31. CHAPTER 28 #4
I left his office with my pulse still racing and my body humming from his touch. The chaos was still there—the grief for my father-in-law, the shipping delays, the terrifying depth of my feelings for my husband. But it had receded into the background.
All that remained was the sweet memory of his mouth on me and his promise to handle my problems—a wife whose husband would move the ground for if it ever started to shake beneath her.
ORION
I stayed where I was after the door shut, my hands flat on the desk, and my breath fighting my pulse to steady themselves.
Her taste clung to my tongue. My knees still remembered the floor. My cock throbbed angrily against my trousers, straining for something I hadn’t allowed it to have.
I bit back a curse to rein myself in from how turned on I was.
I’ve never been on my knees for anyone. Not for my parents, not for a competitor, and certainly not for any man or woman alive.
But for her, I was. And I’d do it again.
I drew myself upright, rolling my shoulders back as if I could shrug off the admission. My fingers went to my cuffs out of habit, smoothing fabric that didn’t need smoothing, trying to impose order on a body that refused to fall in line.
What frightened me was the absence of a reason.
If someone—anyone—walked in and demanded an explanation for why I’d shattered every rule of distance and decorum to satisfy my wife, I’d have nothing to offer.
There was no strategy, or a real excuse.
Not a single logical answer for wanting her the way I do.
I crossed to the sideboard, poured myself a glass of water, and drained half of it in one pull. It did nothing to cool me down.
Ever since the night of the storm, I’ve crossed an obsessive threshold of no return. I’ve entered a maddening landscape I didn’t know existed until I met her, and I have no map out.
There is something in her eyes, in the way she simply exists, that has me behaving like a stranger to myself. Something that claws at the back of my throat, begging me to spill words, not to argue, but to confess. Words I have never given anyone. Words that would hand her the power to end me.
I swallow them whole every time.
I set the glass down a little harder than necessary and looked at the door she’d walked through, my hand still resting on the rim.
Then today, she walked into my office as though nothing was wrong. Fresh lipstick, beige dress, and a concern she hadn’t tried to hide. One look at her face and I wanted nothing more than to erase her stress, even with the wreckage in my own head still smoldering.
Dr Gérard’s call from last night still rang in my ears. I could see the scan again as clearly as if it were still on my screen. His voice had been annoyingly steady, and calm. A cardiac relapse, he called it.
His explanations stated that the new images were simply a death sentence wrapped in fancy medical terminology. He’d told me exactly how many months were left, but somewhere in the middle of his sentence, I stopped hearing him.
My jaw had locked. My fingers had gone numb from gripping my father's desk too hard. I’d stared at the numbers, the charts, the highlighted areas on the screen, and understood quickly that I'd soon exist in a world where my father didn’t.
The fear that had held me down gave way to a grief so intense it felt like it was hollowing me out from the inside.
And in the center of that, there was her.
Even then, when my heart was pounding on my ribcage, when the urge was to shatter the world to pieces, it was her face I saw.
Her voice I wanted to hear. I wanted her to hold me.
I wanted to drag her into my lap and feel her come apart in my hands again, just to know I could still make something in my world respond the way I wanted it to.
I thought of how I’d left her hanging last night. I knew she’d waited for me. The knowledge had sat with me, both as a weight and a gift.
My eyes went back to the desk. The slight smudge where her thighs had been. The memory of the sounds she made when I’d taken her apart with my mouth.
A smile touched my lips before my mind caught up with it.
I liked that she waited. It meant she wanted the finish as much as I did, even while grief had me by the collar.
So when she walked in today looking like the sun, I had to make it up to her. I had to prove that nothing had changed, that I still hungered for her, and she could still tip me off balance with one look.
I told myself it was for the cause. That with my father’s days numbered and the board’s pressure mounting, keeping her close was strategic. Devoting myself to her pleasure was a way to anchor her to this life, to this marriage, and to me.
I huffed a laugh at my self deceit.
Pleasuring her felt like a mercy for us both.
Ensuring she was happy, even for a few stolen minutes in my office, gave me a sense of order I couldn’t find anywhere else.
There was a twisted kind of bliss in knowing she cared enough to notice my absence at breakfast. I liked even more that she’d come to check on me.
And the way she’d screamed my name with her thighs shaking around my shoulders— fuck.
I fought every urge to pull her back for a repeat.
Moving back behind the desk, I sank into my chair, the leather creaking under my weight. Her scent still lingered in the air. Faint, but enough to keep me sane through the day.
The question from the storm night sat behind my teeth again. How long has it been for you?
It was never about her past. I couldn’t care less who she’d touched before me. The question was about now. About knowing her, and understanding what she craves. It was about knowing how far she’ll let me take her, and what she needs to fall apart for me.
Today wasn’t the day to ask it again. I wasn’t prepared to risk whatever fragile peace we’d built for the sake of my curiosity.
Besides, I'd made her a promise, and was going to see it done.
I reached for my phone and pulled up Severin's number. I intended to know everything there was to know about the supplier standing between my wife and her fabrics.
My father was dying. My world was changing. The fa?ade I’d built for years was cracking in places I couldn’t patch.
Yet, as I pressed call, listening to the first ring buzz against my ear, it became clear I didn’t mind the wreckage half as much as I should.
As long as she was standing in it with me.