"I'm going to break up with Mona."

Nathaniel pauses and shifts his weight from his right leg to his left.

"I'm breaking up with Mona."

He buttons his suit jacket, frowns, and then unbuttons it.

"How would you feel if I broke up with Mona?" he asks hesitantly and snaps his wrist in a gesture he wants to appear casual.

He shakes his head at himself in the mirror. Come on, Captain. Be a man.

"I'm falling in love with you," he says to his reflection, changing tactics.

Too much?

"I think I'm falling in love with you," he tries again, but his inflection sounds more like a question than a statement.

Maybe he loves her, maybe he doesn't. All he knows is whatever feeling this is never went away after their two weeks of being together, going out, talking on the phone, having sex, kissing, snuggling, and cuddling. Her words. Each verb a slap in the face, an itemized list of all the things she was yanking away from him, as if ending it wasn't enough. In an instant, his world went from bright technicolor to grayscale, like some weird, fucked up, reverse Wizard of Oz.

When he told her it was the closest he had felt to someone, he wasn't lying. Just saying those words out loud made him feel vulnerable and naked and weak and all the emotions he normally avoided at all costs. But, at the time, it seemed like a worthy sacrifice.

Dealing with rejection wasn't his forte, but when Mona approached him, all sweet and poised and perfect, it seemed like a fitting way to rebound. Fuck someone who vaguely resembled Rebecca. But better. Prettier. Thinner. Someone who didn't come with a truckload of baggage or a diagnosis he still didn't quite understand.

In truth, he didn't know if he would ever see Rebecca again, so he secretly hoped the copious amount of photos he posted on social media would somehow get back to her. Her accounts were mostly inactive but surely someone from the office would show her, right? Paula, at the very least. Or Darryl. That guy can never keep a secret. That would teach her a lesson. You don't reject Nathaniel Plimpton III, Esquire.

But then Rebecca strolled back into his office, back into his life, mere weeks after their split, cracking jokes, acting like their relationship never even happened. When he saw her image just outside his door, he felt an ephemeral flicker of hope that she came to reconcile. His stomach fluttered at the thought. Maybe she did see he and Mona together and it made her realize she was wrong. It quickly became clear that wasn't the case. She wanted her job back, that's all, and, if she knew about Mona, she didn't care. Rage and hurt bubbled up inside him and he lashed out, not giving a shit how harsh he was or how many laws he was breaking by refusing her a job.

Because, fuck her, that's why.

The lawsuit was another twist of the dagger in his back and it affirmed the old adage was true. There is a thin line between love and hate. Razor thin. When he confronted her about the case, at her apartment, his anger quickly transformed into arousal. She was sweaty and panting, her tiny body filled with fury, and it took every ounce of willpower not to take her up against the wall right then. (That garish wall with the tacky mural. Disgusting.) The way she strained her neck to bring their mouths centimeters apart, sticking her breasts out to brush against his chest, coupled with the red hot fire in her eyes, made him wonder if she was thinking the same thing.

Sharing an office was a bad idea from the start. His eyes constantly wandered over to her, almost involuntarily, and he had to keep reminding himself to get back to work. (This is not a problem he ever had before.) There were a few times he caught her gazing over at him as well and each time he felt a small, electric jolt of adrenaline. Late one night, that night, she admitted, "Breaking things off with you was honestly the hardest thing I've ever done."

He was floored. Stunned.

Moments later, she fell into his lap like it was inevitable. She writhed and moaned and grabbed at him, hastily pushing off his suit jacket and unzipping his pants while he latched onto her neck and drank in her scent. Oh, he missed this, missed her, more than he would ever admit.

Skipping any semblance of foreplay, she moved her panties aside and sank down onto him, both of them still almost fully clothed. Once he was buried to the hilt, they both stilled, their breath intermingling, simply staring at each other in shock, as if this is something that happened to them rather than something they chose.

"I lied," he gasped, his lips a hair's breadth away from hers.

"What?" She shifted in his lap, creating a new source of friction, her eyes practically rolling back in her head.

"I think about you all the time," he confessed.

Time stretched. A glimmer of fear flashed in her eyes before she finally whispered, "I lied too," and then shut him up by taking his bottom lip between hers. After that, there was no more talking, only her soft hands at his jaw and her wet heat clenching him and her breathy sounds and just her her her.

It was a mistake. That's what he told her, defensively, when he noticed her redressing a little too quickly and her eyes avoiding his. It would never happen again, she said.

Until it did. Five more times. And even though she initiated all their sexual encounters thus far, she was always the one to assert it was the last time.

He knows he's human garbage. Trash. Scum. A cheater. A liar. But he's been dating Mona less than a month. The blink of an eye. The situation was only temporary, anyway, and Mona would never find out.

Extremely temporary, as it turns out, because he's going to break up with her today.

"It doesn't have to be the last time anymore," he ventures, "because I'm breaking up with Mona."

When he strolls into the office an hour later, he's cautiously optimistic. She obviously wants him. Why else would she be throwing herself at him at every opportunity? Plus, despite her claims about not being ready for a relationship, she seems fine. She's happy and bubbly and quirky.

Wow, today she looks beautiful. She's wearing a blouse that makes her eyes extra blue and a short skirt (for his benefit, he suspects), and he absently wonders if she's wearing that bra he likes. When she catches him staring, his wandering mind getting the best of him, she hits him with a devilish smile. She's glowing.

"You know, I think I'm running low on supplies," she says, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

"Uh huh," he acknowledges and nods.

As if he had a choice.

She all but sprints out of their office, further bolstering his confidence.

Five minutes later, he grabs a folder on his way out for good measure and saunters into the supply closet. When he enters, she's keeping up the illusion, pretending to peruse the shelves. In true Pavlovian fashion, he feels himself growing aroused from simply walking into the room.

"Oh hi," she says, upbeat but neutral, as if she hadn't had an earth-shattering orgasm the day before in this very spot.

"Hey," he replies, nonchalant, as if he isn't completely undone by her every move.

He takes a beat, contemplating which version of his practiced conversation to use. He thinks a simple I'm breaking up with Mona should do, but he hesitates too long and she fills in the silence.

"I was, I was looking for these. What do you call these? Do you call these flags or sticky page holders?"

"Oh no, those - I call those color thingies, actually," he replies, putting the folder down, instantly forgetting every word he wanted to say.

"Color thingies?!" she laughs openly and his stomach somersaults.

"Yea."

"Oh, my god, that...that Stanford education, like, gave you a great vocabulary."

Oh, she's cute and flirty and all he wants is to kiss her and never stop.

"Well, it's why I'm so good at games like Boggle."

"Oh my god, I love Boggle."

Of course she does. An image briefly flashes across his consciousness of the two of them in his apartment playing the game. She's wearing a soft sweater and biting her lip, concentrating, competitive as ever, furiously scribbling onto a pad of paper.

"Well, you and I should, um, play Boggle some time."

"Yea." She eyes him up and down, bouncing on the heels of her feet, and he knows it's only a matter of moments.

He waits.

"Oh, my god, Boggle," she explodes and pulls him down by the neck, launching herself into his arms. Her mouth smashes into his violently and he tries to match her energy, grabbing anywhere he can reach - her back, her ass, her hair. In his fervor, the inertia of their movements causes him to briefly lift her off the ground.

She's a tornado and he's in the eye of her storm.

As quickly as she latches onto him, she pushes him away, shoving him toward the door. "Close the door. I want to rip your pants off."

Wow.

"Ok," is all he can get out. He moves automatically to the door, quickly flicks the lock in place, and ricochets back to her. Her hands go straight to his belt, making good on her demand. All the blood rushes out of his brain, heading straight to his crotch, despite his best efforts to stop it.

He pulls her face to his for a brief kiss, all she's allowing at the moment, and then sweeps the front of her blouse open. A small thrill runs through him. His belt pops out of its buckle.

...he can tell her about Mona later.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey," she protests and pushes lightly on his chest. Worried he's crossed a line, he lifts his hands away from her body in a surrendering motion.

"This should never happen again after this."

Oh.

"Absolutely. This is the last time," he insists, reflexively.

"Ok."

"Absolutely," he reiterates, as convincing as he can muster. "I love this bra, by the way."

"Oh, thank you," she coos and wraps her arms around his shoulders. With a little hop, she smashes her lips to his and he instinctively catches her, accustomed now to her tendency to throw herself into his arms. He staggers to the door, one of his hands grabbing at her thighs, while the other cradles the back of her head. Pressing her against the door for leverage, he pushes at her skirt until it bunches up around her hips, allowing him to fully nestle between her legs.

Rebecca digs her heels into the backs of his thighs, bucking her hips toward him, trying to generate friction, and when his burgeoning erection finally makes contact with her clit, she moans enthusiastically. They're rutting like two horny teenagers, and the door bangs and strains against its flimsy lock from their movements. She's overly vocal today, not that he's complaining, but he's also hyper aware of the amount of noise they're making.

He pulls his hips back away from her and breaks their kiss. "Hey, we have to shhh," he whispers.

"I guess you better shut me up then," she dares, in a low voice, her eyes locked on his lips.

Nathaniel captures her lips in a bruising kiss (never backing down from a challenge), but stumbles over to the nearby table, a safe distance away from the door. He deposits her as gently as he can on the unforgiving surface, but she couldn't care less about comfort and drags him down by the neck to keep kissing her. Almost losing his balance, he reaches out and grabs at the wall, attempting to steady himself.

(Will she ever not make him feel insanely, infuriatingly off-kilter?)

She whimpers, a sound that simultaneously warms his chest and hardens his dick, and hikes her legs high on his ribcage.

"Jesus, Rebecca, slow down," he pants after separating their lips with a loud smack.

Her brow furrows. "What?" she asks, as innocent as a criminal, and fingers his tie.

"Nothing, just...give me a minute."

His mind races, trying to regain control of his baser urges. This rendez-vous is supposed to be about telling her the truth, about how he wants to be with her. But as she bites her lip and rolls her hips against him, it's all too much and his dumb brain can only process one thing at a time. And the only thing he can think about now is all the ways he can get her to squirm beneath him in pleasure.

Knowledge truly is the enemy in this situation. He knows way too much about her sexual proclivities, which, like everything else when it comes to Rebecca, are nuanced. In the brief time they dated, she wanted variety. She was game for anything. Slow, fast, soft, hard, in bed, on the couch, in the kitchen, in the shower. Nowadays, however, with the limited time they have, she wants to get straight to the point. Most times, she wants it fast and hard and rough. But not too rough. The illusion of danger gets her off. (And anything that gets her off, gets him off, if he's being honest.) She likes a hand on her throat but only a minimal amount of pressure. She likes when he grabs a fistful of her hair but not when he pulls. She likes being restrained but only if his grip is loose enough that she could slip away.

When she's on top, that's a guaranteed orgasm. Missionary, most of the time, if he's hitting the right angle. Standing is hit-or-miss. From behind can work if she's touching herself. He knows he can get her there by going down on her, but she hasn't allowed it for reasons beyond his comprehension.

And, oh, she loves when he talks dirty. He discovered that little tidbit the first time they slept together and never forgot it. If her pleasure is fire, words are her accelerant. He lives for that look on her face, when her eyes flutter closed and her mouth falls open, when he's said something that ignites her arousal. But, of course, there's nuance. Calling her variations on baby or girl is out of the question. According to Rebecca, it infantilizes women.

Sure, fine, whatever.

Sometimes she wants him to shower her with compliments, to tell her how desired she is. Other times she wants him to call her a bitch. There's something about the way she hisses back You're such an asshole that helps him understand why she finds it so hot. (He's still working up the courage to ask her to hold a pen to his throat while she says it.) She likes being told what to do and how to do it, and the more forceful he is, the more passionate her response.

All these kernels of information are ever-present in his mind, clouding all rational thought, making him lose his focus of why he wanted to meet her in this damned supply closet in the first place.

"Nathaniel," she whispers, snapping him out of his trance.

He springs back into action, pushing her skirt up around her hips, exposing a pair of delicate, black lace panties. (She's buying matching sets now?) A playful grin tugs at her mouth when their eyes meet. She knows exactly what she's doing to him.

"You won't be needing these," he growls as he hooks his fingers around the material and pulls. Obediently, she lifts her hips to help him out and her eyes turn wild with anticipation.

Tossing the panties to the side, he dips his head between her legs, hooking her thighs over his shoulders. He knows what he wants and she's not going to stop him this time. As he peppers kisses on the soft skin of her inner thigh, he feels her shifting on the table, propping herself up on her forearms.

"What are you doing?"

"You know what I'm doing," he murmurs, inching closer to his goal.

"What's wrong with you? We don't have time. We have a meeting in twenty minutes."

"Come on," he coaxes, "you don't want it?" He's so close he's inhaling her piquant scent with each shallow breath.

Say yes. Please say yes.

Her leg quakes against his face and she rasps, "Next time, ok?"

Next time?

Her eyes dart away. "Not that there will be a next time," she adds quietly.

"Of course not." He acquiesces and tries not to smile at her blatant lie, untangling himself from between her legs, already mentally strategizing how he can make next time happen as soon as possible.

While he removes his pants and shrugs off suit jacket, she watches him as if she's a shipwrecked cartoon character and he's a mirage of a juicy steak. Suddenly the collar of his shirt feels suffocatingly tight, so he loosens his tie. (Though he'll never remove it, because when she tugs on it, the sensation tears through him like lightning.)

"Take off your shirt," he commands as he fumbles with a condom, his hands a little shaky under her scrutiny. She obeys with no protest and pulls the blouse over her head, revealing her laced chest rising and falling rapidly with each breath.

Unable to resist, he cozies up between her legs and buries his face between her breasts, lazily trailing kisses upward and upward until he reaches her mouth. He kisses her, slow and deep and languid, relishing the swipe of her tongue over his lips, the sugary taste of french vanilla from her coffee creamer, her hair between his fingers.

Rebecca leans back, withdrawing from his kiss, and whispers, "Fifteen minutes. Come on."

Ignoring her protest, he moves down to her neck, nuzzling her there.

"Nathaniel," she breathes his name again and wiggles her hips forward, searching for his touch.

With an irritated huff, he stops lavishing her neck. "This is what you want?" he asks, rubbing his cock over her clit and then teasing at her entrance. She nods slowly and licks her lips in response. "Fine," he mutters and thrusts into her, causing a high-pitched sound to escape from her throat.

Fuck.

He attempts to go slow at first. Returning to her neck, he resumes what he started, kissing just below her ear, down her jaw, along her collarbone, as he savors the exquisite drag of her walls around him.

"Harder," she urges, her hips meeting his eagerly with every pump.

Much to her dismay, he continues his leisurely pace, taking his time.

With a grunt she kicks her legs up higher, pressing on his rib cage, forcing him to sink deeper into her. "Hmmm," she moans, "is that all you got, Plimpton?"

Excuse me?

Two can play at this game. He stops moving and pulls back to see her face.

He waits.

Rebecca throws her head back in frustration and emits a groan.

"Something wrong?" He smirks. He's successfully taken back the upper hand...

She smiles slyly, locks eyes with him, and snarks, "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were a real man who knew how to fuck a woman properly."

...or not.

That's it.

He shoves back into her. Hard. Abandoning all finesse and reverence, he plunges into her over and over, his movements so forceful the table shakes beneath her. Rebecca, set aflame, writhes under him, rubbing his chest, pulling at his tie, frantically stroking every part of him she can reach.

"So you want to be fucked, Rebecca? Is that it?" he snarls.

"Oh god, yes, yes," she cries. Loud.

"Shut up," he hushes and clamps his hand over her mouth.

Her eyes roll to the ceiling and her walls flutter around him, almost pushing him over the edge.

"You want to get caught, Rebecca? Are you a dirty girl who…"

Her eyes widen slightly.

"Sorry, I mean, a dirty, um…" he trails off, shaking his head, steadily losing the ability to form coherent sentences as he hurls faster and faster toward climax.

He drops his hand from her mouth and threads it through the hair at her nape. "You feel incredible," he says instead.

For a moment, her face softens. But the flash of tenderness quickly dissipates when she angles her hips so his pubic bone starts hitting her clit with each thrust.

"Right there," she gasps and her mouth gapes open in pleasure.

He lunges forward and catches her lips, swallowing her gasp. He's close. Probably too close. But he keeps up the pace anyway, not wanting her to lose momentum. She tugs his bottom lip between her teeth and sucks and it triggers a familiar pull deep in his core that he knows he needs to stave off just a little bit longer.

Without warning, the door rattles back and forth. The lock jiggles several times. A distant, frustrated voice murmurs something.

Rebecca freezes and her eyes widen, the reality of the situation instantly zapping her out of the fantasy. Too far gone, Nathaniel's orgasm rips through him and he buries his face into her shoulder in an attempt to quiet his moans. She holds him, riding out his final erratic thrusts and subsequent aftershocks.

Whoever is at the door gives up and walks away.

Once the footfalls get quieter and more distant, he straightens up. "I'm sorry," he whispers and drops a tender kiss to her lips.

"No, no, no, it's fine," she pants.

Nathaniel slips out of her and helps her off the table. She grimaces and rubs her lower back, and he can't help but notice her legs are trembling.

"You ok?"

She wipes at her forehead, which is damp with sweat. "Yea, that just, um, freaked me out a little."

He nods and grabs her blouse off the ground, offering it to her.

"Thanks," she says, first straightening her skirt before slipping the garment over her head.

He turns around for a little modesty and grabs a Kleenex from the shelf to dispose of the condom. In the haze from his orgasm, he feels predictably boneless and drowsy, but somehow he still craves more. More of her.

As he pulls up his trousers and starts to buckle his belt, he turns back to her and starts, "Hey, um, I wanted to talk to you about something."

She glances up at a clock on the wall and waves him off. "Nathaniel, five minutes. We have to go, like, right now."

"Got it. So later, then?" He points at her, casually, the way he practiced in the mirror.

"Yea, whatever, let's go."

She shoves his suit jacket into his hands and he quickly slips it back on. Before they leave, she takes a moment to adjust his tie and jacket. He can't help but imagine her in his apartment, tweaking his appearance before they leave for work together. Damn brain.

"Am I presentable?"

She runs her fingers through her hair nervously, trying to tame her tangle of curls. "Uh huh. And how do I look?"

Messy. Flushed. Beautiful.

"Good."

She nods sharply and exits first. He waits two minutes and then follows.

Next time.