by Lily Zante
“You orchestrated all of this just to get me into a bikini?” I ask him when she leaves.
He tilts his head, wearing a sexy grin. “It worked.”
It’s just as well we were submerged up to our necks in grape juice. I sit back, fighting the urge to step towards him because that would just end up with me kissing him again, and feeling as loose and as relaxed as I am now, I would have no qualms about things turning red hot in here.
“Feels good?” he asks, his dreamy voice making my eyelids fly open.
“You have no idea.” I lower my head. “You’ve given me two perfect days. Such glorious days, I’ll never forget them.”
“I wanted you to slow down and have a good time.”
“I had a good time from the moment you turned up at my door.” He steps towards me. One stride is all it takes, before he pulls me up to standing, our bodies warm and wet as our hands tangle around one another, and our mouths sink together.
I feel his boner before his tongue welcomes mine. In the warm, dimly lit room, with our guards down, our bodies relaxed, I press against him, my hands reaching over his shorts, then inside. He’s so hard, I have the urge to want him now. He moans against me each time I stroke him, his member engorging in my fingers. Each time I stroke his silky tip, he shudders. The excitement is off-the-chart crazy; a reminder of our storeroom days.
“We could be caught,” he husks, his breath catching the harder I stroke him. He thumbs my nipple through the flimsy bikini top fabric. Heat pools between my legs. This feels dirty, and sticky, and forbidden, standing in a tub full of grape juice, doing this.
“I don’t care,” I moan in between our kisses.
“You don’t?” he asks, lifting his head. His hot breath tickles my face. The grape juice seems to have seeped through my skin, intoxicating me.
“You could do anything to me now, Brad, and I wouldn’t care.”
He unties my halter-neck top bikini and pulls it down. My breasts perk up. They’re sticky and wet, like our entire bodies, neck downwards. We’re covered in juice, but Brad lowers his mouth and sucks hungrily at my breasts. An electric charge skitters across my skin, making my back arch as I rake my fingers through his hair. He sucks each breast in turn, greedily, thirstily, as if he has been wanting to do this forever. I could come just from this.
And then I start to worry. Reality and common sense prevails.
“She’s going to come back,” I murmur, lifting my leg and hooking it around his waist. Even as I say the words, my body reacts as if it doesn’t care about the therapist. I mewl, shuddering in ecstasy as his fingers slide into my bikini bottoms, then slide inside me. I rock against him, wanting more than just his fingers.
This is messy and unhygienic. These thoughts crop up in my mind, but Brad’s fingers and tongue soon push those away.
I fall back, panting and sighing as I float down from my high.
He watches me as I try to put myself together.
“Where is she?” I say finally.
He pulls up my bikini top, then turns me around to tie it at the back. His erection pokes in between my butt cheeks and I reach back in order to grasp him, but he moves away.
“We have more treatments to get through yet.” He picks up the buzzer and presses it. A few moments later, the therapist returns and asks us how we are doing.
I’m too ashamed to look her in the eye, but Brad replies and tells her that we’ve been doing just fine.
* * *
My mind is frazzled, and my body feels as if it doesn’t belong to me. The scent of orange blossoms permeates through the air. Now, lying on a table on my stomach, I moan in quiet ecstasy as another therapist massages my body from top to bottom.
I’m having an out-of-body experience. It’s as if I’m floating above the table and looking down. Brad is on a table next to me and another therapist works on him. I am not only in post-sex haze, but also soft and relaxed from the bath, and now my senses are further loosened with this massage.
Every knot of tension, every crease of worry, is being slowly and gently ironed out of me. I feel myself become lighter, as if I have nothing to fear, nothing to worry about.
Later, we end up in what’s called a relaxation room, where we loll about on a heated marble stone surface, sipping mint tea.
I feel rejuvenated. Born again. Refreshed and recharged and made new. I catch Brad watching me, a glint of amusement in his eyes. He made me come in a tub filled with crushed grapes. That’s something I never thought I’d end up saying, or doing.
I smile at him, because talking seems like too much effort, because my muscles, all of them, my vocal chords, too, are having an afternoon siesta. It’s a miracle that I can sit upright and hold up this glass of mint tea.
“You’re glowing,” he comments, as we sit there wearing fluffy white terrycloth robes.
“I’m floating on another planet.”
The smile he gives me melts my insides like butter. “That’s what I wanted for you. Time to relax.”
“You need it, too.” I lean back against the wall.
“Not as much as you. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you hefting those food boxes and cartons when I first joined.”
The memory makes me chuckle. “I called you because Fredrich had injured himself, and I wanted to test you.”
“Test me?”
“I called you on the spot. Asked you to come and help me. I didn’t tell you what the job entailed.”
At first, he frowns, then realization dawns and his face lightens. “I was ... I was at dinner with a friend.”
“At dinner?” That is funny. “You should have said. I wouldn’t have expected you to come then.”
“I sensed you were testing me. I dropped everything and came.”
We sit in silence. Me revisiting my memories of that day. Him revisiting his. I yawn, suddenly feeling drowsy, even though I have done nothing strenuous. I feel nicely tired and ready for sleep. This has been the most I have ever been pampered, and if I never have another moment of it in my lifetime, this will have been enough.
“Thank you, again, for another awesome day.”
“You’re welcome.”
I yawn again.
“Shall we go?” he asks, as I let out another yawn.
“Yes, we should. How long have we been here?”
“A few hours.”
It’s only when we get changed and step back into the lobby that I find out. It’s late evening.
Late evening.
We have been here for the better part of five hours.
Time slowed, then stopped, then sped up again. Being with Brad is like that. I’ve had more fun and adventure in one weekend than I’ve had in years.
I stop and give him a big, wet, sloppy thank you kiss as we reach his car. He stares into my eyes, and we exchange something, thoughts, feelings. Words aren’t needed.
I kiss him again, bringing back the memories that we had left abandoned in the tub of grape juice. The fibers in my body come alive and he responds with an urgency that is still new and surprising.
Knowing that it is late, and that we have work tomorrow, I’m about to ask him if he wants to drop me off, but he tells me to get in and then starts to drive. He has that same serious expression on his face again. The switch from light to this is so sudden that I can’t help but notice.
He is battling with something, maybe it’s something he wants to tell me, and believing this to be the case, I say nothing, but let him lead.
But as he drives and we leave the part of Chicago I’m familiar with, and we head towards the more upscale part of the city, I try not to look around too much or be too surprised. I feel another surprise is looming. Another shock to my system. Another revelation.
When he parks up outside a tower building, I stare at him. “You live here?” I might not know a lot of the upscale places, but who in this city doesn’t know about The Water Tower Building on Michigan Avenue?
“My dad owns a condo here.”
He’s from a rich family?
My knees are like jelly. My insides slowly sliding out of my stomach. I feel weak. As if this is a surreal dream in a surreal world.
“Your dad?” It’s the first time he’s mentioned his family. He nods.
The dominoes are falling and it’s all starting to make sense. But he is normal, I tell myself as we climb out of his battered old Toyota. Grounded. Normal. A guy who’s fighting his rich family’s legacy.
“I can’t believe you live here,” I whisper as we ascend the shiny black marble elevator. It whooshes up, the sound barely discernible. Everything is plush, and fast, and shiny clean.
“I live here.”
He swipes a key card to open the door, pushes it open, and all I see is a vast room, blacks and teals, and copper and gold. It reeks—positively drips—of luxury. Money. Wealth.
He closes the door, and I try to close my mouth, but it has fallen open and I am having difficulty getting my jaw to shut.
Chapter Forty-Four
BRANDON
* * *
I can’t tell if she looks enraptured or disappointed—that I live in a place like this. I also can’t figure out if the shock is from her seeing me in a new light, or if it’s the sheer shock of seeing this place.
The Water Tower Building does that to people.
“You kept this quiet,” she says, her guarded eyes assessing me carefully. I don't know where to look, or what to say. What can I say in my defence? I don't have a defence.
She walks in, her eyes darting around the limestone floors and the crisp, contemporary lines of all the decor. She walks around slowly, then glances out of the floor-to-ceiling windows, her jaw slowly sliding open as she takes in the views of the skyline and the navy pier.
For a man who has no problems negotiating or addressing a group of investors, for a man who is full of confidence, I am scared to admit what a nasty excuse of a human being I am.
She stops to admire a million dollar painting on the wall. Something I bought from Jessica. Crazy really, for a man who has no interest in art. But back then, all I wanted was to acquire things.
“I've always felt that you've held things back from me, but I never expected this.”
I swipe a hand across the back of my neck. “It's a lot to take in. You probably hate me.”
“I don't know who you are.”
I bite my lip, wondering how on earth I will ever reveal my plan to her. It won't matter that I didn't execute it. What will matter were my initial intentions and they were so wrong.
“My birth mom had mental health problems, and my dad was a domestic abuser. They were both drug addicts.”
Fuck. I said that out loud. My heart thumps as if a wildebeest is stomping inside my chest. I want to tell her that this is not who I have always been, I want her to see that I came from a completely different place, but letting the truth loose on her, like a boulder dropped from a great height, isn’t the best way to go about it either.
Kyra stutters. “Wh-wha-what?”
“I was adopted by a very rich man, a billionaire who had lost his teenage son in a skiing accident.” I find myself sinking into an abyss from which there is no return. She will see everything differently about me from this point on. Shock skates across her eyes, the cracks in her understanding of me slowly break, break, breaking like the cracks in a river of ice. Any moment now she’ll take me under with her.
But the suspicion and surprise in Kyra's eyes vanish and, in their place now lies concern. She's by my side in an instant. Her face is a question mark, because what I’ve just told her doesn’t tally up with this place.
I’m about to tell her his name, but then realize I can’t, because it would mean having to explain why I lied about my name. I brace myself, not wanting to lose her, but knowing I can’t hold onto her if she doesn’t want me. “His wife couldn't handle it,” I continue. “I don't think she ever got over her son’s death, and they adopted me because I closely resembled the son they had lost.”
She looks horrified and shocked. “Oh, Brad. I’m so sorry.” To my surprise she takes my hand and kisses it. I’m a lucky man, to have met a woman so caring. It was luck that enabled me to switch my life and insert myself into Philip Hawks' world. It’s luck now that has put Kyra in my life. I would never have met her in the usual circumstances. “It must have been so awful for you.”
Was it awful? To be rescued from the life I had, and to end up like this? I’ve spent decades wrestling with that very question. I walk across the expanse of the room and head towards the window, opening one of the smaller windows on the side because I need to breathe. If I had known what this mission would cost me, the unearthing of buried regrets, I would never have gone to Redhill in the first place. I would have done what Neville suggested, with Charlie Stagg, and done a dirty.
But the Fortuna Baths treatments have lowered my guard, made me flexible, soft and vulnerable. I stare out, not able to look Kyra in the eye. “My parents neglected me and I was taken away.”
“I’m sorry.”
I sniff. “It turned out well, though. I was adopted by a great couple. They’re who I call my mom and dad.” I struggle to explain, to keep my voice level, because as great as this life is, it’s empty.
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
“Oh, Brad.” She stands in front of me and puts her arms around me. “I’m so sorry about your parents.”
We stand like that for the longest time. Looking out, I see lights and the city’s skyline, buildings, long and short, fat and thin, sprinkled with lights, some sparkling like burnished gold. “I didn’t want to lie to you anymore.”
She lifts her head, her eyes darting from one eye to the other, as if she’s trying to read the code, desperate for more answers than I have given her. Then she kisses my chest. I need to hear her voice, but I see that she is letting me take my time. She’s giving me the space to let it out.
She’s a good person. This is why people relate to her. They see the goodness in her, and only a man like me would try to take advantage of that. But things are different now. That lie is dying, shedding like a snake’s skin. I care for her and I can’t have any harm come to her. I don’t want to derail her hopes and dreams. This is the real me, and that’s who I want her to know. That’s who I want her to see. “We went into foster care.”
“We?”
“I did,” I say quickly. I can’t talk about Kane yet. It’s too much. “My mom was committed.”
She looks at me like I’m a damaged, no-good thing that she can’t wait to fix and put right. “I’m so sorry. This is all so tragic. You never said.”
I shrug.
“How long did you go into foster care for?”
“Not long.” I don’t like to talk about my time at Grampton House. “It was supposed to be temporary, but my dad got worse, and social services knew we … I … couldn’t go back home. Then my mom died … and so I got put up for adoption.”
“Brad.” The tenor of her voice is soft and caring, her fingers flutter over my chest. Her touch grounds me even as my past flows into my present in waves heavy as tar.
“I’m so sorry.” She kisses my chest, then hugs me tightly. Her touch sets me aflame, and as her hand skates over my bare skin, I wonder if she can hear my beating heart.
Falling for Kyra is like being hit by a car, I didn’t know until it was too late. My mind was elsewhere, on a goal I thought I wanted, while she rammed into me with her goodness, sexiness and faith. How am I supposed to walk away from this? She is no fickle, shallow, malicious Jessica. “Like I said, my adoptive parents were the best. I never went hungry again.”
“Hungry?” Her eyes fill with horror. Now is not the time to tell her that I rummaged through trash cans to feed us.
“Yvette’s boy, he reminds me of …” I can’t say his name. Each time I think about him, I think of Kane. I dream about Kane. I have nightmares about Kane. The memories weigh me down, a heavy anchor chai
ning my soul.
“Of you?” Kyra offers.
“What’s his name?” He’s been ‘The Boy’ to me forever. Maybe if I take the time to remember his name, I can erase the parts I want to forget.
“Stefan,” Kyra replies. “You didn’t know?”
I let the name sink in, repeating it silently in my head. I shake my head. I might have been told but I’ve forced myself to pay no attention. Details like that do me no good.
She presses a hand into my chest. “I always wondered why you were so subdued on those nights.”
“I don’t like talking about that time.” I really don’t. And if I’d known that this pathetic little project of mine would lead me down the path of my past and stir up memories I had long buried, I might not have chosen to pursue it.
But it’s too late now. I’ve met this wonderful woman who makes everything seem so much better, even when I didn’t think my life needed to be better.
I’d come to believe that I had it all, but meeting her showed me how wrong I was.
This experiment hasn’t failed—though maybe by Neville’s standards it has—because what I’ve found instead has been priceless. No amount of money could buy what Kyra brings me.
“Do you want to go? Or stay?” I ask her. It’s her choice. This is a big deal to me. I’ve changed her perception of me. In this weekend, I’ve tried to tell her things slowly, to prepare her, but maybe I’ve revealed too much, too fast.
I’ve brought her back to my place, but nothing has to happen unless she wants it.
“I want to stay.”
“I want you to know that I was born into the kind of life the people we see every Wednesday were born into.”
“It makes sense now,” she says, softly.
“What does?” I lead her over to the sofas, feeling loose, and listless, and needing to sit down.
“Why you worked on those community projects. Why you went in search of something else.”
My skin tightens, my throat turns dry, the contents of my stomach churn, and I am reminded of what a con artist I am. The type of man someone like Kyra doesn’t deserve.
