Warning: Explicit content. Reader discretion advised.

At the age of nine, Amelia became aware of the disadvantages of being a redhead.

Yes, she burned easily in the sun. Yes, she was always too conspicuous to be invisible. Yes, she looked like a green-eyed monster when angry.

Standing in the tiny storage room, she realised that her exotic copper hair also made it impossible for her to pass for a cleaner, regardless of the horrid, nylon tabard that she slipped on.

Why was she doing that, again? Because she was starved like a wanderer lost in the dunes. Had been for some weeks now but it reached a tipping point two days ago as her courses drew to an end. Waiting at home would have been easier, but the playful ploy that she had hatched on her return flight filled her with an inexplicable thrill.

The sight of a snapback cap among the supplies was her eureka moment. Despite her aversion for all kinds of hats and headdresses, Amelia put it on, hiding the neat French twist underneath. Then she picked up a broom and slowly, discreetly peeked outside. The academy remained open till eleven in the night but at half-past eight, the only people on the property were cleaners, security personnel, and maybe that hardworking maestro in charge of London’s biggest piano festival.

She smiled to herself, strutting down the long corridor.

#

A cursory glance at his watch reminded Daniel that it was far too late for him to be in office. He had lost sense of time again in the refuge of the rich, old-fashioned room after another long day of meetings and rehearsals. Working on the final score for the upcoming festival seemed a good distraction from the fact that he would be going to an empty house anyway.

The realisation that he had not seen Amelia in a sennight made his chest twist in sudden melancholy. He hesitated to reach for his phone. She had an early flight in the morning. A phone call at that time would only hinder her rest.

“Why are you back?” He snapped, sighting the cleaner at the doorway from the corner of his eyes. “You’ve already been.”

Amelia affected what she thought was a good cleaner’s voice. “Forgot the bin.”

Daniel said nothing in response, his eyes on the pages in front of him. She stepped in, closing the heavy door behind her and surreptitiously turning the lock. The vertical blinds on the windows were open, the streetlight shining through the rain-soaked glass and illuminating the elegant mahogany walls. The only other light in the room was the desk lamp, shining over his manuscript and reflecting off his beautifully masculine features.

She discovered the bin on his side of the desk. Daniel was oblivious, rolling his favourite pen in his right hand while tapping the other on the polished desk top, perhaps playing the score inside his head. The thought of where those long, sinewy fingers were going to be in a matter of minutes made her heart skid like a rabbit.

“What the—” He nearly swore when she crawled under the desk and stopped between his legs. Daniel did a double take, then burst out laughing.

“Mel!” He pushed back his chair and shook his head, his heart suddenly racing. “What— Where did you come from?”

“You saw me come in just now,” she teased. Daniel removed his glasses and tugged her from under the desk until they were both on their feet.

“You weren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yes, but work got done sooner and I wasted no time taking a flight back home this evening.” Her bottom lip slipped between her teeth, and Daniel had to stop himself from imagining sucking it out and sinking his own teeth into the succulent flesh. “I wanted to surprise you.”

One perfect eyebrow arched at her. “Dressed as a cleaner?”

“Not very proper for a lady to visit an esteemed professor’s office at this time, is it?”

“So you got crafty. Even added a broom for a prop.” He chuckled, the sound that grazed her nerve endings and set her skin on fire. “You wicked woman. Come here.”

She was pulled into a kiss, gentle for now, all tenderness and sweet affection. But Amelia knew the hunger he was holding in. For a couple who could barely keep their hands and mouths off each other, a single instance of lovemaking in over a fortnight resulted in significant buildup. With her travelling for most of that month and his hefty professional commitments occupying much of his time, their happy domestic life was suddenly in danger of erosion.

“I’m so happy you’re back.” He murmured against her lips, his dark eyes luminous like the rarest pearls in the dimness of the room. “This has been a hectic month and it’s not the same at home without you.”

“Is that why you’re hiding in your office?”

A small, sad quirk at his mouth. He recalled the fancy date they had planned right before she left for Germany and how it had gone awry after a massive power cut interrupted his recording session, trapping him and the orchestra at the studio for five hours behind schedule. Amelia had been understanding when he called her from the studio to explain the situation, but watching her groggily come downstairs to greet him at eleven in the night and ask if he had eaten dinner had hit him like a pile of bricks.

“I’m sorry.” His low baritone was decadent in the dimly-lit room. “I wish things were different and I didn’t have to devote so much time to this bloody festival but—”

“You have no need for an explanation,” she soothed, sliding her hand down his strong pectoral muscles to skate his nipple through the shirt. “I know it all.”

His shoulders sagged on a deflating sigh. “You’re very good to me, you know.” He removed her cap, then reached for the exact location of the small, solitary pin holding her hairdo together. “Staying up for me, making me dinner no matter how late, sending me messages as a reminder that you’re thinking of me even though I hardly have the time to look at my phone.”

“It’s a busy season,” she said, her eyes momentarily closing as he pulled out the pin from her hair. “We both have a lot to do but that doesn’t change what we mean to each other.”

Her hair came loose, flaming curls flowing down her shoulders and framing her face. Daniel’s breath hitched, a pressure forming inside his trousers as he stared at her ethereal face. The other night had been torture in an empty bed. One moment he was exhausted to his bones and the very next, he rolled over and caught a whiff of her shampoo, and his body refused to listen to his brain as it rerouted all his blood southwards.

His fatigue had made it easy to suppress the frustration and fall back asleep. But having her in his office looking mighty fine in a cleaner’s tabard made his blood simmer again. When she lifted the tabard over her head to reveal a long, lace bra and matching knickers, his jaw clenched involuntarily.

“I left my dress in the broom cupboard,” she added quietly. Daniel could not believe his ears.

“You strutted down the corridor in just a tabard and underwear?” His groin pulsed with need. “God… I sure as hell hope no one saw you.”

Walking over to the window, he closed the blinds. Then he drew her back into his arms and reclaimed her lips. It was harder this time, his tongue courting hers, his fingers sliding inside her panties to knead her buttocks. The feel of those strong, warm hands deepened the dull ache she had felt between her legs all day. She ground her hips to realise she was not the only one aching.

“You can keep working while I take care of you,” she cooed. A hot, gasping chuckle fanned her jawline as he dipped his head.

“That would be very gentlemanly of me,” he whispered against her throat. “What makes you think I can focus on anything else when you obviously know what you’re doing to me?”

“Good.” She gently pushed him until his legs bent and he sank back in his chair, his thighs spread slightly and his face affectionately baffled as she dropped to her knees and began to undo his trousers.

That was one of her favourite parts. The part where his eyes hooded and a soft groan escaped his lips as his erection was freed. As she palmed up strong, hairy thighs to feel the solid flesh under her hands. He lifted his hips to let her lower his pants and boxers.

“Mel…” he breathed, watching her hands wrap around his swollen length, her tongue sneaking a taste of his fat bellend. She felt the heat as she cupped his testicles, the smell of his arousal goading her own desire. Without any consideration, she swallowed him whole until he met the back of her throat. He gasped, one hand slapping the desk, the other finding its way inside her hair.

She let him out and sucked him back in, and god, if she kept that up, he would be unreeling in her mouth any minute. It had been days since he last found relief. He was too riled up, too sensitive, and too much in public for an elaborate ceremony. Some nights there was manic, urgent sex. Others there was time, preparation, hours of slow-burning passion.

He knew what they both needed now.

“No, stop.” Daniel wheeled back the chair to extricate himself from her mouth. “Get up.”

They were kissing again as she stood, deeper and more ravenous, their shallow breaths echoing through the office. He leaned into her, the edge of the desk pressing into the back of thighs. Without breaking the contact, he hastily moved aside his music folio.

“You want to know why I’ve been hiding in my office?” His teeth scraped the side of her neck, restive fingers pushing the straps of her bra out of the way. “Because you’re imprinted in every part of my house.”

“Dan…” A soft croak, needy but holding out. His hands sauntered down her stomach and found her thighs, spreading them apart. She held back another noise when he ground into her through her very wet panties.

“I go into the kitchen and cannot help but recall how I pounded into you on that countertop.” He hissed into her ear, his hot breath making her shudder. “I go into the parlour and I can see where you rode me on the armchair, I go into the dining hall and I can almost feel your juices on the table from when you melted in my mouth.”

His words were smooth and calculated, the slightest bit husky, and that rascal knew what it always did to her. He knew it when he cornered her in the dressing room, when he locked them in his old bedroom at his parents’ house, when they snuck into a hidden passage in an iconic theatre.

“You’re everywhere in that house, and yet nowhere.” A whining breath against her ribcage, an exploratory hand in the crook of her thigh. Amelia squirmed on the cold wood of the desk when his fingers pushed down her knickers and located her soaked opening. The delicate tissues quivered at his touch, welcoming the probe with a rush of moisture. “I didn’t know I was even capable of feeling like that until you came.”

“Tell me about it.” She pressed into his hand, craving the pressure on her hard little nub. “Alone in those unfamiliar hotel rooms, turned on and frustrated, all I could think of was being wrapped in you…”

“You said nothing when we talked,” he groused. “Phone sex is always an option.”

“You’re having long days and anyway, it’s not the same as having you like this.” She swallowed around the wall of lust in her throat. “I was hoping you’d ravage me once I came back.”

“I will, I will…” A moan vibrated along her collarbone, an involuntary shiver running down her body. “I’m so pent up… You have no idea how badly I need you…” 

“I need you too. Need you to fill me.”

“Turn over.” A command, albeit gentle. Amelia obliged, presenting her derriere to him like a cat in heat. She clutched the edge of the desk as he squatted down and pulled her back onto him, positioning himself against her cleft.

“Wait.” He reached for his coat on the back of the chair. “Let me get a condom.”

“We don’t need it,” she said. “I finished two days ago.”

“Really?”

She nodded. The revelation that she had been travelling during her most challenging time of the month and he had not even noticed it caused him a small pang. Amelia looked over her shoulder, her bottomless eyes searching his face.

“It’s not very gentlemanly to keep a woman waiting, you know,” she smiled, cocking her hip in invitation. Daniel bent to kiss her again, the thick head nestling against her glistening folds.

“I love you,” he said, gripping her hips. She breathed him in.

“I love you too… Take me, please.” 

And he did.

Pushed into her until he met the back of her womb. Filled her until she was stretched open and gasping and clamouring at the desk. Then proceeded to devour her without mercy.

Daniel was a skilled, thoughtful lover, but tonight he was ruthless, the lack of intimacy having evidently thinned his patience. His fingertips dug into her flesh, his grunts punctuated with the erotic rhythm of their moving bodies, their shadows almost ghoulish in the low light of the room.

“Fuck. You’re tighter right after your period.” He leaned in to bite her earlobe, his powerful pelvis rocking into her, sending smooth jolts of heat that had her sobbing deliriously. With one hand, he brushed her hair back from her face and cupped her chin in an almost possessive hold. “You love that, don’t you? Squeezing so hard that I can barely move? Having me wild and desperate for you?”

“Yes…” She loved everything about him, everything that he did to her. How he warmed her heart and eased her soul and ignited her body. How his strength and virility belied his years and took her to the heights of euphoric pleasure that she never knew existed. How he occupied every inch of her mind even when they were miles apart.

Her eyes closed to a sudden sting, passion and emotion blending furiously inside her. She bucked into his relentless thrusts, clawing at the hand on her hip. It would not take her very long, not in that position, not with him repeatedly hitting the spot that could push her over the edge in mere moments.

“Harder…” she begged hoarsely, holding onto the desk for purchase. Heard Daniel groan behind her.

“Damn it…” He scrunched his eyes, trying to slow down his release that was darting at him like a train down a tunnel, if only he knew how. Restraint was his strong suit but not now, not with everything so tight and wet and…

“Close…” She sobbed out, her womb tingling, toes curling. “Dan…”

“Right on the edge.” He slammed into her mindlessly, his heavy sac tightening as he felt her tissues start to clench around him. “Come with me…”

Amelia muffled a scream in the crook of her elbow as she fell from the precipice, dazed and panting and hardly aware of anything except Daniel and his growls in his race to release while she spasmed and throbbed around him.

“Ah!” His cry escaped unbidden when it struck him like a stone, spurt after spurt viciously wrenched out of him. He kept going through the copious release, gritting his teeth, flooding her womb, flattening her against the desk. Amelia reached back an arm around his neck as he emptied into her shuddering body, holding him in what might have been an embrace if it was not such a shameless fuck.

“I missed you…” Harsh panting against her shoulder, sweaty, tremulous hands coming around her waist. “There wasn’t a single night my heart didn’t ache returning to an empty house…”

It made her want to cry, as soon as she could figure out how to think again, how to feel something other than boneless satisfaction.

“I missed you too.” She weaved her arms with his, tilting her head to capture his lips. The room was suddenly quiet, except for the sound of the soft, steady drizzle outside. “I’m sorry this is such a busy season for us and I’ve been travelling so often—”

An insistent kiss swallowed the rest of her words. He groaned, slowly pulling out of her, the drawing pop of pressure and the rush of escaping semen making her gasp. Turning her around, he cradled her in his arms.

“Are you alright?” He asked, his eyes closing. She nodded. “Sorry. I got a little rough there.”

“That was probably the best sex we’ve had in weeks,” Amelia smiled, staring up at his face. Daniel drew back, wiping a trickle of sweat from her forehead.

“You better go and get dressed,” he said. “And then… let’s get something to eat. It’s the least I can do after what you did for me.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Well, it’s a rainy night and there’s a comfort food place around the corner that remains open until midnight. We can catch up over a cosy dinner.” 

Daniel kissed her forehead, that cheeky impudence entering his eyes. “I can’t be long, though.” His mouth twitched. “My wonderful Amelia will go spare if she learns I shagged the cleaner.”