Sometimes she thinks of him.

Her hand slips beneath her waistband.

The back of her eyelids dance with images of him. A montage of moments plays. Memories, both real and imagined.

She gently cups herself, her fingers brushing over the dampening cotton of her underwear.

She pictures the way he says her name, how it rolls off his tongue like a desperate prayer. It’s funny how he can turn a single syllable into an incantation.

She sweeps her hand over her centre, letting her fingertips skitter across the aching flesh.

She thinks of the way he looks at her, eyes wide and bright. Always glowing with warmth and affection. She notices it, the way he lights up when she enters a room. How he sits a little straighter and grins a little wider. She was sure that she did too, even though she’d explicitly instructed herself not too.

She let her fingers press a little harder. The pressure only serves to make her hungrier for release.

 Her mind purposefully drifts to last week. He’d leant over her in the breakroom to grab a cookie from Phyllis. She’d inhaled at the exact moment his shoulder was under her nose and come away with a gulped breath that was all him. He’d smelled like fabric softener and sunshine and missed opportunities.

She yanks her hand away, only to manoeuvre it into her panties and press skin to skin. She slips a finger into her folds and dips it carefully, testing the waters and attempting to slow down the inevitable all in the same movement. Her thighs creep together, tightening around her hand and adding to the delightful friction.

Her head is clouded with thoughts of him. She feels the phantom warmth from his arm pressed against hers in a conference room meeting. Her knee tingles with remembered electricity from the time he’d forgotten himself a little and run his hand gently against her skin to quietly garner her attention.

Her finger gathers speed. A second finger slips beside it, the pressure building. She curls the tips gently and breathes sharply as a desperate keen slips from her lips. Her other hand trails over her body, pausing at her breasts to cup and squeeze. The momentum builds. Her breath comes in short puffs.

Her mind spins with him.

The hand clasping her breast slips down her stomach to settle over her other hand. It pushes down, providing the resistance that allows her to go harder, deeper, faster. Her release builds and builds and then it bursts. Her fingers remain, gently stroking as her orgasm fades.

She becomes aware of another sensation, a sharp biting twinge on her middle finger. Her engagement ring has twisted with all the movement and the stone digs into the flesh. She withdraws her fingers on an unsteady breath, pausing to wipe them on her underwear as she brings her hand to her line of sight. She shuffles the ring back into place and rubs at the red mark where the stone had settled. From this angle, the arch of the claws clasping the diamond have left her branded with a scarlet a.

Roy’s snores waft through the doors from where he lays on the sofa downstairs. She waits until the angry red marks have faded before she shuffles him awake and coaxes him into their bed.

She sits in the shower until the water runs from hot to cold. She washes away any traces of him, but she can’t erase him the way her body responds to the thought of him.  

The following day she blushes every time he speaks. He glances over at her and she crosses her legs tightly under the reception desk. She catches a whisper of his scent at lunch and her pulse quickens. His chin brushes her shoulder as he leans in to murmur something ridiculous about Dwight and she shivers.

She knows she will think of him again. She wonders how many times it can happen before the scarlet a becomes permanently etched on her skin. Will it become her symbol of shame or something more?