He was apparently still angry at her for resisting him, because James took her hands, pulling them above her head and tying them to the desk with his silk tie. She felt his fingers play with her pink and suddenly stiff nipples, pulling on them as he gave a particularly sharp thrust. He leaned down, his own teeth pulling her lip free and nibbling on it instead, sliding his tongue inside her mouth, greedily drinking down her gasps.
Maura felt his feverish hands slide over her breasts, alternately squeezing them and pulling on the soft skin, using her globes as handles to pull her down on him. This shocked a gasp out of her before stubbornly burying her face in her shoulder and biting down, trying to keep anything else from escaping her mouth. Feeling his feral grin against her neck, Maura's hands gripped the tie binding them, trying to hold on to something to anchor her as James put her legs together and over one shoulder, allowing him deeper into her.
"You pretend you don't want this, darling? Then tell me. Tell me to stop and I will," his taunting halted as she tightened around him.
Maura pushed her hips up desperately, not sure if she was trying to lessen the depth of his penetration or encourage it. He took the option away by holding her thighs firmly against his chest with one arm, using the fingers of the other to stroke her clit gently, the lightest of touches that were just barely not enough to allow her to come.
He grinned down at her, "You're running out of time, pet." He sounded infuriatingly conversational, as if enthusiastically pounding into Maura's grasping channel required no effort at all. "If you want me to stop, tell me now. Such a shame to 'force you' into another orgasm."
"I hate you!" she hissed.
Moving faster still, James laughed at her. "I don't care," he whispered into her ear, and that sent them both over the edge. He collapsed on top of her, resting his head against Maura's soft breasts. Taking her legs off his broad shoulder, he wrapped them more comfortably around his waist. They lay in silence, the quiet office disturbed only by their breath returning to normal, in sync with each other. She was suddenly consumed with sadness, wishing this man really cared for her, that they weren't lying together in an office devoted to death and money. Their silence was disturbed by a sharp knock on the door.
"Mr. Pine," his secretary’s sullen voice sounded over his computer speaker, "Ms. Kingston and Mr. Fassell are looking for you, they've asked you to meet them in the Boardroom."
"Tell them I'll be there shortly," he replied and shut off the speaker again. James stood up, disengaging himself from her. He quickly untied Maura, rubbing her hands and fingers. To her extreme embarrassment, he pulled a square of linen from his jacket and wiped the slick from the two of them from her. His keen gaze looked up to see the flush creeping up her neck, and grinned at her wickedly, laughing out loud as she blushed even darker.
James helped her off his desk and set her clothes to rights. As he tried to look down enough to tie his wrinkled strand of silk again, she moved his hands away, smoothing the material and tying a tidy Windsor knot. For a moment, they stared at each other, both off-balance from the little moment of intimacy. Clenching her hands, Maura walked out after him, ignoring his secretary’s angry expression. Trying to veer off from him as the hall split in two directions, she was intercepted by Nicholas and a few other support people.
"They need us in the board room," he said carefully, aware that one of the Big Three was hovering just over his lab partner's shoulder. None of them were invited to sit when the meeting started, so Maura and Nicholas leaned against the back wall, trying to listen while attempting to be as invisible as possible.
"Tonight's meeting with the Saudis requires support staff back here," Kingston said, going through some papers. Rapidly assigning employees off the various responsibilities, he dismissed them from the room. "Holbrook and MacLaren, I'll need you ready to check bank accounts to make sure the numbers are correct."
James spoke, a hand idly scrolling through his iPad. "MacLaren's running a defense program tonight. Holbrook, you can handle this, correct?"
Nicholas nodded rapidly, glasses sliding down his nose. "Of course, it's a one-man job at the busiest of times."
Kingston shrugged, "You're both excused, then."
They both went for the door, walking briskly, not quite bolting, but close. With a spark in her chest, Maura realized James remembered tonight was her self-defense class. He'd actually excused her from a high-end transaction, just to let her fulfill a promise to her girls. Shoving down the sudden spurt of warmth, she followed Nicholas back to their office, a gentle trickle of liquid from their coupling on the desk beginning to edge down her thigh.
Chapter 8: Deja Vu All Over Again
In which Maura learns there are far more dangerous things than the attention from James.
Maura was wildly conflicted over the next day, alternately touched that James remembered something so small - to him - as her class, and then infuriated that he could seduce her so easily. In his office, no less- like she was just one of the Corporation's prostitutes. Sighing, she ran her hand through her already messy ponytail, trying to finish the latest security scan. Suddenly spotting an anomaly in the code, Maura paused the system and watched it. There was a ten-million-dollar payment from the Corporation to the Masoud Group.
Her brow wrinkled. But James was so furious when he'd had her dig up that transaction, now the Corporation was doing business? The standard company protocol for Jaguar Holdings was to simply destroy anyone who crossed them. Why were they all buddy-buddy with a syndicate who could make her boss that angry? Inputting a small echo file, Maura carefully backed out of the transaction, erasing any trail of an inquiry. But the echo file would continue to follow the transaction and alert her if anything new entered the system.
"What are you up to tonight?" Nicholas was finishing the last of his scan as he gathered up his backpack and jacket.
She carefully shrugged. "Eh. Not sure yet. But given this week? Probably an hour in my shower weeping softly, followed by a bottle of wine."
Laughing, he shook his head. "Won't you come out with us? C'mon, everyone's starting to think you don't like them." Maura's fingers stilled on the keyboard. Making enemies at a place like the Corporation was suicidal. But she'd promised the students from her class another night out dancing.
"Next time, I promise," she forced a smile. "I do miss pub night. Please let everyone know, won't you?"
"Yep,” he nodded. "Have a good weekend. If you get bored, call me and we'll hack Netflix and watch the new stuff they're not releasing till next month."
Laughing, Maura called after him, "It's twelve bucks a month, you git! You're so cheap!"
"It's the principle of the thing, MacLaren!" Holbrook's voice trailed away.
Poking through her dresses at home, Maura wondered what James was up to this evening. She hadn't seen him at work, the Big Three in a conference all morning about the Saudi meeting and something big simmering for tonight. Her brow furrowed as she went through her makeup, curling her hair and slipping on a pale green dress that matched her eyes, along with the only pair of high heels she owned. "Why was the Corporation doing business with Masoud?" There wasn't anything, really, that she could report to Kennedy or Yagura. But the transaction kept circling the back of her mind, an insistent little itch.
Maura deliberately picked a club in a funkier part of Manhattan for tonight, more industrial and underground. She wanted to make sure to avoid both her co-workers and maybe make it a tad more difficult for James to track her down. As she and her students entered the vast warehouse space, Maura couldn't help grinning at the thought of James Pine in his $3,000 bespoke suit in a place like this.
Her little group was ready to bravely venture out onto the floor before they’d finished the first round of drinks, and Maura beamed with pride. They were building back the confidence ripped from them by cruel hands. Trying to balance between keeping an eye on everyone and allowing herself that precious moment of invisibility within the music, she closed her eyes and smiled. It was going to be a wonderful night.
