Aftermath (2 page)

Thankfully, I
soon
felt Brad push me off and his a
rms pinned me down on the bed, h
is eyes hard with lust and determination. He pushed my thighs apart and I felt his cock stroke my lips, up and down, teasing them and not entering. He nudged forwards a bit but just as I was about to sigh with delight, he moved back, delighting in my disappointment.

"Beg for it
.
"
His voice was like steel.

I whimpered and turned my head to the side, glancing up
shyly
at his greedy face. "Please Brad," and my face burned as it always did when he made me beg, "Please fuck me."

I felt him turn me to my side and his hand came down hard on my ass cheek. It was his way of letting me know that he needed more, and I whispered
in desperation, begging him to enter me and take me, begging him for more.

I hated begging but
I was desperate for him to be inside me
. I
t was a relief
when I felt him position
his
shaft
at my entrance again, and then finally he nudged it in and I sighed with
joy
.

When Brad moved out and back in again, I started moaning
and grinding my hips
. His thrusts became deeper and more violent and I felt myself rocking against him. I tried to suck his cock in deeper with my muscles, and I felt him throbbing against my walls. I
knew my orgasm was near and I felt the pressure well up inside me, and then start to bubble. My insides turned to jelly and I felt the release escape me as I moaned and felt Brad thrusting into me again and again. When I came to, Brad was still inside me, but I felt the pace of his thrusts slow down and he stiffened, and finally came.

We lay entwined for a few minutes, and I felt him shrink inside me before he pulled out.

We were both happy and spent, and as I went to sleep that night, I felt like I had made the right decision. Brad's arm was wrapped around my body, and in the seconds before I fell into a deep sleep, I breathed in his scent and thought to myself again,
we should make this a permanent thing.

I had quit my job with Mr. Neilson's blessing, but it didn't take me long to realize that being married to Brad would not keep me busy during the day. Sure, I could go to the expensive gym and get in shape, I could indulge in my hobb
ies
of baking and eating
amazing foods
, I could go shopping, or get my hair done once in a while - but none of these things would fill up my
life
properly.

I knew I had to keep busy, and when I mentioned this to Brad, he pu
lled some strings. A few days later he
announced
that when classes started after six weeks
,
I could go to community college. I was shocked and pleased - I hadn't really expected Brad to do anything, and the fact that he'd wasted some of his influence on a nobody like me left me feeling incredibly grateful. This went far beyond the terms of our contract, and I looked forward to classes as I indulged myself during the rest of the six weeks, lazing around and making some friends in yoga class.

I was learning to navigate Brad's world. People were the same everywhere, and my habit of disparagingly generali
zing folks was coming in useful.
I broadly categorized the women as being one of either two categories. 

First
there
were the smart, intelligent ones who had their own careers as well as their wealth and beauty. Some of them had inherited wealth, others had married well, and a rare handful had earned all their money. These women were fun to hang out with, and though I felt slightly
inferior
in comparison to them,
their intelligence usually made them compassionate and
most of them were
nice to me.
At soirees and parties, I tried to identify these women and spend time with them, avoiding the Glamazonians with all my energy.

The Glamazonians were
women who had married well and planned to keep their wealth, if not their husbands. The
y
were more common,
and usually they were ex-models and actresses, or at least looked the part. S
ome of them were
rather
nice, although
most
were too busy cementing their own images and basking in their own glow of beauty
and glamour
.

I divided the men into two groups
as well
- they were either the earners or the inheritors. Inheritors were playboy-types who never lifted a finger and knew they could lie back on their trust fun
d
. They were reckless and had no concept of what the real world was like. Earners worked for a living, regardless of how much their families had left them, and this made them practical and more down-to-earth than you'd expect a billionaire to be.

Every time I met people Brad knew, I felt subtle power-plays and auras shifting around
,
based on a person's status. Folks here were concerned about their image, and donated heavily to charities to prove a point, not to stop world hunger. I realized that Brad wasn't above this himself, but he was too busy trying to run his company as the new CEO to devote time to th
ese silly ego games
.

Of course,
I was sure that marrying me had reduced Brad's status in his peers' eyes
- I was a true nobody. I didn't have great looks, a great career or the background of an old and established family. This made me the lowest form of living creature
to be
a guest at those parties
, even lower than the intelligent but plain women who earned all their money instead of marrying for it
.

Initially, this had made many people think I was out for something -
that I might like to trade up for a different man
,
or be a confidante to a Glamazonian in exchange for exclusive invitations. But neither option tempted me, and I let their silent judgment
s
slide off
my back
.

After my initial dizzy
of
excitement, parties and glamorous events held no attractions for me. I hated the backstabbing and gossiping that went on, I hated having to doll myself up for the paparazzi, and I came to understand why Brad hated the limelight so much.

Even shopping became boring - with no limits on what I could buy, I suddenly lost interest in buying and wearing fashionable things. When I was broke,
I had
ambition, and buying pretty things had seemed like part of a successful life. But when buying pretty things meant nothing, and my life was really in tatters but being disguised by a billionaire's wealth, I felt no interest in purchasing nice things. I felt like a charlatan, and being dressed with someone else's money just made me feel cheap.

I did, however, like the gym. I loved working out, driving myself hard, feeling the adrenaline around me in group fitness classes. I'd never been able to afford a gym before, and I felt proud when my muscles hurt, and I saw myself visibly getting
slimmer
and fitter, despite
all the expensive foods that I now enjoyed on a regular basis.

In this life without
real
ambition and goals, it didn't take me long to crystallize that thought I'd had on our wedding night.

I needed Brad, he must be mine. But how?

The usual routes to seduction were out.

I couldn't stun him with my amazing good looks - in his world,
I was considered ugly or at best, "
ok
"
, even when I was
dolled up by the best hair and makeup artists
. For some reason, Brad seemed to like the way I looked even on my bad days, which was why we'd gotten together in the first place. But there was no way to look like the most beautiful woman around, when he was near super-models and starlets on a regular basis.

As for sex, it
was either good or amazing
, and I didn't have to try. We still felt the
hot
chemistry between
us
, the same as when we'd first met. There was something animalistic that kept pushing us together
, and our nights were most often spent in thrashing agony and pleasure.

The normal routes for a wife to please her husband were out
, too
. There was no way I could do housework and keep a nice home - I'm messy by nature, and Brad had a housekeeper and a maid to look after everything he needed.

Eva was a great chef, so I didn't see any point in trying to get to Brad's heart through his stomach, but this didn't stop me from whipping up interesting recipes. Although Eva disapproved and voiced to me once in a while that she'd make whatever I wanted to eat, I had far too much fun trying new items and tasting them with Brad. I knew he looked forward to whatever I'd bake, but I love food and spent time with the oven to please my own desires, not his.

I decided that the only thing I could do to please Brad was to just be there for him. Brad rarely talked about his work with me,
and I understood that it was partly because he was too sick of it by the end of the day, and partly for confidentiality reasons. Still, I listened intently when he complained about the exchange rates, or contractors who tried to pass off shoddy work. Things with investors were improving slowly, but I realized that Brad still needed to convince them he really could run the company.

When Brad was around, I tried to flirt with other people. My first attempt at this had been disastrous. But now I watched what the Glamazonians did and tried their tricks
- they made it clear they were happy with their husbands, but still smiled and raised their eyebrows as if anyone else could try to steal them away.

I hadn't quite figured it out. Brad seemed happy enough with me, and I felt his eyes on me whenever I danced with someone else. But what could make him consider a real relationship with me, something that went beyond our contract? I searched for the answer, but it always seemed just out of reach.

It'll come to me
, I told myself, determined not to stress. Even if nothing happened between us and we got divorced and went our separate ways, at least I'd have this one year together. And that was nothing to sneeze at - under normal circumstances, Brad would've moved on after that afternoon in his office.

I enrolled in college part-time, and went to my classes enthusiastically. I'd never had an opportunity to make friends in
New York
: t
hat was another thing about being broke, it really limited your social circle and the activities you could do.

Now I was suddenly meeting interesting people outside of work, folks who were returning to education, ambitious high school kids trying to get a start on their college degrees, and people like me who wanted to get out of dreary jobs and have a real career.

I felt a connection with many of my class-mates, most of us were ambitious and in a hurry to get somewhere. I didn't tell anyone I was married to Brad
Reinehart
; when they asked what my husband did, I merely said that he worked for
Reinehart
I
ndustries. It wasn't entirely a lie. 

One of the conditions of the marriage was that we were to spend each night together. Brad had to travel for work, and
so I went with him wherever he went
.
His
company owned factories in
India
and
China
, and I delighted in the colorful culture and food. We visited
Prague
,
Italy
and
Germany
over the weekends, and spent some time visiting different cities in the
US
.

Travelling with Brad meant that I had to skip classes once in a while. But
I got no
tes from my classmates;
most of
them
also had busy lives and understood that missing a few classes was part of being a returning student. I went out for drinks with friends from
college
, and I was happy to finally be hanging out with people I liked.

My life seemed to be going great, as classes finished and then after a short break the new semester started
again
. Before I knew it, this semester was coming to a close as well - parties, travel, yoga and new friends had made the time fly by.

It was with a slight knot in my stomach that I realized I had only two months left of the contract. Brad and I had gotten nowhere in terms of a "relationship" and I hadn't been able to figure out what to do. For all I knew, he was happy that the year was coming to an end.