5. The Torture
CHAPTER FIVE
THE TORTURE
Julian
It’s been the longest fucking two weeks of my life. Having Kai’s help around the house has been immensely helpful. I don’t say much to him, and he doesn’t push. We move through the same spaces like strangers who know too much—polite and civil, yet distant. I tell myself it doesn’t matter. That’s all this is—nostalgia. And nostalgia is just the mind playing games. But it’s getting harder to ignore how much space he takes up in a room, and how easily Sophie pulls him in with her charm.
Sometimes I catch myself watching him, wondering if he’s really the same person I used to know. It’s strange to be around him again, to remember the small quirks I used to find adorable. Things like how he holds his breath before he laughs, how his eyes crinkle like he’s holding back a secret, and the way his tongue presses against his cheek when he’s concentrating.
I like having him here—more than I want to admit. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? The closer he gets, the easier it is to remember what it felt like to trust him. And I’m not ready to feel that again.
Still, he’s been helpful. Not only is he good at this renovation stuff, but he also seems to make Sophie happy. Neither of them stops talking as we tackle one thing at a time—most of which is stuff we agreed we’d do ourselves. We had the money to hire things out, but since Malakai came into the picture, we’d been keen on him helping with stuff we could do without outsourcing to the contractors since it was quicker that way and would save us weeks of work.
Today’s project is the master bedroom mattress frame, something I promised Sophie I’d make myself. I enjoy using my hands and working around the house when I’m not on the computer or phone for my job, and I took a few woodworking classes at university, so I know enough of the basics to cobble a nice frame together.
And this frame might be the fucking death of me. Sophie had seen a similar one online a few months ago, but it was fifteen thousand quid. Not that we don’t have the money—we do.
It’s just the principle of it all.
I’d volunteered to make a similar one from scratch without thinking of the logistics—something I’m very prone to do.
And I was determined to finish this one today.
My therapist in London liked to call these little projects my fixations, and I couldn’t agree more.
If it didn’t get done today, it wouldn’t get done at all.
Sophie is in the corner of the large room showing Kai the rolls of custom wallpaper she ordered from William Morris while I hammer another fucking nail into the wood. Every minute or so, I look over at them, and Kai is staring down at her in adoration.
Something uncomfortable works through me at the way he’s looking at her.
It’s not jealousy—I’d be a fool to get jealous, considering the kinds of things we were into.
It’s something far more subtle, like the feeling you get when you see an old friend, someone you once cared about deeply, laughing just a little too easily with someone else. Not territorial, not possessive—just… aware.
I should be happy for them. I should want this—should love the way Sophie lights up around him, the ease in her body language when she laughs at his jokes. And I do.
But part of me wonders when I became the observer, not the participant.
It’s silly, really. I should be happy they get along so well—but there’s something quietly unsettling about watching the man I used to be in love with flirt with my wife, like I’m witnessing a moment I should feel part of, but instead, I’m standing just outside its edges, uninvited. Not quite envy or regret, but a sense of being left out of something they share, something I used to understand with regards to him.
It’s as though I’m watching two parts of my life thread together in front of me, and somehow, I’m the one fraying at the seams.
I haven’t really been myself since Kai reentered our lives. To be honest, I’ve been more irritable, moodier, and distracted since I started seeing him most days. I know Sophie notices, but because she’s polite, she hasn’t mentioned anything.
And this past weekend, Sophie and I went to one of the kink clubs in town called Inferno . We didn’t advertise our kink, but people could infer it from speaking to us. Couples who swing are immensely popular within these types of clubs, and since what we do is a subset of swinging, we felt like we were right at home. We ended up taking a guy back to a nearby hotel suite, and like always, I settled in to watch my wife undress.
One of the best things about Sophie being a hotwife—where a married couple consensually agrees for the wife to have sexual encounters with other men while I remain monogamous—is the way other men look at her.
The way they drink her in.
I see it.
I am in constant awe of her natural beauty.
I know how fucking gorgeous she is, and that’s exactly what I get off on.
But something happened this past weekend.
She’d been straddling a new guy, clothes half off, the condom already on… but the moment he shifted into the shadow, something about the angle—the set of his shoulders, maybe—looked too familiar. Suddenly, all I could see was Malakai beneath her, the lines of his body overlapping with the stranger’s until I couldn’t separate the two. There was something in the way the man moved—confident, slow, like he knew exactly how to touch her—that pulled the image to the surface and wouldn’t let it go.
It wasn’t logical. The guy didn’t even look like Kai.
I’d told myself that, over and over.
But my mind doesn’t give a rat’s arse about logic. It cares about the way Kai’s hands looked on Sophie’s hips in the living room the other day. About how easily he makes her laugh. And suddenly, it’s seventeen years ago again, and I’m eighteen, staring at Kai across the dorm room floor, watching him sleep, wondering how much longer I can pretend.
And this past weekend, I’d used the safe word.
I’d only ever done it once before, when we first started down this road. Back then, I was worried that word would get out about our proclivities—about my proclivity—or that Sophie would contract an STI. The anxiety exploded, and it took me a couple of months to try again—with safety measures and new protocols in place, of course.
For example, every man she sleeps with has to have been tested recently. A condom is nonnegotiable, and all parties sign an NDA that never expires.
Sophie had crawled off the guy and we’d very quickly and politely said goodbye. We’d talked about it—as we did after every scene. If there was one thing I could appreciate about Sophie and me, it was that we were solid. I love her so fucking much, and I know she reciprocates my feelings.
But this recent experience had thrown me.
I was honest—I told her that I wasn’t quite in the right mindset. She understood—of course she did.
And I got to spend the rest of the night fucking her bare, like I always did.
Sophie’s laugh echoes through the room, pulling me from my thoughts. Kai is smirking as she places a hand on his arm.
His very muscled, corded arm.
An unknown feeling burns my chest, and I clench my jaw. I swing the hammer up and bring it down over and over as I get the foundation for the frame nailed together. Just as I slide my hand down the wood, the fleshy part between my thumb and index finger catches on a massive splinter.
“Fuck,” I hiss, pulling my hand back as blood trickles down my palm. I hear Sophie and Kai rush over to me. “Splinter,” I murmur, feeling woozy at the sight of the blood.
Sophie knows about my vasovagal syncope, aka how I can sometimes faint at the sight of blood. She got a paper cut on our honeymoon, and I went down like a sack of potatoes.
Now that I think about it, Kai knows, too. And that’s on two reckless seventeen-year-olds who thought smashing beer bottles against the side of an abandoned building was a good idea.
“Sit down. I’ll fetch the tweezers from my makeup bag,” she says quickly, placing a cool hand on my forehead. Looking up at Kai, she opens her mouth, but he holds a hand out.
“I know. I’ll make sure he doesn’t faint.”
I’d laugh, but my vision begins to swim as the blood creeps down my forearm.
Sophie jogs out of the bedroom, and Kai kneels in front of where I’m sitting on a nearby chair.
“Let me see,” he murmurs, taking my hand.
Kai’s fingers brush against mine, steady and sure, his touch unexpectedly gentle and exploratory. I feel the roughness of his calloused fingertips as they press lightly around the wound, and a weird jolt of calm washes over me, cutting through the dizziness. He’s always had that affect—grounding, without meaning to. His hands linger just a second longer than they need to, cradling mine like I’m something fragile, and it does something to the tightness in my chest.
My breathing steadies, even as my heart starts to pound for a different reason.
I know what’s coming before it happens. Kai’s always been like this—unapologetically physical. He used to sling his arm over my shoulders after swimming practice, drape himself across my bed like he lived there. He doesn’t even think twice about touching me, but I do.
God, I do.
“Here,” he says, bringing my hand close to his mouth. “I can get it out with my mouth.”
My lips part, but I can only nod as he takes my bloody hand and places his lips over the wound.
The suction of his warm, wet mouth goes straight to my cock.
I forget about the blood. I forget about Sophie coming back with tweezers. It’s just me and Kai—my hand in his mouth—and the weight of a thousand unsaid things between us.
His eyes lock onto mine as he sucks some more, and fuck there’s something really arousing and erotic about watching him suck my blood out. I mean, I know he’s sucking the splinter, but… it feels intimate in a way I can’t quite explain.
His lips are warm against my skin, and the pull of his mouth, gentle but deliberate, sends a strange, electric thrill through me.
It shouldn’t feel like this. His mouth shouldn’t feel this deliberate, like he’s taking his time, tasting me. I want to believe it’s my imagination—some twisted projection—but I see it in the way his eyes flick up to mine, unreadable and steady. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
There’s something about it that goes beyond the act itself—this is Kai, the guy I once knew so well, the guy I used to be in love with, now impossibly close again, his breath ghosting over my hand. Vulnerability hangs between us, thicker than the tension.
It’s not just about the splinter anymore; it’s the raw closeness of it, the kind you don’t plan for, the kind that leaves you exposed in more ways than one.
And this is the second time I’ve been in this situation with him.
His eyes don’t leave mine, and instead of pulling away, he scoots closer to place his other hand on my arm. It’s disorienting, having him so close, and it stirs something old and familiar, something I’ve long buried. My pulse quickens, not from the pain, but from the way his touch feels—how easy it is to let him take care of me, even after all these years. There’s trust in it, but also something charged, something we’ve never fully addressed but always felt.
Or, something I’ve always felt, at least.
That same sort of explosive feeling that happened the first time we kissed.
His lips pull off my hand, and he holds it up with a satisfied smirk, but I barely notice.
My eyes are locked on his lips—bloodied from my wound, swollen from sucking on my skin. He looks almost wild, a little unhinged, with his dark hair falling messily over his forehead and the rough shadow of his short scruff catching the light. His angular jaw is sharp, accentuating his striking features, and those deep, intense eyes—light gray with flecks of silver—seem to burn as they meet mine. His expression glimmers with some kind of dark promise I can’t quite infer—like someone on the edge of giving into his primal needs—and it sends a shiver down my spine.
For a second, I forget to breathe. I’m transfixed, caught between the rawness of the moment and the heat that lingers between us. It feels like he can read my mind but isn’t going to say a word. His lips pull up into that knowing smirk again, and it’s unsettling how badly I want him to stay this close.
Fuck.
I thought I could do this, but I really, really can’t.
Not now—not when I have Sophie.
I stand up and adjust my erection before he can see.
It’s nothing. It’s just the adrenaline. Or the blood loss. Or maybe I haven’t jerked off in a few days.
That’s all this is.
He stands and takes a step back just as Sophie walks into the bedroom with tweezers.
“I got it,” I tell her, showing her my hand.
“That’s a relief,” she says, blowing a stray piece of hair out of her face. “Are you feeling okay?”
I nod once and run my good hand through my hair. “Yeah.” I kiss her on the forehead. “I need to go clean my hand. And then I forgot I have a client meeting at two,” I tell her, feeling instantly guilty for lying.
“Okay, babe.” She looks at Kai. “Guess you’re stuck with me again. How well can you mix wallpaper paste?”
Kai laughs, and when I look over my shoulder at him, he’s still looking at me with that darkened expression.
“I can figure it out,” he says, breaking eye contact before giving her a warm smile.
Walking down the hall to the guest bathroom, I remove my old T-shirt with shaking hands. First the blood and then what happened with Kai… I need a minute to get my bearings.
Closing the door, I step out of my clothes and lean against the small vanity. Looking up into the mirror, I stare at myself.
What the hell was that?
After running a hand down my face, I turn the shower on and step inside.
I’m still hard.
Fuck me.
I thought I was past this. I thought I’d forgotten all about my ex-best friend with captivating silver eyes and cheekbones that could cut glass.
I thought I’d moved on—gotten him out of my system. I mean, fuck… I’d slept with two men in the weeks after we kissed. It wasn’t exactly a sexual rampage or anything, but it helped. And while I still had fleeting thoughts about men, there’s something about Kai that cuts deeply and effectively.
I close my eyes and let the water run over my face, but all I can see is the heavy, hooded way Kai looked at me while he sucked my life force out of my body.
And the way he just took charge?
It was really fucking hot.
I never thought I’d say that, either. I was all alpha, in control of every situation. With Sophie, I liked to be a bit rough. I liked to throw her around, fuck her from behind, pull her hair. It’s how I differentiate myself from the guys she slept with.
Suddenly, I imagine Sophie touching Kai’s arm again.
I imagine his easy smile as he touches her face, and the way she sucks in a breath whenever I grab her waist.
My cock is heavy and aching as I think of Kai taking control of her, twisting her around and pushing her against the wall, his lips still bloody with my blood.
I imagine the gritty way he’d groan when he ripped her little shorts off—and before I know it, my hand is slowly stroking my cock.
This is fine.
This is my kink, after all. I enjoy the thought of my wife fucking other men. So what if it’s Kai that I’m envisioning?
My hand moves faster, and I hiss. Grabbing some conditioner, I lube my shaft up and squeeze my balls with my other hand as I begin to pant.
I think of how Kai wouldn’t even get undressed—he’d unzip his pants and step between her legs. Maybe he’d even drop to his knees and eat her cunt from behind.
My mouth drops open as I imagine it—the low, heady moan that would come from his lips as soon as he tasted her for the first time. And because I know what she tastes like, it feels too real. The mixture of imagining his and her arousal has me working my hand faster.
I think of how he’d unsheathe himself, pumping his massive cock a few times.
And yeah, I knew it was massive from that time we went skinny dipping a few weeks before everything changed.
My toes curl against the tile as I envision his cock pushing into her—and again, because I know what she feels like, I let myself think of how it would feel for both of them. I imagine the way she’d look back at him and let her eyes roll into the back of her head, and the way he’d fist her hair as he grunted, driving into her and letting his head drop back just before he came inside of her…
Fuuuuck.
I shouldn’t be thinking about him like this. Not with Sophie down the hall, not when I’ve built a life with her that I love more than anything. But the image doesn’t let up—the curve of Kai’s mouth, the way his eyes darken when he’s focused. It rushes in like a flood, drowning the voice in my head that tells me to stop.
My orgasm creeps up quickly, and my balls pull up as my shaft curves, and then I’m imagining Kai looking over his shoulder at me as he fucks my wife, as he stills and comes inside of her, and I explode in one long, pleading, tortured groan. My cum hits the wall of the shower in thick ropes as suddenly Sophie is replaced with me, and he’s pounding into my arsehole, hitting my prostate and milking this orgasm with the pink head of his cock?—
“F-fuck,” I rasp, my whole body twitching as the last of it leaves me.
I’m breathing heavily as my whole body trembles, and I watch as the water washes my cum down the drain. Leaning against the wall, I let the water run down my back as I figure out what the hell just happened.
I mean… I’d definitely wanked to the image of Kai before.
But it had been… seventeen years.
I hadn’t let myself even think of him in all this time with Sophie.
Somehow, I knew if I let myself think of him, everything would come tumbling down like a house of cards.
This was a slippery slope I’d resisted for that long—something I pushed away again, and again, and again.
I’d shoved all thoughts of Malakai Ravage out of my mind, pushing them so far back until I couldn’t even remember what he looked like.
And now?
I’d just had one of the best orgasms of my life.
In all of my fantasies involving Sophie and other guys, I hadn’t ever considered what it would feel like to be fucked by them.
Guilt washes over me when I squeeze my eyes shut.
In my little shower wet dream, I’d even imagined him fucking me— which is laughable.
There was no way in hell I’d ever let Kai top me. I’ve never been a bottom, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to start with Kai.
I turn the shower off, grab a towel, and pat myself dry. Just as I wrap the towel around my waist, I hear Sophie’s laugh from down the hall, followed by Kai’s low, sensual tenor.
I can’t help the image of him fucking her float through my mind.
Scowling, I walk to the closet, closing the door behind me to drown everything out. I lean against the wood, my breath ragged, eyes squeezed shut again. His face floods my mind, sharp and clear, as if seventeen years had never passed.
Sophie’s laugh echoes in my ears, but it’s his voice I hear—low, dangerous, and far too close.
God, I’m losing it.
I press my forehead against the closet door, the weight of everything crashing over me.
A sickening realization is taking hold: Malakai was never really gone.
I’d buried him deep, but now… now he’s clawing his way back to the surface.
And I’m terrified I won’t be able to stop him.
I built this life for a reason—to keep that part of me locked away. To keep Sophie at the center of everything. But I’m starting to wonder if Kai’s the one who holds the key, and I don’t know what happens if that door opens again.