Love in Extra Time by Yael Maritz-An Erotic Short Story

CHAPTER ONE

The hallway of the twelfth floor smells like fresh linen and industrial cleaner, the kind that clings to the inside of my nose. My heels sink into the carpet with each step, the thick pile swallowing the sound of my approach. The manila folder in my hands is warm from being pressed against my ribs the entire elevator ride up. Inside is a thirty-two-page contract — endorsement terms, image rights, performance clauses — all of it marked with red tabs where his signature is needed before the quarterfinal match on Wednesday.

David texted me at six in the morning: "Take it to him in person. Don't leave it at the desk. He needs to read it before the team meeting at ten." My boss doesn't ask for things to be delivered in person unless it matters, and this particular client matters more than most.

I stop in front of suite 1204. The brass numbers catch the overhead light. I smooth the front of my pencil skirt, adjust the folder against my chest, and knock twice.

Footsteps. The deadbolt turns. The door opens inward, and I'm greeted by a wall of humid air that carries the scent of sandalwood soap and something underneath it — warm skin, damp hair, the remnants of a hot shower.

Mateus Silva stands in the doorway with a white towel slung low on his hips and another draped across his shoulders. His chest is still beaded with water, the droplets tracing the channels between his abdominal muscles before disappearing into the terrycloth. His dark hair is pushed back from his forehead, wet enough that a single drop runs down his temple and catches on his jawline.

"You're not room service," he says.

His accent wraps around the words the way it always does — Portuguese vowels softened by years of playing for clubs in England and Spain. I've heard him speak dozens of times during meetings with David, on conference calls where I took minutes, at the occasional function where I stood three rows back holding briefing materials. But hearing him through a phone speaker and hearing him now, six feet away, bare-chested and still steaming — those are different things.

"Amanda, from David's office. He sent me with the contract." I lift the folder slightly. "Said it was urgent."

His eyes move from the folder to my face. He holds the door wider and steps back. "Come in."

The suite is larger than I expected. The door opens into a sitting area with a charcoal sectional, a glass coffee table, and floor-to-ceiling windows that face the city. The bed is visible through a partially open partition — king-sized, white sheets pulled tight with military precision. A black duffel bag sits open on the luggage rack, cleats and tape spilling out of it. The air conditioning hums overhead, fighting the humidity that clings to every surface.

He crosses to the minibar and pulls out a bottle of water. The muscles in his back shift with the movement, the tattoo along his left flank — a line of text in Portuguese I've never been close enough to read — stretching and contracting. He twists the cap off and drinks, his throat working, then sets the bottle on the counter and turns to face me.

"Sorry about—" He gestures at himself, at the towel. "I just got out."

"I can come back." I'm already turning toward the door.

"Stay." The word comes out quick. "David will have my head if I delay this any further. Sit."

I take the edge of the sectional, perching with the folder on my lap. He takes the armchair across from me, and the towel across his shoulders drops lower. He doesn't adjust it. His thighs are spread, one knee bent, the towel over his hips barely maintaining the boundary between professional and something else entirely.

I open the folder and slide the contract across the glass table toward him. "Page seven has the revised image rights clause. Page fourteen is the bonus structure based on tournament performance. David flagged the sections that need your review with the red tabs."

He reaches for the document, and his wet fingers leave prints on the paper. He doesn't open it. He's looking at me instead.

"You've been with David's agency for what — two years now?"

"Three in September."

"And you've never once come to deliver something yourself. It's always been David, or the courier, or the intern with the clipboard." He leans back in the chair. "Why now?"

"He wanted someone who could answer questions about the revisions in real time. Save a back-and-forth before the match."

"And you drew the short straw."

I let my mouth curve slightly. "I volunteered."

His eyebrows lift. The water still clinging to his collarbone catches the light from the window behind me. He's quiet for a moment, and in that silence I become aware of the specific quality of the air in this room — the humidity from the shower, the hum of the climate control, the faint chemical sweetness of the soap on his skin.

"Did you," he says. Not a question.

"The revisions to the bonus structure are complex. David thought it would be more efficient if—"

"Amanda." He says my name the way he says everything — with that slight pull on the second syllable, the 'a' held a beat longer than an English speaker would hold it. "I've read contracts for fifteen years. I know what a bonus structure looks like."

My fingers press into the edge of the folder. The manila is warm and slightly damp now from the humidity in the room. "Then you understand why David wanted someone here to walk you through it."

"I understand that David doesn't send his best assistant to deliver paperwork at seven in the morning unless there's a reason." He tilts his head. "Or unless she has her own."

My pulse ticks against the collar of my blouse. I'm aware of how I'm sitting — spine straight, knees together, the folder held like a shield. I'm aware of the fact that I wore this particular skirt today, the charcoal one that hits just above the knee, and that I chose the heels with the thin strap around the ankle. I'm aware that I'm aware of these things, and that he might be aware of them too.

"The reason is the contract," I say.

He holds my gaze for a long moment. Then he picks up the document, flips to the first red tab, and begins reading.

I sit still and watch him. His eyes move across the page. His lips move occasionally, shaping words without sound. He has a habit of tapping his thumb against his knee when he reaches a clause he doesn't like — I've seen him do it during video calls, the small motion barely visible in the frame. Here, three feet away, I can see the nail of his thumb, the callus on the pad, the way the tendon in his wrist flexes with each tap.

"The performance threshold on page fourteen is aggressive," he says without looking up.

"It reflects what David's been able to negotiate. The sponsors want a deep tournament run."

"We're in the round of sixteen. That's not nothing."

"It's not the final."

He looks up. His jaw is set, and there's something in his expression — not anger, something closer to assessment. Like he's measuring how much I actually know about what's at stake for him.

"You follow the sport," he says.

"Enough to know you haven't scored in two matches."

The words land between us. His thumb stops tapping. I watch his throat move as he swallows, and I notice for the first time that the towel has shifted lower on his hips, the V of muscle below his abdomen visible, the line of hair that disappears beneath the terrycloth.

"The team has a sports psychologist," he says. "And a nutritionist. And a physiotherapist. And a manager who has forbidden me from—" He stops. His jaw works. "From certain activities until the tournament is over."

I know what he's referring to. David mentioned it in passing during a call with the coaching staff last week — something about testosterone levels and competitive aggression and a protocol that several players on the national team follow during major tournaments. I didn't think much of it at the time. I'm thinking about it now.

"That must be difficult," I say. The word comes out softer than I intend.

His eyes find mine. "You have no idea."

The air in the room feels thicker. The humidity from the shower has settled into the carpet, the furniture, my clothes. I can smell his soap more clearly now — sandalwood and something herbal, maybe eucalyptus. The fabric of my blouse is sticking to the small of my back.

I should stand. I should say the contract is in his hands, that David will follow up by phone, that I'll see myself out. I should do any of the professional things that a competent assistant does when a meeting has run its course.

Instead, I uncross my legs and recross them the other way. The movement is small. The skirt rides up a quarter inch. His eyes track the motion like a man following a ball across a pitch.

"Is there anything else you need?" I ask.

"You keep asking me that." He sets the contract down on the table. "I think you're the one who needs something."

My mouth goes dry. "I don't—"

"I've watched you." His voice drops, not in volume but in register. "Every meeting. Every call. You sit in the corner with your notebook and you watch me. You think I don't notice?"

I notice that his hand has moved to the arm of the chair, that his fingers are gripping the upholstery, that the knuckles have gone pale. I notice that the towel has slipped again and that he hasn't reached for it.

"I'm doing my job," I say.

"Your job is to take notes and deliver contracts." He leans forward. "Your job is not to look at me the way you've been looking at me for the last three minutes."

Heat climbs my throat. "How have I been looking at you?"

"Like you're trying to decide if the water on my chest is worth touching."

The words land in my sternum. My breath catches — just a hitch, just a half-second interruption in the rhythm of my lungs — but he hears it. I can tell because his grip on the chair loosens, and something shifts in his face. The assessment softens. The set of his jaw eases.

He stands. The towel stays, barely. He takes two steps toward me, and I can feel the warmth coming off his skin, the residual heat of the shower mixing with the heat rising from my own chest. He stops at the edge of the sectional, close enough that his knee is level with my own.

"I shouldn't," he says. His voice is quieter now. "There are rules. The staff, the federation — they have protocols. If anyone found out—"

"Found out what?"

He looks down at me. His eyes are dark, almost black in this light, and there's a crease between his eyebrows that deepens as he studies my face. "That I've thought about you. That I've thought about you in ways that have nothing to do with contracts or meetings or David's office."

My hand is still holding the folder. My fingers are white against the manila.

"Since the first time," he says. "The first time you walked into David's office with coffee and that blue dress and you tripped over the rug and caught yourself on the corner of his massive desk. You laughed. You said 'well, that's one way to make an entrance.' And I thought—"

He stops. Runs his tongue across his lower lip.I remember thinking, “I want to know what that laugh sounds like when the sun is rising, the coffee hasn't even been made yet, and neither of us has any reason to rush the day. Just you and me... with nowhere else to be." 

The folder suddenly slips from my fingers. It hits the carpet with a soft thud, and neither of us looks at it.

"I've imagined taking you to dinner," he continues. "Somewhere with a terrace so we can watch the sunset. Where you'd wear something that wasn't for the office. Something soft and flowing. Where I could sit across from you and not have to pretend I'm listening to David talk about clause structures when all I'm concerned with doing is watching your mouth move."

My heart is hammering now. I can feel it in my wrists, my throat, the soft space behind my ears. "Mateus—"

"I've imagined more than dinner." His hand moves — not to me, but to the back of the sectional, bracing himself. The muscle in his arm flexes. "I've imagined what your hair looks like when it's down. What your neck smells like when you're not wearing that perfume you wear to the office — the one with the flowers. Something else. Something that's just you."

I reach up despite myself. My fingers find the pin holding my hair in place. I pull it free, and my hair falls across my shoulders. I catch myself, caught up in the moment for a second-but then I hear his breath catch and then seemingly stop.

"Like that," he says, his voice thickening with his accent. "Exactly like that."

"You're in the middle of the biggest tournament of your career."

"I know."

"Your manager has forbidden you from—"

"I know."

"From everything. From this. From me."

He closes his eyes. His chest rises and falls, and I watch the water still clinging to his skin catch the light with each breath. When he opens his eyes again, they're different. The assessment is gone. What's left is raw and unguarded, and it makes my stomach drop.

"I've spent four weeks in the tournament so far," he says. "Four weeks of cold showers and team meetings and video analysis and protein portions measured to the gram. Four weeks of being told that my body is a machine and my focus is a weapon and that anything — anything — that disrupts that focus could cost us the cup." His hand on the sofa curls into a fist. "And every single day, I've thought about you. Every single day, Amanda. The way you hold your pen. The way you tuck your hair behind your ear when David starts talking about money. The way your blouse pulls across your chest whenever you reach for one of the endless folders he’s always having you carry. 

My lips part. I can't help it. The air in the room is too warm and too close and too full of…him.

"I'm not supposed to want this," he says. "I'm not supposed to want you. But I'm standing here telling you anyway because you walked into my room at seven in the morning with a contract and your hair pinned up and that skirt, and I can't—"

He breaks off. His jaw tightens. He looks away from me, toward the window, toward the city waking up below us. The tendons in his neck are taut.

"I can't keep pretending I don't. I know all this may come as a shock to you. But you’ve consumed the darkest parts of me, the most intimate thoughts I have for almost 3 years, Amanda. It won’t stop. I’ve tried, believe me. It’s you I want.”

I stand. The folder stays on the floor. My knees are unsteady, but I'm standing, and he's close — close enough that if I swayed forward, my chest would brush his.

"I didn't volunteer to deliver this contract because of the bonus structure," I blurt out.

He turns back to me. His eyes search my face.

"I volunteered because I wanted to see you," I say. "I wanted to see you before the match. Before the cameras. Before you become the version of yourself that belongs to everyone else." My hand rises, hovers, and then my fingertips touch his chest — just below the collarbone, where a bead of water is sliding downward. His skin is hot. The water is cool. Both sensations register against my fingertips simultaneously. "I wanted to see this version. The one that just got out of the shower. The one that doesn't know what to say."

His hand covers mine. Presses it flat against his chest. I can feel his heartbeat under my palm — fast, hard, a rhythm that matches my own.

"I know what to say," he murmurs. "I just don't know if I'm allowed to say it."

"Say it anyway."

His thumb traces a circle on the back of my hand. His eyes drop to my mouth. "I want to take you on that date. The terrace. The dress. All of it. I want to know what your laugh sounds like when it's just for me."

"And after the date?"

His gaze darkens. His hand tightens over mine. "After the date, I want to know what you sound like when you're not laughing at all. When the only sound you can make is moaning my name."

A shiver runs through me, starting at the base of my spine and radiating outward. My nipples are hard against the silk of my bra, and I know he can see it through the blouse. I know because his eyes drop for a half-second, and his breath catches the same way mine did.

"The tournament," I whisper. "The rules."

"Fuck the rules." The word comes out rough, unpracticed in his mouth. "I've followed every protocol. I've eaten what they tell me to eat. I've slept when they tell me to sleep. I've done everything — everything — except stop thinking about you."

His free hand rises to my face. His fingertips brush my jaw, feather-light, tracing the line of bone from my ear to my chin. My eyes close. The touch is so light it could be accidental, but it isn't. It's deliberate. It's the touch of someone who has been imagining this exact moment for weeks and is finally letting himself have it.

"Tell me to stop," he says. His voice is barely above a whisper. "Tell me this is a conflict of interest. Tell me David would never allow it. Tell me any of the hundred reasons why I shouldn't be standing this close to you."

I open my eyes. His face is inches from mine. I can see the individual lashes, the faint scar above his left eyebrow from a collision during a match last season, the way his lower lip is slightly fuller than the upper.

"I'm not going to tell you to stop," I say.

His forehead drops to mine. His breath is warm against my lips. His hand slides from my jaw to the back of my neck, fingers threading into the hair I just let down. I can feel the calluses on his palm — the roughness of a man who has spent his life kicking a ball, the specific texture of someone whose hands are tools of a trade.

"Not yet," he says. "Not today. But I want you to know that when this tournament is over — when I've scored and we've won and I've done everything they've told me to do — the first thing I'm doing is finding you."

"And then?"

"And then I'm taking you to dinner. And then I'm taking you to bed. And I'm not letting you leave until I've heard every sound you can make."

His thumb strokes the back of my neck. I lean into the touch, and his other arm wraps around my waist, pulling me against him. The towel is a thin barrier. I can feel the heat of him through it, the hardness of his body, the tension coiled in every muscle.

He presses his lips to my forehead. Not my mouth — my forehead. The gesture is so tender that something cracks open in my chest.

"Three more weeks," he says against my skin. "Three more matches. And then you're mine."

I curl my fingers into the towel at his hip. "I've been yours since the filing cabinet."

He laughs. It's low and rough and startled, and it vibrates through his chest into mine. "That was three years ago."

"I know."

He pulls back and looks at me. His eyes are bright, and the crease between his eyebrows has smoothed. He looks like a man who has just realized that the thing he's been chasing isn't a trophy or a contract or a goal — it's a woman standing in his hotel room with her hair down and a contract on the floor and three years of wanting pressed between them.

"Read the contract," I say. "Sign it. Win your matches." I straighten his towel where my fingers displaced it. "And then come find me."

I step back. The distance between us opens like a wound. He reaches for my hand, catches my fingers, holds them for a long moment.

"Amanda."

I look at him.

"Three weeks," he says. "Count them."

I pull my hand free, pick up the folder from the floor, and set it on the coffee table. Then I walk to the door. I don't look back. I don't need to. I can feel his eyes on me — on my back, my skirt, my hair — all the way across the room.

The door clicks shut behind me. The hallway is cool and quiet and smells like fresh linen.

Three weeks. Twenty-one days. I count the first one as I walk to the elevator.

My hands are shaking.