23. Almost
Almost
Markus stood rooted in the bathroom doorway.
The room was so quiet he could hear his own blood rushing in his ears.
Leonie lay on her back on the white bed, wearing nothing but whisper-thin black lace lingerie and stockings.
The warm hotel light fell across her young, flawless skin.
Her slender legs moved slightly, her chest rising and falling in a calm rhythm.
Her blond hair was spread wildly across the pillow.
He had been staring at her far too long.
His body reacted before his mind could even interfere. Blood rushed straight to his groin, his cock hardening painfully against the rough fabric of his suit pants. Shame and raw desire fused together and dragged him mercilessly downward.
Markus drew a deep breath and turned decisively toward the door.
His fingers had almost reached the cool handle when a soft voice came from behind him. “Markus…”
Leonie’s voice was quiet, soft, almost syrupy.
Markus froze and looked back over his shoulder. Leonie had opened her eyes. Her gaze was slightly glassy, but definitely not the gaze of a woman who was completely drunk. Her voice sounded more like a gentle plea than outright seduction.
“Can you help me… with my bra? It’s so damn uncomfortable.”
“Leonie, you should sleep.” Markus’s voice was stiff and brittle.
“I’m so hot.” She shifted her shoulders against the pillow, frowning slightly. “I can’t reach it properly.”
Markus hesitated for several seconds. He told himself he would only walk over, undo the clasp, and immediately turn away again. But the moment the thought formed, he already knew he was lying to himself.
He moved heavily toward the edge of the bed.
The closer he came, the stronger Leonie’s sweet perfume filled his nose, thickly mixed with alcohol and the scent of warm female skin. Inside the closed room, the air suddenly seemed dense enough to cut.
Leonie rolled slightly onto her side and offered him her back.
The thin black lace band stretched across her bare skin. In the warm light, that skin didn’t have the mature fullness of Nadja’s, but it was smooth, flawless, fresh.
Markus’s hand trembled. His rough fingers touched the cool metal clasp.
A soft click. The bra sprang open.
Leonie slowly rolled onto her back again. The black lace slipped from her narrow shoulders and fell carelessly beside her on the blanket.
Markus stood paralyzed.
Leonie’s breasts were smaller than his wife’s, but firm, round, young. Her nipples were pale pink, smaller than Nadja’s.
She made no attempt to cover herself. Quite the opposite. She pushed her chest slightly toward him, presenting herself even more clearly.
At that exact moment, Markus finally understood. She knew exactly what she was doing.
Leonie slowly raised her bare arms and wrapped them around his neck.
The pull was gentle, but it was enough to break what remained of his fragile resolve and draw him down toward her.
Markus wanted to open his mouth and say no. But Leonie sealed his lips with a hot, demanding kiss. At first it was only a brief, soft touch, as though she were testing his reaction.
Markus remained rigid. One second. Two seconds.
Then Leonie pulled his head mercilessly down, opened her mouth, and turned the kiss indecently deep.
Markus closed his eyes.
In that moment of weakness, the feeling of being wanted — needed — by a young, beautiful woman struck him square in the tired, wounded male pride he had been dragging around for so long. The hard shell of marital duty broke apart.
He wrapped an arm around her narrow waist and kissed her back hungrily.
Leonie moaned. She tore her mouth from his lips, licked wetly along his jaw, and sucked greedily at the sensitive skin of his neck. Her dark-red painted mouth left a clear, telltale trace on the collar of his white shirt.
Leonie took his large hand and pressed it directly against her naked breast.
Markus shuddered. At first, he squeezed only hesitantly, as though he could still tell himself he hadn’t gone too far.
But Leonie’s body arched demandingly beneath his hand. She breathed hot against his face and whimpered his name.
Markus kneaded the soft flesh. He lowered his head and kissed from her collarbone down over the curve of her breast. When his mouth closed around her small, hard nipple, Leonie’s whole body jerked upward and a broken moan tore from her throat.
That uninhibited sound stripped away Markus’s reason. He was no longer teetering uncertainly on the edge of morality. He was already deep inside it.
His conscience was still screaming somewhere in a dark corner, reminding him of the betrayal, but it was quickly drowned beneath the pressure of lust.
Markus kissed his way down to her flat stomach.
Her young skin was smooth and burning hot beneath his mouth. Leonie breathed frantically, one hand tangled in his hair, the other clutching the white sheet.
He stopped at the edge of her black lace panties. The thin fabric had already shifted aside, revealing neatly trimmed dark hair and the glistening slit beneath it.
The sharp, damp scent of her arousal mixed with the alcohol and filled his nose. It made him hot and dizzy.
He knew exactly what this meant. One more step, and he would never again be able to tell himself it had only been a drunken mistake.
Leonie propped herself on one elbow and lifted her head slightly. Her eyes were damp, heavy with lust, her voice soft.
“Lick me, Markus.”
Markus didn’t pull away. He dragged the thin black fabric completely aside.
The first wet stroke of his tongue made Leonie throw her head back and release a sharp breath. Her nails dug into his scalp and pressed his face ruthlessly harder between her legs.
“Mmm… that’s so fucking good… Markus.”
Markus lost himself in her wet taste while hearing his conscience condemn him with perfect clarity. With this exact mouth and these hands, he was staining his fidelity to Nadja. But the young coworker’s moans grew more obscene and dragged him relentlessly farther down.
Leonie gasped. She grabbed his hair and jerked his face upward.
Her eyes were wide open now, burning, without the slightest trace of drunkenness. She looked at him with naked, filthy desire.
“Fuck me.”
That sentence brought down the last wall inside him.
Markus surged upward. His hands trembled as he opened his belt and pulled down the zipper. His cock sprang free, rock-hard from all the pent-up desire—not exceptionally large, but swollen and full of pressure.
He hastily ripped the cheap Casio watch from his wrist and tossed it onto the nightstand with a dull clack.
On the bed, Leonie greedily drew up her legs.
The black stockings lengthened the line of her calves, her panties only pushed aside now. She spread her thighs, opened her wet pussy for him, and waited for him to drive into her.
Markus bent over her.
This was it. The absolute final boundary of betrayal.
At the exact moment his throbbing head almost brushed her wet slit, Markus looked up at her face. A face completely wrecked with lust. Lips parted. Eyes heavy. Skin flushed.
That open, inviting expression of a woman who simply wanted it without restraint should have dragged him the rest of the way down.
But for one heartbeat, Leonie’s face blurred. Another face appeared over it. Nadja. His wife. The woman who had once pulled him into bed with that same hunger.
Nadja with her wild hair spread over the pillow, her soft lips wrapped around his cock as she sucked him deeply into her mouth, her gray eyes lifted toward him with complete devotion. Nadja had looked at him that way once, too. Horny. Hungry. Even more than this intern.
Markus froze. His breath stopped like lead inside his chest.
Then the image shattered and fell into another, darker memory.
The night he had confessed that he was financially ruined. He had sat motionless on the edge of the bed, both hands buried in his face, unable to look her in the eyes.
The red numbers. The loans. The pathetic, failed attempts to somehow rescue everything. They lay between them like a pile of rubble.
He had waited for Nadja to scream at him. He had braced himself for her to pack her bags. But she had only stayed silent.
Then she had come to him and wrapped her arms around him from behind. Very tightly.
She hadn’t asked why he had failed so badly. She hadn’t told him he had dragged her whole damn life down with his.
She had only rested her cheek against his back, wrapped her arms around his chest, and spoken in a voice that nearly broke: “We’ll get through this. Together.”
Then came the old apartment. The damp-smelling stairwell. The narrow, dark hallway. The old wooden door that gave a soft groan every time it closed. Moving boxes stacked tightly against the shabby wall.
Nadja standing in the middle of the empty living room, sleeves rolled up, hair hastily tied back, sweat at her temples. And still she had turned toward him and smiled as though this were only a new beginning and not the visible, humiliating proof of his failure.
She had moved into that dump with him without complaint. She had not left him. Not once had she said he no longer deserved her.
The memory stabbed into him like a knife.
Markus looked down at Leonie. The young woman was still lying in front of him with her legs spread. Her eyes urged him to finally drive his cock into her.
Markus froze, his back rigid as stone. Then he jerked backward and stumbled away from between her legs.
Leonie stared at him in complete confusion, propped herself on one elbow, and half sat up. “Markus?”
He turned his face away and hurriedly pulled up the zipper of his pants. His hands were still shaking uncontrollably. “I’m sorry.”
Leonie tossed her disheveled hair back, exposing her bare breasts. The feigned, lustful weakness vanished from her face instantly. In its place came naked irritation.
“Are you fucking kidding me? I want you.”
Markus didn’t dare look directly at her naked body again.
One more goddamn second, and he was afraid the craving animal in him would finally tear loose. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
Markus swallowed against his dry throat and closed his eyes in torment. “I’m married.”
He knew exactly how hollow, hypocritical, and disgusting the sentence sounded in that moment. He had gone down on her. Touched her naked skin. He was already no longer clean. He simply hadn’t taken the whole fucking thing through to the final thrust.
But it was the only lifeline he had left.
Markus picked up his jacket from the chair—a cheap off-the-rack C&A piece, the seam at the sleeve already slightly frayed, his uniform through all those hard years.
Leonie stared at him.
Every trace of soft seduction had vanished. Her eyes held anger, hurt, and the uncontrollable shame of a woman who had offered herself naked to a man and still been rejected.
“Am I not hot enough for you?”
The question drilled into Markus. He couldn’t deny it. He looked at Leonie’s body one more time. His cock was still throbbing inside his pants.
Slowly, with effort, he said: “You’re very beautiful… but… I’m sorry.”
Then he turned and walked toward the door. He didn’t look back again.
Markus stepped into the silent hotel hallway, grabbed the handle, and pulled the door firmly shut behind him.