And, of course, she intended to make sure that her public behavior continued to foster that blind spot.
“Good morning, sir,” she said cheerily as she bounced into his office and put the stack of printouts in his in tray, scooping up an inch and a half of assorted paper from his out tray.
“Come here a second, Sinda, I need to go over this with you.” He waved her around to his side of the desk, using explaining his proofreading markups to her as a transparent attempt to get her close enough to grope her left breast. She affected excitement, gasping slightly, but honestly! Beed wasn’t bad looking, and he was at least decent in bed, but sometimes he got on her nerves so bad she had to physically restrain herself from throttling the man.
“Yes, sir, I’ll get right on that, sir.”
“Oh, and Sinda,” he sighed, “I’m afraid I won’t be able to see you tonight, dear. Clarice has planned a dinner party and absolutely insists on my presence.”
“Awww.” She looked regretful. “Well, I’ve got a cube of movies I’ve been meaning to watch and those self-heaters, maybe I’ll just have a quiet night, sir.” She wanted to slap him for the hint of approval she saw in his eyes. She didn’t think any of that had made it past her eyes, but she turned away to make sure, taking the stack of papers with her. It wasn’t really out of character. After all, the real Sinda probably would have been pissed, too.
Later, Pryce came in with a notepad and propped himself on the edge of her desk, knocking off her stapler and a paperclip dispenser.
“I’ll get that on my way out. Did the general tell you about his speech?” he asked.
“Speech?” she echoed.
“Yeah, the dinner tonight is a little more than he may have told you. His wife is trying to organize a Toastmasters on base, along with General Harrison’s wife. Anyway, I’ve got the draft here. I’d appreciate it if you could be my second set of eyes proofing the thing for grammar.”
“Sure.” She reached out and accepted the pad from him. “So, another wild and wacky evening for you, eh?”
“A-actually not. We had booked the back dining room at the officers’ club, but after the kitchen fire last week, well, the smoke damage is awful. So I really had to scramble rebooking it at Cherry Blossoms, and then we were two seats short so Colonel Lee and I made the gracious sacrifice of foregoing the pleasure of the occasion.” He grinned wickedly. “Of course, I’m all broken up about it.”
“I can see that, Pryce.” The corners of her mouth twitched slightly and her eyes danced. “So, no canapés tonight. Why, bless your heart, Pryce, what will you do with the time?”
His eyes snapped to hers, and — and that intent, perceptive look in — his eyes were really dark, and there was a hot, tight feeling in the pit of her stomach. She shifted in her chair slightly, licking her lips. She saw his glance flicker to her chest briefly, and back to hold her eyes, almost as if he hadn’t really intended to look.
“Are you sure you want to go down that road, Captain? I’m no general. And I’m definitely not General Beed.”
“Um… road?” she squeaked. Was that me? Oh, great, Cally, way to sound like a complete idiot.
“Ahem. I mean, I don’t know what your plans are, Pryce, but with all this paperwork, I mean, I have half a dozen transfers alone. And it’ll probably take me all afternoon just to get Simkowicz’s pay situation straightened out. I expect I’ll be here very late tonight.” She could tell she was babbling, but her mouth seemed to be in overdrive, which was in character for Sinda, so that must be why she was doing it. She jumped at the slight shock when his hand touched hers.
“Y-you know, suddenly I just remembered I’ve got loads of paperwork to do, myself.”
Cally had actually squared away most of what needed to be done by the time Beed departed, speech in hand. Of course he had loaded her down with additional assignments at the last minute. He thought. She had been able to anticipate most of it. His pattern for these little extras was to take work that had to be done anyway, but later, and come up with a reason he absolutely had to have it first thing in the morning. If she had actually waited until he told her, at seventeen-thirty, it would have added a good three hours onto her workload. As it was, she had more like half an hour of work left as he swanned out the door, and the relevant files heaped around in an artistic disorder on her desk. Asshole.
Fifteen minutes after eighteen hundred she took a trip to the copier, counting the coworkers still in the office. Anders was on her way out. Carlucci and Sanchez were still at their desks.
As she passed Pryce’s office on the way back, and he lifted his head briefly to meet her eyes, she had to wonder if he was really working or just pretending like she was. Or, like she would be, anyway.
At eighteen-forty-five she was trying not to twiddle her thumbs and went to the copy machine again, noting with satisfaction that the two agents had finally gotten themselves out of the office. Or, at least, she hoped so.
“Buckley,” she whispered, “listen for a minute and tell me if you hear anyone in the office area but me and Pryce.” She was as quiet as she could be, for a few seconds, breathing as shallowly and silently as she could.
“No, Captain. They’re hiding too well for me to hear them. They must be really good. Maybe we’ll die fast.”
“Okay, you can shut up now, buckley. And quit listening.” Okay, so she knew it was just a computer program. She still didn’t want it listening in while she was with Pryce. It would have been just too weird.
“But what if I hear them sneaking up on us?”
“Shut up and quit listening, buckley.”
“Right.”
“You know, they make personality overlays to cover over the depressing bits of the base buckley.” Pryce had come in behind her and she jumped as she spun around to face him.
“Don’t do that! You scared me half to death.” She had clapped a hand to her chest and she froze that way, for a few seconds. His eyes were big, and dark, and for once she knew what they meant when they talked about seeing into someone’s soul. Could he see hers? If he could, would he stay? She realized her mouth was hanging open slightly and shut it, licking her lips nervously as she played the ends of her hair through her fingers.
She walked up very deliberately and pressed herself full length against him. It was almost like touching a live wire. As he pulled her mouth hard against his she could feel the heat of his thighs through her silks. They were hard and tight, and as she rubbed one thigh up the outside of his leg, pressing closer, she was glad for once that Sinda wasn’t perfectly lean. She could feel the muscles of his back under her hands. His mouth tasted cinnamony, like he’d just been chewing gum, and her knees buckled as his tongue and teeth and lips finally turned off the running commentary in her brain as she strained to get as close to him as she could possibly get. Clothes. In the damned way. Patience? What patience. Patience, hell.
Afterwards he winced as he stood up so she could get off the worktable.
“Are you okay?” She blessed providence that there was a box of tissue on the table, well, okay, on the floor now, in here. She shrugged her bra back on and neatened herself up, refastening her silks. Thank God for fabric that didn’t wrinkle, no matter what.
“That bite’s a little tender.” He rubbed a set of red marks on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry.”
“Hey, it’s not like I noticed at the time. I mean, well, I noticed but it wasn’t… it didn’t… it was okay, really. God, what am I saying? Sinda, thank you. You — you blew my mind. Wow. I — thank you.”