Ric and Connie spent a quiet weekend together, with Ric going over to see Jess and Zubin on the Sunday. But when it came to Monday morning, and Connie had to go into work again, Ric went with her, not trusting himself an inch to be on his own all day. As they sat in the early morning traffic, Connie asked, "Are you all right?" Having seen something in his face that definitely worried her. "I'm fine," Ric told her, but neither was remotely convinced by his statement. He assisted Connie with an emergency operation, and helped Diane as she prepared for a round of students who would be shadowing her later that day. But when it reached the early afternoon, Ric found himself at something of a loose end.
Connie was in theatre, doing a triple bypass, and she had her full complement of registrar and SHO, which meant that she certainly didn't require his assistance. She'd said that he could feel free to use her office if he felt like it, which he definitely appreciated. Her office was quiet, almost restful after the hustle and bustle of the earlier part of the day, and he settled into a corner of her leather sofa and unfolded the newspaper he found lying there. He read fairly contentedly for a while, until an advert on one of the back pages caught his eye. It was for a new casino that had opened in the centre of Holby, with an added promise that its services could also be accessed via the Internet. As though like lightning, he could feel that surge of excitement, the craving beginning to build, and the urge to take a huge risk gradually taking him over. He moved like an automaton over to the computer, sitting down in Connie's leather swivel chair and bringing the screen to life.
As Connie walked dejectedly along the corridor back from theatre, her thoughts were with the man who had just died on her table. Losing a patient was naturally a part of her job, but that didn't mean she had ever gotten used to it. She spoke to the man's relatives, doing her best to assure them that she and her colleagues had done everything they could, and now all she wanted was a cup of tea and a sit down. But when she pushed open her office door, she found Ric, sitting at her computer, looking a million miles away from the world she inhabited.
"Ric," She said as she went in and closed the door, but he barely seemed to notice that she was there. Walking over to him, she turned the swivel chair to face her. "Are you all right?" She asked, though knowing he wasn't. "Fine," He slightly croaked, cringing away from her deep violet eyes that were currently seeking out all his imperfections. "Don't lie to me," She said simply, neither pleading nor angry. "Connie..." He stopped, not knowing what he could possibly say to her. Here he was, clearly on the hunt for somewhere to gamble, for something to give him that high he craved, and had been craving for days now. Connie was standing in front of him, with the relatively clear part of her desk behind her, and with the computer to her left and his right. Glancing quickly at the screen, she took in the logo of the online casino he had been about to access. Reaching forward, she switched off the monitor, trying to take it out of his line of vision. "Tell me what it is that you're looking for?" She asked quietly, slightly tilting his face up towards her so that she could more closely examine the look in his eyes. When he didn't answer, being far too ashamed to answer, she said, "Ric, you look wild, untamed, as though you are determined to achieve your end by any means. Do you need that high so much?" "I almost feel constricted," He told her. "As though I need to escape from who I am." "Well, at least that's something I can deal with," Connie replied, sounding a little more sure of herself. "Have you ever been to a prostitute?" "No, certainly not," Ric responded tartly. "Don't be so defensive," She told him calmly. "Most men have, even though the vast majority of them won't admit it. So, close your eyes, and pretend that standing before you isn't the medical director of this fine hospital, but the whore that no doubt inhabits all of your dodgiest fantasies." As she leant down to kiss him, he surprised her by saying, "How do you know you're not?" She laughed huskily as he gently pulled her onto his knee. "I might be good, but I'm not that good," She said with a predatory smirk. "Don't you believe it," He replied between kisses, and thinking that Zubin knew nothing when it came to getting extreme sexual pleasure, and Zubin had had to pay for it. "So," Connie asked when they eventually came up for air. "Do you think that this little craving of yours might just be exchanged for extreme sexual arousal?" "Are you kidding," Ric said with a laugh. "That's half of it." "Good," Connie said with a deceptively sweet smile. "Because that at least is something I can, alleviate." "Oh really," Ric crooned softly back at her. "And just what would my incredibly opulent fantasy have in mind?" "Just you wait and see," Connie promised him, as she slipped from his arms to kneel in front of him on the carpet.
Putting her hands on his thighs, she gazed up at him, lightly running the tip of her tongue along her lips. When he realised what she had in store for him, he said, "Connie, you can't seriously mean to do that here?" "I, Mr. Griffin," Connie purred seductively. "Can do anything I please, and as it appears that I can't quench your desire for me or anything else in the usual way, I'm sure this will suffice. It's funny, but I've always wondered just why men like this so much." As she said this, she reached for his fly, undoing the zip with the practiced ease of one who had done so many times before. "Think about why you like it so much when you receive that particular delicacy," Ric told her as her nimble fingers withdrew his length from his trousers. On seeing the slight dilating of her pupils at the thought of his oral caresses, he added "Well, there you are then."
When her red-painted lips encircled the head, he leant back in the chair and watched her. He couldn't keep his eyes closed as she'd instructed him, because she really was the embodiment of all his fantasies. He didn't need to think of anyone but the woman currently on her knees before him, with her curly black hair framing her face as she fellated him with all the expertise of the whore she wanted to be for him. He was far too large for her to even think of deep throating him, though he was sure she would have done if she could. As her beautiful lips surrounded him, her soft, warm tongue delicately flickered against the underside of him, treating him as she might a particularly exotic ice-lolly. He lifted a hand to gently stroke her cheek, running his fingers through the hair that smelled so fragrantly sweet.
But as they both revelled in the naughtiness of doing this at work, there came a most untimely interruption, in the form of a knock on the door. Still with Ric's hardness between her lips, Connie backed towards her desk, forcing him to follow her if he wanted to remain intact. Only when Connie was crouched well under her desk, with Ric sitting in front of her, the top of the desk entirely hiding what they were doing, did Connie lightly pinch his leg to tell him to get on with the act. "Come in," Ric called, hardly able to believe he was doing this. When the door opened, it revealed Tricia. Thank god it wasn't Diane, or worse still Donna, Ric thought to himself. "I was looking for Connie," Tricia said as she looked over at Ric sitting very close to Connie's desk, and knowing that she'd seen Connie enter her office not ten minutes earlier. "I think she's in theatre," Ric told her smoothly. "Anything urgent?" "No, it'll wait," Tricia replied. Then, just to make sure, she asked, "Are you sure you haven't seen Connie?" "Sorry, Tricia, but no," Ric told her without a flicker. "But I'll tell her you were looking for her." "If you would," Tricia said as she backed out, with a very thoughtful look on her face.
As soon as Tricia had gone, Ric gently detached Connie from him and backed away from her desk. But this didn't dissuade Connie from her chosen mission, to give him the high he'd been looking for. Moving back into her former position, she continued fellating him, her movements gradually speeding up, and eventually taking on the firm and active rhythm that would hopefully push him over the edge. He sucked the breath in through his teeth as she did this, feeling the pleasure and passion coursing through his veins as one might feel the effects of dope or alcohol. He gripped the arms of the chair, needing to grasp something, and not wanting it to be Connie's hair, which at the moment was far too tempting. When she hummed around him, her vibrating lips almost giving him an electric shock, he almost cried out with the force of it. She was right to have done this, he realised, because his feelings were soaring, hurtling as fast as an oncoming train towards the high he'd been so desperately seeking ever since he'd returned from Ghana. When he came, she valiantly swallowed every drop, using her tongue to clean every hint of his seed from his skin, leaving him slightly trembling with the force of the passion she had quite literally milked out of him.
As Ric fastened his fly and Connie rose a little unsteadily to her feet, she spied the cup of luke warm tea he'd obviously been drinking before attempting to use her computer. Picking it up from the desk, she unceremoniously knocked back the liquid, using it to take away the taste of what she'd just accepted from him. Putting the mug down, she turned back to face him, with a self-satisfied smile on her face. Pulling her down towards him, Ric kissed her soundly, saying in far more than any words just how much he loved her. "Did anyone ever tell you just how beautiful you are?" He said between kisses. "Yes," She said with a smile. "You did, yesterday, I think." "So start believing it," He told her gently but firmly. "There aren't many women who would have done that for me, just to get the urge to gamble out of my system. You've got absolutely no idea how much it's appreciated." "Did it work?" She asked, though clearly seeing that it had. "Yes, for now," He replied without a doubt, though needing to let her know that it wasn't a miracle cure.
A little while later when Connie left her office, to begin the afternoon's ward rounds, she passed the nurses' station where Tricia was in the middle of a phone call. Flashing a winning smile in Tricia's direction, Connie went on her way, safe in the knowledge that just for now, she had managed to curb that self-destructive craving that may one day be the ruin of him.