Chapter 44
Aida
My attempt at shifting into BBC mode isn’t exactly helped by the tenderness between my legs. I can barely sit down—I feel like I cycled the entire Tour de France.
Is it weird that I don’t hate it? That it feels like a badge of honour? The same goes for the red lines on my wrists where I pulled a little too hard on my cuffs in the throes of passion.
I’m in a meeting with my Centre Stage producer, Rory, talking on Zoom with two of our researchers who are based at our headquarters in Manchester about a special programme on immigration we’re planning for next month.
It’ll be a panel discussion, and our researchers are busy vetting the participants.
It happens more often than I’d like that people with inflammatory social media profiles slip through the net.
I don’t want to give a national platform to anyone who doesn’t merit it.
My phone pings quietly on the table, and I glance down.
It’s from Cal.
CAL: Hi. Can we talk? Any chance I can come see you?
I close my eyes for a moment, which is a mistake, because it gives the filthy montage that’s been haunting me all day a blank screen to play on.
That fucking mask.
It was just a goddamn mask! Why the hell did it make me so feral? I’m a grown woman who has won actual prizes for her reportage, but put a ripped as fuck guy with a cheap-ass face covering on his knees in front of me and I am a total fucking disaster.
My poor, swollen pussy pulses at the memory of his head between my legs against that pillar, and I don’t hate the pain. Jesus fuck, that was hot.
As was every single thing he did after he made me see stars.
‘Excuse me a moment,’ I tell Rory and the guys on Zoom and pick up my phone.
ME: Hey. I’m at the BBC for most of the day but if you can swing by the Television Centre we can talk. I’ll be free in an hour.
He replies immediately.
CAL: Great. I’ll swing by at 11 xx
ME: OK x
I put my phone face down and attempt to refocus my brain on how the fuck this country can do right by the people who are seeking refuge on our shores every day.
* * *
I find Cal waiting by the front reception desk, looking like every woman’s fantasy in a crisp white dress shirt and black pants with a lightweight jacket slung on top.
His hair is styled artfully off his face.
He’s every inch the City playboy. If I didn’t know him, I’d guess he was some flash trader or hedge fund manager.
He’s also holding an enormous bouquet of velvety dark-red roses.
I go in for a double kiss, but he grabs me after the first one and swallows me in a hug, holding the flowers away from his body. Geez, this guy can hug. He feels and smells as amazing as he looks.
‘These are for you,’ he says, shoving the bouquet awkwardly at me.
‘Thank you,’ I say as I accept them, cradling them in one arm like a baby. I lean forward to inhale their fragrant scent. ‘They’re so beautiful.’
He shoves his hands in the pockets of his pants. ‘I wanted to… well. I respect you so much and—um, anyway. You deserve them.’
Okay. So they’re guilt flowers. I’ll let it lie—the poor guy’s already gotten himself tied up in knots.
‘Who are you, and what did you do with my favourite felon?’ I ask him, pointing at his smart attire as I lead the way to the elevator. It might be a joke, but it’s hard to believe this is the same tatted, masked guy who chained me up and did all sorts of wicked things to me last night.
He flashes me a huge smile designed to devastate vaginas everywhere.
Hmm.
On second thoughts, maybe it’s not so much of a stretch.
‘He’s serving extra time for bad behaviour,’ he says with a self-deprecating grimace, and I try to hide my smile.
‘Ah,’ I say sagely. ‘Makes sense.’
Yep. He’s definitely feeling guilty.
I lead him upstairs and sequester us in an empty meeting room off to one side. It’ll be a lot more difficult to smuggle Cal in here next week, when the trailer’s aired and everyone knows our faces, but I still don’t want any questions.
We take our seats at one corner of the conference table and I place the flowers down on the shiny surface, facing me so I can enjoy them. They really are sumptuous. I can’t remember the last time a guy bought me flowers for non-professional reasons.
Cal shrugs off his jacket, muscles flexing beneath the thick, expensive weave of his dress shirt and reaches over to take my hand across the table. ‘I wanted to come and see you’—he clears his throat—‘and, you know, check in. See how you’re doing this morning.’
‘I’m great,’ I say automatically, though that’s a gross simplification of my tangled mess of feelings this morning. Physically I’m sore, yeah. Tired. My body’s still wrung out from last night’s exertions. But boy, did those orgasms take the edge off. They were a reset.
That said, I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t silently admit it was a lot. What I did with Cal not only went way beyond anything I’ve ever experienced with a partner, but vaulted over any fantasies I’ve ever let myself have into territory I’ve never even let myself explore in my head.
I met him there, though.
Somehow, despite my not really understanding what I was signing up for when I insisted on attending the party, my needs met Cal’s needs in that room. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say my needs caught up with his. He was way ahead of me, but it terrifies me how easily I went along for the ride.
I trusted him.
I wanted him.
My thought process wasn’t much more complex than that.
If we hadn’t had that time together in the shower afterward, where he washed me and kissed me and dried me in that wonderfully unhurried manner, I’d probably be spiralling more right now.
But that time gave me what I needed. It made me feel like we were co-conspirators, for want of a better term. We came down off our highs together. He checked in with me then. He cared for me.
So he really doesn’t need to be here with his gorgeous big puppy-dog eyes and his well-meaning roses, because it honestly makes everything more complicated.
He frowns at my I’m great response and strokes a thumb over my hand.
‘I pushed you really hard last night,’ he says slowly, like he’s trying to find the words.
‘And it was amazing, but it was selfish. I didn’t do that for you—I did it for me.
And that was not how this partnership was supposed to go between us.
I totally lost control, and it was unacceptable, frankly.
So if you’re feeling a little, I dunno, fragile, or even used, then I’d like to know. ’
He swallows. There’s an ominous sting behind my eyes, because I’d prefer to have left things with the memory of relaxed, post-orgasm Cal than with this officious, concerned version of him.
‘I’m not feeling fragile at all,’ I tell him.
I wasn’t until you showed up, anyway. I pull myself up straighter in my chair, wishing I was wearing my professional armour instead of head-to-toe Sweaty Betty for my casual research day.
This is my turf, dammit, and I’m a grown woman who refuses to let men’s behaviour influence her emotions or reactions on a daily basis, in a vast public arena.
So I refuse to let Cal come in here and make me feel shitty, even if he means to do the opposite.
I take a deep breath before I continue, pulling my hand away. ‘Look,’ I say to the beautiful man sitting across from me. ‘First, I had an incredible time. I think that was pretty obvious. Second, I signed up for this. I railroaded you into letting me come to the party.’
I pause as I select my next words. ‘You run a sex club. I’d be stupidly naive not to understand that that’s the kind of kink you get up to when you’re there with more experienced women.
Right? I didn’t want you going easy on me.
I wanted you to do the exact stuff you would have done if I hadn’t been there.
I told you, I didn’t want to cramp your style.
So you got in the zone, and it turns out I loved everything we did, so we’re all good. ’
He glares at me. ‘Jesus Christ, Aida. I thought we went through this last night. Is this your way of saying you think I fucked you like that because I was up for behaving like a thug and you were the person I was stuck with for the night?’
I’m silent, because that’s exactly what I think.
He’s as good as admitted it. I didn’t do that for you—I did it for me.
His words make me feel like I was collateral damage, some anonymous woman to be used and fucked.
And while that got me off in the moment, it’s not exactly comforting now.
I’m vaguely aware of running my tongue over my lower lip as I sit and stare at him.
He groans and closes his eyes for a second.
‘Fuck’s sake. When you do that… Look, baby.
I thought I’d spelt it out last night, but clearly I need to repeat myself, which is fine, because I’ll say it as many times as I need to.
’ He tugs his chair forward until we’re knee to knee at the corner of the table.
‘I was out of control last night because of you. I was selfish and fucked you way harder than I should’ve because of you.
Not because I was in a wild mood and I’d signed up to fuck you.
Not even remotely. It was because you turned up, and you looked so fucking ravishing, and yeah, I was in the zone.
‘But I wanted you so badly I had tunnel vision, and I took and took and took, and you were a fucking champ. I never wanted another woman last night—not for a second. All I could think about was pushing you as hard as I could physically get away with, and that was really wrong of me. I didn’t make it about you, and I should have.
But honestly? If I could drag you back in there right now and push you even harder, then I’d do it again in a fucking flash, because you drive me nuts in the best possible way. Are you with me?’
I gaze at him, momentarily speechless. My stomach is a butterfly net; my sore pussy is clenching at his words. At the heat in those gorgeous dark eyes of his. At the intensity of his expression, because my sweet, light-hearted Cal has vanished, and feral, all-consuming Cal is back.
And this version of him pulls me under into a swirling vortex of want and need every time.
He leans forward and gets my jaw in a strong grip. ‘I said, are you with me?’
I nod as much as I can in his vice. My breath is coming hard. ‘Yes.’
‘About fucking time,’ he says, and he crashes his lips to mine.