Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima.

IMPORTANT: Everyone in this story is aged to be above the age of consent. I don't condone underage sex and this story is by no means supporting that. Rated M for mature themes and sexual content.

Shades of Grey (and NOT related to 50 Shades of Grey)

Was he a good man? That was a question Wendy had asked herself since the beginning. He did good things, but that wasn't the same. He lived in shades of grey. It was part of what she liked about him. It was also part of what she hated. She couldn't help him or make him better. Most of the time, she didn't want to. If she did, she feared that he'd never look at her like that again. She feared he'd remember that he loved his wife and only put his head on her pillow. She feared that he'd look at her, Wendy, twenty-three years old, unlined and ingénue, and instead of getting hard at the thought of making her scream, he'd send her on her way.

Wendy didn't want that. She didn't want that when she turned twenty-two, fresh out of college, and took the offered position as his personal assistant and she didn't want that now, a year later, though admittedly, at first, she wasn't sure if she could be the other woman. It was tasteless and tactless and people got hurt.

But then he'd kissed her. He'd kissed her and she'd gotten a thrill. Afterwards, she'd kissed him back. Again and again, until he was pawing at her right there in his personal office. The pawing went further. He wasn't just grabbing at her breasts—small things she'd never found attractive before but was quite satisfied with now—he was turning her around and bending her at the waist, skirt up, underwear down around her ankles. He was petting between her legs, and he was on his knees, licking, he was making her pant in this, his large, ugly and garish house—one of many on the street where strictly rich people could afford to live.

She'd never meant for it to be this way but she couldn't step back now, everything was just a little too far gone. To call it love would be too kind. Lust, though.

"Put those down."

Hands that had seen many more years than her own took the stack of papers from her and set them on a huge, dark desk crowded with ornamental things—never picture because this was where he did his adultery, but important things, if Wendy had to guess. Awards, pictures of himself receiving accommodation from the council multiple times. Mister Gryder was an important man, doing very important and very bad things.

She knew what was coming next. She breathed out and tipped her face up for his kiss. It was slow and almost sweet, though she tasted urgency on his tongue, resting just beneath the surface. A little bit of effort and it would be set free. She put her fingers in his salt and pepper hair and felt his arms tighten around her waist. He kissed her harder and Wendy felt his perpetual five-o'clock shadow that scrape her skin. She liked it. It meant he didn't have time. No time for much of anything, including love. Lust, though, lust came like a monster and plundered, forcing a person to make time for it.