by Brenda Ford
Although when I do jump in to the water, I feel the prickle of eyes up on the back of my neck which drags my eyes upwards. That’s when I see him, Ryan, on the balcony hanging out from his room, staring down at the pool, and at me in particular. Yep, he’s definitely looking at me, his eyes burning through me, wanting me… something is going to happen for sure. It has to, doesn’t it? If he’s already gazing at me like he wants to strip me down. Oh my God, he isn’t even hiding it anymore, he definitely wants me. This is so damn exciting…
The atmosphere at dinner is already one hundred percent better than it has been in the office. Every employee is in a much more relaxed state, people who have been passive aggressively fighting for weeks are now laughing and pouring one another drinks. It’s brilliant and I feel like I can sit back and enjoy my handy work, feeling happily responsible for these fixed bonds.
“This is such a great place,” Dean from accounting slurs while leaning up against me and smiling. “You chose well, Sara. You did a great job. And that bikini you bought…”
He makes a kind of whistling sound. Or at least I think that’s what he’s trying to do, it’s challenging for me to tell because he’s too drunk really to make it work. I almost want to throw him off me, to tell him to leave me alone already until he’s sober, but then I notice something that stops me… Ryan is looking at me with a burning jealousy in his gaze. He is at the other end of the table with a giant glass of champagne in front of him, glaring at me like I am doing something wrong. I’m not, of course, I can do whatever the hell I please, but I like him wanting ownership of me. It proves what I have known all along. That he wants me just as badly as I do him. After that car ride, and the way he looked at me when I was in the pool…
Well, now it might all be about to come to fruition, and I can’t wait. But first, I need to keep this going. I need to really rile him up. He might even come to grab me away from Dean and really take control of me. Ooh, I can’t think of anything sexier. So, with one last glance at him, I twist in my seat away from him and stare in to Dean’s eyes as if I actually like him or something. Luckily, he can’t sicken me with his sloppiness because I’m too busy watching Ryan out the corner of my eye, seeing him burn with anger.
“I didn’t even notice you looking at me when I was in the pool,” I say with a delicate purr. “I didn’t know that you had ever noticed me. That’s really nice to know.”
Ryan is clutching on to his glass so hard I think it might crack. So, I reach out and graze my fingers along Dean’s cheek, trying to disguise my shudder. The only positive thing here is that he is far too drunk to remember this, so I don’t need to worry about him hitting on me again in the morning. Hopefully, no one else will remember it either. No one but Ryan.
“I didn’t notice you to be honest,” Dean says with much too drunken honesty as his eyes nearly pop out of his head. “Not until I saw you half naked. That caught my attention for sure.”
I force a smile on my face which only becomes real when I spot Ryan jumping up from his chair in a fit of rage. His seat even scrapes along the floor, the noise grabbing the attention of everyone around him because he’s so annoyed. People are intrigued to know what he’s up to, but none of them need to know as much as me. I steel my spine and try to ready myself for the inevitable moment where he grabs me and takes me back to his room…
What the hell…? But that isn’t what happens at all. Instead, he stomps off and leaves the room completely, leaving everyone behind a little gob smacked. No one knows exactly what has just happened and while I might have a slightly better idea since I have clearly pushed him over the edge with my silly little flirting idea, I am the most stunned.
“So… what do you say?” Dean shakes me and drags me from my thoughts. “Sara? What do you think? The boss has gone now so we can probably stop being polite.” That before was him being polite? Wow, I wouldn’t want to see the rude side of him. “Want to come to my room?”
Urgh, there isn’t a chance in hell. If there isn’t any chance of me going back to Ryan’s room, then I will be sleeping alone thank you very much. I shake my head and try to shake him off me. But unfortunately, he has gripped on to me hard and it doesn’t look like he wants to let me go. Even as I glare at him in a way that is clearly full of rage, he has hold of me.
“Oh, don’t be like that, Sara. You were all over me a moment ago. Don’t be a prick tease.”
“Urgh gross, are you kidding me?” I snatch myself away from him now, definitely not in the right frame of mind to be taking any of his shit. “I can’t have a little joke with you without you turning it in to something where you think I have to have sex with you?” I run my eyes up and down him, letting him see my sheer disgust for him now. “That isn’t how it works.”
“But… but…” he starts, but thankfully, even in his drunken state he can see that he hasn’t got a leg to stand on. He knows that it would be absolutely terrible to continue on insisting that I go up to his room after I just said that, so he kind of slinks away from me.
Now, it’s my turn to storm out of the room, but no one is left wondering why this time around. I can stomp up to my room in peace but there won’t be any calm once I’m in my room alone. Instead, I’m going to end up pacing up and down in irritation, trying to work out why Ryan keeps rejecting me, over and over again…
Chapter 5 – Ryan
“An assault course?” I can’t keep the disgust from my voice. “Are you for real?”
I can’t be the only one who had too much to drink last night. I really don’t think that I am the only person who got a little carried away last night and had one too many drinks. Judging by the weathered look on a lot of people’s faces, I can see that I am definitely not alone with my stinking hang over. I know that I shouldn’t have had so much to drink, that wine went straight to my head, I just had a lot going on and I got carried away. I had a lot to block out.
And when I think about ‘a lot going on’ what I really mean is Sara. The car ride, the sight of her soaking wet in the swimming pool with just a skimpy bikini on, then Dean all over her last night and her responding… it really got to me, I could hardly handle it.
That doesn’t make my behavior right. That doesn’t mean I should have drunk like I did. Now, I am going to pay for it. All damn day long at this rate.
But now I’m going to have to get myself together because she is in front of everyone in her assault course gear, looking ready for action. Of course, she doesn’t look hung over at all, which is utterly infuriating. It seems like she isn’t really bothered about me at all.
“This is stupid,” Bella mutters beside me. I don’t know if she realizes that she said that out loud. She looks like she’s still drunk more than anything else. “I hate this sort of thing.”
“Tell me about it,” I joke back with an eye roll. “I really can’t be bothered.”
For a moment, Bella looks horrified that she has been caught out by me, her eyes nearly pop out of her head and all of the color drains from her face. “I… I… Oh God, I…”
“Don’t worry,” I do my best to reassure her. “Remember, this is team building. I’m not your boss here. We are all supposed to be on the same level, right? So, say what you like.”
“Well… if that’s the case, then can we just forget about this and go back to bed? Or maybe to the bar? I have heard that hair of the dog is supposed to be a great hang over cure…”
I’m just about to tell her that I am all for that when the assault course starts, and we don’t have a chance of escaping it. Me and Bella exchange a glance, both of us wondering how we will survive this without puking all over the place. The only saving grace is that we might not be the only ones. Others might be sick before us to save the embarrassment.
I wouldn’t be able to avoid this anyway, even if I really didn’t want to do it, because Sara has organized this, and she is clearly very excited. I might be annoyed with her because of the flirting last night, right in my face, blatantly to rub it i
n, but I would still do it for her. I don’t know what sort of hold she has over me, I can’t explain it, but it’s incredibly powerful.
Urgh, I feel worse than ever. By lunch time, everyone else seems to have perked up but I am still sick as a dog. I don’t know how they are all doing it. I must have been the worst out of everyone but then I suppose I did drink in my room alone until the early hours of the morning, just trying to drink the anger away. Not that it worked, so I should suffer.
I can’t stand the noise of everyone chatting, all invigorated after the assault course, so instead, I sit in the corner of the room with my cell phone out in front of me, answering my emails. I’m sure I look like a seriously miserable bastard, but I don’t even care. It’s nice to have something else to focus on other than the chaos surrounding me.
“Are you okay?” All of a sudden, I am distracted by a small voice speaking to me. Because I’m not in the best frame of mind just yet it takes me a couple of moments to realize that it’s Sara trying to grab my attention. This is the first time she has spoken to me all day long.
“Er, yes, I think so.” When she’s this close to me and looking at me with those giant puppy dog eyes of hers, I feel a bit silly about the way that I behaved last night. “Hung over.”
“Yes, I think most people are.” She nods her head a few times before falling in to the seat next to me. “I did try to make them give up the assault course for something a little easier this morning on behalf of everyone else, but they said it would be a good way to sweat the drink out of everyone. I don’t know if it worked though… not for everyone.”
She gives me a pointed look and I shoot her back an embarrassed smile. “You could say that. What do we have on this afternoon? Please tell me that it’s something less physical?”
“It’s a quiz and some communication games. Team based stuff. Much less sweaty,” she reassures me. “Hopefully everyone will get through it and we can have fun again tonight.”
“I’m sure that it will be a much less boozy event,” I laugh. “But we shall see.”
“I don’t know about that. Some of your employees are hard core for sure.”
Oh God, that sends a weird chill through my body. I didn’t like Dean flirting with her last night and I certainly won’t like it if it happens again. Maybe I will have to be closer to Sara tonight like a guard dog, to make sure no one makes the effort to talk to her. At least then I won’t embarrass myself by storming off in a huff. I’m sure that the only reason no one has asked me about it yet is because I am the boss. Otherwise, I would be fair game.
“Well, I’m sure it will be fun no matter what happens.” I shoot her a smile, feeling the professional barrier that I have spent so much effort building up, slipping away ever so slightly. It shouldn’t be, I’m supposed to be stronger than ever, but what man can remain strong in this situation? I’m hung over, jealous as all hell, and weak to my desires…
Why do I want Sara more than anyone who has ever come before? Why do I find her completely irresistible to the point where it is so hard for me to avoid her?
“We do always have a good time, don’t we?” There it is again, that charge, that intensity between us. I know that I should end the conversation right now before I get sucked in deeper, but I can’t. “It’s always fun when we are all together…”
She leans across the table and her skin grazes against mine ever so slightly. The electrical bolt that shoots through my body is overwhelming. I actually jump myself backwards because it shocks me so much. Fortunately, or unfortunately, however I want to look at it, Sara seems to feel the same way as well. She has an expression on her face that matches how I feel.
I was weak before but now I can feel any scrap of strength vanishing, dissolving in to thin air. I want to just grab her right here in front of everyone and I want to kiss her hard. I would love to show her all the passion that she has shooting through me. Then once I have shown her what she means to me, I want to scoop her up in to my arms and take her up to my room where we can finally cave to temptation. We can both get what we have clearly wanted for a very long time. This isn’t the office, there are no rules here, there is a real feeling of anything can happen, and I would love nothing more than to lean in to this and see where it takes us.
I can’t even think about the awkwardness when we are back at work. That’s relevant at all at the moment. I’m not focused on the long term consequences of this at all, just how phenomenal the short term will be. The sparkle in Sara’s eyes tells me that she is feeling the same way. I part my lips and make a noise as if I’m about to talk, right at the same moment she does the same thing, which of course interrupts us both and leaves us both with nothing.
Then before we can even attempt to re start talking again, the lady who is running our day of events yells to let us know that lunch is over and that it’s time to start the afternoon of activities, which fingers crossed is going to be much calmer than the rest of the day has been.
Sara leaves my side but not without shooting me a promising look before she goes. If they aren’t come to bed eyes, then I don’t know what are. They are working as well, making my stomach churn and my whole body starts pounding with a need for her. Especially as she walks away and I find myself admiring the sexy curve of her ass, even more so than I usually would. If anyone is looking at me right now, then they will know exactly what’s going through my mind, but I don’t care enough to stop it. I can’t drag my eyes away from her at all.
Just get through the rest of the afternoon, I tell myself with a warning. Do that and see what happens tonight. Perhaps trying to avoid this connection with Sara isn’t getting me anywhere…
I can hardly keep my eyes off of Sara all afternoon. I am constantly aware of her the whole time. Even when she is across the other side of the room, I can feel her presence the entire time. It’s like she has become a part of me for some reason and now I can’t cope without her.
The thing is she is looking at me a lot too. Her eyes seem to be on me as much as mine meet hers. That makes me feel all delicious inside. I can’t even focus properly on the team games which means we lose every single one and the people who have been put with me get annoyed, but I just can’t make myself care. I have too much else on my mind to worry.
She is just so beautiful, so alluring, there is something utterly addictive about her, it’s as if she is a drug and I’m a wanabee addict desperate to get my first taste. I know that I shouldn’t go down that route because it’s dangerous and I don’t know where the hell it will lead me, but I can’t resist allowing myself to be dragged in anyway.
Tonight, is the night, I tell myself with sheer certainty when I catch her beautiful eyes once more. I can’t keep away any longer. Tonight, is the night I give in at last.
I feel surprisingly good about that decision. I thought that it would crush me to give in to my feelings when I know that I should be a million times stronger and continue to keep away, but I’m happy to know that I might finally get that taste tonight. I haven’t ever fought against myself so much and to be honest it hasn’t led me anywhere. Now it’s time to see if leaning in to my desires works for me instead…
Chapter 6 – Sara
Ryan is different tonight, there is no denying it, and for a change, these are differences that I like! I can’t deny that I’m very much enjoying this new more affectionate version of him, I feel like the cat who has the cream as he sits close to me, basically touching me all night long. And it doesn’t even seem to matter who sees him. He really doesn’t mind which is strange. I always thought that he avoided me to be careful because of the work relationship balance but it seems not. I’m not going to question this quick turn around though because it feels good.
“What’s going on?” Bella whispers in to my ear with a cheeky tone to her voice. “Something must have happened with you and Ryan, right? He’s all over you.”
“Nothing has happened.” I shrug my shoulders and smirk, “But it might be about to.”
&nb
sp; She lets out a low whistle. “Wow, that’s incredible. I’m excited for you. So excited that I’m not even going to ask you what will happen when you get back to work after this…”
I’m glad that she isn’t asking me because I don’t have an answer for her. I’m sure that it will be the start of the best relationship ever between me and Ryan, but if I vocalize that aloud will make me seem like I’m desperate for a happy ever after type deal. Maybe I am, but only with Ryan, and I don’t want anyone else to know that until it happens.
“Would you like another drink?” All of a sudden, Ryan grabs my attention away from Bella. He’s already pouring me another glass of wine, so I don’t know why he’s asking. I like it though. Especially with him looking at me like I am the only woman in the room.
“Of course.” I beam happily at him. “Thank you, that’s lovely.”
As I take a swig of the drink, a swarm of dizziness over comes me. But it isn’t like I am drunk or anything, it’s more because of him and his intense gaze rushing over me. A shiver rushes down my spine, it’s so intense that I can hardly remain sitting where I am. This dinner might be a little more civilized than last night because people don’t exactly have the stamina, I thought they did, but I am defiantly wilder and more out of control.
“Are you having fun?” he purrs while leaning in to me. “Tonight is great, isn’t it?”
“Oh, it really is.” My heart is pounding heavily. I can hardly breathe because it feels like it’s bashing against my lungs right now. “I’m having the best time.”
I nearly jump out of my seat as a finger traces up my thigh. Shit, this really is happening now. I’m shocked, absolutely stunned to the core. Now that he has decided to move forward with me, he’s really going for it. He’s claiming me in the commanding way just as I thought he would. The smile on my face stretches from ear to ear as I realize that my dreams are coming true. Perhaps the next time I will end up in the work place bathrooms, he will be with me.
