[This incident took place several months before Lisa and Dave's tumultuous vacation in Cozumel.
WARNING: This story deals with a very human wife who is placed in a difficult situation in the midst of emotional confusion and doubt. Temptation to go outside of or include others in a relationship causes a lot of strong feelings in some people. If you like the mix of emotions and excitement in these types of stories, please read on. I truly appreciate your comments of support or productive criticism! Comments that help improve characters, story-line, details, etc. in this or future series are not always easy to take, but I promise I learn from each one. Even true stories can always be told better!
If you don't like non-monogamous temptation, well... I know some of you will read it anyway, despite the warning, and proceed to give it a low score and a pithy, epithet-filled comment about "sluts" and "cuckolds". So be it -- I guess it keeps the comment section entertaining...]
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Lisa was so tense after a long day of depositions that she felt like her shoulders were up around her ears. She couldn't wait to have a drink -- or two -- and then a long hot shower and a warm bed. Fortunately, she was already on her way to the hotel bar along with one of the firm's partners and an associate who was supposed to be helping them defend this case.
They had been in Atlanta for three days deposing the primary plaintiffs and she had hardly slept the whole time. This had to be one of the worst toxic torts cases the firm had ever defended, and she was emotionally and physically drained from dealing with it. Thankfully, they were finally done with this part of it and tomorrow she could head home to New York and her husband.
As she dropped into the booth across from Jim and Jennifer, both of them looking as tired as she felt, she reflected that she actually did miss Dave, despite the fact that they hadn't been getting along very well lately. She supposed that at least part of that was her fault -- frequently being sent off on trips like this one probably didn't help much.
"You did a great job, today," Jim told her, interrupting her frazzled thoughts.
"Thanks," she replied, barely glancing up. She was too tired to say much else, though she knew he was right; she had got one of the plaintiff's in the case so confused that he seemed to admit his symptoms may have begun long before the incident their client was being sued over. It didn't make her feel much better, though, and she sighed with relief when the waitress set her drink down.
They barely spoke through the first round until the pretty young blond associate finished her cosmopolitan and mentioned how tired she was. "I think I'm heading off to bed," Jennifer said, glancing meaningfully over at Jim. She had been flirting shamelessly with "Mr. Durst" ever since they got there, but as far as Lisa knew, Jim had never given in to temptation. She hadn't been checking on them at night, of course, but they had been working fifteen hour days, so she doubted anything had happened.
He seemed not to hear the young woman nor notice her pointed stare and Lisa finally had to break the awkward silence, "Alright then." Jennifer didn't even look at her. "Well, sleep well. Remember we're meeting at the front desk at nine."
Jennifer sat for another moment, finally glancing between Jim and Lisa, then quickly got up and stamped out of the bar, her heels clicking loudly.
"Are you sure you don't want to go tuck her in?" Lisa asked.
Jim regarded her with a frown, which turned into a sly smile after just a moment. "What, and get sued for harassment when I fire her?"
Lisa had heard about Jim and his antics for years -- always showing up at the firm parties with gorgeous young women, flirting with his secretaries, even a rumor of a dalliance with a young associate. From his behavior, she was doubtful that he was really worried about a lawsuit; though with willing but emotional young employees like Jennifer around, maybe he should be.
He was quite good looking, she had to admit, and his aggressiveness had actually made her avoid working with him whenever possible until this high-profile case came along. She'd gotten to know him better in the thick of battle, though, and he'd always been respectful towards her for the most part. She had caught him staring at her breasts a few times, of course, and even admiring her ass once when she looked in the mirror in the office, but nothing more than what she was used to from other men.
"Did you really think I would keep her after her performance this week?" Jim continued when she didn't respond.
"She was pretty awful, I guess," Lisa agreed. "To be honest, I sort of thought you had brought her along for other reasons..." Lisa raised her eyebrows, looking him in the eye. She knew she was taking the risk of offending him, but she felt confident that she was on target despite his previous coldness to Jennifer.
Jim appeared momentarily taken aback, then gave in with another smile. "Ok, so maybe it occurred to me. She does have certain...assets, I suppose." Lisa was sure he was referring to Jennifer's big boobs. "But that was before our first real conversation." He shook his head and took another drink. Jennifer had contributed almost nothing to their mission the last couple days and Lisa had found herself wondering how she had made it out of law school.
"Look, Lisa... apparently you've heard some things about me, but..." he shrugged, "well, you can't trust everything you hear around the water cooler. You may not believe this, but I'm far more attracted to intelligent women." He stared hard at Lisa for an uncomfortably long moment but then continued, "I know you'd agree that Jennifer leaves something to be desired in that area." Before she could respond, he added, "Speaking of intelligence, I've been talking to the other partners about you."
Lisa was forced to hold back her obvious questions while the waitress dropped off another round of drinks. When she had gone, Lisa took a quiet breath and forced herself to wait.
Seeing that Lisa wasn't going to give in to her curiosity, Jim shrugged and said matter-of-factly, "I think that you may be well on your way to full partner..." Lisa felt her heart jump and tried to suppress a huge smile of gratitude, "...if you keep up the good work and play your cards right," he added with a wink.
Lisa frowned in sudden suspicion, but Jim saw her look and immediately shook his head and put his hand ups, "No, no -- I didn't mean it that way!" He gave her a lopsided grin and added awkwardly, "I mean, not that you're not..."
Lisa's eyebrows shot up and Jim turned red. As much a lady-killer as he was rumored to be, Jim always seemed a little intimidated by her; she had her own reputation, she supposed -- though hers hopefully had more to do with skill and guts.
She suddenly cringed as a painful spasm went through her neck.
"You okay?" Jim asked with a note of genuine concern.
"Yeah, just tense from today, I guess," she said, rubbing her neck. "A nice hot shower should help. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get into bed." She cringed inwardly at how that sounded, and she waited for Jim to make a lewd comment. There was a suspicious twitch of his eyebrow, but he wisely covered whatever he was going to say with a long swig of his beer.
They finished their drinks with only a minimal of discussion of the case before heading up to the ninth floor where all their rooms were. When they reached Lisa's door, Jim seemed to have worked up his courage: "Would you like me to take care of that neck ache for you?" He lifted his hands up and tried to smile casually, "I've been told these can do wonders."
When Lisa rolled her eyes and shook her head, he added, "Purely platonic, of course -- I swear!" But Lisa was having none of it.
"We can't have people talking, now, can we, boss?" she said with a smile, sliding her card into her door slot.
"There's nothing to tell," Jim persisted. "A friendly neck-rub for a few minutes... and why would anyone know, anyway?"
"I don't think so," Lisa said with finality as she opened the door. "Maybe Jennifer's still up, though..." she added, stepping through the door."
"Hey, that's not..." Jim began with a frown.
"Good night, Jim..." Lisa cut him off, closing the door with a grin.
As she began stripping off her skirt and blouse, she felt a twinge of guilt. Her comments may have been a little below the belt, considering that everything she knew about his reputation was hearsay. And maybe Jim wasn't really trying anything...
"Yeah, right..." she said to herself as she slipped her panties down her legs. Lisa unclipped her bra, sighing with relief as she stepped naked into the bathroom. She massaged her sore breasts as she looked into the mirror, imagining with a wry grin how thrilled Jim would be to see her right then. Her breasts weren't as large as Jennifer's, maybe, but they were more than a handful and still firm, she thought as she squeezed them together and upwards. As she absently continued rubbing where the bra had dug into the skin, her gaze drifted downwards and she felt proud of what she saw. Her belly was almost flat from a dedication to pilates and while she was no young co-ed, she had managed to keep more fit than most of her colleagues over the years. She momentarily wondered what Jim would think of the full bush between her legs and she dropped a hand down to slide several fingers through her thick patch of pubic hair, wondering for a moment if maybe she should shave... before she mentally slapped herself.
"What am I doing?" she asked out loud, shaking her head. "I must be really tired..."
She turned and bent over to start the shower, but she couldn't help looking back towards the mirror to gaze at her backside. While her hips were slightly wider than they used to be, she had worked hard at keeping her ass tight in spite of the years of sitting in an office for many hours at a time - and it showed. It was still firm and nearly heart-shaped and she got a lot of male attention because of it, she knew; she playfully pushed her hips up and wiggled her ass in the mirror before she felt self-conscious and laughed.
Still, she'd put her body up against Jennifer's in a bikini any day, she thought, as she stood and ran her hands down her satisfyingly feminine curves.
