Rogue Affair

by Tamsen Parker

  So mesmerizing, I’m startled when he speaks. “Listen, I have to confess I have a hard time concentrating when you’re this close.”

  Oh my god. Humiliation sweeps over me like a rushing tide. I’ve been through more than my fair share of professional harassment from men who’ve leaned over me to look down my shirt, or left their hands on my shoulders far too long for it to feel anything but slimily sexual. The last thing I ever want is to put a subordinate in that position myself. My campaigns and my offices have scrupulous sexual harassment policies and everyone knows I’ll fire and prosecute, because I’ve done it more than once already.

  I don’t outlaw dating between co-workers—too many years on movie sets and campaign trail had made the realities of workplace romance clear and I’m not looking to put anyone in the position of lying to cover up a relationship—but direct reports are required to transfer away from each other. And mostly I encourage people to have a damn life outside of work, instead of marrying their officemates, even metaphorically.

  I finally get my voice back enough to fumble out some words. “I’m sorry. How embarrassing. I’ll just . . . wait over here. I didn’t mean to be a creeper.”

  “Yeah, I think you misunderstood me.” Oscar takes his hands off the keyboard and lifts them over his head, stretching until I can hear his vertebrae crack. When he’s finished, he braces an elbow in the desk and drops his head in his hand, fingers tangling in his hair. “So . . . this is awkward.”

  Fuck yeah, it is. I take a step back and open my mouth to apologize again, when he takes a deep breath, starts talking, and destroys me.

  “I can’t concentrate because I can smell your perfume, as subtle as it is, and it makes me think about how no one who wasn’t right next to you would know that you smell like honey and spices and tea, and it makes me feel privileged to know that.” His cheeks darken and he licks his lips, leaving them shiny for a moment. “Also, you’re brilliant. And gorgeous. But really all I need at this point is to smell you, and I lose track of whatever I’m trying to say or write or read, because all I can think about is you.”

  Whoa. I mean to say that out loud, but I seem to have a lack of air thing going on. Or maybe it’s a lockjaw issue? Either way, I’m pretty sure I’m standing in front of him with my mouth hanging open, but everything below my eyebrows has gone numb with shock, so I maybe I don’t look as ridiculous as I think I do.

  “I want to be perfectly clear that I would never say any of this if I weren’t about to turn in my ID card to HR before leaving town in a week.”

  He grins, shameless now. One hundred percent on the far side of the line I’ve drawn in my own mental sand, where flirting with Oscar was fenced permanently off limits.

  “Just wanted you to know.”

  I clear my throat, awkwardly, and try to dredge up the tough-as-nails woman who’s survived this office for two years. “Hate to break it to you, but I got used to young men with lingering childhood crushes wanting to see me in a chainmail bikini long ago.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m way more interested in the woman in front of me today than I am in a fantasy from both our youths.”

  “Your youth is a lot more recent than mine,” I remind him, trying to put him in his place. Usually it works, but Oscar has some kind of place-putting force field up, because he isn’t fazed. “I’m quite a bit older than you are. And on a day to day basis, I’m about a hundred times more worn out than you too.”

  “Nah. Pretty sure if you had to fight yourself from back then, you’d kick your own ass. You’re ripped. I try not to stare at your arms when other people are in the room, but it’s touch and go whether I can hide it at any given moment.”

  “Yeah, well, that was the eighties.” Okay, now I’m just talking out of my ass. Because he keeps looking at me—like, looking at me—and that’s such a rarity for me these days. Everyone watches, but they don’t actually see me. I can tell Oscar does, and it’s disconcerting as hell. “Nobody wanted muscles on a woman before Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2.”

  He clutches his chest melodramatically. “Sarah Connor. I ripped her picture out of a magazine and put it on the wall next to yours. Women who could kick my ass were my weakness.”

  My lips twist as I try not to smile. “Were?”

  His cheeks pink, but he meets my gaze without flinching. “Some things never change.”

  “Right. Well.” I rub my hands together until my palms tingle to keep from reaching out and touching his wrist. “This speech isn’t going to finish itself. Show me what you got. Let’s get back to work.”

  3

  Oscar

  “God, that was fun. That was the best time I’ve had in ages. My fingers are tingling.” Anna shakes out her hands, laughter bubbling over. “Why is telling the brutal truth so fucking hot? And powerful.”

  Giddy looks good on her. Hot. Powerful. She’d given her speech surrounded by aldermen, educational experts, and leaders of the business community, including Di. Anna had radiated confidence, had laid out their plan with commitment, clarity, and more than one kneecapping reference to her predecessor. Plus, a couple of mild curse words.

  “You’re a politician. You never get to say exactly what you want,” I say, following her into her office. She does a little dance as she crosses the room to her desk, where someone—Madison, no doubt—has left a bottle of champagne chilling in a silver ice bucket sweating condensation. Energy spills out of her as she hums something that might be “All I Do Is Win.” Victorious Anna is delightful. I shove my hands in my pockets to remind me to keep them to myself. “Telling the truth is a transgressive act.”

  “Ooh, keep using big words. It’s turning me on.”

  Her face freezes. I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what my face looked like when I’d blurted out I totally love you during our speechwriting marathon. Awkward embarrassment with just a smidge of but I also totally meant that.

  “Whoops. Sorry. That was inappropriate.”

  “I’m the one who told you how much I like knowing what you smell like. I’m really, really okay with you hitting on me.”

  “I can’t hit on you. You work for me. That would be absolutely—”

  “Inappropriate?” I walk toward her and she inhales sharply. My whole body feels tight, like this suit is cut two sizes too small. I try to imagine what she’s thinking. Will he . . ?

  “Yes.” She says it like she’s afraid to take too deep a breath.

  My stride hitches as I pass her and I almost stumble, like that jolt when you’re cycling and slip a gear. I recover and reach for the champagne bottle, pouring two glasses as it drips because I forgot to wrap the conveniently placed white towel around it. “Let me remind you of a couple of things. One, I don’t work for you. You’re not paying me a penny. In fact, I’m actually doing you a favor. So in a way, you’re the one in my debt.”

  “Rub it in, why don’t you?” she laughs, and I try to keep innuendo from battering my brain flat, and making my dick anything but. “And two?”

  I’m supposed to hand her one of the glasses, but instead I smack them down way too hard on the desk and pull on this tie that is fucking choking me, desperate to loosen it. “And two, I can’t remember what else I was going to say. I can’t think straight around you. So either I need to go home right now before I do something inappropriate and unwelcome, or. . .”

  “Or?” She leans toward me, and maybe that’s what pushes me past my breaking point.

  The room is so quiet I can hear both of us breathing fast. “Or I’m going to ask if I can press you up against that desk and kiss the hell out of you.”

  “I think we both need to go home,” she says, and I’m steeling myself not to let my disappointment show when she walks right up to me until she’s so close a deep breath would press her against me. Hope revives and flickers in my chest. The wanting never lessened for a second. She doesn’t touch me though. I’m 99 percent certain she wants to, but despite every green light I’ve given her, I know she won
’t, because she’s determined not to take advantage. Uncertainty flickers on her face, her mouth an inch away from mine, her dark eyes shining, as she breathes the next words against my lips. “Are you coming with me or not?”

  “Oh, hell yeah,” I say, and crush my mouth to hers. If reassurance I want this is what she needs, I can absolutely fucking give her that. All of that energy fizzing inside her explodes into our kiss, and I have to remind myself not to fuck up her hair by shoving my hands deep into it. We still have to exit City Hall, and Anna cancelled the last guy’s rule about the mayor’s elevator being off limits for other employees. But it’s hard to keep my mind focused on how to minimize any gossip for her when all I want to do is taste and suck and lick my way from her mouth to every inch of her body.

  Minutes later, in a desperate effort not to come in my pants from kissing her, I grab her by her hard biceps and separate us, holding her an arm’s length away. “You are spectacularly lethal, so I shouldn’t touch you anymore here. In your office.”

  Where I know she’s uncomfortable.

  “Okay then,” she says, wiping a delicate knuckle against her smudged lip color. “Then let’s definitely get the fuck out of here.”

  Anna

  I catch my brain going off the rails once I have him in my home—a few thousand feet of relatively restrained luxury at the top of Lake Point Tower with a view of the city’s stunning skyline that makes the price worth every penny—but he’s done everything in his power to make it clear that he wants to be here. The guilt and the lust swirl together, making me disoriented and inarticulate so I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind after I’ve walked him through dark rooms to my bedroom.

  What with Oscar being all about trusting people enough to show them your real self and all.

  “I think I’m nervous.”

  “About what?” He kicks of his shoes and sits on my bed cross-legged, like we’ve come here to have an interesting conversation, and not to get naked and fuck.

  “I don’t know, because I’m also not nervous. I like sex. A lot. And I’ve pretty much wanted to jump you since you walked in my office.”

  He raises his hands and eyes to the ceiling. “I’m saying.”

  “I deserve a fucking medal for that one.”

  His dirty look makes me laugh. And shiver. I pull my shirttails free of my waistband, unbutton it, and drop it on the floor. Kick off my shoes and take my pants off.

  “Sorry, what were you saying about fucking medals?” he asks me a second later. “I got distracted by my brain making double entendres. And also by you taking your clothes off.”

  “Feel free to do the same.” Nervous or not, I brought this man here to get intimately acquainted with his naked body. We can talk and undress at the same time. We’re both excellent multitaskers. Oscar does some kind of shoulder roll off the bed and is stripped to his boxer-briefs and back on the bed in record time, sporting a cotton-covered erection that makes his ability to hold up his end of the conversation rather impression.

  “I think I feel like I’m supposed to be nervous? It’s an odd sensation. Like I’ve been told that I should worry that I’m going to disappoint you or that you won’t be attracted to my body.” I swing a leg over him and sit on his crotch. Yessss. “But you very much are.”

  I rock my hips and Oscar hisses.

  “Extremely.” He reaches up and runs his fingers through my hair, carefully pulling out the few pins I’ve used to tuck up today’s twist and putting them carefully on the bedside table. Long twists of hair slither across my shoulders.

  “And I’m balanced on the pinpoint of not caring if I disappoint you and being certain I won’t.” I frown, unsure of what I’m trying to express here. “Not because ‘older women make better lovers’ or some kind of shit that requires me to slam young women, who are perfectly able to fuck well and creatively and with skill. But because I like you. And I want you.”

  “Back atcha. Ma’am.”

  And then he winks. God, at least going to bed with him will be fun. I’m highly in favor of laughter in bed.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know. To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I had sex with a straight cis guy.” In the years before Di, I’d been involved with a variety of lovers, but most of the men I’d been with had been queer. I don’t think I’d slept with a straight guy since my twenties, not a period of my life I’d hold up as an exemplar of wise decision-making.

  “And? Do you think sex with me has to be . . . what? More limited, because I’m a straight guy?”

  “Frankly? Yeah.” I shrug. “My memories of straight men are . . . not spectacular. Hidebound is the term that first springs to mind.”

  “Well, not to make a big deal about the age thing, because we’re already both a little hyper aware of that, but at least one generation of experimentation has passed since your last straight dude, I’m guessing. Probably more than that, if we factor in how fast porn changes.”

  He’s still playing with my hair, combing it, pushing it behind my ears, making me shiver with each gentle tug on my scalp. “So your generation is all what? Kinky now?”

  “Sure, although it’s more an extra flavor for me than a lifestyle, but I wasn’t even thinking about kink. I was thinking you ought to know that although I’d certainly love to get my dick inside you, I don’t assume P-in-V sex is the end-all, be-all. Sex encompasses a pretty wide range of activities for me, and if we’re talking about fucking in particular, then I don’t assume that I’m the one who’ll be do the fucking either.”

  Interesting. I hadn’t opened the toy drawer since Di and I decided that it was a bad idea to keep sleeping together when we knew our relationship was over, even if that meant depriving ourselves of what was some seriously fantastic sex. I believe in daily orgasms, but five minutes of fantasizing and one hand can get me off twice before I fall asleep. Toys require clean up and aren’t any faster, so I mostly skip them when I get off by myself.

  I could work out some serious frustration fucking Oscar though. The language he uses to talk about sex is enough like what I’m used to I’m confident he means it. And Christ knows I have plenty of frustration to spare.

  But I don’t want to narrow my focus, to overwhelm myself with multi-tasking and concentration. I crave expanse and a flood of sensation. Wallowing in the feel of his skin and muscles and mouth against my own, with nothing elaborate on the agenda.

  “I want to touch you and taste you and I want to come.” At his raised eyebrow, I explain, “I don’t always want to. Sometimes it just feels like more pressure if I’ve spent all day performing on command.”

  “Makes sense.”

  A pleasure to hear that. I’d had lovers take it as a challenge before when I told them I didn’t always want to come. As if they’d win bonus points for making sure I did every single time, regardless of any preferences I expressed.

  “I vote no performances though, just fyi,” Oscar says. “Any likes or dislikes I should know about right off the bat?”

  I like that he asks. “I don’t like to have my hair pulled.”

  His touch immediately gentles. I smile. “You’re good. And scalp massage is totally welcome, by the way. Hmm, a super light touch on my breasts can almost get me off by itself. I like being watched. Not by strangers. By my lovers. The rest you can figure out as we go along.”

  Oscar slides his hands from my hair to my legs, easing them higher until his thumbs dance across my inner thighs, and my breath tightens in my chest in anticipation.

  “So, touching and tasting and looking?”

  I lean forward, bracing myself on my forearms until my breasts brush the hair on his chest. “Sound appealing?”

  “Extremely,” he growls and rolls me onto me side, pulling me close for a slow, dirty kiss, as if to say we’ve got all the time in the world. We rub against each other and tease around the edges of underwear, tormenting ourselves with indirect touches and fabric barriers until everything
is sticky and wet. And then we get all the way naked.

  His skin tastes rich against my tongue as I map his body with my mouth. His fingertips memorize my lines and curves. I spend ten minutes on the back of his neck when I discover how much kissing and biting it makes him squirm. He finds the spot on my lower back that makes me jerk with the bolt that shoots up my spine and he stays there until I’m a shaking mess.

  By the time we come, rubbing and sucking and riding against each other, I’ve lost track of where my body ends and his begins.

  Oscar

  Afterward, with her head pretty much shoved in my armpit and her thigh slung over my leg, both of us sprawled on our backs and chasing oxygen with gasping lungs, she strokes my stomach with her fingers and laughs when I convulse and smack her hand away.

  “Ticklish.”

  “Ahhh. A weakness.”

  As if she hasn’t already figured out all of mine, leveling me with a hundred different touches whose ghosts are skating in lingering shudders of pleasure over my skin.

  “Despite all the fucked up shit in my head that gets stirred up by your age, I have to say . . . the sex is totally worth it.”

  “You’re too kind.”

  “I wish we could do this again.” She sighs and stretches luxuriously next to me.

  “We definitely can.” We definitely must.

  “Oh. No.” Her voice is startled as she rests a gentle hand on my arm. “We can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “What? Why?” I push up on one elbow to stare down at her, but that’s the wrong position to take—too many shades of dominance in me looming over her. Anna immediately rolls out of bed, walks naked into a closet, and comes out yanking the tie of a thin robe tight around her waist.

  “I can’t date someone your age.”

  “Of course you can,” I counter automatically. Obviously, I understand the potential concerns, but that simply means careful handling is required. Not total elimination of the possibility.