Coming To An Agreement

I rang Hope on Sunday night and swallowed my frustration over the fatigue I heard in her voice, which I thought was pretty restrained of me. And then I didn’t see her on Monday, and I didn’t see her on Tuesday, either. Until I did.

I was walking into O’Doul’s, the Irish bar in the lobby of the building next door to the office, with Vanessa and Vivienne Farnell when it happened. Because there, sitting in a back corner, was Hope. And some bloke.

No, not some bloke. A bloke of about her own age, every inch the perfectly groomed metrosexual, and every bit focused on her. I stopped in my tracks as she put her elbow on the table, shoved a hand into her hair and laughed, then gave him a smack on the arm, exactly as she’d done with me on the roof. As he laughed back at her, every intention perfectly clear.

I forgot all about Vanessa and Vivienne. I was headed straight over to that table, and I could almost hear the click when Hope noticed me. Her eyes widened over the wine glass she’d lifted to her lips, and she was setting it down again without drinking. Looking flustered, as she bloody well might. 

“Hemi.” Her hand went straight to the hair that had been mussed up during her little exhibition, began smoothing over it as if that would make me forget what I’d seen. “I mean—” She shot a look at the bloke. “Mr. Te Mana.”

The bloke was standing now. “Hello,” he said. “Uh—I’m Nathan Forrest.”

I finally looked at him. I didn’t grab him, which took some major self-control. “Excuse us.” 

“What? Oh. Uh—I’ll just—”

I didn’t listen to the rest of it. He was gone, that was all I cared about. And I was telling Hope, “Let’s go. Now.”

“What are you doing?” She was standing up now as well. 

“No,” I said. “What are you doing?”

She took a breath, and to my fury, she was looking narky now. “I’m having a glass of wine with my coworker.”

 Her eyes widened, slid to the side, and I glanced over, saw Vivienne and Vanessa, said, “One moment, please,” and turned back to Hope. “You’re leaving.”

“No.” 

“No? No?” 

“I mean it, Hemi. No. So—so not all right.” 

Her breasts were rising and falling under that turquoise blouse and cutaway gray sweater. It was the same outfit she’d been wearing when she’d slapped my face. The same outfit that had had me staring at her in exactly the way the bloke had been staring just now.

It seemed she could tell what I was feeling, because she said it again. “No. Not here. Call me later. You’ve got this all wrong. But…” Her gaze shifted again to our audience. “We can’t do it now.” 

She sat down, picked up her wine glass, and swallowed a mouthful, though I could see her hand was shaking. And there was nothing I could do short of dragging her out by the arm, which was what I wanted to do. Never mind the fool I’d look, though—it was what Hope would do if I tried that was stopping me. So I left her there. I saw the bloke, who’d been loitering around the bar, drifting back to the table. And I sat down with Vanessa and Vivienne all the same.

“Sorry,” I said, trying to yank myself back under control again. “A personnel issue. Where were we?”

“I think,” Vanessa said, “you were about to buy us a drink. And let me just say...” She exchanged a glance with her sister. “I didn’t think that’s what it was called.” 

“Does this mean our threesome’s off?” Vivienne, the outrageous one, drawled.

“Business,” Vanessa said, frowning at her sister. 

“Oh, honey,” Vivienne said, “I’m all about the business.”

Maybe the office would’ve been a better place for this meeting. I tried not to turn my head, and I didn’t succeed a bit. I saw Hope standing up, shrugging into her coat, saying something to the fella, and leaving the bar. And I stood up myself.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ll ring you tomorrow. Something urgent has come up, I’m afraid.”

“I knew it,” Vivienne sighed, but I barely heard her. I was already gone.

I could have ignored him. I could have sat there with Nathan and had another glass of wine. Except that I didn’t want to play games, and I didn’t want to talk to Nathan. I just wanted to go home.

“Oh-kay,” Nathan said when he’d sat down again. “Want to explain that? Since when do you call Hemi Te Mana ‘Hemi’? You two pals, or what?”

“No.” I looked down at my wine, finished off my glass, and tried not to grimace at the taste. “Of course not. It’s because I went to Paris, that’s all. I met him there. I mean, of course I knew who he was, but now he knows who I am, too. He had something he’d forgotten to tell me, that’s all.” I was babbling, so I shut up.

“Right,” he said slowly. “See, if I didn’t know better, I’d have said he was jealous.”

“Jealous?” I laughed in what was supposed to be a casual way. “Of what?”

“Well, of me, that’s what I’d call that. Like I had benefits, and he wanted them. Or like he had them, and was worried that I wanted them. One or the other. I mean, if I didn’t know better, of course. But of course you wouldn’t be sleeping with the CEO without telling me. After I was so nice about you being picked to go to Paris and me being left behind.” 

He’d lifted his glass, but now he set it down, and his brown eyes had widened. “Oh. That’s totally why. You are such a little…” He was laughing. “You’re kidding. No wonder I never got benefits.”

I stood up and grabbed my purse and coat. “No. You never got benefits because I don’t do that. And I have to go.”

“Hey.” He was standing too now. “Come on. You can tell me. We’re friends. Share.”

“No,” I said, hardly knowing what I was saying. “I can’t. I have to go. Oh.” I fumbled in my purse for my wallet, pulled out a ten, and tossed it on the table. “See you tomorrow.”

I didn’t lie, and I didn’t sneak around. But I was doing both things, and none of this was all right. And I had to go. 

She hadn’t made it a block before I caught up to her. I was grabbing her arm, exactly like in Paris. And she was whirling to face me in exactly the same way, too. Not one bit ashamed of herself.

“Don’t,” she told me, and if I’d ever thought Hope would be sweet and compliant, I’d been dead wrong. “Don’t you dare wreck everything we’ve got, making me think you’re some kind of jealous stalker who’s going to tell me I can’t have friends!”

She actually had me stepping back a pace. I didn’t do that, so I stepped forward again. “You won’t spend any time with me during the week, but you go out with somebody else? And you expect me to be all right with that?”

“If you’d given me thirty seconds before you leaped to conclusions, I’d have introduced you. I’d have told you that Nathan’s my coworker. That he’s helped me out with the job, and Martine, and…and everything. That he’s my best friend at your company, and he’s made it so much better, and you’re…you’re…” 

Her eyes were shining as if she was about to cry, except that Hope hated to cry. I couldn’t have been wrong. I knew what I’d seen. Didn’t I? 

“Hope.” My hand was still on her arm, not grabbing anymore, just holding her, and she wasn’t trying to get away. 

“Don’t you see?” She’d stepped closer, not caring that we were in the middle of the sidewalk, three doors down from the office. She put both hands on my forearms, the same way she had in the hotel room, and how was I meant to stand up against that? “If you don’t trust me, if I don’t trust you, it doesn’t work. If you do this, I’ll...I’ll have to leave, Hemi. And I don’t want to leave.” 

I started to speak, but I couldn’t think of what to say. I took a deep breath and started again. “Let’s go upstairs. To my office. I need to talk to you.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I need to go home. Karen. I was just taking half an hour to catch Nathan up and relax a little. That was all. You could have just asked, Hemi. I’d have told you.”

No. She wasn’t going home. We were going to work this out. “Charles will drive you home. It’ll take twenty minutes. If you’re worried, ring Karen now. I won’t get you home any later.”

She wavered, and I saw it. 

“Please,” I said, then wished the word unsaid. I didn’t beg.

But she was turning, walking back into the building with me, getting into the elevator and letting me punch the button for 51, exactly the way it had been on the day of her interview. Still looking so upset, and today, I wasn’t going to stand next to her, because all at once, I couldn’t. 

It started out as a touch. I had my hand on her face, and when she turned into me and looked up at me with those big eyes, something snapped. 

When I grabbed her, she squeaked. I was reaching under her to pull her off her feet, backing her into the wall, taking her mouth, and one of her hands was in my hair.

My mouth dragged over her cheek, closed on her neck. I bit hard, and she gasped. I was grinding into her now, and she was whimpering. “Hemi…”

A ding, the brushed-steel doors whispering open, and I was stepping out of the elevator with her wrapped around me, headed for my office. And that was when it struck me. 

Had she actually said yes? Had I even given her the chance?

“Wait.” I set her on her feet again, got a hand around her elbow when she stumbled, and held her up. “Wait. Tell me you want this. Or tell me if you don’t.”

Hemi wasn’t moving. Why wasn’t he moving? What he said took a second to register. 

“Please,” I said.

“Please what?” His eyes were burning me up, and he still had a hand on my elbow, but that was all.

“Please,” I said again. “Show me. Tell me.” I couldn’t say it. “Please.”

It was enough. He had my hand, was leading me down the hallway so fast that I nearly had to run to keep up. And then he was shoving his keycard into the slot by the tall doors that led into his office and pulling me through. 

It was dark in there, the only light coming from the windows of offices across the street, but he didn’t turn on the lights. Instead, he lifted me again, and my legs went around his waist exactly as they had before. His mouth closed over mine, hard and ruthless, and he was moving, holding me, kissing me all the way across that expanse of carpet to his desk. He was setting me down on it, was pulling off my coat and tossing it to the floor, and then his hand was yanking my blouse out of the waistband of my skirt, reaching under it, flicking the center closure on my bra, and I was gasping.

“Hemi...”

I should be saying something else. I should be doing something. But I couldn’t, because he was pushing me back onto the desk, his hand under my head as I went down, then pulling my hips to the edge. 

“Stay there,” he commanded. “Like that.”

What? He was stepping back, and I rose on my elbows, but he put a hand on my shoulder and pressed me back down. “No. Stay there. I mean it.”

Oh, my God. He was going to do me on his desk, and he was leaving me lying here to think about it. My legs dangled over the edge, because I wasn’t nearly tall enough to reach the floor, the wood surface was hard underneath me, and I was trembling. Desire, anticipation, anxiety—all of them combining, making me shake.

I heard the click, blinked against the sudden onslaught of light from the desk lamp. He was opening drawers, grabbing something from his chair, coming back around again.

“The light—” I said.

“Oh, no. The light stays on. I’m watching this.” He dropped something by my side, was lifting my hips in both hands, reaching for a foam wedge and shoving it under my bottom so I was raised at an angle, tilted for him. And, yes. I was lying on his back support. 

“This.” His voice was all dark satisfaction. He had hold of the hem of my pencil skirt, was pulling it up, raising my hips again, then yanking the skirt all the way around my waist. And then he had a hand on either thigh and was pulling them apart.

“Oh.” A weak protest, and I was trying to close them, and he wasn’t letting me. Because he’d come to stand between them now, was pulling my sweater and blouse all the way up to my shoulders, brushing the cups of my bra aside, and his hands were on my breasts, his thumbs flicking over the nipples, every touch sending another pulse of arousal to my center, to where he was grinding into me.

When he let go, I arched my back and moaned. 

“Yeh,” he said, his voice low. Rough. “That’s it. That’s what you do for me.” He had both hands around the band of my thong, was pulling it down my legs, over my heels, and it was gone. 

He kept one hand on the top of my thigh, holding me open for him, and his other hand was covering me, stroking me in exactly the way that worked best, hard and fast, and I was already jerking against him, and totally unable to keep quiet.

When he shoved two fingers inside me, began to thrust even as his thumb continued to move, I was past moaning. I was whimpering. My hands were sliding over the smooth surface of the desk, scrabbling for purchase, then reaching behind me in desperation, grabbing for the edge and holding on. 

“Hemi.” It was a sob, and a plea. His hand was gone, and I bucked, needing him so much. In the next moment, he took both my hips in hard hands and shoved home, and the force of my answering cry startled me.

There was nothing gentle about it. It was fast, and it was hard. I was holding tight overhead, gripping the edge of the desk, trying to get closer but unable to move, because it was all Hemi. His rasping breath filled my ears, and I was climbing. Climbing. 

And when he shoved a hand between my legs, began to stroke, I was there. The wave slammed into me hard, and I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I cried out, long and loud. 

“Shit,” I heard on a gasp of his own. I was still spasming around him, but he was pulling out, leaving me.

“No.” I let go of the desk and tried to reach for him, but he had my hips in his hands again, was pulling me off the hard surface, taking me down to the carpeted floor with him.

“Hands and knees,” he told me. “Right now.”

Oh, God. I scrambled up onto them, my arms trembling, and he’d shoved my skirt high again, all the way to my waist. 

He buried himself inside me in a single thrust, and I nearly screamed again. The angle had him hitting a spot that felt...that felt...I didn’t have words for it, because I was about to lose my mind. I was moaning out his name, and he was plunging hard, going so deep, and my hands couldn’t hold me up anymore. My elbows were on the floor, my face pressed into my hands, the rasp of his breath competing with my sobbing cries. One of his hands went to the back of my neck, shoved me down harder, held me there.

It was too much. I came apart. I was keening, spasming around him as he filled me, and he was swearing, moving faster, going even deeper. Filling me all the way, until he was shaking, jerking against me, groaning. Gone.