Crossing her arms, Rebecca pressed her lips together and frowned down at Paula, who sat behind her desk and sunk a little lower into her chair. "This is just unacceptable behaviour," she said, shaking her head disappointedly. "Thirty minutes late? Paula…"

Paula pouted, and that was it, Rebecca couldn't keep a straight face anymore. She tried to cover her grin with her hand, but not quickly enough, and then they both dissolved into laughter. Leaning back in her chair, Paula sighed loudly. "Oh, please do play the scary boss lady more often, that was so much fun."

"You brought the muffins, right?"

"Yep," she said, standing up and grabbing the box from the desk beside her. "They didn't have any raspberry white choc, but they did have triple choc fudge brownie, so we're still good."

Rebecca followed her to the break room, hesitating for a moment when she saw Nathaniel standing in front of the coffee machine, his back to her. The sink had been fixed for three days now and she'd done her best since then to not think about that day or what he'd looked like or what he'd felt like or what he'd tasted like.

And well, she hadn't jumped him again, so that was a good start. They'd seen each other every day since then, had managed to work side by side with him without doing anything inappropriate, even sat across from him in the office and actually got a fair bit of work done. They'd kept the door open and one of them had always left as soon as the office started to empty out, but still. A good start.

Squaring her shoulders, she pulled two mugs from the cupboard and stepped up next to him. "Hi," she said quietly, looking up at him sideways as she reached for the coffee pot.

Glancing down at her, he smiled faintly. "Hey." She smiled at him cautiously, then more naturally after a moment when she realised that this was just a normal moment, two normal people who were no longer sleeping together greeting each other in the morning. People who weren't sleeping together still spoke to each other, right? This is good, she thought, pouring coffee into the two mugs. "Oh, here," he said, and she looked up to see him offering her the creamer.

"Thanks," she said, taking care not to touch his hand as she took the creamer from him. Because people who weren't sleeping together didn't want to touch each other just in case, right?

He smiled at her again, before turning and heading toward their office. Bowing her head, she closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath before walking over to the table Paula was sitting at.

"Why thank you," Paula said as Rebecca pushed one of the coffees to her side of the table and grabbed one of the muffins from the box.

"And thank you," she said, lifting the muffin and cheersing her with it.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, both of them enjoying the chocolately goodness. "So Nathaniel's changed his tune about you being here," she commented eventually. "Is it still super weird for you, sharing an office with him?"

Her eyes going wide, she stuffed a large piece of muffin into her mouth to avoid having to answer properly, shrugging noncommittally as she did so. Paula cocked her head, giving her a funny look, then her jaw dropped open. "No," she gasped. "You're –" She looked around them quickly, leaning in. "You're sleeping together!"

"We are not," Rebecca protested. Paula stared back at her, clearly not buying it, and Rebecca slumped in the chair. "Anymore," she added reluctantly. "But we've stopped, it only happened once, well okay like three times, but it's definitely not happening again. Never. Nope. No. And before you tell me how bad it is," she said, holding up her hand when Paula furrowed her brow and opened her mouth, "I know all of the reasons why it was a terrible, stupid, dumb idea, and that's why it's over."

"Good," Paula said slowly, then screwed her face up. "And see now I'm conflicted, because I want to know all of the drama and the details and the whens and whys and hows, but also he's still my boss, so…"

"Well isn't it good that I'm not going to talk about it," Rebecca said cheerfully. "How about we talk about how normal that exchange was just before?" She gestured to the other side of the lunch room. "That was good, right? We're doing so well."

"Uh-huh." Paula looked unconvinced as she sucked some chocolate from her thumb. "How long's it been?"

Rebecca looked at her muffin, her nails, the floor. "Three days."

"Well, that's a start, honey," Paula said, with absolutely no conviction.

"A start, a middle, and an end," she said firmly. "I promise you. We are done with it. We are just co-workers who are kinda friendly but aren't going to have anything to do with each other's personal lives."

"If you say so…"

Leaning against the cubicle wall, Rebecca thumbed through her receipts as Maya hunted through a folder that looked just as big as she was. "Do you think donuts count as a work related expense if I gave one to the client?" she mused. It was an expensive donut.

Maya looked up at her slowly. "Is that the only thing that you'll be claiming?" she asked carefully.

"Of course not," Rebecca scoffed. "I'm going to sneak it in with the parking fee."

Closing the folder, Maya turned to her computer. "I'm out of the forms, I can print some more for you though."

"I'll grab it from the printer. Thanks," she said cheerfully.

There wasn't anything waiting in the printer for her when she got there, so she checked the tray and saw it was empty. Squatting down, she opened the cupboard beside it where their paper stash lived, but of course it was empty. Did anybody ever refill anything in this place? "I guess I have to do everything myself," she muttered, standing and making her way to the storeroom.

None of the boxes of paper were open, so Rebecca hunted around for a box cutter, finally finding one on the bottom shelf. As she lined up the blade to cut the plastic ribbon thingy, she heard the door open behind her, but paid it no heed until she heard a low "Oh."

Straightening up, Rebecca turned to see Nathaniel standing just inside the storeroom, the door slowly falling shut behind him. "I'm getting staples," he explained quickly, a slight hint of what looked to be panic touching his eyes.

"I'm getting paper," she said, gesturing with the box cutter to the boxes beside her. His gaze travelled from her to the paper boxes and back again, his expression carefully blank. She tried for the same, yet wondered if he could still tell how suddenly tense she felt in every inch of her body.

A tension that was completely and utterly stupid. What were they, teenagers so desperate for a moment alone that they jumped each other at every opportunity? This was getting more and more ridiculous - they both had more self control than that. Besides, she wasn't even horny right now. "This is fine," she said with confidence, forcing a smile and making herself feel it. "It's not like just because we're in here alone together that we're going to do it."

Nathaniel laughed, and to his credit it only sounded a little forced. "I mean that would be ridiculous."

"And we've been doing so well."

He nodded vigorously. "So well."

Rebecca watched him warily, feeling her smile slipping, and she wasn't sure who moved first but they met in the middle of the room, his mouth pressing against hers forcefully, pushing her lips apart and it was fine, it was fine, oh god -

His hands here on her face, in her hair, and she leaned into him, kissing him back with all of the longing that she was failing so hard at ignoring. Grabbing his waist, she pulled him into her and he continued the momentum, pushing her backwards until her back met the shelves. She rolled her hips forward into his, and he broke the kiss, resting his forehead against hers, breathing heavily. "We said –"

"I know," she gasped, wrapping her hand around the back of his neck and turning her head, pressing kisses against his jaw. He groaned loudly, rocking his hips forward. "We should –"

"I know," he muttered, his voice low and thick, finding her mouth again and she melted against him as he kissed her thoroughly. His hands moved down her body, one of them hooking around her knee and pulling her leg up over his hip, the other making quick work of the buttons on her pants, sliding into her underwear, a finger slipping between her folds, and when he found the right spot she moaned into his mouth, her hands finding his shoulders and squeezing them tightly. He hand travelled further down, his finger playing against her entrance while his palm pressed against her clit.

A sound made her open her eyes, and then she was pushing Nathaniel away, just in time as Maya opened the door and stepped into the storeroom. Rebecca stepped behind Nathaniel, buttoning her pants hurriedly, breathing long and deep to try and hide the fact that she was so out of breath. No one said anything, and when Rebecca looked back at Maya she was looking between them with confusion. "I'm just here to get paper," she said slowly.

"Yes, yes me too," she said, grabbing the box cutter and turning back towards the paper boxes. Her hands were shaking.

Nathaniel cleared his throat loudly. "And I'm getting a stapler. I mean, staples," he said, pushing things around on the shelf.

"Um, the staples are over there," Maya said, pointing to the opposite side of the room.

"Right."

Rebecca grabbed the ream of paper and hurried to the door, pausing when she reached it and turning to look back at Nathaniel, who was watching her from across the room. She glanced across at Maya, who's back was to them, then back at Nathaniel. "The last time," she mouthed.

"Absolutely," he mouthed back at her, nodding vigorously. She hesitated, taking in his mussed hair, his red cheeks. Suddenly self-conscious, she ran her hand through her hair, steeled herself and walked back to the printer.

Filling up the tray, Rebecca leaned against the printer and sighed heavily as she waited for her form to print. Maya hadn't noticed anything, right? That could have been a lot worse, she reasoned, shuddering to think what Maya would have seen if she'd come in just a minute or two later.

It also could have been a lot better.

Yes, because now she was all worked up, and she could still feel his hands on her.

Giving herself a shake, she took the form from the printer and her receipts from where she'd left them on the cupboard beside it, and strode over to Paula's desk, pulling up a spare chair beside hers. Paula looked up at her in confusion. "Something wrong with your office?"

"Nope," she said, "but I'm just going to do this here anyway, okay?"

Paula nodded slowly, looking entirely unconvinced. "Okay. So I don't want to know?"

"Mmhmm," Rebecca said firmly, shaking her head firmly and taking a pen, grabbing her first receipt.