The following morning she woke up earlier than usual and lay on the bed looking at the light of the new morning filtering through the curtains. It was still dark enough to get asleep again, but her mind had filled with all sort of thoughts as soon as she had awakened.

At first, looking at the semi-darkness, she remembered the night before. Once again, they had had sex in the obscurity; once again her senses had been overwhelmed by the passion she had felt, and by his scent, his touch, the taste of his lips, the tenderness of his tongue. She really wanted to make love to him now, though, on a bed, in a well-lit room. She wanted finally to savour him with her eyes too, in all his details. She knew she’d not been disappointed.

She realised she was thinking about love again. Indeed, everything she had experienced, every new sensation she had felt in the last weeks and especially in the night before, led to that only explanation. She had fallen in love, without even knowing how that had happened.

What had started as a cheap and cheerful game between them, had blossomed into something new for her. And now she felt all the weight of it because there was a high chance she was the only one feeling that way. But then she remembered again the way he had fucked her the night before, the way he’d played with her, the way he had massaged her feet… and she didn’t know what to think anymore.

When she reached her officeu, her mood was strange. She was happy about what had happened, of course, and yet uncertainty tainted her hearth, her choices, and her future.

She didn’t meet Rick in the morning, nor during the day. He wasn’t around, and she didn’t want to disturb him, anyway.

She started worrying only the third day: Rick was still absent, his office closed, his curtains drawn.

Then, as she walked past the coffee area, she heard the other girls speaking quietly; as if they were confiding each other a secret, or some mysterious truth it was better not to spread around.

Drawn by her own curiosity, she entered the area and ordered a coffee at the automatic machine.

“No one knows why it happened.” A girl from the HR section whispered was speaking.

“That’s a pity, he was such a nice guy.” One of her colleagues followed.

“Well, it seems he has left and will not come back,u though. That’s a huge loss for our coffee times.” A third girl chuckled, before adding, “Rick will for sure be missed. By the way, there’s this rumour that- ”

A rush of blood, her head spinning, and Dana had to gather all her strength not to fall down as her legs shook and her heart skipped beats.

She could still see the girls talking each other, but all she could hear now was an indistinct noise in her ears. She waited a moment until the spinning gave her a break and then left the room, forgetting about the coffee that was ready in front of her.

She reached the bathrooms and closed herself into one, then cried until she had no tears left.

***

She left the office earlier than usual, that day. The tears she had shed had cleared her mind: Rick wasn’t dead, he had just left. Maybe the reason was even more important than her. She would have understood that, of course.

So she tried to write him a message but got no reply. The messaging app was showing him as not online since the day he had left his job. Dana realised his phone number was probably a company one, there was no way to try to contact him there anymore. At the worst, she would have contacted some new employee, and the last thing she wanted was for someone to find out what had happened between her and Rick.

Then she looked in her bag and in all the clothes she had used the days before. Maybe he had left one of his usual small envelopes, she hoped. She even checked the shoes she was wearing the night of their last date, but she found nothing.

The days passed, and she was thinking about him all the time. What she hated the most, was the fact he had not given her any message, any explanation to his behaviour. She hated it: no real man would have acted like that.

And so the sadness became anger, the anger became resignation, the resignation became melancholy and soon the need to saw him again.

Saturday morning she woke up with a fixation. She had spent a new, almost sleepless night, and she couldn’t take it anymore. There was only one thing she could do: go and fetch him.

She dressed, wore some makeup to try to hide the black shadows under her eyes and then drove to his place. When she parked the car, though, all of the doubts she had had before, all the lack of self-confidence that was indeed part of her true self, kicked back in. And the only thing she could do was looking at the door, crying again.

She thought that Rick, maybe, had another girl to play with. Or he had a new, real girlfriend. Or he just didn’t like her enough, or he hadn’t appreciated the way she had played with him, to way she had led him during their last date. For sure, he wouldn’t have liked her in that moment: casually dressed, her eyes swollen red, her hair a mess. All of her conviction faded away, all of her motivation left her when facing the possibility of a refusal.

Dana went back home, looked at herself again in the mirror,u ascertained the bad effect everything was having on her, and decided it was time to stop. Continuing like that was simply going to hurt herself more. She threw away his messages, deleted his history, hid the dresses that remembered her of their games so she couldn’t see them again, for some time, and began a new life.

Unrequited love was not what she was looking for. She needed a man who could love her, a man who wanted to love her, and maybe Rick just wasn’t meant to be.

After all, she thought, “A person is worth only as much as his heart is.”

***

The beginning of the following week passed quickly enough. Dana’s decision had brought quiet days to her heart, while at work nothing had changed. All was back to the days before Rick had even entered the company, and slowly she was stopping her habit to peek in the coffee room or in his closed office to get a chance to see him. Everything was returning back to normal.

With a difference: while before she had liked the normality of the succession of her days, identical one to another, now that she knew something better was possible she couldn’t fully enjoy it anymore, and deep inside her she knew she could have never been able to enjoy it again.

The more time passed, the more her awareness increased. She dragged herself through the last days of the week, hoping to find the needed comfort in some drinks with her girlfriends, soon.

That Friday evening, Dana arrived home later than usual. She entered the elevator and, when the doors opened on her floor, there Rick stood, wearing his usual white shirt, holding a small bouquet of roses in hand, waiting.

The emotions she had still to bury deep in her soul surfaced again, but anger was the first to possess her. She covered the few steps that separated them and slapped him in the face.

“You’re an asshole,” she shouted, but the tears she was shedding were telling him another truth.

“No, I’m not. I had to do it. And you could have come and visited me anyway, you know where I live,” he was serious, but he couldn’t restrain a little teasing.

“I’m not going to visit someone who doesn’t want to see me.”

“And yet here I am. Who said I didn’t want to see you?”

They were still standing on the stair landing and Rick could hear some movements behind one of the other apartment’s doors. Someone was going to check on them soon.

“Tell me, why did you leave?”

“Someone saw us, someone wrote me the very same evening. I had to decide between you and my job. And the fact is, it wasn’t just sex anymore. Either I stopped seeing you or-”

The kiss she gave him was the proof she had understood. It was salty of her sadness, and yet sweet and passionate as forgiveness.

“Details later.”

She took the roses from his hand and opened the door, then pulled him in.

***

The silly thought of her apartment not being perfectly set crossed her mind; it was Rick’s first time at her place indeed. But she had no time to worry about such petty things, not that day.

She put the roses on a shelf and kicked away her shoes, as he did. She dragged him through the corridor as they kissed and undressed each other, as their hands started playing again with their bodies, leaving a trail of clothes on the ground.

In her room, the sun was still shining through the open windows. Dana smiled: there was no way she’d made love with him in the dark this time. She wanted to enjoy him, completely, as she’d never done.

When they reached the bed they were both completely naked already. They didn’t lie on the bed, though: they kissed each other, standing at the side of the bed, with their eyes closed, savouring a kiss that had a new meaning for both of them. Rick’s hand roamed on Dana’s back, caressed her, gently scratched from her shoulders all the way to her butt, then he grabbed it and pulled her to him. Her breast adhered against his chest, her belly against his one, and between them she could already feel his hardness pulsating, waiting for her attentions.

She interrupted the kiss, and smiled, as her hand slid on his stomach and grabbed his sex, then she sat on the edge of the bed. And there it was, in front of her, Rick’s cock in all his magnificence. For the first time, it was all hers. For the first time, she could see it clearly, in the light, in all his details. She felt a shiver as her excitement grew, looking at it. Its veins; its tip; the wetness pouring down from it. Her hand began moving on it, up and down, gently stroking it, admiring its hardness, its texture, the way it pulsated in rhythm with her hand. Rick moaned slightly, and she smiled again, feeling in control of the man that had caught her heart.

She lowered her head a little and licked its tip. Rick moaned again, this time a little louder. Her satisfied smile grew, as she opened her mouth and engulfed his cock into it, caring to rub its entire length with her lips, caring to caress it with her wet tongue that, for the past weeks, had dreamt of nothing but to meet that man’s kisses, that man’s hardness, that man’s taste.

Rick caressed her head and moved aside her hair to look at her. Dana was gently massaging his balls with a hand now, as her eager mouth continued eating him out, and her lips sealed around his tip felt as an electric shock each time she blew him in and out. The passion she put on the act shown him how much she’d waited for that moment. He relaxed: there was no way Dana wasn’t going to accept his feelings. And as for him, there was nothing he wanted more than pleasing that woman and being pleased by her. And to continue, day after day, until –

His chain of thoughts got interrupted: Dana had raised her eyes and was looking straight into his, smiling while lapping his cock with full, slow licks from the bottom up to its tip.

He pushed her away, but she chuckled and grabbed his cock sliding it into her mouth again, enjoying the teasing she knew she was inflicting him. But soon surrendered to his will, and let her body fall on the bed.

Rick looked at her: Dana, naked, smiling at him while keeping her legs purposely closed. She said nothing, but as he knelt in front of her, she slowly opened her legs, slid a hand down her belly, spread her lips and invited him inside her.

There was nothing he wanted more. He leant over her and their bodies met again, before melting into a passionate embrace. This time, they were discovering each other with a new awareness of their relationship; this time their touches were not only lustful, not hurried. Instead, they carried the need to know each other anew. It was playing, and loving.

Dana moaned as soon as she felt his cock sliding into her. She was at home, free to show her pleasure at its fullest, and didn’t hold back. Her moans grew louder, her breath heavier, as that man pumped inside her, as he plunged his body deep into the mattress each thrust, as his weight kept her immobilised – and yet she wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else, with anyone else.

She looked at him, over her; at his muscular chest; his arms; his flat six-pack, and her hands slid again on his back to grip his firm ass, pulling him to her.

Their kisses became more passionate; the pleasure mounted inside them. Rick and Dana were biting each other’s lips, licking their ears, kissing their necks tasting every inch of each other’s skin. Their sweat bodies moved in unison with the rhythm of their hearts and soon Dana felt a first orgasm making its way inside her. She lifted her legs, letting him reach depths he couldn’t have otherwise, and closed her eyes, lost in the way he was massaging her insides, stimulating her innermost spots.

Then she felt it: his orgasm coming. Rick’s cock pulsated into her and he raised the pace of his thrusts, while whispering into her ear how beautiful she was, how sexy she was, how much he wanted to be with her.

Her body shook in pleasure, her mind blacked out, her nails dug into his back as she uncontrollably moaned her pleasure.

And in that moment, when she couldn’t resist anymore, when the pressure from inside her was too much to handle and her body began shaking in pleasure; when her mind was on the verge of blacking out and her fingernails deeply dug into his back, she said the unchaining words that ended it all, those words that would have hopefully led to another, better, new beginning.

“I love you.”