A/N: I'm so glad you enjoyed the first chapter of our little challenge. Next comes the 'seduction scene' in my story so if M-ness isn't your 'thang'…then you may want to stop reading at the breakline and just imagine the rest for yourself while you await Chapter Three - which I believe is just as cute…if not cuter than Chapter One!
Ringtones? What's a ringtone?
Chapter 2 – Wild Thing by the Troggs
He was ready to give short shrift to whoever was ringing his bell when he jerked open the door and stopped short at the sight before him…there stood Elsie Hughes.
"I picked up Chinese and a bottle of wine," she said holding bottle out to him. "Are you going to invite me in?"
"Of course," he said shaking off his sudden stupor. "Come in." He closed the door behind her and took her coat and purse. "You didn't leave the others down at the pub with an open checkbook, did you?" he asked with mock sternness.
"Not with Thomas and Sarah at the helm," she exclaimed. "What do you take me for? I think I should feel insulted by that remark!"
"Please don't!" He held up his hands in surrender. "I just wondered why you weren't down at the pub with them, drinking me into the poor-house."
She laughed at his remark. "They decided your corner pub was too quiet for them and they took the tube downtown to go clubbing instead." Seeing the question in his eyes, she added, "Don't ask…you don't really want to know." He rolled his eyes and ushered her out of the small foyer.
They walked through the parlor towards the kitchen and Charles said, "I'll see if I can find the plates."
"No, you silly man!" exclaimed Elsie. "You're supposed to eat it from the boxes with chopsticks." Elsie looked around the room and spied a stack of pillows and blankets near the closet. "Look, why don't you find another wine glass and get a fire going while I fix us a place to sit."
"Alright," said Charles as he set his wineglass on the mantel and headed back to the kitchen.
Finding the second wineglass was easy. Picking up the open bottle of wine he'd left on the counter, he carried them both to the parlor. When he entered the room he saw that she'd found the stack of blankets and spread several on the floor in front of the fireplace placing the bag of food in the middle. As he knelt down to set the kindling and the logs, she brought over several pillows and tossed them around the blankets. When he was sure that the fire was going to take, he stood and discovered that she'd turned out all the lights in the kitchen behind them except the under-the-counter lights and she'd found the dimmer for the overhead lights in the parlor.
He wondered if he should say something about the cozy setting but decided not to. "You know, Ms. Hughes," began Charles with a deep rumble in his chest, "I really need to say thank you, again."
"Oh dear, I thought you'd moved on to calling me Elsie," she countered as she began to open the boxes of food and arrange them on the blanket. "And what would you need to thank me for, Mister Carson?"
"Fair enough, Elsie," he said, pointedly acknowledging the use of his formal title. "I know I had a few doubts about this paint party idea of yours…"
"A few doubts!" snorted Elsie.
"Yes, well…I have to admit that the crew did an excellent job and all the rooms look beautiful."
"And the floors?" she said with a raised eyebrow.
"Not a drop of paint anywhere," he chuckled. "Now, how am I supposed to work these things?" He held the chopsticks up, one in each hand like skewers.
She scooted over next to him and perched on her knees just behind his right shoulder. She had to raise up and place her chin on top of his shoulder so that she could see what she was doing. Reaching around his shoulder, she tried to help him work the chopsticks with his right hand. Her touch felt so soft and his heart began to race when she leaned against his back. Suddenly, his thoughts were tumbling to places they probably shouldn't, especially given that she was a colleague. As a result, he inadvertently dropped a piece of Mandarin Chicken down the front of his shirt.
"Maybe I should be wearing a bib," he said laughing at himself.
"I think that maybe you should try the shovel method," she giggled and showed him how to hold the box near his chin and use the chopsticks to push the food into his mouth.
"How uncivilized," exclaimed Charles with overly exaggerated disdain in his voice. "I think I'll go and get a fork," he said rising from the floor. "Would you like one too?"
"No, I'm fine with the chopsticks," she said lifting a large portion of Chow Mein to her mouth.
They proceeded to eat their dinner and 'talk shop' as well as trade office gossip. Of course, the gossip was mostly Elsie explaining who was dating who in the office as Charles didn't really pay that much attention to the comings or goings of his colleagues.
"Let me see if I have this straight," said Charles, his head spinning from the information overload. "Sarah O'Brien is dating Mr. Lang down in the mailroom? Then why does she have so many of those ring-thingies you were telling me about this morning?"
"Ringtones - that's because she's also dating Mr. Molesley over in accounting. She uses different ring tones so that she can tell which one of them is calling before she checks the caller-ID."
"Caller-ID?" asked Charles.
Elsie laughed, "You really don't know much about cell phones do you? Come here, I can at least show you how to set a ringtone. Give me your phone."
Charles scooted over to sit behind her so he could watch her work. Even with a light-up keypad, it was hard to see in the dim light from the fire so he closed the gap between them. Resting his chin on her shoulder he could get close enough to see what she was doing. He could hear the murmur of her voice but he wasn't paying attention to what she was saying. He was mesmerized by the feel of her against his chest and shoulder and his nose was busy sorting the faint scent of lavender in her hair from the spice of the perfume that she must dab behind her ear. Her ear…so close to his lips, he would only have to turn his head to kiss the lobe or to run his tongue along the outer edge of it….
"Charles Carson, are you listening to me?"
He was sitting so close that when she turned her head to look at him, her lips brushed the corner of his mouth. They stared at each other for several long moments and finally Charles made the first move. He reached up to caress her cheek and drew her towards him as he captured her mouth in a searing kiss. He nibbled on her lower lip before his tongue reached out to explore her mouth.
Slipping her arms around his neck, she deepened the kiss and leveraged her body weight against his chest to urge him down towards the floor.
They wrestled for several minutes, each trying to take control when Charles suddenly found himself flat on his back with her straddling his hips. He wasn't certain that he was completely comfortable with this turn of events but he couldn't deny that he was excited and aroused at the prospect of what she might have in store for him. His final conscious decision was to relax and…what was it his young colleagues kept saying to him?...go with the flow?
He found his hands tightly gripping her bottom as she ground herself against him. Running his hands up her back beneath her shirt, he found his access impeded by the shirttails tied around her waist. Pushing lightly on her stomach in an attempt to get at the knot at her waist, he felt her suddenly pull away and sit up straight.
He looked down in surprise at the graying hair on his chest to find that she'd undone all the buttons on his shirt and pulled it open as she sat up. She gave him a wicked grin and batted at his hands as he reached for the knotted shirttails. She made it very clear who was going to be in charge this evening and so he folded his hands behind his head and gave over control to her.
~~oO~~oOo~~Oo~~
She towered over him as the light from the fireplace cast flickering shadows over her face. Arching her back provocatively, she pulled the bandeau from her hair and shook the dark locks out so they hung down over her shoulders. Then she slowly undid the buttons of her shirt…exposing a long expanse of porcelain skin. Slowly trailing a finger down between her breasts, she stopped just short of the knot at her waist.
His excitement getting the better of him, Charles undid the knotted shirttails and sat up as he ran his hands up her ribs to cup her breasts beneath the material. She moaned softly as his thumbs traced light circles around her nipples. She held on to his broad shoulders as he kissed and nipped at each of them in turn. Charles had let his knees fall open when he sat up to hold her and now he bent forward to lay her down on the floor between them. She continued to straddle his hips by bending her knees over the tops of his thighs.
Reaching down to undo the button of her blue jeans, she slowly slid the zipper open. Charles groaned softly as he caught sight of the black silk bikinis that she wore underneath. His hands slid over her hips as she raised them off the floor taking both garments down over the soft curves of her bottom. He then hitched an arm under each of her knees to shift her legs straight up in front of him so that he could slide her jeans and bikinis completely off. He felt her shiver as he slowly ran his hands back down the length of her legs.
He looked down at her as she dropped her legs to wrap them around his waist. Charles was convinced that there couldn't be anything in this world as beautiful as the sight of this woman…Elsie Hughes…lying naked before him. Even in the oversized shirt that lay open around her…his oversized shirt he reminded himself…she was magnificent.
He pulled her to him so that he could kiss her and taste her. They shared several passionate kisses before she asserted herself and pushed him to lie back down on the floor and she surprised him again. Somehow she had managed to undo the fastenings on his trousers and she was tugging at the waistband of his undershorts. She turned herself to face his feet as she nudged him to lift his hips so that she could push his trousers down his legs. She had to lie completely flat against him in order to get the garments down to his ankles and off his feet pinning his erection between her breasts in the process. Charles thought he would go completely mad at the sensations when she wiggled his trousers free and tossed them aside.
She scooted back to straddle his chest and gripped his manhood at the base as she ran her tongue along the underside from base to tip. Charles' hips bucked up off the floor but he was able to get himself quickly under control, for the moment anyway. Her straddling his chest put her in the perfect position for Charles to do a bit of exploring of his own.
He ran his hands up the outside of her thighs and caressed her beautiful bottom. Then he reached between her legs and began to stroke between her folds with his thumb. He used different rhythms and varied the pressure until he was rewarded with her moans.
Suddenly, he was overwhelmed by a new sensation. She was massaging him with her mouth and tongue when she discovered a very sensitive spot that caused his hips to buck wildly. She wanted very much to explore the sensitive spot that could cause this buttoned-up Englishman to lose control but decided that there were other activities that she wanted to engage in before he came completely undone so she backed off a bit and concentrated more on the feelings that he was arousing in her.
She liked the way he experimented with touch and rhythm and soon she was whimpering with the need to feel him inside her. She pulled away and swung herself around as she hovered over his hips. He reached down between them to guide himself to her entrance and then she took him in a single stroke. She balanced herself with her hands on either side of his ribcage which allowed her to set the rhythm and vary the angle so that he hit that certain spot that made her feel so warm inside. Her breasts bounced in front of him and he reached out to capture them. She moaned and called out his name when he squeezed her nipples and raised his hips to meet hers. Soon her movements became more erratic and he could feel the first waves of her release.
As she lost control and sank against his chest, he suddenly shifted and sat up to take her in his arms. He was careful not to break their connection as he reached for a pillow and then turned to place it under her hips as he rolled her to the floor beneath him.
At first she wrapped her legs around his waist trying to draw him deeper but it wasn't enough. She felt him slip his hands behind her knees, drawing her legs up along his chest so that her ankles rested on his shoulders. His movements were powerful and confident and she could feel that knot of desire begin to wind up again. She watched his look of concentration as her own hips began to move of their own accord. She could feel that he was close to losing control. He had thrown back his head and was giving himself completely over to her. Soon they were both crying out with their mutual release.
As he lay dozing in her arms she thought back to the years that they'd known each other. They had worked side by side for nearly fifteen years now. She had always admired his calm authority and business acumen. She found his attention to detail to be rather sexy in the way he would wrinkle his brow when concentrating on the review of a contract or going through a company's books. He could cause butterflies in her stomach when he brushed against her in the hall or looked at her across the boardroom table.
But this was different, she could never have imagined this side of him. He was like a wild thing…and all she could think about was how it made her heart sing. She giggled when a sudden thought came unbidden to her mind – he made everything groovy.
He raised his head and looked at her through bleary eyes. "What's so funny?"
She smiled down at him affectionately, "Nothing, my dear. Just thinking to myself about what the children would say if they knew about this."
"We can cross that bridge when we get back to the office," he snorted and reached out to pull one of the blankets over them as he drew her into the circle of her arms and settled his cheek on the top of her head. The soft sound of his snores soon lulled her into a deep sleep.
