imagine this...

Maura shifted her briefcase on her shoulder, wishing like hell
she'd remembered before leaving for the car dealership that today
was Thursday.  Wednesday was take-work-home-to-finish day.  She
didn't mind Wednesdays.  But Thursday was
bring-all-the-printouts-and-binders-back-to-work day.  Even with
her car, she detested Thursdays.  Without it, on the bus, she
loathed them.  All around her were all the things that normally
encouraged her to drive, despite the perils D.C. rush-hour
traffic: unfamiliar and unpleasant odors, strangers shouting into
cell phones, the uncomfortable crush of body against body as the
bus went around corners too fast or braked too suddenly.

She really wished she'd called a cab.

Her briefcase seemed to get heavier with every stop, every
additional passenger crowding into the aisle, every block they
traveled.  She was sure that she would be walking lopsided for
the rest of the day.  And she had a feeling that the idiot
standing behind her, the one with the umbrella hanging out of his
briefcase, the one who had just jabbed her leg with his stupid
umbrella, had just started a run in her stocking.

She was never taking the bus again.

Ever.

She sighed and did her best to wait patiently as the bus trundled
down the street as though everyone on it had all the time in the
world.  She really had tried, she thought when she finally
escaped into the cool, sunny morning outside.  Still, she hadn't
been able to resist smacking Umbrella-Man with her briefcase on
her way out the back door of the bus.  His involuntary, pained
gasp had been music to her overloaded ears.

"Maura!"

She turned, willing herself not to groan as the strap of her
briefcase slid of her shoulder, falling down her arm and nearly
taking it off at the elbow.  As she leaned over to readjust it,
she noticed that she did indeed have a run in her stockings. 
Cursing under her breath, she heaved her briefcase back up onto
her shoulder and looked over.

Shit.

The remaining good mood, courtesy of the bump she'd given
Umbrella-Man, dissipated like fog in a high wind.  Of all days to
run into Jamie outside their office building, this was possibly
the worst.  It was, she thought with a quiet sigh, entirely her
luck that she had to run into the most gorgeous man she'd ever
had the good fortune to meet, when she was hunchbacked and had a
run in her stocking and probably smelled like garlic from the man
next to her on the bus.  

"Jamie," she said, somehow managing to dredge up a grin.

"Christ, Maura, what are you carrying, the entire office on your
shoulder?  Give me that," he ordered cheerfully, and took her
briefcase as though it was weightless.  An hour on the bus had
proved to her that it was not, and despite her initial rush of
gratitude, she almost resented the ease with which Jamie had
taken it over.

"It's Thursday," she said simply, after a brief silent struggle
with irritation.

"Oh, right, I forgot.  Report day."  He looked dubiously down at
her briefcase, which was about to split its seams, and shrugged.
"You really shouldn't take the bus on report day, then," he said.


It was the final straw.  She looked up, gathering every bit of
her irritation with the everything that had happened so far that
morning, ready to tell him off.  Then she saw his dark eyes
twinkling at her, and forgot that she had been irritated at all.

She grinned up at him.  "I had to take my car into the shop. 
It's been a really awful morning."

He grinned back down at her and opened the door, stepping aside
so that she could enter the building first.  "Well, at least it
can only get better from here, then," he said easily.

***

Two hours later, having been displaced from her office by the
arrival of eight managers visiting from the New York office
promptly at 8 a.m., Maura was sitting in a cramped cubicle in the
back corner of the third-floor offices.  The phone rang, and she
did her best to ignore it.  She'd gotten thirty phone calls in
the two hours she'd been sitting here, and all of them had been
for 'Robbie honey.'  Maura suspected that 'Robbie honey' was Rob
from the mail room.  She thought she might have discovered why
Rob never seemed to be around for the FedEx deliveries or the UPS
deliveries or the mail pickup, or if she was going to be
absolutely honest for anything at all.  The bastard, she thought
grudgingly.

She sighed and looked dubiously at the ancient PC that had been
hurriedly installed by the IT department when her temporary
workspace had been assigned.  It looked as though it had been
designed in the early 80's, and she had a feeling it worked at a
hamster-on-a-wheel pace.  She turned it on, and was still waiting
for the logon screen to appear after ten minutes.  She decided to
ignore it for the time being, and shifted on her chair to get
more comfortable.  And promptly caught the new stockings she'd
just bought to replace her ruined pair on the rough metal edge of
the desk.

She didn't even bother to swear this time.  She was rapidly
running out of the extra energy to waste on getting upset. 
Between the morning bus ride, the flurry of evacuating her office
ahead of the invading New Yorkers, the constant phone calls for
'Robbie honey', the awful cubicle, the balky PC and the run in
her stockings  and the impossibility of getting anything useful
done, she was exhausted.

When Jamie popped around the corner of her cubicle, she was so
startled that she jumped in her seat, widening the tear in her
stockings.  He grinned at her and leaned on the edge of the
cubicle wall.  It was a brave thing to do, she thought; the whole
cubicle seemed in imminent danger of collapsing.

"Rough day?" he asked sympathetically, his dark eyes sparkling
behind his glasses.  She almost sighed out loud.

"Very rough," she said with a nod, and gave up hiding the gaping
hole in her stockings as a lost cause.  

"Seemed like it might be, since you've apparently been exiled to
outer Siberia here."  He grinned again, and she felt her stomach
muscles tighten in helpless reaction.  "What did you do to
deserve this?" he asked.

Was it her imagination, or had he moved closer?

"I think it was just arriving at work today," she said with a
hopeless laugh.  "Either that, or it all started on the bus."

He chuckled.  It wasn't her imagination.  He had moved closer. 
Now his back was against the cubicle wall.  She was sure of it,
because the cubicle was so small that they were nearly touching
now.

"Guess your day didn't get much better after the bus," he said
with teasing sympathy.

"Not really," she admitted with a sigh.  "But at least it's two
hours closer to leaving."

"Want to go get some coffee?" he asked.  "My treat."

She brightened, forgetting all about the ancient PC and the hole
in her stockings and the tiny cubicle and the New York invasion.
"Sounds good," she said, and stood up.

Maura hadn't considered the available space in the cubicle when
she'd stood, and she bumped into him when she took the first step
away from the creaky old chair.  If it hadn't been for his quick
reaction, she would have fallen flat on her face.  As it was, she
ended up pressed against him in the ridiculously narrow cubicle
entrance, completely breathless.

Maybe falling would have been better.

She looked up at him to apologize for falling all over him, and
forgot every last thought in her head.  He was staring at her as
though he'd never seen her before.  Staring at her with eyes that
went from warm to hot as his arms tightened around her waist.  

"Sorry," she managed, her pulse racing and her stomach clenching
again.  She was desperately afraid that she was going to
embarrass herself and completely destroy their friendship if he
didn't stop looking at her like she was a bottle of water and he
was a man dying of thirst at noon in the Sahara.

"No problem," he said softly.

His lips were so close to hers that they were nearly kissing.  

She was really going to regret this.  She closed her eyes for a
moment.

Maura sensed rather than saw him closing the distance between
them.  She felt his arms tighten around her.  This time she was
glad for his easy strength, because it made it so easy for him to
pick it up and set her on the desk.  He moved closer, his hips
pressing against hers, and he gave a soft groan as her arms slid
up to slide around his neck.

"Christ, Maura, do you know how long I've wanted this?" he asked,
his voice rough, then deepened the kiss.  She arched against him,
and felt very definite proof of his desire pressing against her
thigh.  Whatever control she'd had over herself disappeared.  She
couldn't get enough of his hands or his lips, or the feel of him
against her.

She felt his fingers slide into her hair, and moaned into his
open mouth.  Her hips swiveled against his, slowly.  His fingers
slid back down to her back, stroking gently, then slipped to her
hips, and down her thighs.  She felt him sliding her skirt up
over the tops of her thigh-high stockings, and scooted forward to
the edge of the desk to help the process along.  His soft, hoarse
laugh as her skirt slid up over her hips made her heart beat
faster.   She slipped her hands down to his waistband even as his
fingers slid between her thighs.

It was electric.  The feeling of his fingers sliding beneath her
panties had her gasping in mingled shock and desire.  Maura
moaned softly as Jamie's long, talented fingers teased her, then
writhed with pleasure-pain while he slowly explored her. She
couldn't remember ever having a simple touch firing every nerve
ending in her body, didn't think she'd ever known a rush of need
so pure and all-consuming that it felt like burning.  She was
still wondering at the sudden fire in her veins, at the pulsing,
pounding ache that was racing through her, when she came with a
silent wail that left her breathless and wanting more.

She drifted for a moment or ten, and didn't realize that he'd
unbuttoned her jacket and blouse until she felt him sliding the
front clasp of her bra open.  When both of his hands were
pleasantly occupied in caressing her breasts, she unbuckled his
belt and managed to get his pants unbuttoned.  Luckily, the
zipper came easier, because she had only just managed the button
when his lips found her breast, and she gave herself up to a wave
of pleasure that left her unable to form a single thought.  Her
fingers slid through his hair, and held his head close.  He
feasted.

She had no idea how it had been managed.  The last thing she
remembered before closing her eyes was Jamie's tongue sliding
along the bottom curve of her breast.  When she opened them again
an endless time later, his tie was undone and her fingers were
working the last button of his shirt.  He gave a soft groan when
her fingers slid under his shirt and up his chest.  It was
definitely not a please-stop-now kind of groan.

Maura smiled, and gave not a thought to the dozen or so
co-workers within easy hearing distance of the tiny little
cubicle.  She forgot all about her assistant, who had come back
and forth several times an hour with phone messages and
questions.  The existence of the entire world just beyond those
three-and-a-half walls covered in cheap blue cloth faded away to
nothing as Jamie's eyes met hers again.

He smiled.  It was a decidedly wicked smile, the kind that she,
on meeting him, had known he was capable of.  The kind of smile
that, if she was going to be completely honest, she had dreamed
of seeing on his beautiful face.  It made his eyes gleam
dangerously.  She felt her body tighten deliciously, and smiled
back up at him.  He slid his hands down to her hips again and
made short work of sliding her panties off.  

"I knew you would be this beautiful," he said softly, roughly,
and gave an encouraging sound, half-grunt and half-moan, when her
fingers went to his hips and slid his trousers down, then his
boxer shorts.  Balanced on the very edge of the desk, she pulled
him close.  Reveled in the feel of him against her skin, hardness
against softness, his chest against her breasts, his belly
against her own, his cock pressing insistently against her.

"Now," she said, and shivered in anticipation as he took her hips
in his hands and slid her upward.  She smiled and her head fell
back as his cock found her opening, and slid smoothly into her.

She whispered his name and heard his answering whisper as he
stopped moving, seated fully inside her.  She could feel herself
stretching to fit him, could feel him hot and hard and throbbing
inside her.  His mouth found hers as her legs locked around his
waist.  They moved together.  It was fast and slow.  Wild and
tender.  Intensely passionate and achingly gentle.  

He took her completely.  She met his every thrust, her hips
moving smoothly in time with his.  Quiet moans.  Soft slapping
sound of skin on skin.  Lips brushing flesh.  Tongues caressing.
Fingers exploring.  Nerves singing an aria of desire and need and
wild, secret pleasure.

When they came, they came together.  Her back bowed gracefully,
her long hair draping over the dull metal of the desk, his lips
on her neck, her short nails raising welts on his back.  He
exploded into her.  She exploded beneath him.  

They collapsed, panting, in a heap of tangled limbs and rumpled
clothing on a battered desk in a cramped, forgotten cubicle.

It was heaven.

***

"Maura?" 

Maura jerked awake as the sound of her too-perky secretary's
too-pointy heels approaching down the tiled back hallway.  She
cast a panicky glance down, and found herself fully dressed.  Her
clothes were on, her blouse and jacket buttoned up perfectly, as
they had been that morning.  Her skirt was smoothed over her
hips, covering her thighs, ending a few inches above her knees. 
She could see the gaping hole in her stocking, exactly as it had
been before. She stared, disbelieving, at her cubicle. 
Everything on the desktop was in order, the papers in neat,
precise piles.  Her pen was right where she remembered it,
immediately in front of her.  
The PC hadn't yet brought up the login screen.

Relief flooded her.  It had been a dream.  She'd fallen asleep
for a second, that was all.  She managed to answer Amanda's
questions about where in Amanda's Rolodex to find the phone
number for the Boston office, and when Amanda had left, she
sagged limply against the back of the chair, rubbing her temples.
 Now that Amanda was gone, Maura couldn't decide whether to be
relieved or disappointed.  It had only been a dream.  A fantasy.

So why was she aching, as though she'd worked out too hard?

Tension, she decided.  Tension, and two hours in the creaky old
chair that came with this creaky old chair for two hours.  She
shifted in the chair, trying to get comfortable.  She saw the
post-it note half-hidden by the disreputable-looking keyboard on
the desk, and picked it up curiously.

She didn't recognize the handwriting, so she looked closer.  Read
the note, and her jaw dropped.

'Maura.  We never did get that coffee.  Want to try again later
this afternoon?'  Call me.  Jamie.'