Dan Cassidy sighed as he opened the side door of the building with his key, wondering for the umpteenth time when his employer would get the lock fixed so it didn't require several twists and turns of the key to actually get the damned thing to open. Given that there were less than a handful of people who regularly arrived before the main shutter was raised, which didn't include any of the management, he didn't suppose it would happen any time soon. Still, it was a small price to pay for the very quiet hour he had before anyone else arrived, allowing him to get a lot of work sorted out and completed in a peaceful setting not possible at any other time of the day.
He was generally the only member of staff around so early in the morning - apart that was, from Rosie Kerr. Rosie was one of the two domestic staff in the building, or 'cleaner' as she insisted her title was, who preferred to start her shift at 5a.m. due to family commitments, allowing her to finish by 10a.m. and go to take her 'turn' at looking after her elderly mother. At a very trim and well-preserved 59 years old, Rosie's mother must have been in her 80's at least, though Dan had never actually asked. He DID know Rosie was a very hard-working, very friendly woman, who enjoyed chatting with him when he arrived in the mornings and waited for his computer to boot up and the kettle to boil for his first coffee of the day.
At 43 years of age, just starting to find it harder to keep the extra pounds off, Dan was just under six feet tall with dark, cropped hair and deep brown eyes. His divorce from his college sweetheart a couple of years previously had been painful, but thankfully no kids made the split relatively much easier than it could have been, and his ex-wife had moved away with her (suspiciously quickly found) new man, leaving Dan to find 'love' elsewhere; sadly for him, this had proved a lot more difficult than he had imagined, and he was currently alone once again, but not really looking. Working 60+ hours a week left little time for finding a new partner!
Rosie had worn her 59 years well. On the small side at 5'4", she had mostly retained her slim figure over the years and 4 kids and, despite some misgivings about her ever-rounder ass and slightly sagging but still firm breasts, she was much happier with her body than many women of half her age seemed to be these days. Mid-length, greying blonde hair and blue-green eyes finished off the package, with Rosie debating with herself at least once a week whether or not to get her hairdresser to start covering up the grey. "Not this week" was always the answer, though her resolve to remain 'au naturale' was wavering as the time to her 60th birthday grew nearer.
Rosie had been working in this building for a couple of years now, and counted Dan among the (few) people here she actively enjoyed talking to. Most seem far too self-absorbed for Rosie's taste, though superficially pleasant enough, but Dan seemed to actually listen to her when she spoke and to appreciate and acknowledge her opinions on a wide variety of topics, even if he didn't necessarily agree with her. The mere fact he was prepared to debate properly with her instead of either trying to talk over her or, simply ignore her thoughts as her husband had done now for many years, made her look forward to her daily chats. The fact that she found Dan quite easy on the eye helped too, as she had rather grudgingly admitted to herself a few months previously. She had found she missed seeing him when she was on holiday, or he was, and could feel her mood lift whenever they were both back at work.
Rosie's uniform as a cleaner consisted of dark trousers topped by a buttoned-up green cotton smock. Over the past few weeks Rosie had begun leaving the top button of her smock undone; only because it was summer-time and pretty warm in the offices - or so she told herself. She had also taken to wearing bras of much thinner material than she usually did and for the same (alleged) reason. This had the effect of creating a much better cleavage, due to the under-wiring, but also allowed her nipples to be much more evident than they normally would be. Rosie's nipples had always been very prominent due to their length and thickness; when she was aroused they became like little bullets perched on the summits of her breasts.
For his part, Dan had noticed immediately that Rosie had not fully closed her smock and also there seemed to be a much more impressive pair of boobs underneath that unflattering and shapeless smock than he'd ever suspected. He also noticed Rosie's nipples outlined through the thick cotton of the smock much more often, though he was nowhere near egotistical, or even self-confident, enough to believe it was anything to do with him; although, recently, he had begun to wonder, as he had noticed that once others were around and their one-to-one interactions had to stop, the phenomenon seemed much less evident.
He was also acutely aware of the little sway of the hips Rosie would include in her walk when she knew Dan was watching, which again didn't happen much at other times. He wasn't entirely (or even a little bit, to be honest) sure why Rosie appeared to be flirting with him, but she surely was and he was starting to enjoy it. However, things would probably not have gone any further until . . .
. . . . the floor layout on the ground floor of the building was subtly different to the other two floors, the corridor to the public area at the front of the building turning at 90 degrees to the right through a fire door. This door, as with all the other corridor doors, had a slit window towards the opening end of the door to allow anyone coming the opposite way to see if anyone was there, preventing (hopefully) anyone being injured by having a heavy door opened in to their face. Unfortunately this particular door did not allow good vision due to the 90-degree angle, and over the years a good few near-misses had occurred; thankfully, there had never been any serious injuries.
On this particular morning, Dan was heading to the photocopier in the main corridor just as Rosie was headed the other way towards the kitchen. Dan was moving a fair pace as he pushed the door open, the speed of his push almost catching Rosie's own hand as she reached towards the door towards on her side, but her reflexes pulled her hand back just in time. Dan wasn't quite as quick; his momentum meant his left hand carried on moving an extra few inches, landing squarely on Rosie's right breast and squeezing round the soft mound involuntarily even as their two bodies met in a soft collision. Cue much embarrassment on both sides and a hasty (albeit somewhat reluctant) intent by Dan to remove his hand from Rosie's breast.
"Oh, sorry Rosie!"
"Oh, Dan, I'm SO sorry . . "
Both spoke simultaneously in their apology, both faces red in mutual shock but, as he became suddenly aware, Dan's hand remained firmly cupping Rosie's soft, cotton-covered mound, a hard button pressing against the centre of his palm, while she, for her part, allowed him to leave it there.
Rosie found it rather comical when Dan seemed to suddenly "wake up" and removed his hand from her chest like it had been scalded!
"Rosie, I'm SO sorry; I didn't mean to keep grabbing you . . . . I mean, I wasn't trying to . . ."
He was too embarrassed at this point to go on, his face now a comical shade of scarlet as he struggled to find the words to extricate himself from his predicament.
"Dan, Dan" Rosie spoke softly to try and reassure Dan, "If I was that bothered about it, I would have moved it myself!"
Dan was now taken even more aback than he already had been! What did she mean by that? Did she like it? Did she want him to touch her again?
Rosie nearly laughed out loud at the confusion writ large on his face, but managed to hold in her amusement for the time being at least. Reaching her arms round him she hugged him tightly, but briefly, and said,
"Dan that was the nicest thing that's happened to me in a long time. Please don't worry about it at all".