Office Politics Ch. 06

"Please fuck me Gabriel." There was the note of desperation in her voice again, she didn't try to hide it.

"How would you like me to fuck you Jess?"

He stilled and she squeezed her eyes closed, desperate to feel him fill her. Desperate for release.

"Hard. I need you to fuck me hard Gabriel. Please."

"I can't seem to get enough of you," he told her, and then he slammed into her. And all the maddening fire that she associated with him exploded in her once again.

As his clever fingers moved across her clitoris, she could already feel herself starting to come apart. "Oh god." She whimpered. She was swiftly spinning out of control. Gabriel seemed to have moved from zero to a hundred in a matter of seconds and it was overwhelming.

"My name," he ordered, "say it." He punctuated every word with a thrust.

"Gabriel." She was hardly able to form the syllables.

With his free hand, he twisted her hair into his fist and forced her head back. "Again, louder."

And as she cried his name for a second time, she hurtled over the edge. It was a

climax so intense, her knees buckled, she saw stars on the edge of her vision, she began to shake, and still he didn't let up. He cupped his hand over her mound, and holding her against, fucked her until she was a quivering, trembling mess.

He roared her name right back at her when he emptied himself inside her, and for a long moment they stood, Jess still braced against Gabriel's chest, the jets of water beating against them, the steam surrounding them.

*

Jess was late. There was nothing to be done about it. She'd texted Sarah to let her know and now all she could do was sit on the tube and wait. For once, she welcomed the sterile anonymity of the London Underground. She welcomed the opportunity to lose herself in her thoughts in the crowded solitude.

He had asked her to move in with him. At first she had discarded it as a flippant remark but he hadn't just raised it once, but two or three times. He'd paused their love making, to mention it, catching her off guard. She'd asked him why he wanted her to move in, but she still didn't understand his reasoning.

She replayed the conversation in her head over and over and it seemed he didn't want to live with her because he liked being around her, but because he wanted sex on tap. She didn't understand it, it seemed like such an extreme thing to do for sex. Incredible sex, it must be said, but sex all the same.

"Don't overthink it," he'd said, but how could she not? Who asks someone to move in with them mere weeks after meeting them?

Only someone as suffocating, as demanding, as controlling as Gabriel.

But there was something about him. He made her feel alive, cherished, safe. And God, the sex. She'd never experienced anything remotely like it. Her stomach clenched at the mere thought of it as a predictable surge of arousal whipped through her. Her face heated at the very thought of it. She clenched her fists and pressed her thighs together, glanced around the carriage nervously, surely everyone could read her thoughts on her face. But no, the other passengers, as was ever the case on the tube, appeared to be completely lost in their own worlds.

This was all about sex for Gabriel and nothing more. She mustn't forget that. But it was hard. The way he made her feel, when he touched her. At a time in her life when she was making a lot of sacrifices and giving a lot of herself, it was hard not to read too much into this thing. To become too attached to an idea she was creating in her head.

His touch was the problem. His touch had made her forget herself. He could so easily swallow her up if she let him. She could so easily become utterly inthralled to him, utterly enchanted by him.

Who was she kidding? As if she wasn't already.

It was all academic anyway, she thought as the escalator carried her back up to the outside world. She didn't care what the consultant said. Or the dark brooding man, who made her feel things she didn't care to admit to feeling in the cold light of day. Gran needed her for a while longer yet.

*

Lou wandered in and sat on the edge of David's temporary work station next to Jess. "We've done it, I've submitted the proposal."

Jess looked up from her screen. "Really?"

"Yup," Lou nodded, with the biggest grin Jess had ever seen on her face.

David leapt to his feet and clapped his hands together. "We have to celebrate. Let's go to that bar on the corner after work."

"The Eagle, yes brilliant idea!" Lou rounded on Jess. "You're coming right? You have to come."

"Jess, you will come?" David asked earnestly.

Jess grimaced. "I need to get home for Joanie." It was one of those poncey wine bars where nothing costs less than £8.

David turned on his 100 watt smile and took her hand. "Oh do come darling, just for one, I'm buying."

She laughed, covering her mouth with her free hand. David could be so disarmingly charming.

And he knew he nearly had her. "Oh come on, live a little."

"You never come to The Eagle," Lauren added

"I do."

"Not for ages, come!"

Suddenly, a door slammed and Gabriel was storming out of his office towards them, his face like thunder. Gabriel was never far from the front of Jess' mind. Usually she was constantly aware of his presence, whether or not he was in his office, but carried along in all the excitement, she'd forgotten him, in that moment.

He barked an order at her, and slunk away.

He was gone before she had even processed the words. For a fleeting moment, she just had a sense of the rage beneath them and all the furious heat of their delivery.

Then they sunk in. "Get back to work. You're not efficient enough to slack."

And they had been directed at her. No one else. Her.

"Why are his knickers in such a twist?" Lauren said after him.

"You okay Jess?" Lou asked, resting a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm fine," she said. But she wasn't fine. Her throat was tight, her eyes were prickling. She stood up and walked from the room.

She knew she was beginning to grow attached to him, but still, his behaviour hurt far more than she'd imagined it would. She'd almost reached the loos, when David caught up with her, and before she knew it, he'd pulled her into his warm embrace and she was sobbing.

"Come on, let's get out of here," he said.

"I can't, you know I can't." If it wasn't already bad enough.

"You can. I'm pulling rank. We're going to have a work meeting in Costa, we need a change of scenery to hash out the budget."

"The budget? I thought Lou submitted it as part of the proposal."

"She did, but they always query the budget."

"Okay," she said through a bleary smile. "I'll just grab my coat."

*

As she slid back into the office, Jess was certain she could feel Gabriel's stare. She resisted the urge to look over check; instead she grabbed her coat and her phone and walked straight back out. Fuck him.

They didn't speak again until they were sitting face to face in Costa, listening to Mariah Carey crooning All I Want for Christmas. Jess was cupping a gingerbread latte David had insisted on ordering for her -- it was surprisingly nice.

"You're sleeping with him, aren't you?"

She nodded, certain her face resembled a beetroot, not trusting herself to speak.

"Since when?"

She broke eye contact, looking down at her drink instead. "I think he's the reason I'm working here, I applied for the junior styling role. I didn't get it, but they offered me this instead. He wasn't in the office for the first few days I worked here, and then he came back." She was talking in a rush, it was such a relief to finally be telling someone. "And then we..." she faltered. "We just have sex really."

"I thought there was something going on between you, but then I decided there couldn't possibly be, because you would have told me."

"I'm sorry David, I just... it feels so inappropriate, I didn't want to say anything."

"Well, I would."

"Would what?"

"Do him."

"David!" She clasped her hands over her mouth.

"I would, he's gorgeous, moody but bloody gorgeous. God! What does he look like in the buff?"

She looked down at her hands again. "Fine, he looks fine," she mumbled

"I can't believe you didn't tell me sooner, I tell you everything." He paused. "Although to be fair, none of it is as juicy as boning the boss."

"David!"

He rested a hand on hers. "I'm sorry, I'm going to be properly sympathetic now, I promise."

They sipped their drinks without talking for a while, and then Jess said, "It was directed at me wasn't it? He wasn't telling anyone else to get back to work?"

"He wasn't."

"He has no right."

"It was a proper dick move. Completely inappropriate."

"He's not even my manager."

"Has he ever done anything like that before?"

She shook her head.

They left quite soon after that, Jess was anxious not to be gone too long, and 'Do They Know it's Christmas?' came on; that was the proverbial straw.

David's eye roll was enough to stop a ship.

"Shall we get back?" Jess asked.

"How do the baristas do it? I could not listen to this all day."

"It's not even December yet."

When they got back to their floor she was scared Gabriel would see them coming back together, but he wasn't there.

She went to the bar after work, on principle. Called her gran to let her know she'd be back later than normal. Joanie was delighted to learn that Jess was "out having fun."

*

Gabriel quietly fumed as they all left together. He wasn't certain, but he thought he'd seen David grab her hand as they walked out the door. A completely inappropriate way to behave in a work environment.

He didn't like to admit to himself that driving past The Eagle wasn't the most direct route home. When the lights turned red at the junction outside the bar, he was able to see her in the window, sitting with Lou and Maddie. As he watched, David and Lauren arrived with drinks. David slid in to sit beside Jess and threw his arm over the back of her chair. He said something and Jess's eyes lit up and she covered her mouth with her hand. A mannerism that was so familiar to Gabriel it was almost painful. The sound of her laughter didn't travel through the glass, but he could hear it in his head all the same.

His grip tightened on the steering wheel. He squeezed his eyes closed and breathed. He wanted to pull over and march into the bar and drag her out of there and home with him, where she belonged. A beep from the car behind him pulled him out of himself and back into the moment. The lights had changed. He released a frustrated sigh and pulled forward. He wasn't going to chase her. He wasn't. Instead he drove home, fuming.