6. Clara #2
"I'm always full lately." I don't mean for it to sound like a complaint. It isn't, quite.
He dips his head and seals his mouth over my left nipple, and the let-down that follows is instant and enormous—a wave of release that wipes every other sensation clean.
His throat works as he draws the milk down, deep and rhythmic, and the noise he makes against my breast is low and thoroughly self-satisfied.
"Callum—"
"Mm." He doesn't stop. His free hand cups the other breast, thumb working the nipple in slow circles until it peaks and a thin line of milk tracks down my skin.
"Oh god?—"
He switches. Same deep suction, same unhurried pace, and the sensation builds with a specificity that has nothing to do with anything I expected when this started.
It isn't background stimulation. It is exactly, precisely what my body has been wound up toward all evening—every text under the table, every hand on my waist, every involuntary let-down—all of it converging into this.
"Ahh—ahh—" I grip the back of his head, not directing him, just holding on. "Don't stop, don't?—"
He pulls deeper, and I come apart—not loudly, but completely, my thighs pressing together and my whole body locking and then releasing in slow, rolling waves that make my toes curl into the sheets.
The milk flows freely against his tongue and he drinks all of it, every drop, until the ache is gone and I'm lying boneless against his pillow.
He follows me a minute later, his breathing sharp, his hand fisted in my hair, and I watch him—watch the control finally break, just briefly—feeling something fierce and private in my chest about the fact that I did that.
Afterward, the room is quiet and warm. He pulls me against his side, my cheek on his chest, and neither of us speaks for a while. The lamp is still on. Outside, a car passes on the street.
I stare at the ceiling, at the slope of light from the lamp casting shadows across the unfamiliar angles of his room.
My pulse has settled, but I'm hyperaware of the weight of his arm across my waist, the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath my palm.
We've been doing this—sleeping together, I mean—for weeks now, and I still don't know basic things about him.
What he does during the day. Where he goes when he's not here.
"What do you do?" I ask suddenly, not looking at him. "Like, for work."
His hand stills on my arm for just a second, then resumes its slow path. "I invest," he says. "Private equity, mostly. Some venture capital when something's interesting enough."
I turn my head slightly, enough to see the line of his jaw. "That's vague."
"It's accurate." There's amusement in his voice. "I find businesses that need capital or expertise. I buy in. I help them grow, or I sell, depending on what makes sense."
"So you're rich," I say flatly.
"Yes."
The bluntness of it catches me off guard. No hedging, no false modesty. Just confirmation.
He shifts slightly, turning toward me, his hand moving to my hip. "What about you?" he asks. "What do you want? Not now. Two years from now, after you're done with school."
I don't expect the question, and I definitely don't expect the way it makes my chest tighten. No one asks me that. Not seriously. Not like they actually want to know.
"After college—I want to start something.
Like, a business." I pause, feeling the familiar instinct to backpedal, to call it a hobby or a vague someday plan.
I don't. "An organic skincare line. Small batch, botanical ingredients, clean formulas.
I've been—I've done all this research already, suppliers and packaging and pricing, all of it.
For like two years." I stop, my throat tight. "I've never told anyone that."
Callum doesn't say anything for a moment. His hand moves, slow and steady, up and down my arm.
"Why not?" he asks.
"It sounds—I don't know. Like a lifestyle brand. Like something people roll their eyes at."
"What people?"
I don't have a good answer for that. "Anyone."
He's quiet again, and I'm preparing for the gentle redirection, the pragmatic question about her degree or a career track, but instead he says, "What's the sourcing problem?"
I lift my head. "What?"
"Two years of research. What's the thing you haven't solved yet?"
Something in my chest loosens in a way I wasn't expecting. "Packaging, mostly. Sustainable packaging at low volume has terrible unit economics unless you commit to a minimum run that's?—"
"I know a guy," Callum says simply. "Packaging manufacturer in Portland. He works with small-batch brands. I'll make the introduction."
I stare at him. "You don't have to?—"
"Clara." He looks at me directly. "You'll have it. I'll make sure of it."
He says it the same way he says everything—no caveat, no contingency, absolute certainty—and I feel something shift under my ribs, a loosening of something that has been tightly wound for a very long time.
"You're serious," I say.
"When am I not serious?"
Never. The answer is never, and I'm about to say so when the sound reaches us from downstairs—low, mechanical, unmistakable.
The garage door.
We are both upright in the same second. Callum's hand shoots out and kills the lamp. I'm already off the bed, scanning the floor in the dark for my shorts, my bra?—
"Shirt," he says quietly, pressing it into my hands. Not mine, his. I drop it and find my own.
"Sheets," I whisper.
He's already smoothing them. I drag my bra on and yank my shorts up, and Callum crosses the room and cracks the window—cool air flooding in, cutting the warmth of the room—and then he's beside me at the door, opening it a careful inch.
The garage door settles. Voices below, my mother's laugh, Edward's measured response.
I slip through the gap and move down the hall in bare feet, silent on the hardwood, and I'm through my own door and under my covers with approximately four seconds to spare before my mother's footsteps come up the stairs.
Her knock is soft. "Clara? Honey, we're home early—the winery was lovely but you know your stepfather and his back." A small pause. "You asleep?"
I keep my breathing slow and even. Press my face into the pillow. My heart is hammering so hard I'm genuinely surprised she can't hear it through the door.
Another pause. Then her footsteps retreating down the hall.
I lie in the dark and stare at the ceiling until the house goes quiet—until Edward's voice rumbles through the wall once more and then stops, until the strip of light under my door disappears.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
Too close, I type.
His reply comes in under ten seconds.
Worth it.
I pull the covers over my face and smile—shaky and helpless and entirely too pleased with myself for someone who just came within four seconds of catastrophic family discovery—and the dark under the blanket feels warm, and private, and completely, dangerously mine.