Five cups of coffee. One bagel. Three meetings (all of which should have been emails), and a lengthy argument with Ellison over a headline change that, honestly, alters the whole piece.
By 1 pm Karen Page, investigative reporter, is exhausted. She’s still in Ellison’s doorway, licking unseen wounds, when an intern appears at her elbow. The boy looks terrified – he clearly heard the exchange.
“Miss Page, there’s a delivery for y-you? Upstairs?”
Karen sighs, “From?”
The boy stutters, unprepared to answer questions. “I-I-I, um.”
She remembers when she was new to the city and scared shitless of New Yorkers. She offers a humorless grin. “I’ll take a look.”
Her office is empty. There are no envelopes or packages to be found. Karen absently lifts a few piles of paper, mind wandering from first jobs to headlines, to wondering how in the hell she’ll ever clear off her desk, to –
“Thought a desk job meant sitting at a desk once in a while.”
Karen jumps (only a little) and clutches a legal pad to her chest. Frank is in the alcove behind her office door, arms over his chest and one long leg propped against the back wall. She recovers quickly and schools her expression to neutral.
“Tough to keep office hours when there’s a city to write about.”
His beard is dark and thick, but she can still see the sly grin. It’s the one he gives when she’s his favorite brand of short-tempered.
“Who let you in the building?” Karen flips the legal pad onto her desk and props herself against the edge. Takes him in. His shrug is fluid; the movement ripples from his shoulders to his hips.
“The genius who doesn’t secure rooftop exits.” His grin smooths, sobers. “If I found it, you can bet anyone with half a brain and an axe to grind could, too.”
Karen frowns. She pushes away from the desk and moves into his orbit. Frank smells of rooftops and cold, of wind and rain and sweat raised prying a door off its hinges. She lifts one hand and tucks it into the crook of his crossed arms.
“Good thing you found it first.”
He makes a soft sound, halfway between a snort and a laugh. When she’s like this – confrontational and a little bit wild – what comes next is that much better.
“Any other exits to check, ma’am?”
She replies with an arch grin that purses her lips and reaches her eyes, “At least one more.”
Upstairs there’s a too-small interview room with an unbelievable view of downtown. With walls too thick for ethernet cables or phone signals, there’s little danger of anyone stumbling in unannounced. Frank locks the door anyway, just to be sure.
Karen folds her arms low under her breasts and offers him a glare from beneath pale lashes. He cocks his chin and tilts towards her. They meet somewhere in the middle – already reaching for one another. Frank takes the hem of her blouse in both hands and pulls. Karen thrusts her hands into his hair. She growls when he bites her lip and pushes her tongue into his mouth. It makes him groan and slow a little on his quest to strip her down.
She curls her fists in the thick fabric of his hoodie and pulls him backwards. Frank follows her mouth, grips her waist as he shuffles with her back, back, back against the two-person desk. She rolls her ass onto the scuffed tabletop, hips and legs already lifting against him. Wrapping her arms across the back of Frank’s neck, Karen breathes harshly through her nose.
He knows better than to tell her to slow down. When she’s this worked up he needs to lead with his hands.
So Frank presses his palms along her curves. He juts his hip between her legs, lifts her back and just out of reach. She grunts, scrabbles for the trunk of his body, eager for him.
“Not – Jesus – not so loud,” he laughs, licks against her mouth and leans away to put space between them.
Karen hums into the exposed flesh of Frank's neck. He’s only wearing a tank top under that hoodie. Laying a stripe along his chest with her tongue is easy. He gasps, takes her wrists, pins them to her sides in an attempt to wrestle back control, but Karen isn’t in the mood for compromise. She traps his hips between her knees and brings him hard against her.
It sets him panting. Frank’s eyes are hooded and dark when he grinds against her, his hard length strains against his zipper. Her breath escapes in a small “Ah” when he knots one thick hand in her hair and tugs to expose her throat.
“Just keep quiet,” he growls and buries his nose in her neck.
Their hands fumble inelegantly– she reaches for his belt and zipper, he pushes her skirt over her hips. They align against the desk in a hormonal rush that makes her giggle. She catches the sound behind her teeth (as remote as this room is, there’s always someone around the corner.)
The head of his cock rests stone-heavy in her palm. She closes around him to take an experimental stroke. He’s wide. Her fingers seem small. He bares his teeth and lets his eyes fall shut. Karen feels powerful holding something so primal at bay. Frank lifts his chin and groans, giving her a better view of his thick neck and the broad spread of his collarbones.
His eyes open, fired with something raw that makes her blood sing and her skin flush a deep pink. Frank threads his forearm under her knee and brings her to the edge. When he sinks deep inside her, she feels his strength; his weight; an electricity that sends light and heat to every nerve ending.
“God,” he murmurs.
“Shh,” she answers.
Karen tightens her grip on his neck and winds her free leg across Frank’s hip. It sets a pace that leaves them both breathless. Frank lifts her off the desk and they stand free for a moment before Karen’s leg slips and her foot hits the ground. Carried by their momentum, Frank spreads her against the desk and urges her flat against the surface with one large palm.
Their new angle touches off a spark at her core. Karen traps a whine in her throat, but he hears it all the same. It spurs a deep rhythm that pushes her towards the edge of the desk, the view of Manhattan, and blinding pleasure. Frank’s fingertips dig into her flesh, spanning her sacrum with thumbs pressing hard at her spine. She arcs, lifts her shoulders, and moans.
“Ah, fuck– “ he gasps each syllable, presses the sounds between his teeth. Frank curls over her, touches his forehead to her shoulder blade and stops breathing.
“That’s it,” she whispers, but her words slip beneath the roar of Frank Castle losing control.
When he lifts his head again, there is a soft grin.
“Thought I said quiet?”