Excerpt of Compromising Charis by Sahara Kelly

“You are one sick puppy, Tina Moreland,” Maryanne teased as she slammed the lid on her lunchbox and stood to leave.
    “It’s harmless, Maryanne. I’m not hurting anyone.” Tina set the binoculars down for a moment to focus on her only friend on the construction site.
    “You need a real man, not some figment of your imagination.”
    “Oh he’s no figment. He’s right there, in flesh and blood. Besides, it isn’t like I’ve done all that well with the real men around here. They take one look at me in my hardhat and run, or they hear about my degrees and run faster. Real men don’t want flat chested, freckled redheads with ghost eyes, a master’s degree and an interest in welding.”
    “Sweetheart, don’t put yourself down. There’s a real man out there for you, but watching a stranger through your binoculars isn’t going to help you find him.” She gave Tina her warmest smile and then laughed at her sour response.
    Tina ignored her and the laughter trailing away as her one friend began the short-stepping gait everyone used on the high-rise ironworks. They were working the fifth floor now - high enough up in construction that a fall would likely kill you, but Tina and Maryanne had both been in construction long enough that the height and the walk that came with it were natural. Maryanne was the only other woman on the job this summer. Ironworking was hard work for women and it came with a lot of flack from the men in the Irondogs, as they were known in New York construction circles.

    Tina sat on the newly constructed platform floor that covered the skeleton of ironworks. The platform now extended about half-way down the level but the side-rails hadn’t been installed – it was a great place to hang your feet over the edge and have lunch, and of course, enjoy the view.

    Maryanne’s jokes made light of Tina’s latest hobby, but she was getting tired of the taunts from the guys. She deserved respect. Not only was she a woman doing a man’s job, but she’d completed her Masters in Architecture and was now a PhD student studying buildings from the inside out. But add that to her red curly hair and her pale grey eyes and freckles and she was a natural target for her less than tolerant tough guy co-workers. They looked for reasons to make fun of her. Now that she had taken to using her binoculars on her lunch hours, she’d been dubbed a Peeping Tom.

    The worst of it was they were right. Initially the binoculars had come in handy as she studied the architecture of the nearby buildings, the details that had been built long ago high into the walls and roofs of the structures surrounding the one she now worked on. Her hi-rise was going to be taller, but the old buildings had style. Two weeks ago she’d been studying the elaborate stonework of the offices directly across from where she now sat when she’d seen him.

    From her vantage point on the ironworks, Tina could see right into the fifth floor corner office, but binoculars made it so much clearer. Her heart beat faster as she raised them to her eyes again. Are you in today, you gorgeous man? The tall windows let in so much light. He seemed to enjoy that, and in the afternoons, on a bright day like today, he took a break from his bean-counting job, locked his office door, and stripped.

    A shudder of excitement slipped down Tina’s back as she looked for him and found his lean body doing exactly what she had hoped for, slowly shedding his clothes. Oh baby! You are so hot; yes…take off that shirt…. The naughtiness she felt watching a stranger added to the thrill. He didn’t know she was out here, didn’t know he was being watched. His casual sexiness was real, not practiced. If she could watch him from the privacy of her own home she’d have been naked too by now.

    “Tina-Tom! Let’s go little lady, quit being a perv and get to work,” A laughing male voice called to her.

    Without looking away, she shouted back. “I’m on lunch asshole, and I’ve got seven minutes left.”

    Slowly, almost as if he were stripping just for her, the bean-counter let his pants slide down his narrow hips. Tina reached blindly for her water bottle. Watching his long lean body did amazing things to hers. Her mouth felt so dry, her skin feverish. An electric current seemed to be zinging its way from her taut nipples to her wet pussy. She fine tuned her focus, shutting out the noise of construction around her. Crisp dark hair sprinkled across his chest - matching his short hairstyle and pointing an arrow through his six-pack abs and straight toward the object of her desire.

    Come on man, that’s it. Show it all to me…the litany ran through her mind. Yes! The pants had hit the floor. As usual he wore no underpants. Tina swallowed hard. This was the best view she’d had yet and she was nearly creaming in her panties. She didn’t have a great history with men, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t desire a well made one. This view would be fodder for her fantasy love life for weeks to come.

    “Yer minutes are up, Tina-Tom. Get back to work.” The smoke roughened voice of her supervisor cut into her wet daydreams. She lowered the binoculars and closed her eyes for a minute. Why again did I take this job? Oh yeah, the dream of building something spectacular, from design to nails to sliding glass doors. She sighed and gathered her lunch before standing up on the platform. Regulations said she should be having her lunch on the ground but she, like most of the Irondogs, occasionally ignored the rules for expedience and love of the heights.

    She made her way to the corner of the platform and stepped onto the bare rail. She would have to re-secure her safety straps here, no one avoided that rule for long. For the Hell of it, she raised her binoculars to have another look at the studly bean-counter before she had to stash her stuff and get back to welding on the seventh level. By now he’ll be stretching out his glorious muscles, or perhaps, just perhaps today he’ll give in to a little hedonism and stroke his majestic cock for me.

    Instead, she frowned as she focused on something strange. It took her a moment to recognize it. Fire! The man’s office is on fire! Then she realized that wasn’t quite what she was seeing. It wasn’t natural. The fire seemed to be following his gestures, moving with him, no, she realized, it was flowing from his fingertips. He was drawing a rectangle in the air with flames. He finished the last corner. She couldn’t help it - she couldn’t look away. Inside the rectangle a picture was forming.

    “Holy shit!” she said aloud. Her mind reeled. As she watched, he reached into the burning picture and pulled…something…through. “What is that?” she breathed. All awareness of where she was and what she was doing fled from her mind. He’s a fucking Harry Potter. She leaned forward, tried to focus, and finally took a step closer. Unfortunately, there was nothing to step on.