The Storm That Cut the Office Lights

The hum of the air conditioner was the only thing breaking the sepulchral silence on the forty-second floor. Marina stood motionless in front of the screen while outside a torrential rain fell, blurring Monterrey’s lights. It was nine at night. Legally, her workday had ended three hours earlier, but at Vallenti & Co. time wasn’t measured in clocks, but in the ambition of the man who signed them.

—The image proposal for the Velluto watch campaign is deficient —he said behind her.

Adrián Vallenti’s voice struck the nape of her neck like a silk whip. She didn’t need to turn around to know he was leaning against the edge of his mahogany desk, his tie barely loosened and that gray gaze that seemed to read even the thoughts she would never confess out loud.

—It’s not deficient —she replied, forcing her voice to stay steady as she got up and walked toward him—. It’s minimalist. We’re selling exclusivity, not a supermarket catalog.

Adrián straightened slowly. He was almost six foot three, and the tailored suit outlined shoulders that, Marina knew all too well from her hours of involuntary distraction, were not the work of chance but of iron discipline. He came closer until the scent of sandalwood and success invaded the little air she had left.

—Minimalism —he repeated, stopping a few inches away—. Or fear. Fear of taking the risk that the brand becomes too… provocative.

—Provocation has to be subtle to be elegant —she shot back.

But her breathing was already starting to betray her, so she circled the desk and moved toward the window, fleeing from the one temptation she had forbidden herself to name: tasting her boss’s mouth.

—Subtle? —Adrián lowered his voice until it became a deep murmur that vibrated in Marina’s chest—. In this business, if you don’t steal the viewer’s breath in the first second, you’ve already failed.

The words echoed through her body as she watched the city lights turn into blurred stains beneath the rain. A shiver ran from the back of her neck to the base of her spine.

He noticed.

—Are you okay? —he asked, and extended a hand to barely graze her right shoulder. It was a one-second touch, but the static electricity of the carpet —or something far more dangerous— tore a broken sigh from Marina.

—I’m fine —she answered, turning her head just enough toward him, who was still right behind her—. I just felt a little cold.

Liar.

Adrián placed both hands on the window, one on each side of her, and trapped her between the icy glass and the warmth of his body. Their reflection in the wet pane created a distorted, almost pictorial image: the silhouette of a brilliant employee and that of the man who ran her life and who, that night, had stopped pretending he didn’t look at her that way.

—Tell me, Marina —he whispered, leaning toward her ear, where the heat of his breath raised gooseflesh on her skin—, how subtle would you be if the lights in this office went out right now and there was no one to judge your… creativity?

Outside, lightning split the sky. And, as if fate accepted the challenge, a deafening thunderclap shook the building. A second later the lights flickered and the forty-second floor sank into absolute darkness. Only the bluish glow of the city under the rain remained, and the accelerated sound of two hearts that had forgotten how to be professional.

***

Neither of them moved. In the dimness, Marina felt his breath against her neck, slow and deep, like that of someone who has made a decision and is still giving himself one last instant to regret it. He didn’t regret it.

—Turn around —said Adrián.

It wasn’t a boss’s order. It was something else, lower and more honest. She obeyed because for months she had wanted to obey exactly that. When she faced him, she could barely make out the outline of his jaw and the gleam of those gray eyes that the darkness couldn’t quite extinguish.

—This is a bad idea —murmured Marina.

—The worst —he admitted. And he kissed her.

It was a kiss without preamble, the kind that erases months of tension in a single blow. Adrián’s mouth was firm and demanding, his tongue sliding deep without asking permission, seeking hers and tangling with it with a hunger Marina returned by biting his lower lip hard enough to draw a growl. One hand tangled in her nape and the other closed around her waist to press her against him, so close she felt the hard bulge of his cock straining against her pelvis through the suit trousers. Marina clutched the lapels of his jacket and stopped thinking about campaigns, watches, and consequences.

—I’ve spent too long imagining this —he confessed against her lips—. Every meeting. Every time you crossed your legs in the boardroom thinking I wasn’t looking.

—You were looking at me —she panted—. I knew it.

—And you let me. With your panties wet, I’m sure. Tell me yes.

—Yes —she admitted, and the word sounded like surrender—. I’d get home and touch myself thinking about you.

—Whore. —He said it in a near-devout whisper, as if that confession had just given him permission he’d been waiting for months—. My whore.

Marina pulled him in again, and this time the kiss became slower and deeper, a silent negotiation where neither of them wanted to yield and both ended up yielding. His hands moved down her back until they found the hem of her blouse and pulled it free from her trousers with a patience that drove her mad more than any rush ever could.

The glass was still cold against her back. Adrián’s body, burning hot in front of her. Being trapped between those two extremes made her pulse race in a way no campaign ever had.

Outside, the rain intensified and the lightning briefly sketched the office’s perfect geometry: the empty chairs, the whiteboard with their numbers, the ad mock-up they had argued over so much. All of it was now reduced to a distant set. The only real thing was his breath breaking against her skin, the brush of his stubble on her cheek, the way his fingers knew exactly where to stop so she would beg them to keep going.

He unbuttoned her blouse one button at a time, watching her, even though in that darkness he could barely see her. When the fabric opened, he slid his palm over her stomach, moved slowly upward until he closed his whole hand around one breast over the bra and felt her tremble beneath his fingers. He pulled the lace cup down in one yank and the nipple, already hard as stone, was left exposed. Adrián bent down and took it into his mouth, sucking first with his tongue flat and then biting lightly, until Marina let out a sharp gasp and drove her nails into his nape.

—Adrián… —she panted, her voice fractured.

—Shhh. —He circled the areola with his tongue, very slowly, while his other hand kneaded her other breast—. Not yet. Not yet you don’t get to moan like that.

—Are you still cold? —he asked then, with a smile she guessed more than saw.

—Shut up —Marina replied, and yanked his tie loose.

She pulled it over his head, opened his shirt with clumsy fingers from need, and at last she could put her hands on his chest, on those shoulders she had so often pretended not to admire. His skin was hot. His heart was beating as fast as hers, and discovering that —that the unflappable man from the meetings was just as lost as she was— gave her an intoxicating power. She dragged her hand down his firm stomach, found the belt, undid it with a sharp tug, and opened his trousers. When her palm closed around his cock, thick and hot and already perfectly hard, it was Adrián’s turn to drop his head and let out a rough groan.

—Fuck, Marina.

—Is this how you imagined my hands? —she whispered, squeezing and easing her fist slowly, feeling the thick vein pulse under her thumb—. Like this, in the meetings, while I talked to you about budgets?

—Worse. Much worse.

She dropped to her knees on the carpet without thinking twice. She pulled down his trousers and boxer briefs in one yank to his knees and found herself face-to-face with the cock that had been robbing her of sleep since day one. She ran her tongue along its whole length, from base to tip, very slowly, enjoying how Adrián gripped the edge of the desk to keep from falling. Then she took him all the way into her mouth, until the tip hit the back of her throat and tears blurred her vision.

—Fuck, fuck —he panted under his breath, closing one hand in her hair, not pushing, just holding—. Like that. Suck me like that.

Marina obeyed. She sucked his cock with real hunger, bobbing her head up and down at a rhythm he wasn’t dictating but followed with his breathing, his free hand caressing her balls, his tongue curling around the glans each time she reached the top. Saliva ran down her chin. The salty taste of pre-cum filled her mouth, and Marina realized she was so wet under her skirt that her panties were sticking to her cunt.

—Stop —Adrián growled suddenly, tugging firmly on her hair—. Stop, or I’m going to come in your mouth right now and that is not how I want to end tonight.

He hauled her up from the floor in one pull. Adrián lifted her effortlessly and sat her on the edge of the mahogany desk, sweeping the “deficient” proposal tablet aside with a swipe. He ripped her panties off with two fingers, without ceremony, and the wet fabric landed somewhere on the carpet. He positioned himself between her legs and kissed her neck, her collarbone, sliding lower until Marina had to bite her lip to keep from making noise on that empty floor.

—No one’s going to hear you —he reminded her, reading the gesture—. Just us, remember?

—You said that to scare me.

—I said it because it was true. Now open your legs. Wider.

He lifted her skirt to her hips and parted her thighs with open palms, with the same calculated slowness with which he dissected a budget, and she understood that this man did everything that way: measuring, anticipating, waiting for the exact second. When his fingers finally sank into her cunt, sliding in with obscene ease, Marina let her head fall back and exhaled his name as if it were the only word she remembered.

—You’re soaked —he murmured against her neck—. Soaked, Marina. All this water is for me, right?

—Yes —she panted—. All of it for you.

He pushed two fingers in to the knuckle and curled the fingertips upward, searching for that exact spot that made Marina’s back fold over the desk. Then he lowered his head and pulled them out to replace them with his tongue. He spread her cunt lips apart with his thumbs and ran his tongue all the way over her clit, slowly, then faster, sucking it, biting it lightly between his teeth. Marina clutched the mahogany edge and arched her pelvis against his mouth, no longer able to hold back the moans escaping her.

—Adrián, please, please…

—Look at me —he asked, lifting his eyes without stopping licking.

She lifted her head. In the blue glow of the rain-drenched city, their eyes met, and seeing him like that —kneeling between her legs, his mouth shining with her, his jaw tense— was what undid her. She came on his tongue with a long moan, pressing her thighs against his ears, feeling him keep sucking her through the spasms, wringing out every last contraction.

When he finally straightened, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at her with a nearly savage intensity. There was no desk, no hierarchy, no campaign. Only two people who had spent months waiting for this storm without knowing they were waiting for it.

She pulled him by the waist until there was no space left between them. Adrián held her by the hips, guided his cock with the other hand and, when he finally sank into her in one thrust all the way to the hilt, Marina buried her face in his neck to muffle the cry. He stayed still for a moment, giving her time to adjust to that thickness, his forehead resting against hers, both of them breathing the same charged air.

—Okay? —he murmured.

—Don’t stop. Fuck me, Adrián. Now.

He didn’t stop. He withdrew almost completely and drove back into her to the root, and again, and again, first slowly and then with an urgency that dragged months of stolen glances and double-meaning remarks behind it. The desk creaked under their combined weight, the tablet slid, a glass rolled to the edge and shattered against the floor, but neither of them registered it. Rain hammered the window. Marina clung to his shoulders, dug her fingers in, wrapped her legs around his waist to take him deeper, and heard him breathe in ragged bursts against her ear.

—Like this —he panted into her ear, thrusting into her without mercy—. This is how I imagined you, spread open for me on this very desk. Soaking the mahogany. Saying my name.

—Adrián… oh, Adrián…

—Again. Say it again.

He yanked her off the desk, turned her with her back to the icy window and lifted one leg to her hip. Marina let out a moan when the cold glass hit her shoulder blades and he slammed into her again, in that new position that reached even deeper. Her breasts bounced against his mouth with every thrust. He bit her neck, her collarbone, her shoulder, marking her as if that night would be enough for him to live off a lifetime of pretending in the boardroom.

—Turn around —he ordered, pulling out with a growl of frustration.

She turned without protesting and braced her palms against the fogged glass. Adrián yanked her skirt up over her ass, spread her legs with one knee and entered her from behind in a single motion that ripped a long, obscene moan from Marina, one no boardroom acoustics would ever have forgiven. She felt a hard slap on her right cheek, then his hand closing around her hip to pin her against his pelvis.

—Look at yourself —he whispered, his voice wrecked, against her ear—. Look at the reflection. Vallenti’s creative director bent over her window, her boss’s cock all the way inside her. Tell me you didn’t fantasize about this.

—I fantasized about it —she admitted, out of breath—. Every night.

He circled her waist with one arm, slid the other hand to her clit and began rubbing it in circles while continuing to thrust into her from behind. Marina closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the cold glass. The climax was building in her belly, heavy, unstoppable, like the thunder that had split the night.

—I’m going to come —she panted.

—Come. Come with me inside you.

The climax surprised her the way the thunder had surprised the building: all at once, without warning, shaking her whole body. Her legs went weak and only Adrián’s arm around her waist held her against the window. She felt him tense a moment later, drive into her two, three more times with a lost rhythm, and then empty himself inside her with a rough groan against her nape, his name broken in the final exhale. The hot spill filled her cunt and Marina let out another small, sensitive moan, clenching around him with every spasm. For a few seconds the forty-second floor was no longer an office, but the only place in the world where the two of them could finally be completely honest.

He stayed inside her a little longer, breathing into her hair, his hand now soft over her stomach. When he finally pulled out, a warm thread ran down the inside of Marina’s thigh, and she found herself smiling against the glass.

***

When the emergency lights flickered and came back with a timid hum, the two of them were still wrapped around each other, catching their breath. Marina pulled her skirt down. Adrián picked up his tie from the floor without putting it on and kept staring at her, disheveled, with an expression she had never seen on him in any meeting.

—The proposal —he said at last, his voice hoarse—. The watches one.

—Is it still deficient?

Adrián smiled, and for the first time the smile reached his eyes.

—Too provocative —he replied—. You just convinced me.

Marina took his jacket, draped it over her arm and walked toward the elevator with her heart still pounding against her ribs and his semen still warm between her thighs. Tomorrow we’ll have to pretend again, she thought. But as she pressed the button, she found herself smiling at nothing, knowing that some storms are never forgotten, no matter how many lights turn back on.