When Corporate Walls Fall Down

The thing about pretending something is impossible is that it builds a kind of pressure you can’t see. It’s like a hydraulic system, each polite “good morning,” every shared presentation where our hands didn’t accidentally brush the remote, every time I laughed at one of his jokes and then immediately looked at my notes—all of it pumped more and more tension into a sealed container. The container was labelled Professionalism, and the pressure release valve was welded shut by the convenient, unspoken lie we both maintained: our cultures made us too different.

His name is Arjun. Three years ago, he joined the marketing analytics team, two floors down from my perch in legal compliance. The first time I saw him, he was presenting a data model to the executive committee. He wore a navy suit that fit him like a second skin, his voice a calm, melodic baritone that made even regression analysis sound compelling. I wore my standard armor: a charcoal pantsuit, my hair in a severe knot, my expression one of detached assessment. I’m Sofia. Sofia Petrova. My parents fled Moscow with two suitcases and a five-year-old me, building a life in Chicago from scratch. My world is built on rules, on clear lines, on mitigating risk. His, from the little he offered in polite conversation, seemed to be a vibrant tapestry of family gatherings in Delhi, a planned marriage his parents gently alluded to, and a deep, quiet respect for traditions I could not fathom.

So we built the wall. Brick by polite brick.

His world is so different, Sofia. I’d tell myself, watching him from across the cafeteria, effortlessly making a group of engineers laugh. You’re too direct, too intense. He needs someone softer, more traditional. It would never work.

She’s so fierce, so independent, I imagine him thinking, catching his eyes flick away from me in meetings. My family wouldn’t understand. It’s too complicated.

The lie was perfect because it had the sheen of truth. The cultural chasm was real, on paper. It gave us both an excuse for the electric current that seemed to arc between us whenever we were in the same room, for the way my skin prickled when he stood too close to examine a document on my screen. We used it as a shield, a reason to never, ever cross the line.

And then came the company retreat.

The Omni Resort in Sedona was all sweeping desert vistas and adobe architecture, chosen by HR to “foster synergy and innovative thinking.” For three days, we’d be trapped together: team-building exercises, strategy sessions, and mandatory social mixers. A pressure cooker for our particular brand of hydraulic tension.

The first night was a cocktail reception by the infinity pool, the fading Arizona sun painting the red rocks in hues of burnt orange and violet. I’d opted for a simple emerald green wrap dress, something professional yet slightly softer than my office armor. He was across the terrace, talking to our CEO, wearing a light linen shirt that stretched across his shoulders in a way his office polos never did. Our eyes met. A quick, professional nod. The wall stood firm.

But the drinks were flowing. Expensive tequila and locally brewed IPA. The formalities of the day began to melt under the desert twilight. I found myself in a heated debate about data privacy laws with a group from engineering, holding my own, my voice sharp. I felt a presence at my shoulder.

“You’re demolishing them, Sofia. It’s almost cruel.”

Arjun. He held two fresh glasses of a pale, straw-colored wine. He handed one to me. Our fingers touched. The hydraulic system groaned.

“They’re proposing a data lake with the security of a sieve,” I said, taking a too-large sip. The wine was crisp, cold. “Someone has to be cruel.”

“Always the protector,” he said, a smile playing on his lips. It wasn’t the polite office smile. This one reached his dark eyes, crinkling the corners. “Even off the clock.”

“Compliance never sleeps.”

“A tragedy,” he murmured, clinking his glass gently against mine. “Perhaps it should try.”

The conversation was a dance, the same dance we’d done a hundred times, but the music was different here. The rules were blurred by the strung-up fairy lights and the scent of sagebrush on the warm air. We talked about work, then books, then the surreal experience of a silent meditation session HR had forced us into that afternoon. He made me laugh, a real, unguarded laugh that felt strange in my throat.

“They said to focus on our breath,” I snorted, “but all I could think about was Janet from accounting’s sinus issues.”

His laughter was low and warm. “I was trying not to think about the lunch buffet. The jalapeño poppers were a strategic error.”

We drifted away from the crowd, leaning against a low adobe wall overlooking the darkening desert. The wall between us felt thinner here, porous.

“This is a long way from Delhi,” I said softly, immediately wishing I hadn’t. It was a brick from our wall.

He was quiet for a moment, swirling the wine in his glass. “It is. And a long way from Moscow, I imagine.”

“Chicago, really,” I corrected. “I’m more deep-dish pizza than babushka.”

“And I’m more Silicon Valley chai latte than holy cow,” he said, and the shared joke, acknowledging the stereotypes we hid behind, felt dangerously intimate.

“Your parents still there? In Delhi?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yes. Very much so. They ask about my life here, but… the frame of reference is different. They send me pictures of possible…” he hesitated, “possible life paths. Daughters of friends. Very accomplished doctors, engineers.”

The planned marriage. The brick thudded back into place. “That must be… comforting,” I said, the lawyer in me choosing the most neutral, inane word possible.

“It’s expected,” he said, his voice flat. Then he looked at me, really looked at me, in the dim light. “And you? Do your parents send you pictures of possible Russian oligarchs?”

The question was so absurd I laughed again. “No. My mother sends me links to articles about successful immigrant women who ‘have it all,’ with the subtitle always about finding a nice, stable man before it’s too late. So, not oligarchs. More like… accountants.”

“Accountants are stable,” he offered, a teasing glint in his eye.

“Dull as dishwater.”

“And you are not dull, Sofia Petrova.”

The way he said my full name, with its rolling R’s, didn’t sound foreign in his mouth. It sounded like a fact. The pressure in the container spiked. I finished my wine. He finished his. We got another round.

The talking grew easier, the wall not dismantled, but we were peering over it now, sharing secrets across the ramparts. He told me about the pressure he felt, the constant balancing act between the life he’d built here and the life his family imagined for him. I told him about the weight of my parents’ sacrifices, how it felt like I had to be perfect, successful, unassailable, to justify their struggle.

“So you built a fortress,” he said.

“You built a bridge,” I countered. “Between two worlds.”

“Bridges can feel like tightropes.”

We were the last ones by the pool. The staff was quietly clearing glasses. The desert night was cool now, a sharp contrast to the day’s heat.

“One more?” he asked, gesturing with his empty glass.

“One more,” I agreed, and the words felt like a point of no return.

We didn’t go back to the bar. He produced a bottle of amber whiskey and two glasses from his room, and we took them to my patio, because my room had a better view of the stars, we decided. A logical, professional reason. The hydraulic pump was working overtime.

Sitting on the patio chairs, the bottle between us, the formality finally dissolved. The office was gone. Sedona was just a dark, beautiful void around us. We talked about everything and nothing. Dreams we’d abandoned. The petty annoyances of corporate life. What we really thought of our boss. The whiskey burned a warm path down my throat, loosening my tongue, melting the permafrost of my caution.

“You know,” I said, leaning forward, my elbows on my knees. “For three years, I’ve thought you were… intimidatingly perfect. Unflappable.”

He barked a laugh, a raw, unfiltered sound. “Me? You’re the one. Sofia, you walk into a room and people check their contracts. You’re this brilliant, untouchable force of nature. I’ve seen you reduce VPs to stammering apologies.”

“Untouchable?” The word hung in the air, charged.

He didn’t look away. The playful glint was gone, replaced by something hotter, darker. “Isn’t that the idea?”

The lie was there, on the table between the whiskey bottle and the glasses. Our beautiful, convenient lie. Too different.

“It’s a good idea,” I whispered, but my voice lacked conviction.

“It’s a terrible idea,” he murmured, his eyes dropping to my lips for a split second. “But it’s the one we agreed on.”

“We never agreed. We just… didn’t disagree.”

He poured the last of the whiskey into our glasses. His hand was steady. Mine trembled slightly as I took mine. The silence stretched, thick and heavy with everything unsaid. The years of stolen glances. The professional respect that had long since curdled into a deep, aching want. The wall was rubble now, dust in the desert wind, and all that was left was the truth, naked and terrifying.

“My culture,” he began, the word tasting sour, “my family’s expectations… they are real, Sofia. They are not a pretend wall.”

“I know,” I said, my heart hammering against my ribs. “My intensity, my… my everything. It’s real, too. It’s not an act.” “So what are we doing?” he asked, not with frustration, but with a desperate curiosity.

I took a final, burning swallow of whiskey. The liquid courage hit my system, short-circuiting the last of my compliance protocols. “Proving we were both lying.”

I don’t know who moved first. The space between the patio chairs vanished. My glass clattered onto the flagstones. His hands were in my hair, pulling out the pins that held the severe knot, letting it fall around my shoulders. His mouth found mine, and it wasn’t a gentle, exploratory kiss. It was a conflagration. It was three years of pent-up pressure exploding. The taste of him—whiskey and warmth and something uniquely Arjun—unraveled me. My hands fisted in his linen shirt, pulling him closer, needing to erase any remaining space between us.

He broke the kiss, breathing heavily, his forehead resting against mine. “Sofia… are you—”

“Don’t,” I cut him off, my voice husky and unfamiliar. “Don’t ask if I’m sure. Don’t talk about tomorrow. Just… tonight. No walls.”

A groan rumbled from his chest, a sound of pure surrender. He stood, pulling me up with him, and walked us backwards through the sliding door into my dimly lit suite. The cool air of the room did nothing to douse the heat between us. He backed me against the wall just inside the door, his body pressing mine into the plaster, his hips caging mine. I could feel the hard length of him against my stomach, and a sharp, answering ache throbbed between my legs.

“I have thought about this,” he growled into my ear, his breath hot, “for so long. The way you bite your lip when you’re concentrating. The sound of your heels on the marble floor. It’s driven me quietly insane.”

His words were a revelation. To know I had haunted him as he had haunted me… it was the most potent aphrodisiac. “Show me,” I challenged, my compliance officer persona utterly incinerated. “Show me what you thought about.”

He didn’t need telling twice. His mouth came down on mine again, possessive and hungry. His hands slid down my sides, over the silk of my dress, finding the tie at my waist. With a sharp tug, it came undone. The dress fell open. He pushed it from my shoulders, letting it pool at my feet. I stood before him in just my lace bra and panties, the desert night cool on my exposed skin. His gaze was a physical touch, scorching and appreciative.

“Christ, Sofia,” he breathed. “You’re even more beautiful than I imagined.”

His hands came up, not with frantic urgency, but with a deliberate slowness that made my breath catch. He traced the line of my collarbone with his thumbs, his touch feather-light yet searing. “All those meetings,” he murmured, his voice a low vibration against my skin. “I’d watch you argue a point, that fire in your eyes, and I’d wonder what it would be like to feel that intensity directed at me. Not across a conference table.”

He reached behind me, his fingers deft despite their slight tremor, and unclasped my bra. It joined the dress on the floor. He cupped my breasts, his thumbs brushing over my tight, peaked nipples, making me gasp and arch into his touch. He lowered his head, but instead of taking me into his mouth immediately, he pressed a series of soft, open-mouthed kisses along the slope of one breast, his stubble a delicious abrasion. The contrast between the gentle reverence of his kisses and the fierce need in his eyes was its own kind of torture.

“I imagined you in my office,” he confessed, finally drawing a nipple into the heat of his mouth. The hot, wet pull of his lips and tongue sent a jolt of pure lightning to my core. I cried out, my fingers tangling in his thick, dark hair. “Late at night. Bent over my desk, your perfect ass in the air, those legal briefs scattered on the floor.”

The image, coupled with the exquisite torture of his mouth, was almost too much. “You’d… you’d be in violation of so many internal policies,” I managed to gasp, the professional jargon surfacing in a way that felt obscenely erotic.

He released my nipple with a soft pop, looking up at me, his eyes dark with amusement and desire. “Then cite them to me, counselor. Recite clause and subsection while I make you forget your own name.”

He switched to the other breast, lavishing it with the same attention, his tongue swirling in a rhythm that had my hips rocking helplessly against the air. My mind, usually so orderly, was a riot of sensation and memory—the sterile scent of the office printer, the weight of his gaze during budget reviews, now fused with the feel of his mouth on me.

He straightened then, his eyes blazing. He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the king-sized bed. He sat on the edge, pulling me to stand between his knees. His hands went to my hips, his fingers hooking into the sides of my panties. He looked up at me, a question in his eyes. I nodded, my breath coming in short pants. He dragged the lace down my legs, and I stepped out of them, completely bare before him.

His gaze was worshipful and hungry. He leaned forward and pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the juncture of my thigh. “I’ve dreamed of this,” he said, his voice thick. “Of finding out if you taste like victory, because that’s what you always smell like. Cold brew and resolved disputes.”

The specificity of his memory—the coffee I always carried, the scent of dry-erase markers from closed-door meetings—unlocked something deep inside me. It was proof that his obsession was as detailed, as personal, as mine.

He didn’t wait for an answer. He pushed my thighs apart and his mouth was on me, his tongue finding my clit with an unerring accuracy that shattered any remaining coherent thought. I cried out, my hands flying back to grip his shoulders for balance. He licked and sucked, his technique an intoxicating blend of reverence and ruthless determination. He was a man on a mission, a man proving a point—that he knew my body better than I did, that he could reduce the untouchable Sofia Petrova to a trembling, begging mess.

And he did. The pleasure built, coiling tight and hot in my belly. My hips began to move against his mouth of their own accord. “Arjun… please… don’t stop…”

He growled against me, the vibration pushing me higher. One of his hands came up, his fingers sliding inside me, curling in just the right way. It was too much. The orgasm tore through me, violent and breathtaking. I shattered, my cries muffled by my own arm as I bit into it. He gentled his mouth, licking me through the waves until I was limp and shuddering.

Before I could recover, he stood, stripping off his shirt and pants with urgent, jerky movements. He was magnificent. Lean, powerful muscles carved under smooth, warm skin. And he was fully, impressively erect. He fumbled in his discarded pants pocket, pulling out a foil packet. My brain, fogged with pleasure, registered a flicker of surprise—and a dark thrill—that he had come prepared. Hoping.

He sheathed himself, his eyes never leaving mine. Then he pushed me back onto the bed, coming down over me. He kissed me deeply, and I could taste myself on his lips, a shockingly intimate thing that made me moan into his mouth.

“I need to be inside you,” he whispered, a ragged plea. “Now, Sofia. Please.”

I spread my legs for him, wrapping them around his waist, pulling him closer. “Yes.”

He entered me in one slow, devastating stroke, filling me completely, stretching me in the most perfect way. We both groaned, a unison of relief and overwhelming sensation. He stilled, buried to the hilt, his forehead damp against mine.

“You feel…” he choked out, unable to finish.

I knew. It felt like the final, missing piece of a logic puzzle I’d been struggling with for years. It felt like truth. Then he began to move.

It wasn’t gentle lovemaking. It was a claiming. Years of suppressed desire fueled every thrust. He pinned my wrists above my head, interlacing our fingers, holding me down as he drove into me, again and again, hitting a spot deep inside that made me see stars. The bed rocked against the wall with a rhythmic thud. I was loud, uninhibited, crying out his name with every breath. He was relentless, his own grunts and curses a filthy, beautiful counterpoint to my pleas.

“Tell me you wanted this,” he demanded, his pace never faltering. “Tell me you lied.”

“I lied!” I sobbed, the admission freeing. “I wanted you… every day… I wanted you during the Q3 audit, I wanted you in the goddamn elevator… I lied…”

“So did I,” he gasped, his control fraying. “Every ‘good morning’ was a prayer. Every ‘see you tomorrow’ was a hope. God, Sofia… I’m going to…”

His rhythm stuttered. I felt him swell inside me, and it tipped me over another precipice. My second orgasm was even more intense, a deep, internal convulsion that milked him, pulling his own release from him. He shouted, a raw, guttural sound, as he emptied himself into me, collapsing on top of me, our sweat-slicked bodies heaving together.

We lay entangled for a long time, the only sounds our slowing breaths and the distant cry of a coyote in the desert. The hydraulic pressure was gone. In its place was a profound, boneless peace. And a dawning, terrifying clarity.

Eventually, he shifted, pulling out of me gently and disposing of the condom in the bathroom. He returned, climbing back into bed and pulling me against his side. I rested my head on his chest, listening to the strong, steady beat of his heart.

“So,” he said into the darkness, his voice scratchy. “Not too different after all.”

A laugh bubbled out of me, tinged with hysteria. “No. Apparently not.”

He was silent for a moment, his fingers tracing idle patterns on my bare arm. “What happens tomorrow?”

The million-dollar question. The compliance officer in me wanted to draft a risk assessment, list the liabilities—HR violations, office gossip, the potential for catastrophic personal and professional fallout. The woman in his arms, still throbbing from his possession, wanted to say to hell with tomorrow.

“I don’t know,” I said, because it was the only honest answer.

He turned his head, pressing a soft kiss to my temple. “Then we don’t know tonight, either.”

We slept, tangled together, the desert stars witnessing our surrender.

---

The morning sun was brutal, slicing through the crack in the curtains. My head throbbed in time with my heartbeat—a symphony of whiskey and dehydration. And then the memories flooded back, in vivid, sensory detail. The taste of his kiss. The scrape of stubble on my inner thighs. The feeling of being utterly, completely filled.

I was alone in the bed.

A cold knot of panic tightened in my stomach. Had he regretted it? Had the wall been hastily rebuilt at dawn? I sat up, the sheet pooling at my waist, and saw a note on the pillow next to me, propped against a glass of water and two ibuprofen.

Sofia – Had to run to the 7 a.m. “Synergy Sunrise Hike.” Mandatory. I tried to wake you. You growled and stole my pillow. Drink this. Take these. We’ll talk after the closing session. - A

The handwriting was neat, precise. The message was pragmatic, caring, and utterly ambiguous. We’ll talk. What did that mean? Was it the prelude to a gentle this was a mistake speech, or something else?

The day was a form of exquisite torture. The closing sessions were held in a bright, airy conference room. I wore my pantsuit armor again, but it felt like a costume. I could feel the ghost of his hands on me, the memory of his mouth. He sat across the room, looking infuriatingly composed in chinos and a polo shirt. Our eyes met once. He gave me a small, private smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, a smile that said I remember everything, before turning back to the speaker. It was maddening.

The retreat officially ended with a boxed lunch. People milled about, exchanging numbers, promising to keep in touch across departments. I felt unmoored. I watched him say goodbye to a group from his team, his laugh easy, his demeanor normal. Had last night been a dream? A whiskey-fueled fantasy?

I was gathering my things, my heart a lead weight, when I felt a presence behind me.

“Sofia.”

His voice, low and close to my ear. I turned. He stood there, holding his laptop bag. The casual ease was gone from his face. He looked serious, intense.

“Walk with me,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

We walked out of the conference wing, through the resort’s lush gardens, away from the crowd. We stopped near a secluded fountain, the sound of the water masking our conversation from anyone who might pass by.

He faced me. “Last night…”

“It was a mistake,” I said quickly, the compliance officer launching a pre-emptive strike to mitigate damage. “We were drunk. The setting… we got carried away. It doesn’t have to change anything at work.” The words tasted like ash.

He stared at me, his expression unreadable. Then he shook his head slowly. “No.”

“No?”

“No, it wasn’t a mistake. And yes, it changes everything.”

My breath caught. He took a step closer, invading my personal space in broad daylight. “I was not that drunk, Sofia. And neither were you. We finally told the truth. I won’t go back to lying.”

“But… your family. The expectations. The… ‘possible life paths,’” I whispered, throwing his own brick back at him.

A flicker of pain crossed his face, but it was followed by resolve. “They are my family. I love them. Their hopes are real. But this,” he gestured between us, “is real. What I feel for you—this maddening, incredible, three-years-in-the-making thing—is real. And it’s mine to navigate. Ours.”

“It’s complicated,” I said, the lawyer stating the obvious.

“It’s life,” he countered. “I spent three years hiding behind a cultural excuse because I was scared. Scared of wanting something that seemed too difficult. Scared of disappointing people. Scared of you.” He reached out, his fingers brushing a strand of hair from my cheek. The touch was electric, even here, in the sunlight. “I’m not scared anymore. Last night… you were breathtaking. You are breathtaking. And I want more. I want to see where this goes, complications and all.”

The vulnerability in his eyes undid me. The wall was gone, and he wasn’t trying to rebuild it. He was asking me to step into the open space with him.

“What about work?” I asked, my last bastion of practicality.

“We’re professionals. We’re discreet. We’ve managed to hide this tension for years; I think we can manage a real relationship.” A ghost of his teasing smile returned. “Besides, inter-departmental collaboration is encouraged.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed, a sound of pure relief and burgeoning joy. “This is a terrible idea.”

“The worst,” he agreed, his smile widening. “So let’s do it properly.”

He leaned in and kissed me, right there by the fountain. It was a different kiss than last night’s—softer, sweeter, a promise instead of a conflagration. But the heat was still there, simmering under the surface.

When we broke apart, I rested my forehead against his. “No more pretending.”

“No more pretending,” he echoed. Then his expression grew more thoughtful. “It won’t be seamless, you know. There will be questions. From my parents, eventually. From yours, probably. There will be moments where the… the script we’re supposed to follow feels heavier than we want it to.”

His honesty was bracing. It wasn’t a fairy-tale promise of no problems; it was a blueprint for real work. “I know,” I said. “My mother will ask why you don’t go to our church. Your mother will ask if I know how to make proper dal. We’ll have to find our own answers.”

“We will,” he said, his voice firm. “Starting now. My room or yours on the flight back? I hate airplane food.”

I swatted his arm, but I was grinning. “You’re impossible.”

“And you,” he said, his voice dropping to that intimate murmur that made my knees weak, “are all I’ve thought about today. Last night was just the beginning, Sofia. Tonight, I want to take my time. I want to learn every sound you make. I want to feel you come apart on my tongue again, and then I want to be inside you while you’re still trembling from it.”

His dirty talk in the middle of the resort garden sent a fresh, sharp thrill through me. The explicit memory of his mouth between my legs, the feel of him moving inside me—it all came rushing back, now layered with the promise of more.

“Is that a threat or a promise?” I breathed.

“It’s a guarantee.”

---

The flight home was a study in exquisite tension of a new kind. We sat together, a calculated risk amidst a smattering of other colleagues. Under the thin airline blanket, his hand rested high on my thigh, his thumb making slow, circles on the sensitive skin just above my knee. Every pass of his thumb felt like a brand. We talked about mundane things—the retreat’s flawed agenda, a upcoming project—but the subtext hummed between us, a live wire.

“I have a proposal,” he said softly, his lips close to my ear as the cabin lights dimmed.

“Mmm?”

“My apartment is closer to the airport than yours. Less time in the taxi. More time for… other things.”

The implication was clear. The hydraulic pressure was building again, but this time it was a shared energy, a current we were both conducting. “That’s a very logical proposal,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.

“I thought you’d appreciate the logic.”

We took a taxi together, a fact noted by a few colleagues with raised eyebrows, but we offered a simple, truthful excuse: we were splitting the fare. In the back of the cab, in the dark, his hand finally slid higher, under the hem of my skirt, his fingers tracing the lace edge of my stocking. I bit my lip to keep from making a sound.

His apartment was modern, minimalist, not what I’d expected. It smelled of sandalwood and him. The door had barely clicked shut before he had me pressed against it, his mouth devouring mine, his hands everywhere.

“I need you,” he growled, his breath hot on my neck. “I’ve been thinking about it all day. What I want to do to you.”

“Show me,” I urged, pulling his shirt over his head.

And he did. He led me to his bedroom, a room of clean lines and soft greys, and proceeded to worship my body with a focused intensity that left me breathless. He did take his time. He used his mouth, his hands, his words, to build me up slowly, relentlessly, until I was begging. When he finally entered me, it was with a slow, deep possession that felt even more intimate than the frantic passion of the night before. We moved together in a dark, steady rhythm, our eyes locked, the connection so profound it felt like my soul was laid bare. This wasn’t just about physical release; it was a claiming on a deeper level, a silent vow made with our bodies.

Afterward, wrapped in his sheets, surrounded by the evidence of his life—a framed picture of his parents on a bookshelf, a stack of programming manuals, a single, vibrant Rajasthani tapestry on the wall—the complications felt surmountable, but present.

“It won’t be easy,” I said, tracing the line of his jaw. “My parents… they’ll see you as a diversion from the ‘plan.’ A risk.”

“And mine,” he said, his finger drawing circles on my shoulder, “will see you as a wonderful, formidable woman who is also a fundamental departure from the script. They’ll worry. They’ll ask questions I might not have answers to yet.”

“We’ll have to write our own script,” I said, the idea forming as I spoke it. “Page by page. No precedents to cite.”

He smiled, a true, relaxed smile that lit up his whole face. “I like the sound of that. We’ll take it one day at a time. Starting with breakfast. I make a mean masala omelette. A fusion of cultures, if you will.”

I smiled, a real, unguarded, happy smile. “I’d like that.”

He kissed me, a soft, lingering kiss. Then he pulled back, his expression turning playful again. “But first, I believe I promised you something about coming apart on my tongue while you were still trembling from the last time…”

He moved down the bed before I could answer, his intent clear. And as his mouth found me again, as the pleasure began to coil anew, I realized the corporate walls had fallen, not with a dramatic crash, but with the quiet, persistent pressure of a truth too powerful to deny. We had pretended our differences were a chasm. Now, we were discovering they were merely the contours of a new landscape, one we would navigate together, one delicious, complicated, thrilling day—and one breathtaking, intimate night—at a time. The pretending was over. The real story, in all its messy, beautiful detail, was just beginning.