until 9:00, at the earliest. There was no one else around. Her heartbeat quickened as she picked up the paper and read the letter again:
Dear Chaz:
You don’t know me, well, not really. But that’s neither here nor there when it comes to why I’m writing.
I’m writing because, simply put, I can’t get you out of my mind. This morning, while in the shower, I imagined you there with me, hard and naked. I imagined your thick shaft pulsating inside me, envisioned taking you full into my mouth. The water ran all over my body, and I imagined each drop was your tongue. I fingered my nipples, my nub, but in my mind, it was your hands that touched me. Chaz Covington, I want you. There, I’ve said it. And I won’t take it back. One of these days, maybe my dream will come true.
Signed, Yours
Lois crumpled the paper and threw it into the trash. “That’s where you belong,” she hissed under her breath, rubbing her hands against her slacks as if the words she’d read had soiled them. Mr. Covington doesn’t need to know about this. With resolve, she continued opening mail.
Lois had worked for Chaz Covington, the handsome, prominent thirty-nine-year-old attorney representing the poor and downtrodden in the state of Illinois, for two years. Her admiration bordered on idolatry, and where Chaz was concerned, she was loyal to a fault. He was constantly fending off interested females and Lois counted protecting him from these predators one of her duties—along with typing, filing, and opening mail. “They ought to be ashamed,” she muttered, unaware of her facial expression or that she’d spoken out loud.
“That frown is fierce, girlfriend. Must have been some weekend.”
Lois jumped. She hadn’t heard her co-worker come in. “Hi, Gina.” Please keep walking. You’re the last person I feel like talking to right now.
“So what happened? Bad date? Oh, but wait. I forgot. You don’t date.” Gina Perez obviously didn’t get the telepathically sent “keep it moving” message. She perched her perfectly round, silk-covered derriere on the edge of Lois’s desk, her flawlessly made-up face still beautiful despite the smirk.
“I’m fine, just busy. You know how Mondays are.” Lois underscored this statement and discouraged further conversation by turning on the shredder and feeding a pile of junk mail into the device. While she watched the paper being cut into miniscule pieces, she thought of the letter that needed to be obliterated as well.
“I know who’ll put a smile on your face,” Gina whispered conspiratorially, nodding in the direction of Chaz’s office. “And one of these days . . . I’d like to put a smile on his.” She slid off Lois’s desk and continued down the hall, her waist-length hair swaying from side to side, much like her hips.
Lois’s eyes narrowed as she watched Gina sashay to the break room, looking as if she’d slid off a page in a fashion magazine. Her thick ebony hair glistened with dark auburn highlights, complementing the tangerine-colored suit that Lois felt fit much too snugly for the workplace. And how does she walk in those heels? One step in what she assumed were four-inch stilettos, and Lois knew she would keel right over. When she’d dressed for work this morning, Lois felt that her pink, polka-dotted, button-down blouse—a nod to the arrival of spring and the unseasonably high seventy-degree March morning—navy slacks, and sensible loafers were quite adequate. But with the whiff of Gina’s floral perfume still tickling her nose, she now felt unfeminine, and underdressed.
Lois’s eyes followed Gina until she’d turned the corner. She thought of the note lying in the bottom of the trash can, and thought that someone like Gina, who exuded sex appeal along with tons of confidence, could write something like that. Something bodacious and crass and . . . nasty. Her co-worker was always talking about men and Lois’s boss was the man Gina talked about the most.
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