The Other Side of Greed by Lily Zante
Chapter Thirty-Four
KYRA
“I’ll drop you back to the factory so you can get your car.”
He smiles as he gets in the car. A start-up, that’s what he revealed to me over lunch. He opened up and told me that he and a few friends are heavily into online gaming and they’re creating a new game. At last I now know what he does on his days off.
And I already know that he’s single.
We’re good.
He didn’t answer my question about the tattoo, but I could tell by his expression, by how things are between us, that he wants to be with me. But still I tread carefully, having been hurt so much before. Though Brad is a good stepping stone. A chapter of fun. It makes sense for me to see his part in my life as an installment, because I’ve learned my lesson, to take it one day at a time. To not plan ahead.
I gave my all to my ex, and he broke me. Just as I’m about to start up the engine, he leans forward. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For lunch.”
And before I can ask him why he wants to thank me, he takes my hand and kisses it. That’s all it takes for our bodies to twist towards one another. Soon our mouths are meshed together and we’re a tangle of kisses. It is a luxury to be alone with him like this, away from work and out of the storeroom, in our own private space, even if it is in my tiny car, again. His lips press against mine and an electric charge zings through my body.
The windows steam up. It’s not comfortable making out with the handbrake in the middle, and our bodies twisted awkwardly.
As much as it thrills me to be around him, in the moments when I come up for air, a sliver of commonsense cracks through my skull. What am I doing? But when he plants another kiss on my lips, it’s gone, that niggling feeling about why he never asks me to go to his place. Goosebumps trail along my arms and settle in my stomach. My pulse races.
“I should go,” he says against my lips.
“I should drive you back,” I reply against his. This long, drawn-out phase of kissing and heavy petting without the grand prize is intoxicating. He is all I think about now, he is all I will think about long after he has left me.
His breath is warm and sweet, and I fall, heart first, into another long, soft, sloppy kiss. I ache for his touch, but his hand is on my arm, and as our tongues tangle and duel, the throbbing between my legs deepens. I sigh against his lips. Desire rolls over me. His eyes are lidded, his lips wet, and when we kiss again, it’s not a gentle peck, but a longer prelude to wanting more.
“This is getting uncomfortable,” I murmur, my lips brushing over him.
He stops, moves his head back, examines my face carefully, as if he might forget me.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask, tracing my finger over his moist lower lip.
“What do you want, Kyra?”
I want for him to want me, the way I want him. I want for him to suggest that we go back to his place. “You.”
To my disappointment, this doesn’t seem to bolster his spirits. “Don’t you want me?” I ask, because he’s slow to reply.
“I don’t want to mess things up for you. You being the boss and all.” These aren’t the words I was expecting. He raises his hand to my face again, strokes my cheek, and then my lips.
“We could go back to my place,” I suggest. My clammy legs, my beating heart, my desire for this man are all getting to be too much.
“We should take this slow.” That’s another reply I wasn’t expecting. We have been taking it slow. But then he leans towards me and we fall into another long, sensual kiss that makes my toes curl. His actions don’t mirror his words, and slow isn’t what I have on my mind.
I untangle myself from him, needing to know. “What do you want, Brad?” He’s answered my previous questions and I should be satisfied.
“I want to kiss you like this all over.”
His words paint a picture that my body can’t ignore. “Impossible in here,” I say, sounding grumpier than I intended to.
“How about we head back to your place?”
A bolt of disappointment shoots through my heated skin. I’m not imagining this, his reluctance to invite me over. Something isn’t right, but … I want him. I start up the car and drive to my place.
Less than fifteen minutes later, we’re at my door and I’m fumbling for my door keys. I open the door to my tiny apartment and no sooner has the door shut than he pushes me against it and presses his mouth against mine. With his body tight against mine. The hardness of his erection presses into me, a sharp promise of things to come.
Something feral seems to have unleashed in us now that we’re not in the storeroom at work, or in the car with its display-all windows. His mouth devours me. He rains hot, hard kisses against my jaw, sliding down to my neck, before lifting up my t-shirt and trailing his lips over my breasts and then lower down my stomach.
I shiver. His touch is electric. His lips brush over my skin, and my nerve endings sizzle wherever he touches.
A delicious shiver rolls over me because I know where this is heading. This is the longest time we’ve spent together. Lust pools and spreads between my legs. I bend down, lifting his head up, desperate for his kiss again. We groan against each other’s lips, hands feeling, stroking, kneading. He stands up slowly, his tongue sweeping into my mouth, claiming me, making me forget to breathe. I take his hand and lead him to my bedroom where we fall onto the bed. At first it’s him on top of me, before I win and get on top of him.
It’s heat and sizzle, playful domination, lips pressed together. When he’s on top again, he pulls off his t-shirt. My mouth hangs open because he has a physique that he hides well. I reach out, touching the corded outlines of his muscles. My breath stills as I gawk at him in awe filled with need and longing in one sweaty, desperate aphrodisiac. Before I can trail my hand along his six-pack, he switches us, masterfully turning the tables so that I’m on top, straddling him.
“Your turn,” he says, his eyes looking darker than I remember them. Everything I am vanishes in a fog of sexual need as he sits up and peels off my t-shirt before burying his face in my breasts. I can’t help but giggle because his lips tickle and tease but just as I’m about to arch my back, he rolls me off him, jumps up off the bed and strips off my jeans. My insides quiver as his roving eyes slowly take in every inch of my body. He strips off too, and we grin at one another before tumbling back onto the bed. We melt into another kiss, hands tugging each other’s undergarments off. It’s a tricky, logistical, balancing act, with lips and tongues meshed, as we try to undress one another through the haze of our sexual urgency.
He grunts, then falls to his knees, completely naked, his face level with my lower stomach. And then his fingers skate over to my hipbone.
“Found it.” He glances up at me, and I jolt as he kisses the rosebud tattoo just above my hip bone. He licks it teasingly, then sucks the skin, giving me a hickey to the side of it. Just as the shock of us both naked and my realization that he is almost level with my most intimate parts sinks in, his fingers slide between my folds, teasing, electrifying, each stroke amplifying the riot of emotions which threaten to send me over the edge.
When his tongue slides in, I babble incoherently as waves of euphoria splash over me, drowning me in a whirlpool of pleasure. Biting back a moan, the breath hitches in my throat as he undoes me from the inside out.
He doesn’t let up, the expert that he is, worshipping me in a way I haven’t been touched for so long.
And, damn. He’s good.
I moan, and curse, and say his name, rocking against him, spinning out of control. Time slows to a stop, my heart pounds, and I ride the crescendo. I’m going to come crashing down any moment, but I want him inside. I jolt back, managing to pull myself away, then fall onto the bed. Before I have a second to catch my breath, he joins me, and then, in another fast and unexpected move, I’m on top of him again, straddling him as his steel-hard cock stabs me.
I grasp my fingers around him. I am soaked and all I want is to slide onto him. We eye one another, eyes hooded, intoxicated by the lust that has been pooling between us for so long.
I bite my lower lip, the anticipation, the need for him to slide inside me and fill me to the hilt, becoming almost unbearable.
His eyes narrow and he hangs his head. “I don’t have a condom.”
My insides still. Every cell freezes in shock. I stopped taking the pill, and now I’m in danger of letting lust blind me, of letting myself go further than I should. He lifts up on his elbows. I shuffle back a little, watch his throbbing manhood tempt me. I almost salivate at the sight of it.
“Hey,” he sits up and touches my arm. My attention is on his hard-on and the possibility that nothing further might happen. My brain is still warring with my desire.
“We can’t do this,” he says, rolling me onto the bed so that I’m lying beside him, his exposed hardness teasing me.
“I don’t have any birth control either,” I state flatly.
His lips caress my neck. With my panties off and wearing only my bra, my body is primed for all of him. His mouth dips lower, his lips on the front-fastening clasp of my bra. “Don’t worry,” he says, sliding lower and lower, leaving a trail of wet kisses along my stomach before his tongue skims my bikini line. I arch my back in anticipation. “I’ll still make you come.”
I clamp my legs together. It’s not his tongue I want there right now. That won’t satisfy the big aching gap between my legs. I reach down, sliding my fingers around him. “There’s a drugstore around the block.”
He sits up. “A drugstore?” The meaning slowly dawns on him. I’m lying on the bed, desperate for him. The way his erection juts out tell me he feels the same. I chew my lip.
“You want me to go?” he asks.
“Don’t you want to?”
His eyes take in all of me, his heated gaze searing every inch of my skin, before settling on the apex between my legs. I close them tightly.
He nods, once. “Yes.”
“Then hurry.”
He jumps up and throws on his clothes. In the blink of an eye, he’s by the door. “I’ll be back.”
“Be quick.”
The door slams, and I fall back onto the bed, wet, hot and frustrated.