Hard Line

by Erin McCarthy

  Yes. Yes, yes, and hell yes.

  “If that’s what you want…”

  “To touch you? Or you inside me?” Her hand stilled.

  Damn, she was killing him. He said, “Both.”

  “Yes, that’s what I want. Here. Now.”

  He was about to agree that was the best goddamn idea he’d ever heard in his life, when she grabbed his belt buckle and undid it before he could even open his mouth. Nimble fingers unbuttoned and unzipped him.

  “Very efficient,” he murmured.

  Candy grinned. “Efficiency in the workplace leads to greater productivity.”

  He laughed. Then sputtered off into a moan when her hand went inside his pants and wrapped around him.

  She squeezed.

  He panted.

  Caressing up the length of him, her eyes went wide. “Ooh, it’s so big.”

  And he didn’t even pay her to say that.

  From another woman, that would have sounded insincere, but not when Candy said it. No one could fake the kind of honest pleasure on her face, or the way her eyes struggled to stay open.

  The idea that he could trust Candy flitted through his mind, before he lost all rational thought.

  “Does this feel good?”

  Her speed had increased, and she was rubbing up and down with light feathery strokes. Good was a hilarious understatement.

  Any better than this and he was going to be done before he started. “Yes, but…”

  Her hand slipped down to cup his testicles.

  “Candy, I…”

  Shit, now she had both hands on him.

  “What, Jared?”

  He forced himself to speak. “I have a condom in my wallet. Let me get it out.”

  She stilled.

  He panicked. If she said no, he was going to cry like a baby.

  Her hands left his pants and pressed against his chest. Then she kissed his cheek, her full warm lips just brushing across his skin.

  No woman but his mother had ever kissed his cheek.

  A weird tenderness came over him, quieting his urgent desire and leaving him waiting for Candy to tell him his next move.

  If she had changed her mind, he respected that.

  “Which pocket is your wallet in?”

  But her not changing her mind was better.

  “Left.” He started to reach around for it, but she stopped him.

  “No, I’ll get it.” Then she was rummaging around in his pocket, feeling here, feeling there, the teasing light touches making him nuts.

  Finally she held the wallet up, smiling, looking confident and sure. “Which compartment?”

  “I don’t know.” It was somewhere in there collecting dust.

  He watched her rifle through the wallet, stopping to look at his driver’s license.

  “Checking to make sure I’m who I say I am?” he asked, amused.

  “I wanted to see how old you are. Thirty-one if my math’s right. And I couldn’t resist looking at your picture. You look perfect, like you always do.”

  It should have been a compliment, but the wrinkling of her nose made it sound like a bad thing. “You don’t like that?”

  “I do. I love the way you’re put together all the time, but Lord, Jared, it’s hard to stand next to you.” She found the condom and pulled it out. “I’m so scattered-looking all the time I can’t compete with you.”

  Scattered-looking? Is that what she called it? He would have thought blond bombshell was a better way to phrase it.

  “I love the way you look.” He smoothed her hair back from her face. “That curvy body and your brains, together they’re lethal. You’re gorgeous, Candy. Now give me the condom.”

  Candy stared at Jared in disbelief and something that felt suspiciously like hope. She knew when men were lying, when they were feeding her what she wanted to hear. Half the conversations in her life were based on empty compliments meant to coax her into bed.

  Jared was telling the truth. He thought she was smart.

  If she weren’t already planning to have sex with him, she would have just for that alone.

  Ripping the foil package open, she said, “I’ve got it.”

  His eyes darkened. “Okay. But before you do that…”

  Hands were suddenly up her skirt. Before she could blink her panties were down at her knees, then sinking to the floor. Jared’s hand lingered on her bare behind for a minute before retreating.

  Her mouth was hot and thick with saliva and she reached for him impatiently, rolling on the condom with trembling fingers. She hadn’t been kidding about the big thing. Jared was no slouch in the size department and she distracted herself by running her hands across him again, giving his hot skin a squeeze.

  The condom stuck, and it took her three times to unroll it, but she finally got it on and flipped her hair back out of her eyes.

  Jared surprised her with a kiss, a long, wet, lingering kiss that robbed her of the last of her reserve. As his hands held her head, and he rocked against her with his erection, she moaned, “Now. Please.”

  He pushed her skirt out of the way and without warning his finger sunk inside her. A shudder ripped through her.

  “You’re still nice and wet. Ready for me?”

  Since the minute they’d walked into this office. “Oh, yes.”

  Jared backed her up a foot until she was leaning against Harold’s desk, the surface cool on her backside. Then nudging her legs apart, he entered her with one quick thrust.

  He filled every inch of her, stretching her, and Candy repeated, “Oh, yes!”

  They stood there for long seconds, Jared’s head bent down and Candy’s nails digging into his arms. She could feel the length of him pulsing inside her, making her want more than this tight teasing.

  Jared must have had the same idea. He moved. Slow. In and out until Candy’s arms dropped to her sides and she let her head loll back. She didn’t thrust her hips to meet him, but just settled back and let him rock into her. It was languid and deep, and Jared leaned forward and dashed his tongue across her nipple.

  She barely felt the cold hard surface of the desk pressing into her backside, and hooked a leg around Jared’s knee so she wouldn’t fall as he started to move faster.

  Relaxed went to gripping in a split second as his hands snaked around to grab her ass and push harder, rough urgent mating. She bit her lip to hold back the violent cries she wanted to scream, and their labored pants mixed together as Jared moved them closer to fulfillment.

  It seemed like she should tell him to slow down, that they should savor this first time together, but her body wasn’t having any of it. Her hips started driving forward, meeting Jared’s thrusts with a little slapping sound of skin and zippers.

  It was that sound that made her come. Along with the look on Jared’s face as his own orgasm overcame him. Candy clung to the desk and felt Jared’s shudders mingle with hers as they rode out their pleasure.

  The orgasm was tight and hard, pulling at her almost painfully and she let out a cry as it slowed and passed, shivers racing up her spine.

  Candy couldn’t move, stunned by her explosive reaction to Jared. The man was good.

  He leaned against her, breathing hard, nearly toppling her backwards onto the desk with his weight.

  “I’m falling!” she cried out, scrambling for a grip, her hand knocking the computer hard.

  Strong arms prevented her fall.

  “Sorry.”

  Jared stepped back, pulling out of her, and Candy closed her eyes for a second at the loss. She liked him against her, big and strong, in pursuit of her, and was sorry to be past that. But he continued to lean towards her, placing a soft kiss on her jaw. This was a good look on him too, this triumphant relaxed expression he was wearing.

  He smoothed her skirt back down into place, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Damn, I can’t believe we just had sex in Harold’s office.”

  She grinned back. “Oh, I can believe it. The dent in my b
utt proves it.”

  Alarm crossed his face, making Candy feel like gooey chocolate. “Are you okay, babe?”

  She nodded, trying to decide if babe could be classified as a term of endearment or not. “I’m fine.”

  “We must be crazy.” Jared placed another soft kiss on her forehead and gestured to his pants. “And what the hell am I supposed to do with this condom now? Toss it in Harold’s wastebasket?”

  Good question. She eyed the condom dubiously as he pried it off. “You’ll have to put it in your pocket, I guess.”

  The horror that crossed his face made her giggle.

  “And carry it around all day?”

  “No, just until you get to your office, then you can throw it in the wastebasket there.”

  “The cleaning lady will think I’m a pervert.”

  “If the shoe fits…” Candy began doing the buttons on her blouse back up and grinned when he glared at her. “Well, then just wrap it in tissues so no one knows. They don’t inspect the trash for goodness sake.” She plucked six tissues out of the box on the edge of Harold’s desk. “Here you go.”

  Jared took them and wrapped up the condom, grimacing the whole time. “The price of spontaneity, I guess.”

  He still had her pinned against the desk, so she tried to slide around him as he tucked the mummified condom into his pocket.

  Before she could get by him, Jared grabbed her arm and trapped her leg with his. “Where are you going?”

  “To get my panties off the floor.”

  She expected him to grin, but he didn’t. Holding her tight, he said, “Can I see you outside of work?”

  Candy smiled, unable to contain herself. Not only had he asked her out, he actually looked like he cared what her answer was.

  “Yes. Now let me get my panties before we manage to get ourselves caught.”

  Then a knock rattled the door and they heard Harold call out, “How’s it going in there?”

  Jared said, “Holy shit.” He zipped his pants and moved away from Candy, tripping on the edge of the chair next to him. “We didn’t even lock the door.”

  He was dead. Harold had wanted him to sort out his differences with Candy, not have sex with her. On company time.

  The doorknob was turning. One glance at Candy showed her frozen in horror, her hair every which way, and her blouse buttoned wrong, leaving a big gaping hole in her middle, flashing pink skin.

  Neither one of them was wearing their jacket, and the entire room had the sweet smell of sex in the air. He didn’t even want to think about the condom in his pocket.

  In an attempt to stave off the inevitable, he called out, “Uh, we’re doing great. Just give us five more minutes, Harold.”

  Candy’s black lace underwear was still lying on the floor.

  “Get your panties,” he whispered.

  She started and bent over just as Harold stopped opening the door. “Oh, you’re not finished?”

  “Not quite.” Jared pulled his suit jacket back on and ran his hand through his hair to smooth it down.

  Candy shoved the panties into her waistband.

  “Fine, but let me know when you’re done.”

  Harold whistled as he walked off back down the hall and the sick feeling in Jared’s gut lessened a notch. “Shit, that was close.”

  Candy pulled her panties back out. “Watch the door while I put these on.”

  Visions of her with one foot in her underwear and one foot out with Harold throwing the door open popped into his head. “Just leave them off and put them in your jacket pocket.”

  She looked at him like he’d announced he was going to start wearing dresses.

  “Yuck! I can’t walk around the rest of the day wearing stockings and a garter belt, but no panties. It would be uncomfortable and I’d feel like everyone knew.” Kicking her heels off, Candy quickly slipped into the panties and shimmied them up her legs.

  Jared thought about her sitting in her office with no panties on under her skirt, her soft backside pressing into the chair. Her curls rubbing against her skirt. And nobody would know but him. He went hard again just thinking about it.

  Candy stepped back into her heels then put on her jacket. “We need to finish the counseling session, you know, before Harold comes back.”

  Right. That’s why they were here in the first place. Somehow or other that had managed to slip his mind.

  “Candy, the screen’s blank.”

  She whirled around. “What? Oh my gosh, it died. Or we unplugged it or something.”

  Between pounding against the desk and flailing arms, he wasn’t surprised. “It’s not even charging. How stupid is that?”

  Candy plugged the computer back in and rebooted it. Jared was distracted by her hot little ass bending over and wiggling in the air as she stuck the other end of the cord in the wall socket.

  He said, “Maybe this is better. We can get out of the rest of those dumb-ass questions. We’ll tell Harold it crashed.”

  She looked doubtful, but he pulled her into his arms and kissed her with plenty of tongue until she relaxed.

  “Mmm,” she said.

  “You took the words right out of my mouth.” He stopped her as she tried to tug loose and head for the door.

  “Are you free tonight? Seven? I’ll pick you up.” He wasn’t letting her out of this office without a commitment to see him again.

  “Okay.”

  “You go out first. I’ll run Harold to ground and tell him we’ve solved our problems and his karma is at peak levels.”

  She grinned as they paused in front of the door. “I like your karma.”

  “There’s plenty more where that came from.” And because he couldn’t resist, he squeezed her ass and molded her skirt to her, one finger sliding down between her legs.

  Her eyes fluttered shut. “Oh, stop it, Jared.”

  “Sorry.” Not.

  Jared opened the door and when she stepped out Candy found herself face-to-face with Harold. “Oh! Harold.”

  Oh, Lord, she must look guilty as sin.

  And Harold was studying them way too closely.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Wonderful. Great.” She cleared her throat and ran her fingers through her hair, guessing it looked like a blond feather duster. “Wow, what a great idea, Harold. That counseling just broke through all kinds of barriers and really just brought Jared and me to a… new level of understanding.”

  She broke off her babbling when she heard Jared cough over a laugh.

  Harold still looked puzzled, but he smiled. “So you finished the session?”

  Jared spoke. “Actually, we were two questions from finishing when your laptop crashed, Harold.” He shrugged. “Just one of those things, so we didn’t get our certificate of completion.”

  Candy tried to maneuver around Harold, being careful not to touch his leather pants.

  “What? No certificate?” Harold pouted, which was so not attractive on a fifty-year-old bald man. “Then how do I know you actually did the counseling? For all I know, you’ve spent the last two hours playing checkers online.”

  More like naked Twister. Candy couldn’t think of a single doggone thing to say and started inching down the hall, noticing there were quite a few curious heads poking out of offices.

  “I can guarantee you that we were not playing checkers,” Jared said in a serious voice. “And you’ll see the results of your counseling when we hand you Chunky Chocolate completed next week. We’re going to work on it tonight.”

  “Tonight? You’re working late?” Harold’s ears perked up, presumably at the idea of employees working overtime without compensation.

  “Yes. We’ll work on it all night if we have to.”

  A gurgling sound left Candy’s mouth before she could stop it.

  “Are you okay, Candy?” Harold’s eyes swung towards her.

  She didn’t dare look at Jared. She blinked at Harold and grabbed her neck. “No, actually, I have something stuck in my throat.
Excuse me, I’m going to go get a drink.”

  Without waiting for an answer, she got the heck out of there, rushing down the hall on wobbly ankles. First stop was the ladies’ room.

  Jan from payroll was walking down the hall with a stack of mail in her hand. She fell into step beside Candy.

  “How was Harold’s kooky counseling?” Jan asked in a whisper.

  Since Jan had been one of the few Stratford Marketing women who had been nice to her, Candy couldn’t blow her off the way she really wanted to.

  She gave Jan a weak smile. “It wasn’t as kooky as I thought it would be.”

  Jan flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and grinned. “But at least you got to do it with a hottie like Jared Kincaid. With my luck Harold would stick me in counseling with the office creep.”

  Oh, Lord, she was blushing. She could feel the heat stain spreading across her cheeks. “You just treat it like any other work assignment.”

  Yeah, right. If you were a call girl, maybe.

  “What’s Jared like? Is he really the cool customer he looks to be?”

  Cool wasn’t the word she would use.

  “He was very… accommodating.” Candy choked on the word as she came to a halt outside the ladies’ room. “Excuse me, Jan. I have to use the restroom.”

  Jan stopped next to her. “Well, while you’re in there, you might want to fix your blouse. It seems to have gotten crooked during your counseling session.”

  She winked and started off down the hall.

  Candy glanced down in horror. A good deal of her stomach was flashing through the Titanic-sized hole in the middle of her blouse.

  And Harold hadn’t even seemed to notice.

  Maybe his eyes were going the same way as his hair.

  Yanking her blouse halves together she pushed open the door and wondered how long until the last employee would leave the building for the day.

  She just might want to hide in the restroom until then.

  Jared didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

  Everything had seemed a lot easier when he and Candy had been semi-naked and moaning in Harold’s office earlier.

  Now things were complicated.

  Candy had avoided him the rest of the day and he had been unable to work for all the confusing feelings tumbling around inside him. Feelings that were about as welcome as the stomach flu.