Girl Friday

Two

It's hard to be around her and not kiss her. Everything she did drove me one step closer to crazy and while I knew that it would be my undoing, right now, I didn't care. The way she flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder when she was annoyed, the way the twisted her tiny mouth when she was angry, the way she rolled those big, beautiful blue eyes when I said something she didn't like... they were all adorable singularly and collectively. I couldn't get enough of any of it. I couldn't get enough of her. 

"You're distracting me," Martha mumbled as she tapped away on her iPad while draped across the armchair that was in my office. Her legs were hanging over the side, one high heeled shoe already on the floor, the second perilously close to following suit, and her dress was dangerously short. I couldn't complain too much. "Stop watching me."

I shake my head and grin. "Can't. I'm not even going to apologise, so tough luck. Nice dress."

"Pervert," Martha teases, a smile forming on her lips as they curve upwards. Sneaking a sideways glance at me, I catch a glimpse of those mischevious eyes and my heart skips a beat. "You should see what's underneath the dress."

Groaning at her suggestion, I throw my head back and run my hands down my face. For the past month, I've been trying to be a gentleman and not let our blossoming romance become physical but Martha is becoming hard to resist. If this were happening two or three years ago, I would have given in to her advances, probably even initiating it because back then, I was an idiot who only wanted sex and no commitment. A lot has changed since then. Now, I don't want a relationship to be based solely on the physical element; what happens if you take sex out of the equation?

That said, I'm a red-blooded male and when a beautiful, intelligent and sassy woman that you're stupidly in love with makes suggestive remarks, of course I'm going to start thinking impure thoughts. While I know that Martha isn't a virgin, the things I could do to her are just plain dirty. 

"I told you that you don't have to be a monk, Sam," I hear Martha say with a heavy sigh. Closing the case of her iPad, Martha moves to sit properly in her seat, leaning her elbows on her knees and staring at me. "I love the fact that you're being chivalrous and being the perfect gentleman by taking me on these amazing dates to the ballet and the opera and the theatre but I'm an Aussie girl and I will be just as happy to go for a beer, devour a Chooks and have hot, dirty sex with the lights on. I don't need you to be a gent because I am no lady."

I blink. "Martha, you are most definitely a lady in my eyes," I tell her honestly. She snorts in disagreement. "Except when you make noises like that. Then you just seem like a  pig. An attractive pig."

Flipping me off, Martha storms from the office pulling the door closed behind her with a loud bang. I'm sure I heard another member of staff scream in fright but I was just thankful that the glass in the door was shatterproof. Just as Martha goes into her office and pulls the blinds to give her privacy, Inell enters my office and sits in Martha's vacated chair. Watching me, Inell doesn't say a word but I can see the smirk pulling at her lips; she knows full well that there's something more to Martha and me than the standard employer-employee relationship but she hasn't confirmed it to any of the other staff, something that I am deeply thankful for. When Martha first started at the gallery, the more established staff weren't at all thrilled with her presence and they ostracised her. Martha hardly cared and would be the consummate professional to their faces, only letting the expletives slip from her mouth when she was either in my office or her own.