His Name Is Jake Saunders

Jake Stole From Me!

"What are you doing in the copy room?" I asked Jake.

He was shuffling papers a centimetre thick into the machine. "Copying, what else?"

I folded my arms over my chest. "You know, our machines are so advanced now that you can pretty much dunk them all and forget it. Go get coffee while you wait, that sort of thing." Jake stepped back with his stack in one hand and tilted his head left and right until finally lowering it on the buttons. His brows pulled together as he studied each function with as much understanding as a four-year-old on algebra. I sighed and rolled my eyes. "Come on, it's not that hard. Do you always get people to do your job for you?"

Jake laughed as I snatched the papers out of his hand and leaned his back on the machine, watching me. "This isn't part of my job. I don't do little people things."

I lifted a brow and eyed him. "'Little people'? You are spoiled aren't you?"

"Mmm," he licked his lips, bringing a hand to my neck and brushing the back of his fingertips. I closed my eyes just as I placed my fingers over the buttons as if I were about to play Mozart's Fantasia in D Minor. A sharp, struggling cough from the machine startled me into wake. My eyes closed for all of a split second was enough to take me back to Jake's embrace, wanting more. Lust taking over me, reason packing its bags and heading to Kansas. "So what do you want to talk about?"

"Are you mad at me?" I asked.

Jake furrowed his brows for a moment. "No. Are you mad at me?"

"No," I shook my head.

"Why do you ask?"

I sighed. "It was just weird. Our double-date thing. And then we didn't really speak after that..."

He let out a breath of air that, even though blunt, it cut through my words. "That is true. He's kind of an asshole you know. Went home with what's her name?"

My skin flurried with heat and I tried to hide it. "Your date? He...he went home with your date?"

Jake smiled, crossing it off and nodding assuredly. He pushed off the machine to face me. "Yup. I don't know if it was 'home' exactly, but..." he shrugged and ended it there suggestively.

I narrowed my eyes. "I hate you." I started towards the door and he jumped right in front of me, laughing.

"Hey, hey, hey, come on. I'm just messing with you."

"Well, don't. It hurts too much, it can't be a joke."

"It makes me wonder," he said softly, "are you hurt by what I said, or still by what he did?" I didn't respond. He stepped closer and brushed my cheek. "Because if it's what I said, then I'm sorry, really, I am. But if it's because of what he did..." I waited for him to say what an asshole JD is and how chivalrous he'll be in avenging me, "you should probably at least try and let it go."

Mmmkay. That's how he ends it. "Did you ever cheat on anyone?" I asked hesitantly, pulling my hands behind my back in innocent regret.

He twisted his hands around my waist, pulling me in closer to him. "No."

"What if you loved someone?" I breathed as he pressed his lips onto my neck. "Is it justified?"

He breathed a guttural sigh. "No."

"I don't know why I'm still hurt by him. It seems pathetic."

"It's not." He pulled back.

I looked down. "I think so."

"He's a fucker."

I smiled lazily. "You're just saying that to get into my pants."

He didn't laugh at my joke. Instead, he shook his head. "No, I'm saying it in spite of that. Feel kind of stupid actually, considering how much I want to fuck you."

Jake began lowering his lips, and I would've given myself to him right there and then had it not been for the knock on the frosted glass door of the copy room. "Anyone in there? I need the room and the door's locked. Hello?"

"I should go," I whispered.

"Come to my place tonight," Jake pleaded.

"I can't tonight." Booty call, much?

Another round of knocks on the door, this time louder. "Helloooooooo?" Another voice stepped in: "What's wrong?" The woman replied: "The door's locked." "Oh," the man said, "that's alright. Come with me, I'll get you the key." Two shadows left. Now was the perfect time to escape without anyone knowing.

"I have to go," I pushed against Jake's robust arms, "I have to go." Don't look at me that way, Jake. With your eyes dark and set on mine, my lips, your teeth baring, almost hungrily, and in delicious craving of mine.

"Sophia—" he started as I wriggled out of his embrace. "Sophia—"

"I'll see you later, okay?"

Jake still had to wait for the machine to stop copying and there were a ton of papers left. No one was directly outside the room so I was able to make a quick beeline to my desk. Half an hour passed and Jake still hadn't passed my desk to go back to his office. Then, I overheard a conversation with Jake's name in it. He'd gone home.

I hunched back into my seat, relaxed and seemingly exhausted. Running my mind through the lines of what just happened in the copy room. Of all places. Could I feel any cheaper? Or porno? I mean really, an office romance? I could've pulled a Renee Zellweger in Empire Records and actually had my ass copied!

I slid my right hand from my arm, down to my forearm, and clutched on my wrist. My bare wrist. My bare wrist!? I looked down, pulling my left wrist up to find no watch. No, freakin' watch! A watch my mother gave me with a black, leather band and a mother of pearl face, now missing. And only one culprit. I shook my head, both angry and impressed; that sneaky, son of a bitch.

***Q: Is cheating justified in the name of love?***