The change in temperature and light disoriented her as she stood in the middle of the terminal, her lips still pulsing from the kiss she and Paul had torn from each other just moments ago. Dammit, he's a good kisser, she thought to herself as she shook her head and looked around for a bathroom.
As she stood in front of the mirror washing her hands, she looked into it. A grimace, then a quick smile at a nice old lady that was passing by. She looked so much friendlier when smiling, but she often kept those smiles to herself, since so much of corporate life was about image, and intimidation and reputation. She groaned, speaking of reputation, had she really gone ahead and made yet another pass at a work colleague? It wasn't possible...it had to have been Paul, but she would have never guessed any kind of attraction from him towards her. So it must have been her, but if so, then what was her problem? Would she ever be able to restrain her overactive libido?
She looked at herself more carefully – she really didn't understand what drove her to seek out such forbidden connections. She by no means saw herself as a beauty, but it seemed like that didn't matter to a lot of the men and women that she ended up with time and again. It was the intellect that attracted her to her lovers, and, quite likely, the same pull that drew them to her. She pulled her long dark hair out of the bun it had been in all day, the normally straight hair falling around her in loose curls. She touched up a bit of mascara, always wishing that her eyes and lashes were bigger or longer than they were. She also occasionally wished that her ass was far rounder than it was – but she really couldn't complain about the rest of her 5'5" frame. She kept relatively fit, focused on yoga and Pilates for the mind-blowing orgasms they helped to produce, and thanked the gods for ample breasts and super-sensitive nipples that she enjoyed having played with and tortured by her lovers.
Being of Asian descent, her almond-shaped eyes did tend to give her a permanently exotic look, unless she was trying hard to look "business-geek," a look which she often pulled off quite well. In fact, Nina had tried very hard to create an asexual persona at her new job in a sincere effort to avoid the poisonous cross-currents that had driven her from her previous position at a competing agency. Her sexual drive was borderline nymphatic, and she had finally been able to find outlets for that drive but not in time to save herself at her old firm. And while the sex clubs that she was invited to did satisfy her basic sexual needs, invariably, it wasn't the physical side of sex that attracted her, it was the mental.
"Might as well leave it down," she said to herself as she luxuriated in not having her hair bound tightly to her head. She walked out and located her ticket counter. As she stood in the inevitable line that stretched before her, her confusion started to mount. Had she missed some signals from Paul about an attraction he had for her? If there had been one, she thought, then it was one of those really, really subtle British-type attractions because she thought he merely tolerated her during the whole project.
She frowned, Paul was married, and she was usually very adamantly against fucking married men. Too much guilt, mostly on her part...but some of them...were such great fucks...all that repressed sexual energy and drive...she felt her clit start to pulse with arousal so she cut off that line of thought immediately.
She shifted legs, wishing to God that she had brought a more comfortable pair of shoes with her. But then again, she totally loved these Ferragamo pumps, she felt sexier in them, and dealing with an 8.5 cm heel wasn't that bad. She walked up to the counter, was immediately booked into the next flight to LaGuardia and invited to the first class lounge for drinks and refreshments. "Thanks," she said and walked towards the security checkpoint.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Paul had little to no recollection of climbing back into the car but snapped back into consciousness when the parking attendant rapped on his window to move him along. He remembered pulling the car over, walking to the passenger side and opening the door. As he sped away, his heart almost pounded through his chest when he remembered pulling Nina's body towards his to initiate the kiss goodbye. "Oh hell, I did do that, didn't I?" he said out-loud, laughing at himself and at his uncharacteristic behavior. He really couldn't believe he had done it, and that she had responded so...favorably...the pounding in his chest started to move towards his groin. He let his thoughts drift...
His time on the project had been a roller-coaster ride – Nina was clearly one of the most talented project managers he had ever worked with. She knew exactly when to lead and when to back off and let the technical experts drive the process. On more than one occasion, she had defended the technical team against accusations of being overly cautious and unaware of the business needs of the firm. On several occasions, he thought Nina would have literally punched Richard through the teleconference screen if she had been able to. All that had done was to make him more committed to the success of the project, and oddly enough more reserved and distant from her as a colleague.
Initially, he had little time or regard for her. She struck him as a typical career-driven girl, hungry for work and nothing more. She projected a one dimensional personality that was clearly about getting work done and had an almost legendary mechanical ability to take in information and process it quickly. For the first month while they assembled their team, emails, video-conferences and phone were the only means of contact.
But the first time they met face-to-face was a completely different than what he had been expecting. Nina had flown to London to meet up with him before they both headed to Tallinn to meet with the programming team leaders. He recalled the first time she knocked on his office door – somehow, in person, her attractiveness was far more palpable than through a video screen. Maybe it was her open and inviting smile, or, he chuckled, her very attractive figure, that caused them to work better together. He had noticed how she kept her hair swept up, wore very conservative skirt suits, and used glasses on instead of contacts. But he also noticed, despite himself, the slightly higher heels she would wear, or the hint of a line running along the back of her stocking legs.
As Paul pulled into the rental car line, he couldn't resist thinking about what attracted him to her. Her scent was very compelling to him...and he could never figure out what the perfume was that she wore since he had never smelled it on another woman before. Vanilla, some kind of subtle sweetness, and then a sultry, almost musky scent that made his heart pound with building desire and a flush rise to his cheeks, even standing there waiting for the shuttle to take him back to the terminal.
When they would work together for long hours, she would often shed her jackets, revealing very feminine, often quite sexy blouses and shirts. The first time he had a full view of her body was when she had been extended across a large conference room table, she had been reaching for a report, laughing about how lazy she was to walk around to the table to get it. And he had been dryly poking fun at her (lack of) height and the impossibility of her reaching the report. Eying him defiantly, she ended up shimmying up onto the table, stomach first and retrieving the report, but not after having given him a ringside view of a gorgeously perky but trim bum, and a breathtakingly fine set of breasts, rather large for her small frame, but a perfect size for men like him who couldn't get enough of them.
He recalled how aroused he had been when he saw her blush deeply and couldn't tell if it was out of embarrassment or of arousal. He had lost count of the number of nights he had stroked his hard cock to release, fantasizing about the black lace bands of her thigh-high stockings that were visible as she slid off the table. She had once left a silk scarf in his office, which he had almost given right back to her until he picked it up and smelled her scent on it. Instead, he had brought it back home to touch and smell as he masturbated, thinking about her.
And as they worked together more often, he knew he needed to keep an impassable distance between the two of them so that he could focus on work and not get his marriage into trouble. Now with the end of the project and with the prospect of not interacting with Nina as much, his impulsive kiss was not as strange as it had first struck him. As he made his way into in the first-class lounge, he wondered if she was still at the airport, if there was any chance to see her before they left L.A. He almost jumped when his cell started buzzing.
"Hello?" he answered, his voice abnormally loud given the pounding sound the blood was making in his ears.
"Hey, its Richard – did you and Nina make it to the airport?"
"Why yes, I dropped her off about 15 minutes ago. Is there a problem?"
"No, no...not a problem, I heard there was a backup on 440." There was a pause, "well, I do have a problem, but nothing related to work. Listen, I need your help, need a partner who can help make something happen." Paul could actually hear some nervousness creep into Richard's voice, his curiosity was piqued.
"What is it?"
