After-Hours Shoulder Rub

The outer bullpen had gone dim, half the fluorescents already killed, and the only real light left on the floor spilled from Elise’s office onto the carpet. Gareth stopped in the doorway with his jacket half on, twenty-eight and still wired from the client revision he’d just closed, and found his boss exactly where a long day would leave her. Elise sat at her desk at thirty-four, beautiful even wrung out, dark hair twisted up off her neck, blazer abandoned on the chair, shoulders hiked high under a pale silk blouse. City light smeared the window behind her. The line of muscle from ear to shoulder looked carved from stone.

“You’re still here,” he said.

She looked up, eyes tired, the professional smile dying before it finished. “So are you. I sent everyone home an hour ago.”

“You did. I stayed to finish the deck.” He didn’t step back. Concern sat too plain on his face to dress it up as a good-night. “You look wrecked.”

A short laugh, humorless. She rolled one shoulder and the motion caught. She winced. “Brutal day. Back-to-back meetings, three of them ugly, and I haven’t unclenched since lunch. My shoulders feel like concrete.” Her fingers dug into the base of her neck and she hissed through her teeth. “Tight. Sore. I can barely turn my head.”

Gareth stayed in the doorway a moment longer, jacket sleeve sliding down his arm. He could see the strain in her jaw, the way every stretch failed halfway. “I could give you a shoulder rub,” he said, offering it plain. “Just to help you relax. Nothing fancy. I’ve got decent hands.”

Elise studied him, and the tired gratitude softened her face before she answered. “God. Yes. Please.” She turned the chair a fraction and gave him a worn, grateful smile. “If you can get even one knot out, I’ll owe you.”

He came around the desk, dropped his jacket on the visitor chair, and set his palms on the silk over her shoulders. Heat came off her in a steady wave. Under his thumbs the muscle was iron.

He started slow, the way you start on something that might snap if you rush it. Thumbs found the ridge where her neck met her shoulders and pressed, small circles, then longer strokes out toward the caps of her shoulders. Silk dragged under his hands. Elise let her head tip forward, a breath leaving her that wasn’t quite a sigh yet. The first knot sat just left of her spine, a hard walnut of tension. He leaned his weight into it, not digging, just staying, and felt it grudgingly give.

“There,” she murmured. “God, right there.”

He worked the same spot until the muscle softened under the silk, then moved to the other side. Her blouse had warmed where his palms rested. The office was quiet enough that he heard the small catch in her breathing each time he found a new ridge and held. A soft sigh slipped out of her, then another, lower. He slid his hands higher, thumbs bracketing the column of her neck, and she made a sound that wasn’t professional at all, a low appreciative moan that went straight to his pulse.

“Too hard?” he asked, voice rougher than he meant.

“No.” Her head stayed bowed. “Don’t stop.”

He didn’t. He kneaded the stiff bands along her neck, then swept back down, fingers spreading over the tops of her shoulders, squeezing, releasing, squeezing again. Another moan, thicker this time. His cock stirred against his pants and he shifted his stance, grateful she couldn’t see his face. The dim lamp on her desk threw their shadows long across the carpet. When she finally lifted her head, their eyes met in the glass of the window, his standing behind her, hers wide and dark and no longer tired in the same way.

The air between them changed. He could feel it in the way she didn’t look away, in the way his hands had slowed without his deciding to slow them, palms resting more than working, heat bleeding through silk into skin.

“Gareth,” she said, breath unsteady. “That feels so good I can barely think.”

“Good,” he said. “That was the point.”

She turned her face a little, enough that he saw the flush high on her cheek. “It’s more than that. Your hands—” A shaky exhale. “I want more. I know what I’m asking. I want more than a shoulder rub.”

His pulse kicked hard. He didn’t make her wait for the answer. He leaned down, mouth close to the side of her neck, and the scent of her skin hit him, warm and clean and faintly salt from the long day. “I want that too,” he said, and kissed the place just below her ear, slow, open-mouthed, not a peck.

Elise’s breath broke. Her hand came up and covered one of his where it rested on her shoulder, holding him there. “Then don’t just kiss me like you’re being careful,” she whispered. “Kiss me like you mean it.”

He did. His mouth opened against her neck, tongue tasting the thin skin over her pulse, and the sound she made this time was helpless and hot. His hands slid from her shoulders to the front of her collarbones, still over silk, and she arched back into his chest like she’d been waiting all evening for someone to put their hands on her and not let go.

Elise turned in the chair. The casters whispered on the plastic mat. She reached up, caught the front of his shirt, and pulled him down into a kiss that started deep and stayed slow, her mouth opening under his, tongue sliding against his with a patience that made his knees weak. He braced a hand on the desk and kissed her back the same way, unhurried, thorough, learning the shape of her mouth while her fingers worked his buttons one by one.

“Lock the door,” she said against his lips, not a question.

He crossed the office, turned the lock, and came back. She was already standing, blouse half untucked, watching him with her lip caught between her teeth. He kissed her again, standing this time, and the height difference put her breasts against his chest. His hands found the hem of her blouse and eased it up. She lifted her arms. Silk whispered off and landed on the desk. Under it she wore a simple bra, pale gray, and the swell of her breasts above the cups made his mouth go dry. He unhooked it, slow, and she let it fall. Her nipples were already tight. He cupped her, thumbs brushing, and she shivered hard enough that he felt it in his wrists.

“Couch,” she said. “I don’t want the desk. I want room.”

They moved together, shedding as they went. His shirt hit the arm of the wide office couch. Her pencil skirt unzipped under his hands and slid down her hips; she stepped out of it and out of her heels, standing in nothing but panties the color of the bra, high-cut, the fabric already darker at the center. He toed off his shoes, pushed his pants and boxers down, and his cock sprang free, thick and flushed, a bead of wet at the tip. Elise looked at him, really looked, and her thighs pressed together.

“Come here,” she said.

He laid her back on the couch cushions, the leather cool under her shoulders for a second before her heat took it. He didn’t rush to get inside her. He kissed her mouth again, then her throat, then the upper curve of one breast, lingering, tongue circling her nipple before he drew it into his mouth and sucked slow. Elise’s fingers slid into his hair. Her other hand gripped his shoulder. He spent long minutes there, switching breasts, licking, mouthing, letting his teeth graze just enough to make her gasp, one palm stroking down her ribs, over her stomach, to the waistband of her panties.

“Please,” she said, voice wrecked. “Touch me.”

He hooked the panties and drew them down her legs, kissing the inside of one thigh as he went, then the other, unhurried, until she was bare and open for him. She was wet, glossy, the folds of her pussy swollen and flushed. He settled between her thighs and kissed her there the way he’d kissed her mouth, slow, his tongue parting her, licking a long stripe from her entrance up to her clit and staying, circling, not flicking hard, just persistent heat. Elise’s hips rolled. A tremor ran through her belly. He slid two fingers into her, easy, she was that slick, and curled them while his mouth stayed on her clit, and she made a broken sound, one hand flying to the couch cushion, the other still in his hair.

“Gareth—oh, fuck, don’t stop, don’t—”

He didn’t stop until she was trembling, thighs shaking against his ears, breath coming in short desperate pulls. Only then did he kiss his way back up her body, mouth wet with her, and she pulled him into another deep kiss, tasting herself on his tongue and moaning into it.

“I want you inside me,” she said. “Slow. I want to feel all of it.”

He lined himself up, the head of his cock nudging her entrance, and pushed in by inches. She was hot and tight and soaking, and the stretch made her eyes flutter shut, then open again, locked on his. He sank all the way, hips flush to hers, and held there, both of them breathing hard, his forehead against hers.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Yes. Move. Slow.”

He drew back and thrust in again, a long stroke, then another, setting a rhythm that was more rocking than fucking, deep and unhurried. Elise wrapped her legs around his waist, heels digging into the small of his back, pulling him in on every stroke. The couch creaked under them. Her breasts moved with each thrust, nipples dragging his chest. He kissed her while he fucked her, mouths messy, her moans spilling into his. Her hands found his and their fingers laced beside her head, gripping hard.

“You feel so good,” she gasped. “So thick. Stay deep. Just like that.”

He stayed deep, grinding more than thrusting, the base of his cock rubbing her clit on every roll of his hips. Her pussy clenched around him in rhythmic pulses. Sweat gathered at the small of his back. He could have come like that, buried in her, her legs locked around him, but she tugged his hands and breathed, “Let me ride you. I want to.”

They switched without leaving each other for long. He sat back against the cushions, cock shining with her, and Elise straddled him, one knee on either side, and sank down in one slow glide that made both of them groan. She didn’t bounce. She rolled her hips in languid circles, taking him to the root and grinding, her hands clasped in his between their bodies, eyes locked on his the entire time. Her breasts swayed. He leaned in and sucked a nipple while she rode, and she cried out, the sound bright in the quiet office, hips rolling faster for a few strokes before she forced herself back to that slow, devastating pace.

“Look at me,” she said, though he already was. “I want to see you when I come.”

“I’m right here.” His thumbs stroked the backs of her hands. “Take what you need.”

She did. The rolls grew deeper, her clit dragging against him, her pussy fluttering tighter with every pass. Gareth thrust up to meet her, still controlled, still slow, the wet sound of their bodies filling the room. Her mouth fell open. A flush spread from her chest to her throat. He felt her start to shake, the tremor running from her thighs into her grip on his hands.

“I’m coming,” she said, almost surprised, and then she was, a powerful shuddering climax that clamped down on his cock in long hard pulses, her head tipping back for a second before she dragged her eyes to his again, riding it out, gasping his name, wetness flooding around him. The sight and the grip of her undid him. He groaned, hips jerking up, and came deep inside her, thick spurts, his whole body shuddering under hers, their hands still locked, neither of them looking away while he emptied himself in hot pulses that seemed to go on and on.

They stayed like that, breathing wrecked, his cock still twitching inside her soaked pussy, her thighs trembling around his hips. When she finally lifted off, a thick trail of his come slid out of her and down onto his cock and the leather. Elise looked at the mess, at him, and her mouth curved, filthy and satisfied.

She reached down, scooped a smear of it with two fingers, and pushed it back into her pussy with a slow press, eyes on his. “Don’t get dressed yet,” she said, voice low and ruined. “I want your come leaking out of me while I bend over this couch and you fuck it back in.”