In the supply closet at work. With her boss. Who stole her job.

Ah, hell, what was she doing?

No stray thought, not even one as strong as job stealer, made her break away. Instead, she slid her body around so that her breasts pushed against his muscled chest, her hands sliding down his waist, feeling the taut skin under clothes she wanted to rip off. Her own clothes were a bother, too, as her breasts swelled over the cups of her bra, her nipples in agony as they brushed against the silk, her body wanting to be naked and licked and laved and touched and driven into.

His response wasn't measured, either, the heat building so fast she was close to stripping off her panties and hoping he would lift her up, thrust into her and fuck her against the back wall, their pounding muffled by cinder block, her screams mitigated by biting his shoulder.

Alas, it was Matt who had to come to his senses first, because her mind was cotton candy and she was ready to be stuffed in his mouth one handful at a time, turned to liquid sugar by his tongue.

“Oh, Lydia, I can't,” he groaned. “We can't.” Spitting out the word, he was obviously torn, and she struggled against her devilish ability to make him kiss her again. How earnest he sounded, how conflicted, a command to his voice even as he struggled within.

Trusting him wouldn't be hard, if she just let herself tip over from guarded and worried and territorial to, well...free. Free to feel what she felt, touch what she wanted, invite what she needed, and protect what needed to be saved. Inhaling his scent, she found that same, steady mixture of musk and soap and now an aroma of danger, but not the kind that hurts.

Quite the opposite.

“I know,” she answered, daring to brush one hand against his tight package, the simplest of surveys to see if what she wanted was what she expected. Bigger and thicker than what her hand sought, deliciously hard and ready. Even the quick touch made him groan, his eyes going unfocused and his arms tightening about her, one hand loosening to grab her wrist as she turned bold, ready to stroke.

“If you do that again, it won't be your hand touching me. It will be me taking you, legs wide open, panties ripped off and dangling from the light fixture, watching you as I make you come through gritted teeth, the only regret that you couldn't scream my name openly and with abandon,” he growled. Growled! Voice low and graveling, turning her insides to red wetness. Take me, take me! she thought.

“Will this be in my performance review?” she whispered.

His mouth ripped into hers, tongue driven to claim and own, hands hot and rough against her breasts, searching to wrap and encompass and clinch as much of her as possible. Her hands were up to the challenge, pulling at his tucked-in shirt, desperate for the touch of his hot skin, fingers fascinated by the grooves in his abs, the muscles scalloped and hand-carved, her hand traveling down to something much more demanding –

Beep! Beep! Beep! A piercing sound throbbed the air. What the hell?

“What is that?” he shouted, standing suddenly, his stance one of defense and protectiveness. The supply closet wasn't much bigger than a dorm room or a tiny bedroom, and there weren't any electronics in here.

Lydia stood, smoothing her hair, wondering if her lips looked as raw and swollen as they felt. “Fire alarm.”

“Fire?” His eyes went wild, stepping closer to her, protective and worried.

“What day is it?”

“Friday.”

“Then it must be 4 p.m. The building does a test on the first Friday of the month, and today is August 1.”

Without a word, she looked at him, a bit woozy and so shocked by her own easy move into that singular kiss that she felt like she wasn't really Lydia.

And then she opened the door, took a deep breath, and left.

Her words were so programmed, so automatic, so administrative that he wanted to snatch her out of here, carry her somewhere so they could recapture what they'd had seconds ago, his hands about to explore her most intimate places, his tongue done with her mouth and ready to seek other pleasures, other tastes.

Swallowed by the crowd of office workers all flocking to the staircases, she disappeared into nothingness, leaving him throbbing and craven. He had instituted the monthly fire tests, years ago, shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Required by law a few years after he'd added them, the first monthly test took place in the old headquarters, four buildings ago, when he'd had what – 400? – employees, an earlier incarnation of Bournham Industries that bridged his dad's tiny company and the giant behemoth Mike had created in dizzying time.

Some part of his brain needed this reflection to calm down, move away from the scent of her, her soft body, how she took those little gasps as his hands had brushed against her –

“Mmmmmm - att! You probably didn't know what to do, huh? First time.” Jerry, one of the custodians, pointed him toward the staircase that hugged the building's west corner. “Fire alarm virgin!” he barked, then winked, laughing. In his fifties, stooped, bald, but with a friendly smile that made it easier to ignore his missing eye, Jerry had been with the company since his father owned it, and Mike understood the stutter in calling out his name.

He'd nearly outed him. A handful of employees were in on the joke, mostly the core guys from his dad's company, people who had been with Bournham Industries for the past thirty-odd years. Loyalty trumped all – even in Mike, when making high-level business deals – and for as reluctant as he'd been to tell his dad's old pros what he was doing, it had been for the best.

Jerry's words felt like fingernails on a chalkboard right now, though, because “virgin” was to Mike as “intelligent” was to Snooki.

Lydia had turned him into a raging hormone wearing dyed hair and green contacts.

As he joined the crowd and made his slow descent to the street level, he was grateful for the flights of steps, for his erection faded in time, replaced with a hollow, gnawing need for something he couldn't have.

Chapter Five

“You kissed him? You kissed your boss the first week he's there? In a supply closet?” Krysta grabbed Lydia's shoulder, nearly tipping the spoon out of her hand and splattering Rocky Road ice cream all over Lydia's pants. “Who are you and what have you done with the real Lydia?”

“I know!” Lydia wailed, shoving a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth to cut off her own sound. The cold blast of thick, creamy chocolate made her close her eyes and groan as her lips met over the spoon, her tongue laving the sweet, luscious treat, her mind floating to hot, warm, delicious treats on Matt's body that she might –

“You don't kiss guys on the first date! In fact, you have ranted since our freshman year of college about male hegemony, sexual politics, and how gender discrimination is a worse evil than, than – than even not composting!“

Lydia laughed silently, her mouth busy with the flavor and slow melt of the pool of chocolate delight. Ice cream was no substitute for his mouth. Given that his lips weren't an option right now, she swallowed and shoveled another spoonful in, trying to figure out what to say as Krysta ranted on.

“Lydia, you're going to lose your job if you keep this up. Someone at Bournham already gave away the job you wanted – now you're clinging to the one you have.” That made Lydia stop short. Krysta wasn't the practical one. Lydia was. The role reversal made a small pain form behind her right eye. Oh, great. She needed a migraine like she needed to be fired.

“I won't lose my job. It was just a harmless, casual,” she inhaled deeply, nearly swooning with the tactile memory of his hands on her waist, how they roamed down to her hips and then brushed up against the bottoms of her breasts, the exploration a –

She looked up to find Krysta tapping her foot. “You can't even finish sentences, now. This from the woman who wrote a 115-page master's thesis on gender politics in the Information Age.”

Ouch.

This is different, she nearly said, her internal editor scrambling to stop her. Every woman said that. Every single one, always at the beginning of an affair. Matt wasn't married – at least, he didn't wear a ring – so it wasn't really an affair. It was one kiss. Just one.

“It was just a kiss!” Lydia retorted, her face flushing furiously.

“Is he married, Lyd?” Krysta asked softly, alarm coloring her features, her expression so prudish Lydia would have laughed if she weren't the potential transgressor and home wrecker in this conversation.

“He doesn't wear a ring.”

“That doesn't mean jackall, and you know it.”

“You're right.” Lydia threw the now-empty pint container in the trash and tossed the spoon in the sink. She threw up her hands. “I don't know anything. Here's what I do know: I came to work today like any other day. I sat in the parking lot reading Fifty Shades of Grey to kill time because the commute was faster than usual. Some guy I had never met insisted I give up my parking spot and oh, yeah, by the way, he's my new boss – hired into a job Bournham Industries never advertised, and one I've been pushing to get for nearly two years.”

She huffed with indignation as she felt Krysta's attention shift from judgment and skepticism to deeper empathy. “Once the shock of that wore off, I got to make a fool of myself in front of Dave – again – and went and had myself a good cry in the closet, where Matt found me. Nice guy. He comforts me, and then puts the moves on me, kissing me.” Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, willing away the memory of his hands on her, how his fingers dipped under her shirt to find flesh, his caress burned into her.

“He took advantage of you!” Krysta shifted her hands to her hips, chin jutted out, back on Lydia's side. She didn't correct her; there was no taking advantage. Lydia was an all-too-willing partner in that kiss, a fact she had to acknowledge as she felt herself get wet just from thinking about how his mouth had simply taken her, hands under her skirt, shifting aside her panties and exploring in the –

“Uh, no!” she choked out, shaking her head. God, would these images ever go away? “It was just one kiss!” she bleated, her mind on some sputtering loop. Krysta eyed her warily and reached for the coffee pot.

“We need one more cup. Decaf?”

“I'll stop drinking coffee the day I have to have decaf. We're not that old!” Both women laughed as Lydia tamped down the full-blown arousal that just this conversation had recharged. A quick look at the stove clock told her that in eleven hours and thirteen minutes she would see Matt again.

“Seriously, Lyd. What are you going to do about this? Student loans don't pay themselves. You have so many.” As she shook three level scoops of grounds into the basket, Krysta rolled her eyes. “That $800 a month loan doesn't pay for itself.”

A thin thread of dread began to tug at her inside, unraveling stitch by stitch as the whole cloth of her life stretched out, tight and unwinding. Oh. My. God. Krysta was right. Not just right – dead right. What in the everloving hell had she been thinking? Throwing away six years of college and grad school, slogging for two years as a corporate zombie for a chance to be Director of Social Media and work her way up – and she impulsively, impetuously nearly threw it away for one good tussle in the supply closet with her boss?