Chapter 10
Amy had no idea kissing could be this incredible. Nor did she realize how involved it was. She and Carlos had been at it for nearly an hour. She lay on top of him at the moment. He was tucked under her on the couch, his long body spread from one end to the other.
His head was propped up by a throw pillow, and he’d pulled her up so he could reach her neck. His tongue just barely touched her sensitized skin as his lips nibbled wetly from her jaw, down her neck. The top two buttons of her blouse had become mysteriously undone and he was able to travel all the way over to her shoulder, then back up again.
Amy let out another groan. It seemed to be all she could do. Her hands had managed to work open Carlos’ shirt and she ran them along his hard, rippling muscles. One of Carlos’ hands had found its way into her blouse and was caressing her left breast over her bra. She shivered as his thumb traveled slowly over the hard bead of her nipple.
His other hand was on her bottom. As many times as she’d seen a man touch his partner’s ass, whether it was a casual caress or an affectionate pat, she’d always assumed that it was not pleasurable for the woman. She was wrong. Not only did she like the way Carlos’ hand felt resting there, she also really liked the way the pressure was pushing her sex against his thigh, up and down in a steady rhythm.
Through the thin material of her panties and cotton skirt, her body was warm and wet as it was being constantly stimulated. She felt his thick bulge, hidden beneath a pair of slick dress pants, pressing against her stomach.
Amy moved against the thigh between her legs on instinct. Carlos tugged at her skirt until it was no longer creating a barrier between his leg and her purple silk panties, the ones she’d bought that morning thinking of him, thinking of this.
The same sensation she experienced nearly every night alone in her bed while fantasizing about Carlos began to rise in her. She turned her head so she could kiss him, taking his lips in hers and pushing harder against his leg.
Carlos encouraged her with his hands and mouth. He moved her against his thigh faster, harder. Strange noises escaped her throat, growing louder and more urgent. Finally, an orgasm rippled through her, from her head to her toes. She ripped her lips away from Carlos and cried out as he pulled her earlobe between his teeth.
“Jesus! Oh, Carlos! Oh!”
“That’s it, baby. That’s it,” he encouraged.
She shook hard, then collapsed onto him, her cheek resting on his bare chest. He tucked her head under his chin and hummed happily.
“Wow. You were right,” Amy breathed.
“Hmmm. About what?”
“I thought you were pulling my leg that a person could have an orgasm while still firmly at first base.”
“Nope. I wasn’t lying,” he said smugly.
She lifted her head to look at him. “But you didn’t…?”
He chuckled. “No. Thank goodness. That would have been embarrassing. Though it was definitely close.”
She cocked her head. “How come it’s okay for me to do it, but not you?”
He shrugged. “Some horrible gender double standard, I suppose.” He kissed her. “Don’t worry. I feel very much like a manly man right now. Let’s not spoil that.”
She smiled and kissed him again before putting her head on his chest and stroking her fingers through the nest of hair at its center. “When can I see you again?”
“You mean other than at lunch tomorrow?”
“Hmmm. Will lunch be weird?”
“No. Definitely not. Though it might be hard for us to hide what we’re doing if we make googly eyes at each other all the time at work.”
Amy folded her arms over his chest and propped her chin on them so she could look at him. “I suppose we should keep us a secret?”
Carlos ran a hand through her hair. “I was thinking that we should for now, just because it’s going to get complicated. I mean, we’ll have to talk to Everett and make sure he knows that it started after you worked for me. Plus we have to talk about how it might affect your mentoring program. And then there’s Kim. I don’t know. What do you think?”
Amy didn’t want to hide. She wanted to tell the whole freaking world that she and Carlos were having a thing, whatever the hell that thing was. But she understood his viewpoint as well.
“I agree. We should keep it on the down low. But, we need to settle something.”
“Hmmm?”
“When can I see you again?”
“I have something tomorrow night. How about Tuesday after work?”
“Okay. The sooner the better. Because I need to get my ass to second base.”
****
Amy was back in her old chair at her old cubicle, with her old boss. Ten new factory floor workers were slated to start work on Monday. The production office was on top of things and they were completely ready for the influx. Human resources, on the other hand, was scrambling.
To make matters worse, Harlan was on vacation and Emmy was out sick. That left just Rosie, who worked part-time, and Kimberley to get everything ready. And, of course, it was all beneath Kimberley. So she’d talked Kelly, the head of the production department, into ‘lending’ Amy back for the day.
It was turning out to be the longest Friday in the history of forever. And to make matters worse, she’d had to work through her usual lunchtime. So, when she finally got away from her desk for a quick bite around one-thirty she texted Carlos to see if he could meet up with her in the cafeteria. But he was in a meeting with Julia.
The cafeteria was quiet this late in the day. Other than Amy, there were only a handful of people on late lunch or afternoon break. She grabbed a big salad, fruit cup, and iced tea before heading to her usual spot in the courtyard.
She tempered the loneliness of lunch without Carlos by checking her messages. Her family had become accustomed to not hearing from her during the day. After the initial freak out because she didn’t contact any of them all day and all night on Tuesday, she’d told them how she was spending her time. And with the exception of her Uncle Clint, they were all happy about it.
Unfortunately, while Tuesday had brought with it more heavy petting and another orgasm, Amy had not been able to talk Carlos into going to second base. She’d had an amazing time, but had gone home with desire still flashing through her.
The next two nights either she or Carlos had things to do, and now she was dying to spend some time alone with him. Amy looked at her watch. Just a little over three hours to go and the weekend would be here. Carlos had cleared his schedule, except for his nephew Andrew’s birthday party, and they were planning to spend it together. Second base was definitely in the cards.
After lunch, Amy headed back to the HR department, dragging her feet just a little. She only had an hour’s worth of work left, making up packets for the new people—copy, collate, and staple. The work was far more mundane than what she’d been doing over the past two and half months. And when it was done, she’d be left sitting there, answering the phone and scrolling through emails until five o’clock struck. To make matters worse, Rosie, done with her tasks, was gone, meaning that it was just Amy and Kimberly in the department.
As she rounded the corner that would bring her to the HR area of the rectangular floor plan, she spotted Carlos walking away from her cubie. That made her increase her pace. They met up near the window. The spot was still public, but out of earshot of anyone in the HR department or the neighboring Marketing department.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she cooed, proud of how good she was getting at flirting.
“I just got out of my meeting and I came to see if you were back yet, you know, since I had to walk by your desk on my way to the elevator anyway.”
“Hmmmm. Right.” She couldn’t repress the smile plastered to her lips.
Carlos glanced at his watch. “Not long now.”
“You going to leave work on time?” She raised an eyebrow. Carlos rarely left the office before six or seven.
“I am today.”
Amy glanced over Carlos’ shoulder and saw Kimberly standing in the door to her office, hip cocked, she leaned against the doorjamb. Kimberly’s arms were folded across her overly large chest, and she was staring right at them.
“I think we have an audience.”
Without turning to look, Carlos rolled his eyes. “I guess I’ll see you in a little bit. Good luck with the rest of your day.”
Carlos moved past Amy, and as he did he brushed against her arm. It was a tiny touch, but it was enough to carry her through the next few hours.
****
“So.” Kimberly rounded the corner and entered Amy’s cubicle. She sat on the edge of Amy’s desk, knocking the phone back and thoroughly invading her space. “Everything’s done?”
Amy wanted to say ‘duh.’ She’d dropped all the packets off to Kimberly just ten minutes ago. And with less than half an hour left of this torturous day, she was scrolling through her old emails and purging her inbox of the unneeded ones.
“All done,” Amy confirmed.
“Hmmm.” Kimberly ran a finger over Amy’s phone, her bright red fingernail pushing buttons as it went. “I saw you talking with Carlos earlier.”
And that statement right there explained what this little visit was really about. “Yeah. I mean, I worked with him for like two months.”
“How was that?”
Amy shrugged. “It was good.”
“I should warn you about him. I mean, as a friend.”
They were not friends, but of course, Amy wanted to hear this. “Yeah?”
“I’m sure he seemed nice when he was mentoring you. But he doesn’t stay that way.”
“No?”
“No,” Kimberly said forcefully. “He has a real problem with ambitious women. He likes women when they are under his thumb. Try to be his equal, try to climb the ladder, and he gets vicious.”
Amy didn’t believe that for a second, it didn’t mesh at all with everything she’d come to understand about him. She felt anger flare in her gut, but she kept her face carefully expressionless. “I’ll keep in that mind.”
Kimberly patted her on the shoulder. “Good luck.”
****
When the longest day in the history of forever was finally over, Amy drove home and changed into jeans and a light sweater that was a deep blue color YaYa swore brought out her eyes. Then she drove the short distance to Carlos’ condo.
By now the doorman, Jake, recognized her and he swiped his keycard to get the elevator to take her up to the top floor where there were just two units. She knocked on Carlos’ door and it swung open seconds later.
“You’re knocking?” he asked.
Before she could complete her shrug, Carlos scooped her out of the hallway and through the door. He pressed her back up against the wall as he pushed the door closed with his foot. “Don’t knock,” he said, kissing her gently.
She didn’t have time to get too carried away because he abandoned her and headed into the kitchen. Amy followed. She admired the way the T-shirt he wore clung to his muscular chest and back and exposed his biceps. She reveled in the way his cotton shorts fitted against his perfect ass. His comfy home clothes, she’d come to discover, were sexy in their own way, different from that of his well-fitting suits, but no less mouth-watering.
Carlos turned his attention to a glass dish sitting on the counter. He poured a red sauce over the food in the dish while Amy jumped up and sat on the island opposite him.
He pushed a button on the oven and turned to her. His eyes sparkled as he took her in, perched on his counter. “What do you want to drink?”
“Whatever you’re having.”
Carlos turned and reached into the refrigerator. He pulled out two beers and popped them open. He set his down beside her and stepped between her legs, handing her the other one.
Amy took a long swig. “So, I had an interesting conversation with your ex-wife today.”
“I bet. Was this after she saw us together?”
“It sure was.”
Carlos sipped his beer. Amy admired the way his neck looked as he tilted it back to drink. After he was done, his lips were wet. Amy watched them closely as he said, “Tell me.”
“She wanted to warn me about you.”
“I bet.”
“She said you don’t like powerful women.”
Carlos nearly choked. “Really?”
“She said you like to keep women under your feet. Wait…no. It was under your thumb.”
“Sure. That sounds like me.” Carlos grinned at her and ran his thumb, wet from the sweat on his beer bottle from her chin, down her throat, between her breasts, over her stomach, and down to the button on her jeans. From there it drifted lower, stopping at the very bottom of her pubic bone. That thumb was warm through the thick material of her jeans and it hung, on the precipice, taunting her. “I do want you under my thumb. Though in a different way.”
Amy’s breath was trapped in her throat. She stared at him, motionless. Then, as quickly as he’d taken her breath away, he was gone. He whirled around and turned his attention back to the dish he was making, sliding it into the oven.
By the time he turned back around, Amy could breathe again. “What are you cooking?” she asked, as if she wasn’t in the process of completely losing her mind.
“Chicken enchiladas. You’ll love ‘em.”
“Hmmm. So, I’m not that hungry right now. Maybe we should fool around?”
He leaned over and kissed her nose. “Nope. We have twenty-five minutes until dinner and I will need more than that for what I have planned. So, instead.” He pulled her off the counter and into his arms. “We’re going to wrap Andrew’s birthday gifts.”