Chapter 2: The Aftermath
The storm that had been a distant murmur began to claw at the windows. Rain slashed diagonal lines across the panoramic view, distorting the city into a watercolor nightmare of smeared light. Inside, the only sound was the ragged echo of their breathing slowly settling into something like a rhythm.
Lois leaned against the desk, her bare skin cooling in the conditioned air, the taste of Tess and whiskey still sharp on her tongue. Her mind, usually a whirlwind of connections and questions, felt scoured clean, blank. But it was a fragile stillness. The name Tess had given her—Major Christopher Kelvin—began to crystallize in the quiet, a hard, cold fact around which everything else would now orbit.
Tess’s hand moved first. Not tentatively, but with a possessive certainty that made Lois’s breath hitch. Her palm was warm as it slid up Lois’s thigh, fingers tracing the muscle there, a claiming touch that sent a fresh, unwelcome thrill straight to Lois’s core.
“You’re still here,” Tess murmured, her voice husky from use. It wasn’t a question.
“You gave me a name.” Lois turned her head, meeting those guarded green eyes. “That’s a down payment. Not a settlement.”
A ghost of a smile touched Tess’s lips. Her fingers crept higher, brushing the damp, sensitive skin at the juncture of Lois’s thigh. “I gave you more than a name.”
Lois’s legs parted almost of their own volition, a silent, traitorous concession. “That’s not the story.”
“Isn’t it?” Tess’s finger dipped, sliding through the wetness already gathering there. Lois gasped, her head falling back against the desk. “Feels like a central theme.”
Then Tess was sliding off the desk and sinking to her knees again. The sight was somehow more shocking the second time—the powerful, pristine CEO on the floor, her gaze fixed between Lois’s legs with a focused, predatory hunger.
“Tess, wait—” Lois began, but the words dissolved into a sharp cry as Tess’s mouth found her.
There was no preamble. Tess licked a broad, flat stripe through her folds, then closed her lips around her clit and sucked.Hard. The sensation was so direct, so brutally good, it short-circuited Lois’s thoughts. She cried out, her hands flying to Tess’s hair, not to push her away but to hold her there, anchored against the tsunami of feeling.
Tess moaned against her, the vibration ricocheting through Lois’s entire body. She ate her with a desperate, frantic energy, as if she could consume the chaos between them. Her tongue dove inside, lapping up the evidence of Lois’s arousal, then returned to circle her clit with relentless, slick pressure. The obscene, wet sounds filled the office, louder than the drumming rain.
“Fuck, right there,” Lois choked out, her hips bucking off the desk. Tess held her down with an arm across her stomach, pinning her in place, a prisoner to the sensation. The orgasm built too fast, a coil of pure heat winding tighter and tighter in her gut. She was babbling, a stream of filth and pleas. “Don’t stop, god, yes, just like that, you fucking—”
It broke over her with a force that blurred her vision. She shuddered violently, a raw, stripped sound tearing from her throat as the waves pulsed through her. Tess rode it out, her tongue gentling to soft, lapping strokes until Lois was whimpering from oversensitivity.
Only then did Tess pull back. She stood, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, her eyes dark and satisfied. Lois lay sprawled and wrecked on the desk, trying to remember how to breathe.
“Get on your stomach,” Tess said, her voice a command.
Lois, limbs heavy with satiation, managed to roll over. The cold marble was a shock against her breasts and belly. She heard the soft click of a cap, the slick sound of lotion. Then Tess’s body was leaning over her, a warm weight along her back.
“You want the whole story?” Tess’s whisper was hot against her ear. “This is the price of admission.”
Two slick fingers pressed against her entrance, then pushed inside without warning. Lois gasped, her body stretching to accommodate the sudden, deep intrusion. Tess fucked her with them, a steady, punishing rhythm that had Lois pushing back against her hand, seeking more.
“Who else knows about Kelvin?” Lois managed to grit out, her face pressed against the cool stone.
Tess’s other hand came down on her ass with a sharp, stinging smack. Lois jerked, a yelp escaping her. The pain bloomed into a bright, shameful heat.
“The wrong people,” Tess said, punctuating each word with a thrust. Her palm landed again on the other cheek, leaving a matching sting. “People who don’t like reporters sniffing around their dimensional experiments.”
She crooked her fingers, hitting a spot that made Lois see stars. Lois cried out, her fingers scrambling for purchase on the slick desk.
“Are they watching you?” Lois panted.
“They’re watching the anomaly.” Tess’s pace quickened, her fingers sliding in and out with a filthy, wet sound. Her free hand rubbed over the heated skin of Lois’s ass. “And now, because you can’t leave well enough alone, they’ll be watching you.”
She added a third finger. The stretch was intense, almost too much, forcing a ragged sob from Lois’s throat. It felt like being unmade. Tess’s breath was coming in harsh pants now, her own control fraying.
“Why tell me?” Lois demanded, pushing back onto the invading fingers, needing the friction, the brutal connection. “Why risk it?”
Tess stilled, buried deep inside her. For a moment, the only sounds were the storm and their labored breathing. She leaned down, her lips brushing Lois’s shoulder blade.
“Because I’m trapped in this glass tower with his ghost,” she whispered, the confession ripped from a place of raw honesty Lois hadn’t known she possessed. “And you’re the only one who’s not afraid to break the windows.”
She began to move again, her thrusts losing their measured rhythm, becoming frantic, desperate. Lois felt the tension coiling in her own belly again, tighter and more urgent than before. The mix of pain and pleasure, confession and violation, was too potent. She came with a shattered scream, her body clamping down around Tess’s fingers in rhythmic pulses, her vision whiting out at the edges.
Tess followed her over, her forehead dropping between Lois’s shoulder blades as a rough, choked gasp escaped her. She stayed there, inside her, until their trembling subsided.
Slowly, she withdrew. Lois felt empty, hollowed out and filled with static. She heard Tess move away, the soft rustle of clothing.
Pushing herself up on shaky arms, Lois turned. Tess was pulling her tank top back on, her face averted toward the storm. The vulnerability was gone, sealed away behind a mask that looked newly forged and twice as hard.
“Get dressed,” Tess said, not looking at her. “There’s a file in the bottom drawer of the credenza. Hard copy only. It’s everything I could safely pull on the Recovery project’s initial team. It won’t lead you to the rift, but it might tell you who to avoid.”
Lois slid off the desk, her legs feeling like water. She found her clothes, dressing in silence. The fabric chafed against her sensitized skin. She walked to the credenza, opened the drawer. A simple beige folder lay inside. It felt heavy.
“This is a leash,” Lois said, holding it up.
“It’s a starting line,” Tess corrected, finally turning. Her eyes were exhausted. “And a perimeter. Stay inside it. They kill people, Lois. Not with drama. With quiet accidents. With forgotten allergies. With cars that swerve for no reason.”
Lois tucked the folder under her arm. The storm outside was beginning to ease, the rain softening to a patter. “And what are you going to do?”
Tess poured herself a fresh whiskey, the glass catching the dim light. “What I’ve always done. Manage the containment. And wait for the other shoe to drop.”
Lois walked to the door. This time, it was just a door, broken but open.
“Tess.”
A pause. “What?”
“Thank you. For the file.”
A bitter, quiet laugh. “Don’t thank me. I’ve probably just signed your death warrant.”
Lois stepped into the hallway. The door didn’t close behind her—it couldn’t. She walked away, the weight of the folder a cold pressure against her side. The scent of Tess, of sex, of ozone, clung to her.
She had a name. She had a source. She had a list of names to avoid.
And for the first time in her career, the story in her hands didn’t feel like a trophy. It felt like a shiv, its handle pointed toward her own ribs. The elevator arrived with a soft chime. She got in, watching the fractured light from Tess’s office shrink to a sliver, then vanish.
The work was no longer just beginning. It was already tightening around her neck.