Dominic
Ireach Elena’s building nineteen minutes after she tells me she’s ovulating.
The clinic’s projected date is still more than a week away, but projections change. The nurse warned us that the second appointment would move if Elena’s monitoring showed an earlier window, and a positive home test gives us information the calendar didn’t have this morning.
I believe her.
Elena researched every step of this process before she asked me to be part of it.
She follows the clinic’s instructions exactly, records every date, and asks questions until she understands how each variable could change the schedule.
If she says a test changed the window, then the window changed.
I don’t need to see a portal update or call the clinic myself.
The agreement covers conception. It protects her job and my legal standing.
It does nothing for the part of me that needs to know this is more than a transaction.
Consent has to come from Elena, here and now.
She told me she wants me there, and I need to hear the same answer when I’m standing in front of her.
Every floor the elevator passes is a test of my control.
Elena opens her door before I can knock. She’s barefoot and still wearing the black dress she wore to work, although her hair is loose now and the neat knot is gone. A flush runs across her cheeks and down her throat. She looks as affected as she sounded when Maya interrupted our call.
“Nineteen minutes.” Her voice is low, a little rough.
“You counted.”
“I was waiting.”
I grip the edge of the door, grounding myself.
I step inside, and she closes the door. Her condo is quiet except for traffic several floors below. The laptop on her coffee table is open to the clinic portal, and her phone lies beside it.
“The test was positive?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“You’re certain?”
“I know how to read an ovulation test, Dominic.”
The irritation in her voice is so familiar it almost makes me smile. It’s the sound of Elena defending a position, and it’s more real than anything she said on the phone. The clinic told us cycles can shift. “All right.”
“And you’re certain you want me here?”
Elena folds her arms. “I called you. I told you I wanted you here, and I told you I’m ovulating. Which part remains unclear?”
“The part where I arrive and you decide the phone call committed you to something.”
Her arms drop to her sides. “It didn’t.”
“Good.”
“You can stop looking at me like I’m about to run.”
“Are you?”
“No.” She steps closer. “I’m about to kiss you.”
Her directness hits me like a physical blow, and it takes a half-second to get my own response in order. I meet her eyes. “That answers one question.”
Her hand closes around my tie. “Do you ever stop?”
“You haven’t kissed me yet.”
She pulls me down, her mouth claiming mine.
Every minute of restraint since her birthday disappears. I catch her waist as she pushes my suit jacket from my shoulders, but I make myself follow her instead of taking over. She tugs the knot of my tie open, yanks it loose, and tosses it toward the chair without checking where it lands.
Her kiss is rough and a little uncoordinated, desperate in a way that tells me more than her words ever could.
This isn’t planned; it’s pure, unfiltered want.
She catches my lower lip between her teeth, releases it, then comes back as if twenty minutes of waiting used the last of her patience.
I let her set the pressure and the pace.
Let her show me everything she can’t say.
Elena never leaves anything lying on the floor. The sight of my tie there makes my cock press hard against my trousers.
She feels it when I pull her closer. Her lips part against mine, and her hips move into me once, deliberate and impatient.
“Still want me to stop looking at you like you might run?” I ask.
“I want you to stop talking like you aren’t hard enough to make this uncomfortable.”
“It’s extremely uncomfortable.”
“Good.”
She reaches for my belt.
I close my hand around hers. “Elena.”
Her eyes meet mine. Frustration flashes across her face, but she waits.
“You can change your mind at any point,” I say. “Before I touch you. After. If we’re naked. If I’m inside you. I’ll stop.”
“I know.”
“Say yes if you want this now.”
“Yes, Dominic. I want this now.” She turns her hand beneath mine and threads our fingers together. “Do you?”
The question catches me off guard. She knows the answer, but she deserves to hear it as clearly as I’ve asked for hers.
“Yes. I’ve been trying not to arrange this opportunity since the clinic called.”
Her lips part on a breath she doesn’t take. Surprise, maybe. Or the shock of hearing a truth that mirrors her own.
Elena looks down at our joined hands, and when she speaks, her voice is quieter. “Then come with me.”
She leads me through the living room, her fingers still laced with mine.
Her bedroom is as ordered as the rest of the condo. The bed is made, the curtains are closed, and two books sit in a perfect stack on the nightstand. Elena stops beside the bed and reaches behind her for the zipper of her dress.
“Let me,” I say.
She turns.
I draw the zipper down slowly. Her skin appears one inch at a time, warm and smooth beneath my knuckles. I press my mouth to the place where her neck meets her shoulder, and her head tips enough to give me more room.
My hands move around her waist and over her stomach.
She covers one with hers, her fingers cool over my knuckles as she guides it higher.
The silent instruction, the trust in it, is more intimate than the touch itself.
My palm closes over her breast through the dress.
Her breathing turns uneven as she presses back into me.
I keep my other hand at her hip and wait.
“Still yes?” I ask against her skin.
“Yes. And if you ask again in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to assume you’re stalling.”
“I’m not stalling.” I squeeze her breast and feel her nipple harden beneath the fabric. “I’m trying to remember this.”
The dress slides down her body and pools at her feet. She’s in a matching set of black lace that covers her breasts and hips.
“Did you put this on for me?” I ask.
“No.”
I think about her wearing this across the hall from me while she touched herself at my instruction. “Fuck.”
She turns and starts on my shirt buttons. “You sound surprised.”
“I’m thinking about what was under that dress all day.”
“You should have maintained professional focus.”
“You locked your office and put your hand between your legs while I was on the phone.”
“After most people had gone home.”
“Of course. Completely appropriate.”
Her smile is brief and nervous, a flicker of the woman who isn’t running a deal or defending a model. I see it because I know her, and the sight of that vulnerability makes my own control fray. I kiss her, cutting off whatever argument she was about to make.
She gets my shirt open and pushes it off my shoulders. Her palms trace my chest, the frantic energy gone. I let her look and touch until she reaches my belt again.
This time, I don’t stop her.
She opens it, then my trousers, and slides her hand inside my boxer briefs. The first firm stroke jerks my hips toward her hand.
“Jesus, Elena.”
“You didn’t finish.”
“I followed your instruction.”
Satisfaction shows on her face. “Good.”
I grip her hips and kiss her hard. She strokes me again, and I walk her backward until her knees meet the mattress.
“Lie down.”
She does, watching me as she moves to the center of the bed.
I shed the rest of my clothes, then move over her. Her hands reach for me immediately. She runs them down my back and pulls me between her thighs, kissing me with the urgency she held back on the phone.
I drag my mouth along her throat and over the top of one breast while my hand moves between her legs. She’s soaked through the lace, hot and slick with the need she tried to hide on the phone.
“All of this from my voice?”
“You were there too.”
“Forty feet away.”
“And very distracting.”
I stroke her through the fabric, pressing where she’s already swollen. Her hips lift against my fingers.
“Take them off,” she says.
I hook my fingers into the waistband and draw her underwear down her legs. She opens for me when I return, no hesitation left in the movement.
I slide two fingers through her wetness and circle her clit.
“You’re so fucking wet.”
“I’ve been waiting nineteen minutes.”
I laugh against her neck and press one finger inside her.
Her breath leaves on a soft moan, her eyes drifting shut. I add another finger, watching the concentration smooth from her brow as pure sensation takes over. I move them slowly.
“More?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I curl my fingers. Her hand closes around my shoulder, nails pressing into my skin.
“There?” I ask.
“Yes. Don’t stop.”
I work her until her thighs begin to shake, then slow.
Elena glares at me. “Why?”
I could make her come like this, but it wouldn’t be enough. It would feel like another service rendered. I need this to be about us, together. My voice is rough when I answer. “Because I want you to come with my cock inside you.”
The blunt answer sends another rush of wetness over my fingers.
“Then get inside me.”
I withdraw my hand and settle between her legs without moving closer. The paperwork covers this. We’ve both been tested. But I still need to hear her say it now.
“If we do this without a condom, I could get you pregnant tonight.”
“That’s the goal.”
“I know.” I look directly at her. “Do you want me inside you without one?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to come inside you?”
Her breathing turns shallow. “Yes.”
“Tell me if that changes.”
“I will.” Elena puts her hand on my chest and pushes. “Lie back.”
I move onto my back. She follows, straddling my hips, and my cock jerks against the heat between her legs.
Her hair falls around her shoulders. Her bra is still on, black lace against flushed skin. She reaches behind herself, unhooks it, and lets it fall beside us.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful.”