"For three hours? Your feet will ache in those sharp shoes." I gesture to her stilettos, completely impractical for wilderness travel. "Sit, Little Manager. Save your strength for the trust falls."
She hesitates, calculating odds and probabilities in that sharp mind of hers. Finally, she surrenders to logic.
She settles onto my lap, spine rigid, trying to minimize contact.
It doesn't work.
Every curve of her fits against me like she was crafted for this exact position. Her weight is nothing, delicate as a bird, but the warmth of her seeps through my cheap suit and her expensive blazer.
"This is just practical," she announces to no one in particular. "Space efficiency."
"Of course." I wrap one arm around her waist to steady her as the bus lurches forward. "Very practical."
She smells like coffee and that sharp perfume she wears. Expensive things. Corporate things. But underneath, buried beneath the polish and protocol, I catch something else. Something soft and warm and entirely Orla.
Her body gradually relaxes against mine as the miles pass. The binders slip lower. Her head tilts back until it rests against my shoulder.
"I can feel your heartbeat," she whispers, her voice barely audible above the rumble of the bus engine and the chatter of our colleagues.
"Strong. Like a war drum," I reply, keeping my voice low. The rhythm pounds against her back where she presses against me. Steady. Relentless. The beat of a warrior preparing for something far more interesting than spreadsheets.
"Like you ran up three flights of stairs," she corrects, that analytical edge creeping into her tone even now. Always measuring, always quantifying.
"Same thing," I tell her, because in this moment, with her warmth settling into me and her scent filling my lungs, my heart races with the same anticipation as charging into glorious battle.
She shifts, and the movement sends heat straight through me. Her breath catches. She felt it too.
"Thraka." My name emerges from her lips like a warning shot across a battlefield.
"Yes, Little Manager?" I rumble the words directly into her ear, keeping my voice pitched low enough that only she can hear. The title makes her shiver against me as the tremor runs through her rigid spine.
"This is a work retreat." Each word comes out carefully measured, as if she's reading from one of her precious PowerPoint presentations. As if reminding herself more than informing me.
"You mentioned that." I let amusement color my tone. She mentioned it approximately seven times during the planning meetings. Then again in her email summary. Then once more in the parking lot before we boarded. "Several times, in fact."
A pause. Her fingers tighten fractionally on the binders pressed between us like flimsy armor.
"Professional boundaries," she states, her voice crisp with corporate authority she wields like a blade in boardroom battles.
"Extremely professional." I tighten my arm fractionally. "I'm preventing you from falling into the aisle. Very safety-conscious."
She laughs quietly, the sound barely more than an exhalation, but I feel it vibrate against my body when she's pressed close, a reluctant tremor of genuine amusement breaking through her corporate fortress. The sensation travelsthrough me like the first rumble of distant thunder before a storm. "You're impossible," she murmurs, and there's something in her voice that's different from her usual clipped professionalism. Something almost... fond. Exasperated, certainly, but underneath that carefully maintained irritation, I detect the faintest trace of warmth.
"I'm helpful," I counter, letting the word roll out with complete sincerity, as if I'm merely stating an irrefutable fact during one of her interminable status meetings. "Very helpful. Extremely considerate of workplace safety protocols." I allow my thumb to trace the smallest of circles against her shoulder blade, a movement so subtle it could almost be accidental, though we both know it isn't. "Your precious safety manual would approve."
The bus hits a pothole. She grabs my thigh for balance, fingers digging in through the cheap fabric. My muscles tense under her touch.
"Sorry," she mutters, but she doesn't move her hand. In fact, her grip tightens ever so slightly, her palm warm through the thin, already-strained fabric of my too-small suit pants. The contact sends awareness crackling between us like the spark before a proper conflagration.
I lean down just far enough that my breath stirs the precisely arranged hair at her temple. "Don't be."
Her breathing changes, shallow, controlled, the way it gets when she's trying very hard to maintain her composure during particularly contentious budget meetings. I can practically hear her internal spreadsheet recalculating risk-benefit analyses and probability matrices.
But she still doesn't move her hand.
The bus rumbles onward through the countryside, carrying us toward whatever team-building torture Orla has meticulously planned in her seven-page itinerary. Three days of "professionaldevelopment" and "corporate synergy building" at some woodland facility she selected after reviewing no fewer than fourteen comparable venues.
Three days where her carefully constructed walls will be tested by proximity and circumstance.
