my clavicle, circle his hot tongue around my nipple before sucking it hard between his wet lips."
I noticed the hitch in Michael's breathing only because I noticed the hitch in my own. I was arousing him, that was obvious. But I was arousing myself as well. Because this non-existent date of mine was no longer faceless. He had sandy-blonde hair I wanted to mess up with my fingernails. He had a strong jawline set in a brooding, angry scowl that frightened and exhilarated me. He had sharp green eyes.
As I continued I imagined it was Michael's hands holding my wrists above my head, his hot breath exhaling against the sensitive skin just below my ear, his throbbing erection pressing urgently against my hips in that dimly lit hallway.
"He isn't going to bother taking off my skirt," I said, my voice strained as I struggled to keep myself under control. Just like Michael. "There's no time for that. He's going to push my skirt up my thigh, his nails dragging long red lines against my skin. He's going to tear aside my thong. He's going to thrust into me as my back arches and my tits quiver and my voice catches in my throat. And he is going to fuck me there against the wall, fast and hard and rough."
I swallowed heavily as my eyes travelled from the black pools of Michael's pupils down his chest, rising and falling unevenly, all the way down to his groin where his hard dick was tenting his pants, his leaking cockhead
