The Other Side of Greed by Lily Zante
Chapter Thirty-One
KYRA
Iput a hand against the wall and take a deep breath, trying to still my heart when he leaves the storeroom.
I kissed Brad.
Or rather, he kissed me.
There have been many days when I’ve imagined what it would be like; days when I have fought against my fantasies, thinking that me and Brad could never be together. And yet the reality is even better than I dreamt it would be.
I don’t go back to the office right away, because the shame of making out is written all over me. I won’t be able to keep a straight face once I’m at my desk. I’m no good at hiding things or lying.
Instead, chicken that I am, I walk around the factory floor, checking in on the employees.
I feel like an oversexed schoolgirl. Fluttery heart, shaky knees. It takes a heroic effort for me to focus on my work when I finally make it back to my desk almost an hour later.
During the next few weeks, Brad and I leave the room within moments of one another. It’s not always to make out. We make a hot drink, or go to the water cooler, or walk around the factory floor together.
Small, simple things. A reason to be close to one another. I don’t want to get caught and be seen by the employees, and I would die if Simona or Fredrich ever caught us kissing.
I don’t know what will happen next. How this will work out. He hasn’t said anything about meeting outside work, but it’s clear we can’t continue like this, sneaking around like schoolkids.
On food nights we have more time. It’s a long evening, and at the end of it, when he and I return to the storeroom to put the supplies back, we wait until the others leave, and when they do, we make out again. Our pent-up frustration heats up the walls. It becomes more than kissing. In the dimly lit room, in the cold, against the walls and cupboards, we find warmth as we kiss and touch, mouths and bodies pressed together.
He hasn’t mentioned anything about us going back to his place, and I’m careful and tread slowly, unsure about suggesting that he comes back to my place. It has all been slow and sneaky, our being together, as if an air of illicitness taints us.
“We shouldn’t be doing this in here, Brad.” My boss alter ego tries to rationalize, as I lift my face towards him but he responds by giving me a long, hard kiss—the type of kiss which leaves me undone and begging for more.
“I know,” he whispers, as my head rolls back against the wall. I’m soft and boneless, needing to catch a breath. He won’t stop. He’s as desperate as me, but he feasts on me, now that we are alone, hitching up my t-shirt and sucking hungrily at my breasts through the fabric of my bra.
“We need privacy. A bed would be nice.” My voice is raspy with need. Why doesn’t he ever suggest it? He never talks about going to his place and even though my brain is fogged by lust, his refusal to bring it up makes me hesitate offering him an invitation to my place.
When we are apart, I need him and can’t stop thinking about him, but I also have the presence of mind to view this situation with some level of objectivity. What am I doing? A twenty-eight-year-old woman behaving like this? This is what I did when I was a teen. This isn’t the behavior of a grown woman, or a grown man. And the doubts creep in again and I wonder why my brain cells vanish whenever he’s around.
And then I see him again, the next day or the day after. His days are all changed up ever since his friend had her accident, and he doesn’t come in on fixed days. It leaves me hanging because I don’t know when I’ll see him next. It’s torture. And then I wonder what he does on the days he isn’t here.
What is he doing?
And still, who is Emma to him?
His explanations don’t convince me.
But then I see him again, or get another text or email from him, all of these thoughts get pushed to the back.
In no time at all, I don’t recognize the woman I have become. Like now, up against the wall in the storeroom, trying to catch my breath from the kiss he’s just given me.
Simona would be shocked.
Fredrich would look at me as if he didn’t recognize me.
Tonight, Brad goes a step further. He unzips my jeans and snakes his fingers into my panties. We stare at one another through the haze of our desire. I moan as his finger slips inside me, and I suck in a breath, forcing myself to face reality, confronting the gritty cold, hard facts—we’re in the storeroom, he has me pressed against the wall, and his fingers are doing the most delicious things to my clit. I can’t move my legs. My jeans bind me like handcuffs around my ankles. I am his for the taking.
His lips half-kiss, half-talk against my mouth. “We can get a room, but don’t you like the risk and the sleaziness of it?”
His wet lips, his scent, his warm breath are like an aphrodisiac. I can only comply and, like a drug addict, want more of him without contemplating the consequences. “This isn’t me, doing things like this in secret.”
“But you’re enjoying it, no?” He slips in another finger, making my breath hiss out. Before he had stroked only the wet fabric, and now his fingers slide down, slipping in between my private places. I jerk at his electric touch, my hands tugging his hair as his fingers pleasure me. He hooks his finger in deeper, and I come apart, biting my lip in an effort not to cry out.
If he can bring me this much pleasure with his fingers, I can only wonder what he can do with the rest of him. He won’t let me unzip him, or stroke him, or pleasure him. He seems to take the utmost pleasure in making me come like this.
“Why don’t we get a room? Or you invite me back to your place?” There, I said it. He thumbs my clit in answer, and I collapse a little against the wall, my body sagging as he tries to support me.
“I will invite you back to my place,” he says, smoothing the hair away from my face. “But before that, I want to take you out on a proper date.” My heart is almost ready to explode with happiness.