CHAPTER 17
HLENGIWE
The office walls seem to shrink as the air between them ignites. She is lost, her fingers buried deep in Gatsha’s head, her body arching toward his warmth as if her skin is starved for it. The kiss is filled with a hunger that terrifies her, a raw, messy collision of teeth and tongue that tastes of the sweat he brought back from the Congo and the desperate loneliness she has tried to bury since the funeral.
For a heartbeat, she lets herself go. She lets her mind go blank, focusing only on the way his large hand is heavy and possessive against the small of her back. But then, a flash of Funani’s face strikes her like a bolt of lightning.
She breaks the kiss with a sharp gasp, her chest heaving as she shoves against Gatsha’s solid chest. She stumbles back, her heels catching on the rug, her hands flying to her swollen lips as if she can physically push the sensation of him away.
“What the hell are we doing?” she cries out, “What is this?”
She is shaking, her vision blurred by the sudden guilt that feels like sickness in her gut. She feels like an intruder in her own life, a traitor to the memory of the man whose name is still etched on the building outside.
Gatsha takes a slow step back, his eyes lingering with heat that makes her skin prickle. He wipes a smear of her lipstick from his thumb with a smile that says he felt exactly how much she wanted him back.
“I’m going to my house,” he says, “I need a shower and a few hours of sleep. My brain is tired from the flight, and clearly, we both need a minute to breathe. I’ll pop back in after 12.”
She nods, her hands still trembling as she tries to smooth her hair. She can’t look at him; she can’t risk seeing that look in his eyes again. “Yes, do that. You deserve the rest, it was a long trip.”
Gatsha reaches the door and pauses, turning back to her with a piercing intensity. “Hlengi? Should we talk about what just happened?”
“No!” The word escapes her mouth too fast, “No. It was a mistake, Gatsha. A moment of high stress and exhaustion. It shouldn’t have happened, so there is absolutely no need to talk about anything. It’s forgotten.”
Gatsha’s smile doesn’t fade; it just shifts into something more challenging. “If you say so. I’ll see you at noon.”
The moment the door closes behind him, the adrenaline leaves her legs. She rushes to the door, her fingers fumbling with the lock until the locks it. She moves to the windows, her breath hitching as she closes the blinds.
She sinks into her chair, her head falling into her hands.
The flashback of the kiss hits her in waves, reminding her the way his tongue felt, the low groan he made in the back of his throat, the way he held her as if he would never let her go. She feels a heat radiate through her, a betrayal of her own anatomy that leaves her panties soaked and her heart racing.
“God, Hlengi, get it together,” she whimpers.
She pushes her chair back and retreats into her private ensuite bathroom. She leans over the sink, splashing cold water on her face, but it does nothing to cool the fire in her blood. She avoids her reflection for a moment, instead reaching into her bag for and quickly strips off her underwear, her hands shaking as she replaces the soaked panty liner.
She forces herself to look in the mirror. Her lips are flushed and bitten, her eyes wild with a mixture of desire and self-loathing.
“What the hell is going on with you?” she whispers to her reflection. “Is he bewitching you or are you just that weak?”
The thought of Funani burns her. This was his friend and partner. The man who sat at their dinner table and toasted to their future. How could she let him touch her like that? How could she want it so badly?
She walks back to her desk, the silence of the room now feeling like an accusation. She needs a voice of reason before she loses her mind completely. She grabs her phone, her thumb hovering over her contacts until she finds the one person who doesn’t have a stake in Nhlapho Logistics.
She hits the call button, her heart hammering against her ribs as the line rings.
“Dr. Mthembu, I’ve done something something terrible,” she says immediately as soon as her therapist answers.
“Take a breath, Hlengiwe,” the doctor replies, “I am listening. Start from the beginning. What is making you feel this way?”
She closes her eyes, and immediately, the sensation of Gatsha’s mouth on hers returns. “It’s Gatsha, Funani’s business partner. He came back from the DRC this morning, and the tension has been building for days, Doctor. We were on the floor of the office the other night, just talking, and today he kissed me. The worst part is that I kissed him back. I didn’t just kiss him; I lost myself in him.”
She let out a ragged breath, the frustration boiling over. “I feel like a traitor. My husband hasn’t even been gone a year, and I’m in his office, with his best friend, behaving like I’ve forgotten him. Is he bewitching me? Because when he’s near me, I can’t think. My body reacts before my brain can even process the guilt. I’m confused, I’m angry, and I’m so incredibly ashamed.”
“You are not being bewitched, and you are not a traitor, Hlengiwe. What you are describing is a very common, though often unspoken, part of the mourning process. Grief is not a straight line; it is a weird, chaotic, and deeply complex beast. People grieve differently. Some withdraw, and others seek the life-affirming heat of another person to distract them from the coldness of death.”
“But with him? Of all people?” She asks, her voice rising in desperation.
“Precisely because it is him,” the doctor counters. “Think about it. Gatsha is the closest link you have left to Funani. He smells like the world you lost. He knows your pain because he is living it too. Your hormones and your grief are tangled together right now. When we are in deep pain, our bodies crave comfort, physical, chemical comfort.
That sexual tension you feel isn’t an insult to Funani; it’s a biological response to trauma. It’s your system trying to find a way to feel alive again when everything else feels like a graveyard.”
She rubs her forehead, the logic clashing with her heart. “But everyone expects me to be the grieving widow. Thabile is already watching me like a hawk, whispering things. I feel like I’m under a microscope.”
“You cannot live your life for the audience in the gallery, Hlengiwe,” Dr. Mthembu says gently. “You are an adult. While society might have its timelines for how long a woman should wear black, the reality is that Funani is not coming back. That is the hardest truth you have to face. Life, in its cruelty and its beauty, continues to move forward.”
The doctor pauses, letting the weight of the words settle. “If Gatsha is what you need to navigate this darkness right now, if his presence provides the support or even the distraction you need to survive another day, then perhaps you should allow yourself that grace. However, you must be careful. You are in a vulnerable state. You need to set clear boundaries, not just for him, but for yourself. Ask yourself if this is about Gatsha the man, or is this about filling a Funani-sized hole in your soul?”
“I don’t know the answer to that yet,” she whispers, looking at the locked office door.
“And you don’t have to know today,” the doctor reassures her. “But stop being so hard on yourself. You are allowed to be human. You are allowed to feel desire, even in the middle of a tragedy. Take it slow. Don’t make any permanent decisions while your pulse is still racing.
Don’t punish yourself for wanting to feel something other than pain.”
She feels a slight loosening in her chest. The professional counsel doesn’t take away the guilt entirely, but it frames it as something manageable, something that doesn’t make her a monster.
“Thank you, Doctor,” she says, “I’ll try to remember that. I’ll try to be kinder to myself.”
“Do that. And Hlengiwe? If you decide to go ahead with whatever this is, do it with your eyes wide open. You deserve to be happy, but you also deserve to be safe.”
She hangs up the phone and stares at the ceiling. The heat between her legs has settled into a lingering ache. She has three hours until Gatsha returns. Three hours to decide if she’s going to build the wall back up, or if she’s going to let the North Star lead her into a different kind of storm.
GATSHA
He steps out of the hot shower, the water still glistening on his shoulders. He feels more alive than he has in months, but it’s a restless, heavy kind of energy. The memory of the kiss in the office, the way Hlengiwe’s lips had surrendered to his, the small moan she made had followed him home. In the shower, the friction of the water was not enough; he forced himself to take matters into his own hands, eyes closed, picturing her pressed against the office door until he found a momentary release.
He dries himself off and applies lotion into his skin, the scent of sandalwood filling the room. He slides into a pair of loose grey shorts, the fabric clinging to his thighs. Just as he reaches for a fresh black vest, the phone on his bedside table buzzes.
“Yeah?”
“Sir, you have a visitor at the main gate,” the security guard’s voice crackles through the speaker.
“A visitor? I’m not expecting anyone. Who is it?” He doesn’t bring his flings here, and his business associates know better than to drop by unannounced.
“It’s a black Mercedes, sir. Registration…” The guard reads out the plate.
His heart skips a beat, a smile spreads across his face as he recognizes the numbers. It’s her. She couldn’t wait until noon. “Let her through,” he says, “Direct her straight to the house.”
He pulls the black vest over his head, walks to the window in the lounge and watches as Hlengiwe’s car pulls up alongside his. She steps out, looking breathtakingly composed but he sees the way her hands tremble as she smooths her hair. He reaches the front door before she can even raise a hand to knock and open it.
“Hlengi, is everything okay?” he asks softly.
She doesn’t say a word but steps inside, closing the door behind her. She steps in front of him, her hands grab his face and she pulls him down into a kiss that is more a collision than a greeting. It is raw, hungry, and completely devoid of the hesitation she had in the office.
This time, she is the one leading, her tongue seeking his with a desperate need that tells him she’s been thinking about nothing else since he left. He responds with a low growl, his hands finding her waist, but then he pulls back just an inch. His breathing is ragged, his forehead resting against hers.
“Hlengi… look at me. Are you sure? Because once we do this, everything changes.”
Hlengiwe doesn’t pull away, she looks him dead in the eye, her chest heaving. “Stop talking, Gatsha,” she whispers fiercely. “Just stop talking.”
That’s all the permission he needs. He sweeps her up, her legs instinctively wrapping around his waist as he carries her toward the kitchen. He feels the friction of her skirt against his skin, and as his hand pushes the fabric up.
His breath hitches as his palm meets the bare skin of her thighs. He slides his hand higher, expecting the barrier of lace, but finds only the heat of her. She’s not wearing anything underneath. His fingers find her moist center immediately, and Hlengiwe lets out a moan into his mouth, her head falling back.
“You came here ready for me,” he murmurs, his thumb grazing her clitoris.
He sets her down on the cold kitchen counter, pulling her right to the edge so her legs are spread wide. He hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts and kicks them away. His manhood springs out, free and dangerously hard, the veins pulsing with the force of his arousal.
He steps between her legs, the heat radiating between them. He takes his manhood and rubs the head of it slowly against her entrance, coating himself in her slickness. He stares deep into her eyes, his gaze heavy and hypnotizing, watching the way her pupils dilate until they are almost closed.
“Look at me,” he commands softly.
Hlengiwe’s breath is coming in short, shallow gasps. She watches him, her fingers digging into the counter behind her. He shifts his weight and enters her slowly. He feels her walls stretch and grip him, her heat engulfing him so tightly he has to freeze, his eyes snapping shut as he gasps for air.
Hlengiwe’s head throws back, a small cry escaping her as she feels him fill the emptiness that has been aching inside. She wraps her legs even tighter around his back, pulling him deeper, her body shaking as the first wave of pleasure crashes over them both.
To be continued
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