After six hours of sleep, a perfect breakfast and a bunch of awkward silence, their ride home finally commenced.

Which was actually just a long ride of uncomfortable silence because no one really wanted to bring up the events of their previous encounter. Not even her boss dared to talk about it, but that was probably because he had a shitload of explaining to do.

Luckily for her, she was hella drunk (no, she wasn't) and was willing to pass it off as one of those hallucinations that one gets when they get too drunk. Or maybe she just dreamt about it. Or maybe it really didn't happen and it was just a side effect of the little overreaction she had when they got to the hotel.

Him pretending that it didn't happen was really helping her with the 'it did not happen" thing. He hadn't even said a single word since… well, forever. Which was awesome as him not talking for more than an hour was as rare as a dinosaur. It didn't happen unless he wasn't in the room. So, she'd consider this as a gift of some sort.

Regardless of how much she enjoyed the silence, she was freaking out on the inside at the thought (image) of her asshole boss grabbing her and kissing her. It was barely a kiss—just a peck!—but it felt as if the kiss went on forever. Seriously. She wasn't even joking.

Fast forward to three days later and pretty much everything was back to normal.

… Except for the fact that she was extremely bothered by what her boss did. She really, really, really wanted to ask him on why he did it—he hated her and hating someone did not include kissing of any kind—but couldn't because she seriously had no intentions of going job hunting right now.

But she also couldn't stop thinking about that goddamn, sorry excuse of a kiss!

Whenever she thought about it, everything was in an odd slow motion thing and she could still picture the look of annoyance on his face (having been unable to drink for such a long time took a toll on her) as her tipsy self continued to tease him on how he was jealous of all of the guys she flirted with.

Holy shit—he was jealous! And she knew jealousy; there was never a time that Kurt didn't get jealous of men that talked to her. Kurt would always have this semi pissed off face that wasn't too angry but wasn't happy either, and that was the exact expression that her boss had when she went up to him. She wasn't that drunk to have forgotten all about it.

Now that she thought about it; she had totally forgotten about those four cute guys! One of them probably expected her to call him up to ask his room number of give him hers, and the others wanted a casual hello or something by now. Oh god, and they were really cute and she didn't give them her number or her whole name, too!

If she hadn't turned her head that time, she might have found number five or number ten. The bar closed pretty late and she was on fire. Had she stayed for at least another ten minutes, one of the four bachelors (if inly they had a rose!) could have returned to try and convince her to go with him.

Since she was still going with the cliché romance stories, who knows, that guy might have been the guy she had waiting for. He could've been the man who would support her in her acting career, was sensitive to her feelings, cared for her more than the gym and wouldn't even dare to look at another girl while he was with her—pretty much everything that Kurt wasn't.

She could picture it now; she would still have been at the bar by her lonesome, and the guy would see her and try to resist going to her for reasons unknown. Then she'd prepare to leave, already tired of waiting; then he'd finally make up his mind, run to her and tell her everything that she wanted to her and sweep her off her feet—

The evil mad scientist would then suddenly arrive to ruin her happiness by casting a wicked curse on her that he could only place on he by kissing her and confusing her beyond comprehension. Asshole.

… This was the reason why she hated her boss. Even when he had nothing to do with this, he still managed to screw it up for her. Asshole. If he hadn't messed with her, she'd probably be getting all giddy that she would be going on an actual date with one of those guys or something. She also would have had sex by now.

God, how she hated him.

"And then what happened?" Bernadette asked, looking healthy as ever. She and her team had finally been released from quarantine and after a few days at home, she was back to having lunch with her.

Glancing around to see if anyone would hear—and no one would since there were barely any people at this time—she leaned against the table and whispered, "he grabbed my face and kissed me."

"Oh my god!"

She had a feeling that this would was the reaction she'd get from the microbiologist. "Wipe that goofy grin off your face—you're overreacting. It didn't mean anything."

Bernadette dramatically gasped. "Overreacting! Penny, this is huge! How can you expect me to not react this way? Penny, Sheldon kissed you!"

"Sheldon kissed Penny?!"

Penny cringed at the sound of Raj learning that her boss kissed her; it wasn't something that everyone should know about. Damn, she shouldn't have said it where practically anyone could hear about it. "Shit."

A wide eyed Raj approached (wobbled? he was swaying a bit) to their table, sat down next to Bernadette and gasped. "Penny's cursing confirms it!" He (pretty much) exclaimed and Penny checked to see if anyone heard him. "I can't believe he actually kissed Penny!"

Crap. She was going to be so, so, so, so, so screwed! Raj was definitely going to tell Sheldon about this and her (fucking) boss would either get his ego bruised by Raj teasing him and that would somehow cause him to make her life at this company a living hell that she would never be able to escape from.

She either had no escape from this or was just getting paranoid. Maybe she should just look for a new job! Although, Sheldon's hatred for her would make him ruin her reputation so that no one would ever hire her again! Well, her boss does have a few enemies that could hire her, but his enemies were her enemies, too!

Penny was about to stand up and leave when something Raj said cut through her thoughts.

"—that isn't too surprising, though," he happily stated, foolishly grinning at her then at Bernadette who looked like she was about to murder someone, "Sheldon's been obsessed with Penny since, like, the first time he saw her."

Sheldon.

Obsessed.

Sheldon was obsessed.

With her.

Sheldon had been obsessed with her since the first time that he saw her.

Loading…

"What?!" She shrieked once the realization hit her like a bazooka to her face. "What do you mean by that?"

The head of research and development nodded as if this wasn't anything serious. "Yeah! The moment he saw you at the interview, I could tell that he was really attracted to you! He even ordered me and Howard to look into your background because he wanted to know more about you!" Raj did something close to a giggle then grinned at her, "kinda romanic, right?"

Oh hell no! There was nothing even remotely romantic about her weirdo boss having some sort of… stalker-ish, psycho obsession with her! This wasn't the Phantom of the Opera or something! "How the hell is that romantic?! That's fucking creepy!"

"Penny, calm down," Bernadette called as Penny stood from her seat. "There's nothing to be mad about—?"

"No, I have a million and one reasons to be mad, Bernadette! That's it! I'm going to talk to that sicko!" Penny huffed before marching out of the cafeteria; leaving Bernadette and a still grinning Raj alone.

"Why did you tell her about that?" The microbiologist hissed; trying to think of how to do damage control.

"Huh?" Raj blinked at her before shifting his attention to one of the trays. "Look! A cookie!

Bernadette let out a frustrated sigh then snapped her head towards Raj and smacked his shoulder. "I told you not to try the new experimental diazepam!"

Fact; Penny's lips were softer than he expected.

Fact; Sheldon did not like how her lipstick tasted.

Fact; kissing said secretary was not a good decision when he was trying to forcefully obliterate the memory of her pleasuring herself from his mind.

Fact; kissing only made it worse.

Based on the data he had gathered about his fixation with the blonde, it seemed that kissing her was the worst possible thing he could do. Not only did it fail to end his… fascination with her—he had assumed that once he actually 'had' her, he'd realize that she wasn't worth his time and move on—but it also stimulated it even more.

Now it took him a great deal of concentration (and struggle) to steer his mind clear of perverted fantasies of her that ranged from a teacher-student theme to a more extreme superhero one where he was—for some unknown reason—the super villain. Those thoughts weren't just extremely distracting, but they were also a main factor why he had been getting aroused (again!) during important meetings.

To deal with that problem, he had to resort to certain… services and establishments that Howard had—and he explained that this was before Bernadette; not that he cared, though—strongly recommended. It was cheap and unlike him, but he had to do something or else he'd go insane with all of the images of Penny that flooded his mind.

It was consuming him and dragging him to his breaking point.

Sheldon was in the middle of typing up a contract for their foreign investors when his hot headed secretary nearly kicked his door open and stomped into his office. "You could knock."

"No, I can't," she huffed, causing him to glance at her and realize that she was beyond furious. "Tell me the truth, you sicko!"

Ah, more nonsense that he didn't have the time nor the energy for. This contract had to be done before the day ended and entertaining another on of her drama sessions would not amount to anything. "Truth about what? That the report you gave me about Philcox Industries was incomplete and I pretended that it wasn't so that you'd actually do your job?"

He heard her suck in an irritated breath. That meant that she was in her 'I'm not joking around' mode; one step closer to junior rodeo. "Oh, don't act dumb, boss! I was talking to Raj—"

"Talking to Raj?" He interrupted, moving to the next page of the document. "Has Bernadette's team finally invented a drug that cures his selective mutism and doesn't male his hand do that irksome circular motion like last time?"

"What?" She asked, her eyebrows knitting in confusion before she understood what he was talking about and changed back into a hostile expression. "No! I don't know, he just talked—back to the point; he told me that you had him and Howard find out everything about me right after you met me! Is that true?"

He found it absolutely exasperating how he still managed to find her desirable in her current state of hostility. This fixation with her was really damaging him. It might even kill him one day if he wasn't careful.

"I'm not denying that," he flatly said, barely tearing his gaze away from his laptop, "I have to know who my new secretary is, shouldn't I? A background check isn't surprising in this day and age, Penny."

The blonde let out an affronted sound and he didn't need to look up to know that she had now switched to 'junior rodeo' mode. He had only seen this side of her once, and that was when a passerby tried to cop a feel. It wasn't pretty. "And you couldn't have just tried to get to now me?!"

Sheldon paused from typing to scowl up at her, "we're obviously not what people would describe as friends and you send me 'the finger' whenever my back is turned. You also did that to me when I simply stated my opinion on the hokum that is called as horoscopes. It's blatant that you don't want to befriend me."

He continued typing and she stepped closer to his desk. He may be her boss, but he still feared her ability to hogtie and castrate someone within ten seconds.

"Then try to be my friend!" She cried, her voice trembling with outrage. "This explains why you seem to know everything about me! God, are you like, obsessed with me or something?!"

The sound of his fingers hitting the keys of his laptop suddenly stopped and he knew that she had her answer.

"Oh my god…"

He could feel her eyes piercing through him with both anger and surprise at his silent confession. He wasn't capable of lying. Even if he tried, she knew him well enough to know if he was lying or not. "I'd rather not answer that question as I will only lie to you, and we both know that I'm not good at lying."

There was a moment of silence—her mind was probably still trying to process everything—before she spoke again. "This is insane! You can't like me! You hate me!"

How he wished that it was that simple. If he had just hated her, yet valued the fact that she was the longest secretary he ever had, he wouldn't have any problems right now. "I'm afraid you only assumed that," he sad with a sigh, saving the document and meeting her angry green eyes. "If I hated you, I would've gotten rid of you long ago. I've always liked you. Couldn't you tell by the way I treat you?"

She stared at him. "You're joking right?"

He shook his head.

"Seriously?!"

"I hardly kid, Penny."

"You make me feel like you hate me! Much less like like!" She opened her mouth to say something (he guessed that it would be another insult with the way her face contorted) then paused; her expression changing from anger to skepticism. "Wait… you don't love me, right?"

"That's a bit farfetched," he dryly said; his face becoming stoic as hers changed to one of relief with a small dash of disappointment. He didn't have time to for this; he had work to do. "Are you done? I have work to do and we both know that you won't help me."

Penny vehemently shook her head and took another step closer to his desk. "No—we're not done until you explain this. Now."

Having had enough of the worthless and offensive confrontation, he stood from his chair and glared down at her. She was forgetting her position in this company and he would not hesitate in putting her in her place. "That tone of yours would normally make me fire someone, but to prove that I don't hate you; not only will I not do that, but I will also what you asked me to."

He placed his hands behind his back as he rounded his desk then walked towards his door and stood next to it. One wrong move and he will throw her out. "Koothrapalli is right. I am heavily intrigued with you. There. Are you happy, now?"

She didn't look too impressed. Which was a shame, because her job depended on her next set of actions. "No, I won't be happy until you quit messing with me!"

He had expected her to march up to him, slap him as hard as she could then scurry off once she realized that she had just assaulted her boss and that it could lead to her termination. Or her either going junior rodeo on him or straight out punching him in the face and possibly breaking his nose.

What he didn't expect was her, marching up to him, using her man hands to grab his face to her and assaulting his mouth with hers.

Or her forcefully sticking her tongue into his mouth for a good ten seconds before she pulled away and shoved him hard. "There! That should remind you that you hate me. Now stop messing with me!"

Sheldon silently watched as she huffed, glared at him one last time before stomping out of his office and possibly going home without his permission.

He brought his hand up to his mouth and licked his lips.

He really didn't like the taste of her lipstick.