Staking a Claim

"Jesus Christ, Mor!" She caressed my arms still linked over her front. "Let's recap, shall we? Wine, cheese board, back rubs, and two orgasms? Oh, and you listen to me when I rant about my work issues? I'd say you were a pretty neat girlfriend..."

"Well...today is Wednesday... so it's hump day..." she froze and smacked me on my arm.

"Never mind, I take it back. Go hide in a hole somewhere and take your double entendres and dad jokes someplace else!" I giggled in her ear and tickled her.

"You are so amazing, baby. How can I not worship you? Every day there's, like, a brighter glow and I can't look at you sometimes without my heart pounding."

"I'd say you were a cheeseball...but I feel the same way...I'm so happy I met you and you finally had the guts to kiss me." She hugged my forearms over her chest.

My jaw dropped.

"Excuse me?!" I looked at the side of her face to see her lip pull up and knew she was messing with me. "If there's anyone who held us back from ripping each other's clothes off, it was you!"

"I don't know...you took forever to put the moves on me...Remember that time I undressed in front of you when we were at a beach party? You almost broke your nose running out the door." She giggled while I harrumphed.

"I was trying to be a gentleman..."

She laughed. "I didn't want you to...not really."

"When was the first time you started thinking of me like that?"

She hummed, considering. "I guess I've always felt a little possessive of you and you didn't help at all. Giving me the most beautiful flowers, setting up crazy, elaborate 'platonic' dates, but when I knew what was happening, I think, was when you left with that floozy from the bar. I felt so pissed and I knew I wanted to be that for you, too. Then I kind of just stopped stopping myself...from thinking of you." She breathed out and I squished her to me.

I wracked my brain to figure out what she was talking about.

"Do you mean Joey?"

"Yes...fucking Jo-Anna..." her words dropped venom and she surprised me with the level of hostility she was able to summon.

"Joey was my girlfriend, you know...it's not like I just picked her up that day..." I was secretly smug at hearing about her jealous streak.

"I know...I had no right to hate her...but I did. Luckily you broke up with her in the next couple of weeks and I started to plan my seduction." She chirped like if we were talking about the weather.

"Excuse me? Your seduction?" I didn't remember this part of our early days at all.

"Yes, didn't you notice how many times I invited you to spend the night?"

"I thought that was as friends." I countered quickly.

"Friends don't cuddle on the couch in their underwear."

"Okay, I remember that! I asked you about them and you said boy shorts were technically not underwear."

"Of course I did! I was being subtle."

I shook my head, rethinking all our interactions during that time.

"The night I suggested body shots?" She pressed...wholly enjoying herself.

"I thought you were drunk."

"Nope! Stone cold sober. By that point, I needed you to touch me."

"Omigod, Suzie you could have been less subtle! I thought I was being a bad friend thinking of you like that!"

She giggled, ecstatic. Well, it was alright now that we'd been together this long but I thought back to the completely evil, delicious torture she'd subjected me to after I'd lusted for my best friend for years.

"Okay, fine! If you think you can tell the story better than I can, go ahead. Explain to me exactly what happened during that time." She laughed and drained the tub, wrapping herself in the fluffy white bathrobe. Once we were ensconced under our warm covers, she started back up.

"Okay! Once upon a time there was a studly young woman and her boss--"

"The boss was the most gorgeous badass woman in all the land!" I shoved my arm up dramatically to punctuate.

She laughed.

"Uh-huh...so, once upon a time..."

****************

"Hi!"

"Hello!" She was focused, looking at whatever email they'd sent her.

"You need the most recent numbers of the sweater sales?"

"Yes...they need at least til last year, please. Knit sweater products."

"Okay! I'll print for you."

"Thanks, Mor!"

"Sure!"

I cleaned up this stupid sheet to show the margin of profit. I felt good about myself as my fingers ran across the keys, fine-tuning the margin so it would print correctly. I was a little arrogant, and knew how to present the information to Suzie. Everyone found her super intimidating, but only I knew her as the sweet, scatterbrained, albeit-genius girl.

I swooped into her office to hand off the reports. That wasn't what her delicate hand was reaching for though. I pressed her evening chai latte into her warm palm as I continued to sweep past her desk, picking up a few papers and pens scattered around. Ah! The victims of her earlier phone rant. She was an angry little ball of fire, wasn't she?

I'd love to see where else she was a spitfire at--oh, the things I would do--

"Mor!" She shouted through the doorway. "You forgot style MG1700!"

"No, I didn't! That's not knit, that's fleece!" I shouted back.

"No! It's a knit..." I heard her nails clacking on her keyboard. I cocked my head to one side and waited with a smirk on my face.

There was silence and I heard the clink of her ceramic cup on her plate.

I grinned wider, knowing I was right.

It was just us two at the office. I'd negotiated three nights out of the week to work late for an obscene amount of overtime pay. I wanted a life and a fat bank account so this was a good compromise for the both of us.

I heard several swooshes of her email account as I imagined all the little emails being sent out into the universe for me to peruse on blind copy and at my leisure later. She eagerly expected me to give an incredibly biased commendation on each expression later. Each carefully crafted word and sentence was a weapon to make men beg to capitulate to her will, all the while thinking it was their idea.

I was waxing poetic about my hot boss again and realized how late it was. I started getting my things together and turned to find her leaning against the doorway, grinning at me.

"We got it!"

"No!" I shouted. My voice sounded off of the empty office walls,

"Yep! Signed, sealed, delivered!" She did a little dance and I side stepped a little.

"He's buying everything??" I cried.

"Every last piece of stupid slow-moving sweaters!"

"Woohoo!"

"Let's go celebrate!"

"Okay."

"Oh, but first, Mor, send the signed proforma to me and Walker, please? We need to start the terms immediately."

I should've known it was too good to be true. She zoomed back into her office to make a call and I pulled up an app to order us a delivery of Chinese food since it didn't look like we were leaving anytime soon. Oh well! I could certainly afford it now with overtime and a cut of the sale of these containers. I smiled as I ordered a bottle of plum wine, too.

----

"And done!" She stood behind me some time later, reading the email I'd just typed while sipping on her chilled wine.

"Woohoo!" She said quietly. The exhaustion of today was starting to weigh on her and I stood, stretching, to pack up for the night.

"Come on, I'll take you home."

"No, I still have to email a BOL to Charles and--"

"Tomorrow, love. It's been a long day..." The term of endearment slipped easily from my lips and, surprisingly, she didn't argue with me. She just collected her bag and stepped into the outstretched coat I was holding up.

She looked at the raindrops fall over her passenger window and I turned on quiet music to fill the empty space while I drove us.

"Thanks for driving me home..." she said sleepily. "Why don't you stay tonight?" I looked at her. My inner teenage boy started drooling.

"Not like that! You pig!" Her face colored as she smacked me. "Just so you don't have to drive all the way back to your apartment tonight."

"I don't know." I was starting to blur the lines between fantasy and reality with this amazing woman and I didn't know if I was a fool to keep trying. I wanted the lines messy and bent backwards.

"Come on! I know your OCD ass has an extra outfit in your car for tomorrow and...that way you can drive me in to work." I had to concede that this was all very reasonable and she swooshed out the door to walk up her garden steps, leaving me to follow behind her. I scooped my overnight bag from the trunk and ran up her steps, admiring the tan stone flowerbeds.

Walking through the front door, I heard her call from the kitchen. I weaved through the hallway with practiced ease. The amount of times I've picked her up for work and had just ended up making myself breakfast because she took so long, was laughable. She liked it when I cooked those days and she thanked me warmly.

She was struggling with a champagne bottle and I took pity on her. I moved behind her and placed my hands over hers to guide her movements. We twisted the little wire together and I put my thumb and middle finger firmly over the cork. Her hands moved over mine supposedly supporting me and she started shouting in anticipation.

"Ahh! Ah!"

"Suzie, we haven't popped it yet..."

"Ugh, okay! Okay! Go quick."

"That's what she said."

I couldn't help but tease her in retaliation for making me work ungodly hours. She could put up with a little flirting. I kept pulling at the cork and her screaming started back up again. I screwed up my face too as it started slipping out. The cork sounded off like a shot and I managed to keep it in my grip.

She shoved the bottle in my chest and sat down on the kitchen island, slipping off her shoes. I had a quick fantasy of her stockinged foot on my chest while I touched her legs.

My eyes found hers as I poured and wondered what she thought of my flirting, touching, and lingering gazes. I assumed it was flattering to her, being older than I was. I supposed she considered me harmless because I was a woman and, therefore, no real temptation. Maybe she just construed all of this as normal platonic affection...Whatever the case, these feelings and daydreams weren't getting better, they were worse and I had serious guilt over wanting to bend her over all the time.

"Cheers!" I shouted. I clinked my glass to hers and took a sip. Like butter, like smoky butter.

"Cheers! What should we toast to?"

"Us! Being an amazing team!"

"Starsky and Hutch!" She shouted.

"I am the Consiglieri to your Don!"

"Cheers!" She giggled, clinking with me.

"Let's toast to that fat commission!"

"Cheers to that! Remember you get 1.5%."

"Wait, you get 15%! I should be getting at least 2%!"

"No! I'm getting 11% because the sale was technically a day into the third quarter and doesn't count towards last quarter."

"Aw, shit."

"Yeah...Well...thems the breaks! Take the win, bambino." She affected a smoky voice and pretended to smoke a fat cigar.

"Yeah...but what if...hear me out...I get Walker to approve you for 15%? I want 3% then. Off the top."

"Okay fine! 2.5% IF you get 15%. Anything less is 1.5%."

"Deal." We shook on it and clinked our glasses. God, this was surprisingly hot and I didn't know why. I think the back and forth that came so easily between us, maybe. It was an instant connection that made us move naturally around each other. I looked in her eyes and found them dancing, too.

"I guess it's time to go to sleep, huh?" I prompted her since I couldn't take much more of this banter.

"I don't wanna! I'm having too much fun! Let's watch The Godfather!" She took me by the hand and grabbed the bottle, handing it to me and grabbed another one from the fridge. She led me to her bedroom and I'll admit I didn't have much experience in this particular room. She rooted her dresser for pajamas for me and I didn't have the heart to tell her I had some. She threw dark clothes at me and started to take off her dress. Hmm...maybe I've plied her with a little too much alcohol...she hadn't seemed unwilling though...I again took pity on her and went to unhook the top of her dress for her.

"Thanks." She whispered.

"Welcome." I took off my clothes and folded them neatly. I put on the long sleeve baseball tee and thick fleece sweatpants she gave me. All black. While I dressed, I looked at her. She peeled off her dress and hung it up in her closet. Her ridiculous green underwear was riding up both of her cheeks and my center throbbed. I almost toppled over, putting on my sweatpants and I felt properly stupid.

She turned around to smile at me and I had to focus so my gaze didn't fall down to her nipples, they were right there at my peripheral vision, clearly visible through the flimsy little tank top. She skipped over and pulled at the dark shirt at my front. "Oh, good! They fit! They'd belonged to my ex."

I don't know how I felt about that. She got under the covers and I floated nearby, unsure of what to do.

"Well?" She looked at me, leaning back on her elbows. Jesus, this woman was something else. I was constantly on a knife's edge and it was thrilling.

"You want me?..." I comically pointed at myself and turned around to see if there was anyone else. She brought her knees up and gripped them, smiling widely and inadvertently letting the sheet slide down to reveal her ass and thighs. "Yeah, sure!" I said immediately and jumped up to squeeze quickly under the covers, leaning back against the headboard and she brought the bottle of wine to the other side of my body, draping her arm casually on my belly.

"Tell Google to play the movie, please." She was muffled against my belly.

"Okay, Suzie...a few things..." I hedged and she hummed.

"First, is that all you're wearing to bed?" She snorted.

"I refuse to wear more, but wouldn't mind wearing less." She wiggled her hips against mine. My eyes closed as my brain exploded like fucking Chinese new years. I'm going to die. Then I'm going to hell. Then this whole nightmare is going to start all over again. I took a deep breath and plowed forward.

"Uh-huh...Secondly, are you comfortable there?"

"Incredibly!" She sighed and took a swig of the bottle of champagne. Handing it to me, I took a heavy swig too and handed it back.

"Excellent. Um, thirdly, when you said watch 'The Godfather' you meant I should watch it, while you slept on me?"

"I know every single scene and every line. Every trumpet and sax note. Do...not...test me, Mor." She punctuated the last few words with a poke to my side and I suddenly tasted sex in my mouth. I swallowed it up and complied. For once in our partnership, I conceded without a fight and I could already feel her relaxing against me.

"Hey Google, play The Godfather in the bedroom." A beep sounded and dramatic spotlights covered the four corners of the room while the lights dimmed to an opaque white. A white board came down from the ceiling to take up the whole wall opposite her bed and a projector started the film opposite us like a private little drive in. The sounds of the introduction were felt against my back and ass and I didn't know how I was going to keep my hands off her but as she tapped on my side and mouthed the lines to the movie against my belly, I realized maybe keeping my hands on her was alright. At least for tonight.

That was the first night we ever spent together. The first foray into what would be madness for me, a new world for her, and sweet delicious lust for both of us.

The next day, we woke up in each others arms and never spoke of it again. We kept having dinner together and spending weekends doing activities no one else would do with her, like rock climbing and shooting guns at a place. I was determined to be the best friend she had in the world and she was determined to make it as difficult as possible for me.

I just wanted to ravish her all the time. I loved serving her and helping her and her brain and her silliness but I was more than ready to take her in other ways too. I wanted to be the one she'd go to for release as well.

She'd think twice about wearing those tiny dresses and practically see-through underwear if she knew how often I would look up her skirt. And the barely there bras! If she leaned over me one more time, I'd grab her--

"Mor?" She dangled my own keys in front of me. "I asked if you were ready?"

"Yep! Yep!" I banished the intrusive sexy thoughts and packed everything in the car. Her laptop bag, an over-nighter, just in case it was another late night and she needed to crash...

I smiled as I hummed the engine to life. The treasured car of my dreams rumbled under me and I could almost feel Suzie's eye roll as I smoothed my hair in the rear view mirror.

"When you're done feeling yourself...I'd like to get to work."

"Hey, I'm not the one who insisted on her third helping of breakfast!" She'd made us late, dressing, and then some more at breakfast when she found me making crepes.

"Your crepes were good!" She said unapologetically.

"See! That's why my ego's gigantic!" I ran my hands across the steering wheel. She giggled.

"I'm just so damn good at everything!" I punctuated my statement with a tiny pelvic thrust and she giggled madly, clearly disagreeing at my statement.

"You're funny!"

"And I'm funny!" Once we arrived on site, she schooled her face into that polite mask of friendliness and positivity.

We walked through the front door with me holding her overnight bag and the front desk girl, Shaina, mouthed "What the fuck?" to me. I narrowed my eyebrows, not understanding, while we got into the elevator. Her eyes moved quickly between me and Suzie. Even as I opened my mouth wide in understanding, the doors of the elevator closed. I frowned to myself as I rushed to hang her clothes up while the coffee brewed.

Everyone here already knew how close we were. I'd picked her up before, sporadically, so it wasn't odd that we'd show up together.

I made her coffee quickly and pressed it into her outstretched hand. I sat down at my desk even as I gave a fake smile to Gina across the way.

I rang Shaina since she seemed the most straightforward.

"Gurrrrl!"

"Shaina! What's going on? Why are we social paraiahs today?"

"Oh, I think it's just you, boo. They'll think you're sleeping your way to the top, while they'll probably commend her for getting some hot butch action."

"What? What rumor is it this time?"

"Not a rumor, love. Undeniable facts from IT that you two spent the night together."

"Oh, shit. Why were they working that late??"

"So you did spend the night!" She squealed. I held the phone receiver away from my ear. "How was it?" She asked seductively.

"It wasn't...there wasn't any...is..." I said eloquently.

"Oh, no judgment love! I just hope the benefits outweigh the energy exPOUNDED...do you know what I mean?"

"Mor!" Suzie called from the inner sanctum.

"Gotta go!"

She made a whip cracking sound and I hung up on her.

"Yes? Hello?" She looked at me, unamused.

"I can feel the un-productivity moving like molasses out there. What's going on?"

"There seems to be a rumor that you and I spent the night together."

"But we did."

"Excuse me?"

"You said it was a rumor. Can't be a rumor if it's true." She sipped on her coffee.

"No, I mean they think we spent the night together!..." I rocked my hips awkwardly and she giggled.

She sighed at her computer as she clicked her mouse. "How childish and dull are people! Honestly." After a pause, where I didn't know if I was dismissed or not, she said, "Bring me Moises from IT." Ohh, crap. We're in for it now.