'The fucking arrogant bastard,' Sophie fumed to herself as she stalked down the hallway, heels clicking furiously on the marble floor. 'I'm his fucking superior. How dare he talk to me like that?'
Loping footsteps sounded behind her. Oh, for fucks' sake. She spun around to see Anthony trailing behind her, his lazy stride easily matching hers. "What do you want, Tony?"
Anthony easily made his way in front of her, resting his hand on the wall as he turned to face her. "How strange, Sophie. You usually have an eidetic memory."
She made an exaggerated show of rolling her eyes. "You have got to be fucking kidding me."
"You look ravishing when you're all fired up, you know? Not all cold and detached. The eye-rolling becomes you."
She flushed and tried to step around him, but the hallway was annoyingly narrow. "I'm off duty for the day, Tony."
"So am I. And there's the matter of this little bet we made..." He wiggled his eyebrows.
She caught her eyes mid-roll. "Fine. I'll do your fucking bet. Now will you stop being a fucking jerk and step out of the way?"
He laughed, pushing off the wall and heading back towards the control room. "I'll have a package delivered to you. See you tomorrow, darling."
***
"Wear this. Meet me in the control room at 8.50. -Tony". The note was short and succint, attached to a sickeningly sweet box with hearts printed on it.
'Really? As if there aren't 287362736 wank tales out there with this sort of pedestrian crap already? Why doesn't he just find one and jack off to it? Shouldn't take more than 5 seconds,' Sophie cursed under her breath, tossing the note onto her bed. The box didn't contain anything particularly surprising. Stiletto heels a couple of inches higher than she normally wore, sheer dark stockings with a garter belt, matching bra and panties, and a shirt and pencil skirt that was just slightly tighter and more revealing than usual, but nothing that contravened office policy. Also, what appeared to be a silicone butterfly on straps.
Sophie knew what the butterfly was for, of course. She wasn't THAT naive. She also noticed that there weren't any buttons or any sort of controller attached to it.
For a good five minutes, she stared at the contents of the box, tempted to just toss it in the trash and laugh in Anthony's face the next day. After all, she was in charge of his department - what could he possibly do to her? Also, it would set him back by $300 at the very least, by her conservative estimates.
But a strange emotion was bubbling towards the surface, just faintly recognizable. The lacy satin lingerie, the Victorian-style garters, the almost-slutty stiletto pumps, the outlandish reality of having been just sent all of that by a person who had no business with her sexuality - all of that, combined, awakened some sort of... Desire? 'Nay, curiosity. Lets not get too ambitious here. Tony would laugh in my fucking face.'
Maybe she would do it, just for larks. And then have the last laugh when, at the end of the week, Tony was forced to see that none of that had had any effect on her.
***
Sophie arrived in 239's control room at 8.45am, hoping to get whatever gloating Anthony was going to do out of the way before James arrived. A typical coder, James usually stumbled in unshaven and with a huge mug of coffee anywhere between 9.30 and 10, but she couldn't risk him being punctual for once.
Anthony was already seated, leaning back in his armchair and watching her as she walked in. Awkward in the higher heels, she spent a while maneouvering the door closed before turning to face him. Goddammit, why was her face so flushed?
"Morning, Sophie. Nice shoes," Anthony remarked conversationally, flashing her a grin.
"I disagree," Sophie responded acidly, pushing a lock of dark red hair behind her ear in an attempt somewhat obscure her reddened cheeks with her hands.
"I'm really glad I got your size right. Took a while, that." His eyes scanned her from top to bottom in an unforgivingly brazen fashion.
Sophie opened her mouth to retort, but at that moment the folders she was carrying slipped from her grasp, scattering papers across the floor. Cursing under her breath, she stooped to pick them up, noticing that the asshole hadn't even bothered to get up to help. With her hands full of papers, she was unable to keep her skirt from riding up her thighs, exposing a generous expanse of pale skin against the black of the garter straps.
This day was going to be even longer than she'd thought.
Finally getting the last paper up on the table, she sat herself down on the other armchair, tugging her skirt down firmly. She'd be damned if she gave that grinning bastard any more of an eyeful than he'd already gotten.
"So. What are we here for again?" she questioned him, folding her arms over her chest.
"I wanted to talk to you about Mason's plans for the facility, actually." His response surprised her. What, no gloating? Her brows furrowed in suspicion.