However, at the peak where she seemed to have no brakes, she froze.
The female body Lief held firmly against his own lost all that predatory fluidity in a split second, becoming rigid like a wooden board.
Her clumsy tongue, which moments before invaded him with brazenness, stopped dead and retreated with a quick movement, withdrawing like a scared animal that has just realized it is in the wolf's mouth.
?
Lief noticed the change instantly.
The audacity had disappeared.
Leaving only rapid breathing and a body that trembled, not from excitement, but from... terror?
'They switched,' he thought, understanding the play on the fly.
Airam had returned control to Maria at the worst possible moment.
"Mmh...!" a stifled sound died in the girl's throat, trapped between the mouths still joined.
Maria's eyelids flew open, dilated by shock.
The first thing she saw was a blur of skin and eyelashes. The second thing her brain registered was the moisture on her lips.
And the third, and most devastating, was the total understanding of her posture: she was straddling Lief, with her knees dug into the sofa, her breasts pressed against his torso and her hands... her hands were clinging to Lief's shirt as if she wanted to rip it off him.
!
The blood left her brain to rush violently into her face.
It wasn't a gradual blush, but a wave of scorching heat that burned her from the neck to the root of her hair, leaving her dizzy.
Panic hit her with such force that her nervous system collapsed.
She wanted to push him, but her arms didn't respond; they seemed made of jelly.
She wanted to disappear from the face of the earth, but her vocal cords were blocked. She couldn't even remember how to breathe.
She was trapped in her own erotic nightmare come true, feeling every inch of her secret love's body beneath hers, the heat of his hands on her waist and the taste of him in her mouth.
'Airam... I'm going to kill you... I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!' she screamed in the silence of her mind.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lief caught the movement in the full-length mirror.
There was Airam.
She was no longer a reflection, but a spectator leaning arrogantly on the inner frame.
She had her arms crossed and a satisfied smile curving her lips. She said nothing, simply gave him a conspiratorial wink.
The initial surprise dissipated, giving way to a mixture of disbelief and a sudden warmth.
'These two... are a lost cause,' he thought, although without a trace of annoyance.
However, the priority was now in his arms.
He could feel Maria's urgency to escape.
It wasn't a violent struggle, but the desperate impulse of someone who wishes to evaporate. Her muscles were contracting, preparing to jump from his arms, run to the darkest room and not come out for a week.
He knew that if he let her go at that precise instant, the damage would be irreparable.
Her shyness would dig an abyss between the two, she would feel so mortified that she wouldn't be able to hold his gaze ever again.
So he did the opposite of what she expected.
Instead of pulling away, his hands, which rested on her waist, closed firmly, anchoring her against his thighs.
The block that prevented her from moving away fused with the ascent of his right hand up her back until getting lost gently in the nape of her neck, generating a contact so electric and intense that Maria felt how her whole body froze while he held the base of her hair.
Lief's hand on her neck wasn't a threat, but a source of heat that sent her a clear message: "You are not leaving."
Lief pulled away just enough to break the kiss, but kept their foreheads almost touching, sharing the same air.
"Maria," he whispered without a trace of any mockery.
She buried her chin against her chest, squeezing her eyes shut, refusing to face reality.
She felt like her heart was going to jump out of her mouth.
How could she look at him after... after this?
Shame burned her eyelashes.
"Look at me."
Maria tried to resist, tensing her neck, but Lief's hand on the nape of her neck exerted a soft and constant pressure, guiding her head upward, leaving her no option.
Slowly, with fear stuck in her throat, Maria opened her eyes.
She expected to find laughter. She expected to see that "gotcha" glint or confusion.
But when their gazes clashed, time seemed to stop in the agency.
Lief's light blue eyes were dilated, but fixed on her with an intensity that made her heart skip a beat.
There was no judgment.
There was no mockery.
There was only a deep calm and an absolute attention, as if in that moment she was the only thing that existed.
It was a gaze that didn't ask for explanations, but offered refuge.
Under that intense gaze, her blind panic began to fracture. The runaway beat of her heart, which thundered in her ears, began to sync with the slow and sure rhythm of his breathing.
"What happened before... could have been an accident," explained Lief, "But, now..."
And under Maria's incredulous gaze, Lief closed the final distance.
!
This time, the contact was not the voracious taking like with Airam, but a gesture loaded with patience and tenderness.
Their lips met with a tender slowness, a brush of lip against lip that was an oath.
Maria's world liquefied.
She felt the slight roughness of Lief's lips, the warm temperature and the masculine note of his breath.
It was a reality that surpassed any fantasy.
The shame was still there, but it was overwhelmed by a prickling sensation like an electric current that started in her mouth and spread through her belly.
Her tense body began to yield.
Without realizing it, her clenched fists loosened, and she leaned toward him, an unconscious surrender.
She forgot to breathe, to think and about the cunning gaze she knew was watching them from the mirror.
The kiss deepened, becoming more confident as Lief perceived the lack of resistance.
His lips moved softly, asking permission to stay.
The hand that held the nape of Maria's neck moved, his fingers moving to caress the sensitive skin behind her ear, before sinking them gently into the cascade of her hair, mussing it with tenderness, feeling the silky softness of every lock between his fingers.
The other hand, which had been anchored at her waist, began to move slowly, sliding his palm downward with deliberation.
He caressed the curve of Maria's hip, going up and down the firm and hot flesh of her thigh.
!
The touch sent a shiver that wasn't of fear, but of a nascent desire.
Finally, the hand settled on the roundness of her butt, kneading the tense muscle gently with a sweet possessiveness.
Lief wasn't rough, but tender, feeling the shape of her body under the fabric.
But that intense contact for several seconds finally woke her from her stupor.
When Lief gently withdrew his lips from hers, leaving a hot and wet trail, Maria opened her eyes, returning to reality with a stifled gasp.
"Aaah—!"
All the shame and panic returned with multiplied force.
With a sudden impulse, she jumped off his lap, moving clumsily. Her hands flew to her clothes, instinctively smoothing the wrinkled shirt that Lief had grabbed and adjusting the pants over the spot his hand had touched.
The blush covered her entire face and neck.
"I... I... you... idiot!" she finally stammered, but without looking at him, unable to articulate the mix of emotions she felt.
Finally, as if remembering the real culprit, she stomped her foot in frustration and ran toward the full-length mirror, with her face burning and her eyes about to burst into tears.
"You are stupid, Airam! How could you switch me at that moment!" she screamed and dove into the smooth surface of the mirror.
Her figure disappeared instantly.
But on the shiny surface, Airam's figure reappeared, flashing Lief a radiant smile and a wink, full of smugness.
Immediately after, her image also faded gradually.
The mirror regained its normal appearance and the office returned to silence.
"..."
Lief remained motionless on the sofa for a long while, surrounded by the sudden silence.
Slowly he lowered his gaze to his right hand, opening and closing his fingers slowly.
The sensation was still there, the warmth, the soft but firm flesh of Maria's glute...
"Incredible..." he murmured, shaking his head, "Truly incredible."
He ran his hand through his hair, exhaling deeply.
The adrenaline was starting to come down, giving way to a physical and mental tiredness.
It was time to retire.
He stood up, stretching his numb muscles, and walked toward the exit. With a habitual movement, he crossed the threshold, leaving the agency behind and returning to reality.
Upon entering his room, the silence was different: lonelier.
"Fuck..." he groaned as he slumped against the closed door.
He took off the robe, throwing it unceremoniously over the back of a chair.
He entered the bathroom and turned the faucet on to the max. He filled his hands with ice-cold water and splashed it on his face with force, again and again, until the cold numbed his cheeks and calmed the boiling of his thoughts.
He looked at himself in the mirror, seeing his own dripping face, with tired but alive eyes.
The night had had too many emotions.
He dried himself with the towel and walked toward the bed like a condemned man. As soon as his head touched the pillow, darkness claimed him, sinking him into a deep and dreamless sleep.
He didn't know how much time passed, but the awakening was violent.
!
A tearing thunderclap shook the windows, as if a bomb had detonated right above his house.
Lief sat up suddenly, with his heart hammering in his throat and his breathing agitated.
For a second, he didn't know where he was or what year it was.
Through the window, a white and blinding lightning bolt split the sky in two, illuminating his room with a spectral light, revealing every piece of furniture for a fraction of a second before plunging it all back into the shadows.
Immediately, the sound of the rain hit against the glass in a furious and constant patter, as if stones were being thrown.
A thunderstorm. And a strong one.
Still stunned and with his ears ringing from the thunder, he felt the urgent pressure of his bladder.
Growling a curse, he crawled out of the sheets. He dragged his feet toward the bathroom, moving by pure muscle memory, yawning so hard that his jaw hurt.
After relieving himself, he approached the sink to wash his hands. While drying off, his gaze drifted lazily toward the small bathroom window, drawn by the chaos outside.
Visibility was almost nil due to the curtain of water, but his house and the neighbor's were very close. From his position, he had a privileged and direct view of the slanted roof of the house next door.
He squinted, trying to focus through the fogged up glass.
Something was moving out there.
He blinked, thinking it was a hallucination caused by sleep, but a new lightning bolt illuminated the scene with brutal clarity.
He was paralyzed.
On the neighbor's roof, a small, thin figure struggled against the elements. The wind howled, whipping his soaked clothes, and the rain fell in torrents, but the boy didn't seem to mind.
"Is that... Victor?" he whispered, pressing his forehead against the cold glass.
It couldn't be anyone else. But what he was doing defied all logic.
Around the boy, floating erratically in the storm, there were several homemade kites shaking violently in the wind.
But the weirdest thing wasn't the kites themselves.
Tied to the string of each kite, shining fleetingly under the light of the lightning, there was a metallic object.
Keys. They were metal keys.
A network of conducting threads descended from the stormy sky, converging in the boy's hands and connecting to a strange metal device installed in the center of the roof.
Hurricane-force wind, torrential rain, a rooftop at midnight, a boy and... kites with keys to attract lightning?
Lief rubbed his eyes hard, hoping that when he opened them the image would have disappeared.
But it was still there.
An absurd sense of déjà vu struck him.
"This scene..." he murmured, "Why the hell does it seem so familiar?"
________
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