Pam is beyond distracted. It’s Monday morning after a long weekend with Jim and her mind isn't anywhere near work. Every time she tries to concentrate, she gets flashes in her mind, snapshots from the weekend that send her reeling. The feel of Jim's warm mouth on her neck, his lips inches away from hers, but not quite touching, his hands tangled in her hair, his voice saying, 'just tell me what you want', the shape of his hip where it slopes down, how slow he is with her, but urgent at the same time. Once, when her mind flashes on what happened Saturday night, she shivers. For a second, she thinks she moaned out loud at her desk.

As hard as she tries to focus on the PowerPoint she’s trying to finish for Michael's presentation on their third quarter performance, she keeps drifting. She shakes her head, straightens up in her chair, takes a sip of tea, and silently gives thanks that Jim’s not at work yet. She needs to get a grip now, or else the entire day will be a loss. Then, her cell phone beeps. Text message.

                       You’re driving me crazy. Can’t stop thinking about Saturday.

"Wow," Pam says, out loud. She jumps at the sound of her own voice then whispers to herself, "I wasn't expecting that."

She feels faint for a moment. Just reading his words on her tiny cell phone screen sends a jolt of desire rolling through her. She can feel the heat of her blush radiating off of her and she’s sure that everyone can read her thoughts. She looks around the office, certain they're all staring at her, mouths open in shock. But everyone is quietly working away - Stanley on a call, as usual, accounting clicking away on their calculators, and Dwight straightening his bobbleheads.

Beep. Text message.

             I can’t wait to get you alone and all to myself tonight. Pick up where we left off.

“Holy…” Pam pushes herself away from her desk, feeling lightheaded. Still holding her cell, she hurries into the ladies' room and runs cold water in the sink. Looking in the mirror, she touches her face lightly, then her neck, thinking of his hands there. She wets down a wad of paper towels and presses them to her lips and the back of her neck. Leaning against the counter for support, she looks at the message again. Crazy. Utterly insane. He’s not even here and it’s a few words on a cell phone screen and she can barely compose herself.

And her mind drifts back to Saturday.

It starts in the kitchen. She’s throwing a pizza together for dinner. Jim’s having a beer, a glass of wine for her. He’s wearing blue cotton pajama pants and a white t-shirt, and she’s dressed in the only thing she's worn all weekend: Jim's gray Phillies t-shirt that stops about mid-thigh. Just up from a late afternoon snooze and they’re both pretty hungry. It’s about 5:30 and it's raining but still hot outside. She throws open the kitchen window, in spite of the heat and the air conditioning running non-stop. She loves the smell of the rain and the cracks and rumbles of thunder. Negative ions, she thinks. Electricity.

Jim’s hanging on the door frame between the kitchen and the living room, watching her. When she looks up to ask him to put some music on, the look on his face makes her swallow her words. He looks a little cocky, a little full of himself - the crooked grin says that. His eyes say, 'let's get this dinner thing over with so I can do that again and again and again.' Pam feels a thunderbolt run from her neck to her tiny black panties, threatening to set them on fire. He's the moth and she's the flame or is it the other way around? She feels like tiny Alice and he’s the giant bottle labeled “DRINK ME.”

She gives him a smile full of love and desire. She feels content deep into her bones. She’s also feeling just a little embarrassed, in the light of her kitchen, about how he’s undone every inhibition she’s ever had in the dim light of her bedroom. He sees all of this and straightens his grin to a smile he saves for her so she knows it’s good, she’s safe. She sees all of this, and giggles a bit self-consciously, and turns back to grating cheese and sipping her wine.

"You must be pretty hungry, Halpert."

"I'm starving. How long is that going to take?"

"Only about 20 minutes."

"I might die by then."

"You will not! Here."

She holds a piece of cheese up to his mouth and he grabs it with his teeth.

"Mmmmm..."

"More?"

"No, that's fine. I can wait." He gives a hugely exaggerated sigh and rolls his eyes. "Don't worry about me, Beesly. Just run me around the bedroom all day, bossing me, 'kiss me here, Jim' , 'harder, Jim', 'now, now, now!' and then starve me."

"You loved it."

"I am not your sex toy, Beesly, much as you may think so."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I love you for your mind, Halpert."

Jim watches her adjust the oven rack, brushing her hair out of her eyes with the back of her forearm, and putting the pizza in the oven. When she straightens up her face is flushed, her hair is refusing to stay in the loose knot she has clipped on the back of her head. Caramel-colored curls are escaping all around her face and coiling up like springs in the humidity.

"What?"

"Look at you."

"What? Do I have something on my face?"

"Yeah, you’ve got ‘I just rolled out of bed and I bet you can’t guess what I’ve been doing all day’ all over it.”

Pam laughs. "I bet I do!"

"You're beautiful."

"You're crazy."

"Maybe. But you're gorgeous."

"Halpert, I'm making you a pizza, okay? You don't have to suck up. Besides, I'm wearing your t-shirt and my hair is like a bird's nest. I'm sure I look ravishing."

"That’s ravaged, Pam. Also, ravishing."

She swats a towel at him and he grabs it, reeling her in close, and shakes his head at her.

"You don't even know."

"I know you must be hallucinating from hunger."

He reaches for her and lays the palm of his hand against her lips.

"Shut up! God, you talk a lot! I said that you're beautiful, and...."

Her protests get muffled into his palm.

"Stop! Are you going to stop? Okay, good. You're beautiful."

She’s shaking her head no and Jim takes his hand away from her mouth.

"Jim, no."

"What do you mean, ‘no’?"

She looks down at her hands and doesn’t answer.

"You're going to have to do better than that, Pam."

"Look, Roy wasn't very big on expressing himself, okay? I didn't hear that kind of stuff a lot."

"Well, you're going to hear it a lot and you're going to hear a lot of other stuff, too, so."

"I'm really bad at accepting compliments."

"Okay, I think we need to do a little classical conditioning here. Like Dwight and the Altoids? Only this is going to be a little different."

He quickly checks the timer on the oven.

"You can't say anything for the next ten minutes, okay? Not a word. If you talk, I'm going to have to turn you over my knee. Okay?"

"Wait! What's in it for me?"

"Wow. Here I am, Beesly, trying to help you resolve your deep psychological issues, and you want to know what your prize is?"

"Definitely!"

"When I'm done with your training, you'll be able to accept all kinds of compliments without freaking out and acting like a dork. Okay?”

"Okay."

“Ready?”

“Ready for what?”

“Ready to say ‘Jim, I’m ready and I trust you completely.’”

“Jim, I’m ready and I trust you…completely.”

“Excellent.”

Jim puts both her hands behind her back and holds them there. He sees her eyes flicker for a second, but she holds his gaze steady after that. His free hand reaches for her face and he lightly strokes her jaw with a fingertip, her cheek with the back of his hand. He smoothes a stray hair from her forehead.

Pam’s trying very hard to suppress a giggle that’s itching to get out. What the hell is he doing? She’s waiting for his smile, his laughter - but he isn't joking. His mouth, always so animated, so alive, is slack. His gaze is so direct, so intense. He’s stroking her cheek with his fingertips and the look in his eyes finds a place in her memory. The last time he looked at her like this, there was sadness and longing hidden behind his eyes. On the boat, that night Roy set the date for their wedding. Now, she sees only desire fanned by the intimacy they’ve shared.

"Your skin is just…I always knew it would feel this soft and smooth."

Jim only wants to keep her still long enough to tell her a few of the many things he loves about her. He’s sure she’s unaware of the full effect she has on him, doesn’t know all the little details that he’s memorized. He intends only to tell her and show her all the ways she’s so beautiful to him. But with her wrists restrained in his hands, he feels himself growing hard, and even though he’s made love to her three times since they woke up, he wants her again.

He can feel her draw breath like she’s going to say something, but he knits his eyebrows together, gives her a stern look and takes hold of her face. He can see she’s unnerved and she even takes a step back. He steps forward with a look that says ‘trust’ until she’s backed against the kitchen counter.

"Hush."

Pam nods her head up and down, her eyes wide with anticipation. She can feel his mood has shifted.

"From the first moment I saw you, I wanted to touch you, and now, every time I look at you, I find something else I love. This freckle. The way you bite your tongue when you laugh. This tiny little line next to your lips when you smile...."

His thumb grazes her lips while their eyes stay locked. He runs his hand down her neck and caresses his way around to the back of her head. When he releases the clip in her hair, his eyes leave hers for a moment to watch it fall through his fingers.

"You have no idea how many times I wanted to touch your hair," he says, almost to himself. "That day you fell asleep on my shoulder in the conference room...it was all I could do not to bury my face in it."

He brushes the hair back away from her face then tilts her chin up and now it’s his turn to take a breath. The want in her eyes is unmistakable and she’s staring at his mouth. She tries to free her hands from his grasp, but he stops her with a tighter grip. Without thinking, he winds his free hand into her hair until he reaches the back of her neck. He gently twists her hair in his fist and ever so slightly, pulls. Pam’s eyes close. She feels something come undone, break loose inside her. Her hands bound by his, bidden silent, head pulled slightly back. Everything in her says yes.

Jim's voice comes to her through a fog. The words, thick, deep, and slow, his lips right next to her ear where she can feel his breath ignite every last nerve.

"You're being very good."

He trails his lips ever so lightly over her cheek and stops just short of her lips and breathes in. He seems carnal, raw, inhaling her breath, her scent. He exhales into her open mouth, their lips not quite touching and a tiny cry gets caught in her throat, trying to escape from somewhere deep inside her. Kiss me now, I can't wait another second, I’m going to die if you don’t kiss me. She’s reaching up, trying to close that tiny distance between their lips, but he has height to spare and moves away just far enough so her lips are a hair’s breadth from his own. He holds her there, suspended, and her face turns tortured, impatient. He wants her, wants to take her right here, lift her onto the counter, push himself into her and hear her cry out his name like she did this morning. But he wants to live in this sweet aching moment of anticipation just a little bit more.

Finally, he gives in with a low growl and his lips come down on her softly, then firm, hungry and he sinks slowly into her. Their mouths open, breathing into each other, and it’s like he’s already inside her. He feels the tension in her body release. She moans into his mouth and that nearly breaks his control. He becomes aware that her head and back are arched backward over the counter. He’s pinned her there, still clutching her hands, still grabbing her hair, and he hesitates for fear he’s really hurting her.

When he starts to break the kiss, Pam nearly cries out “No, don’t stop!” but instead, she strains against his grip and lifts her entire body forward and up, reaching for his hardness with her hips, her lips pleading silently for his mouth, his tongue. She’s writhing forward, feeling out of control, and that’s exactly what she is. He’s in control and he’s killing her. She can’t remember ever, ever feeling like this. She’s going to pass out or burst into flames if he doesn’t do something, anything, she doesn’t care what.

He bends down to whisper in her ear, the timbre in his voice starting an avalanche of trembling that settles in her core and rolls down her legs.

“There has never been another woman, ever, that I have wanted as much as I want you. Every single thing about you…is beautiful.”

His lips connect with the soft skin next to her ear and move too slowly across her face to her lips then everything comes down on her: mouth, tongue, hips, legs, and she’s drowning in him, gone, gone.

The oven timer finally breaks the spell and she drifts up, feeling drunk.

“Time’s up, beautiful. Well done, Beesly.”

He lets go of her hands, reaches down to lift her up, wrapping her legs around his waist. She drapes herself around his neck, her hands in his hair and she’s kissing him everywhere she can reach. Before leaving the kitchen, he stops at the stove and bends slightly so she can reach the dial, turning it off.

He asks if dinner will keep. Yes, yes it will.

“Good. I’m so not done with you.”

****