23. MATT
23
MATT
C harlie hardly speaks at dinner. Or maybe it’s that I’m so distracted by thoughts of Aries that I’m not inviting conversation.
I stare at Charlie, his thin face, the hollows of his cheeks, the dark circles under his eyes. Barney’s words blast through my head. There are some things you can’t fix with money. Your son is a wreck.
I’m a terrible, terrible father.
“How was the end of term?” I ask, keeping my voice neutral to conceal the worry behind the question.
“Yeah, all right.” He scratches his eyebrow and doesn’t look at me. “Same old.”
“Sorry about Speech Day.”
He shrugs. “No worries.”
This is excruciating. “School okay? Your friends?”
“Yup.”
“What about the piano? Are you getting to practise much?”
“Some.”
For a few minutes we eat in silence. The happy noise of people socializing at nearby tables, enjoying themselves , is jarring. My ribs contract, squeezing at the air in my lungs, making my heart ache. Do we even fit in here?
“We’re taking the boat to the Med,” I say.
Charlie examines the taco on his plate, probably debating whether to attack it with his cutlery or lift the whole thing in one and put it in his mouth. He picks option two. “Mmm,” he replies with his mouth full. “When?”
“Monday.”
His eyes widen, but he says nothing, continuing to chew thoughtfully.
“Uncle Seb and Nico are coming too,” I add.
“Mmm,” Charlie mumbles, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and swallowing roughly. “Great.”
“And Lucie and Aries.”
“Aries?”
“The nanny.” My heart thuds. Fuck. The mere mention of Aries in regular conversation makes my palms sweat. Pathetic . I rub my hands down my thighs.
“She’s still here then?” The sarcasm in Charlie’s tone has me stifling a wince. “Figured she wouldn’t have lasted long with you yelling at her.”
I stiffen. “If you’re referring to the boat race, I was angry because of what happened to Lucie. When you have kids, you’ll understand.”
Charlie scoffs. “Because I’ll love them as much as you love me?”
His words hit like an uppercut to the jaw, but I conceal their impact, keeping my voice even when I state, “I do love you.”
He tilts his head down, but his gaze rolls towards the ceiling.
My chest tightens, and I desperately want to reprimand him. To tell him not to roll his fucking eyes at me, but I hear Barney’s voice in my ear again. Your son is a wreck.
“You gonna make me spend the rest of the summer in the office doing work experience, like last year?”
I take a gulp of my beer. “We’ll see. You could do tennis camp or—”
“Yes. Tennis. I’ll take that over the office.”
“Fine. I’ll get Aries to book it for you.”
My thoughts are drawn to her, lying back on the carpet in the moments before Charlie came home. What’s she doing now? And more importantly, how the fuck are we going to keep sneaking around, now there’s a teenager in the house?
Last year, Charlie found his mum in the kitchen with a man he didn’t know, doing things he should never have seen. I can’t do that to him. I can’t take a chance that he’ll come into a room and find me with the nanny… it doesn’t bear thinking about. I shudder involuntarily at the thought. This evening, we were so fucking close to that exact thing happening. What the hell am I doing here? Are these risks worth taking?
“What?” Charlie says, clearly perturbed at my withdrawal.
I force myself to focus on my son. “Nothing. Let’s finish up.”
After I’ve helped Charlie to his room with his belongings, I hear Aries in the basement kitchen, talking to Alec. They’re laughing, and envy spears holes in my chest at the sound. There are no barriers for them to overcome… Aries can relax with Alec in ways she never could with me... in public too. They could go out to restaurants, go on dates… have a normal fucking relationship.
The two of them stop talking as soon as I step into the room. Aries sets down her cutlery. Alec’s made her something for dinner, and the vision of the two of them together is so intimate, so domesticated , that the piercing sensation in my chest only increases. I can’t be with this woman in my own home the way this man can.
Not that it matters because I’ve come to a decision. Better pull the fucking plaster off quick because this one is going to hurt.
“Aries, can I have a word?” I say.
She nods and slips off the stool, still in that over-sized t-shirt without a bra. I pace up the stairs and she follows me to the study. I close the door behind us.
“Sit down,” I say, gesturing to the chair.
A look of alarm passes over Aries’ face as she lowers into the chair. I’m emotionally closed off; I can feel it. I’m not even doing it on purpose, but I can’t handle the guilt of what happened earlier. Charlie coming home, me with Aries still on my face. I cannot risk getting caught with her by one of my children. Tonight, the call was far too close. Next time, we won’t be so lucky.
I sit behind the desk, opposite her. “I want you to book Charlie into tennis camp.” I open a drawer and pull out the flyer and put it on the desk between us. Aries presses a finger to it and drags it towards her. “Book the whole summer, except the ten days that we’ll spend on the boat. You’ll have to make sure he gets there. To camp, I mean. He can walk himself, but I don’t trust him not to play truant. Make sure he goes.”
Aries nods, her features hardening. She doesn’t like my professional demeanor, and although I can tell it pains her, I can’t always be what she wants me to be.
I take a deep breath, run my tongue over my molars, and keep my eyes on her. She’s gorgeous. “You need to wear a bra to work.”
She flinches. This wasn’t what she was expecting. “What?”
“In the house, you wear a bra at all times. I have a teenage son.”
“Of course,” she says, but the dejection on her face tears at my heart. She crosses her arms over her chest.
“I’m sorry.”
She looks directly at me. “Why? It’s your home. You make the rules.”
She sounds as cold as I do, and I don’t like it. Christ, this is difficult. I swallow hard before I speak. “I don’t mean to insult you.”
“I’m not insulted. If you wanted me to wear a uniform, I’d wear a uniform. You’re the boss. It’s your prerogative. Besides, I know you’re only asking because you want to keep these”—she briefly cups a breast in each hand—“all to yourself.” Her delivery is toneless, but there’s a shimmer to her gaze that tells me she’s trying to reach me through this facade I’ve put up.
I want to reach across the desk and grab her, and whisper in her ear that she's absolutely right. She's mine , and the idea that my teenage son might be attracted to her would torment me if I gave it space to grow. But I can’t indulge her on this. “It’s not about the bra. I mean, it is. But not just the bra. It’s about us.”
Aries’ lips part the tiniest bit, and she draws in shallow breaths. Her eyebrows lower, her green eyes darkening as she awaits whatever I’m about to decree.
Until this moment, we’ve never had a conversation about us. Not properly. Not about what we are or might be or where we might go.
“Now that Charlie’s home, we can’t keep this up,” I tell her flatly, but I don’t miss the flare of hurt that blazes across her face. She douses it fast, and I’m ridiculously grateful for that. “I can’t risk him finding out about us. It’s not fair. Not after what happened with his mother.”
Aries nods, and I briefly wonder what she knows. Whether Alec told her. “So this is over?” she asks.
“I don’t see how it can’t be.” Jesus . Pain sears across my chest, the words like a blade that cuts straight through my heart. What the fuck am I doing ? “I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying you’re sorry.” She stands. “It’s all right.”
All right? That’s it? The fact she’s giving in so easily kills a small part of me… it’s only now I realise I’d hoped for her to fight for this. For us.
She walks towards the door, but when she’s about to reach for the handle she glances at me over her shoulder. “You said you liked me.” Her voice is soft, but it comes with an edge of accusation.
My chest tightens. “I do. That’s not the issue.”
She lets this hang in the air a moment. “Am I the only woman you’ve had sex with, aside from your ex-wife?”
“I don’t see how that’s rel—”
“Am I?”
Something blisters through me. Shame. Vulnerability. Whatever it is, it’s fucking unpleasant. “Yes.”
Aries absorbs the information as though it’s deadly serious, but then her eyes take on that gleam I know so well, and in spite of myself I feel a throb in my dick. “In that case, it seems a shame…” Her index finger strokes along her bottom lip. “To end things before you’ve laid me out and fucked me on your desk.”
The comment draws a smile from me, and I drop my forehead into my hand. “You are unbelievable,” I say, but my heart is leaping, fucking rejoicing , in the depths of my chest.
“Mr Hawkston,” she says, fully turning to me. “You’d be neglecting your duties as my employer not to give me at least one orgasm in your office.”
The way she’s looking at me, sexual tension leaking out of her pores and coiling its way around my dick, makes up my mind for me. “Lock the door.”
She smirks and turns the lock. I shouldn’t be doing this, but I get up, walk around the desk and haul her towards me.
Her beautiful mouth opens. “Is this break-up s—”
I swallow the rest of her sentence with a punishing kiss. I don’t care what this is, but I want this woman so much it hurts my cock to even think about denying it the pleasure of her body.
Her hands tear at my hair, yanking at the strands at my nape. Her tongue thrusts against mine, like we could fucking eat each other. White-hot desire spirals from my mouth to my dick, and I pull her hips flush against me.
She gasps into my mouth as my erection presses against her, and she rears back. “Are we safe?”
I pull her back against me, feeling her breasts against my chest. “I don’t fucking care. This is it. The last fuck. Make it count. And keep the noise down.”
I yank the t-shirt over her head, throwing it in a heap on the floor. Shit, those breasts. Is this the last time I’ll see them? I push the thought away, taking one into my mouth and sucking hard.
Aries’ hands clench against my shoulders. “Oh, shit,” she murmurs, her back bowing like she wants me to take more of her breast in my mouth.
I don’t. I focus on her jeans, unbuttoning them, pulling them down. Pulling down her underwear too. She steps out of them until she’s fully naked again.
Having this woman exposed like this while I’m still in my suit is the biggest fucking turn on; like she’s mine to control, to dominate.
I spin her in my arms, forcing her over the desk, pressing a hand against her lower back. She moans as the side of her face hits the wood, her arms splayed out in front.
Her arse is so round, so delicious, exposed to me this way. I run a finger between her cheeks, dusting over her puckered hole. She gasps, and I chuckle at the way her body pulls away from me.
My fingers slide lower, to her exposed pussy lips. I let out a groan of appreciation as I slide a finger into her softness.
“Drenched,” I murmur. “So wet for me.”
How the fuck am I going to give this woman up?
I slide another finger in, thrusting into her. Those little gasping moans she makes begin. I reach around and muffle her mouth with my free hand, then lean over her, my other hand still in her wet cunt.
“Don’t make a fucking sound,” I whisper. “Or I’ll spank your arse so hard you won’t be able to sit down for a week.”
A moan, dripping with desire, rumbles against my palm.
The fucking disobedience…
I rip my hand from her pussy and strike her arse hard.
In response she bites down on the side of my hand; admittedly not as hard as I struck her but enough to make me wince.
I remove my hand from her mouth and shake it out. “Not a sound,” I demand. “Are we clear?”
She nods against the desk, shaking her bright mane of hair so it ripples over her back.
I undo my trousers, letting my painful hard-on spring free. The head escapes the waistband of my boxers, glistening with pre-cum.
I shift my underwear down and guide the head of my cock along her entrance, sliding in her juices. She pushes back against me, like her pussy wants to swallow my cock whole.
“Patience.” With one hand on her back to hold her in place, I edge my cock inside her wet warmth. “So tight, baby. So fucking tight.”
I begin to drive deeper, thrusting in and out, drilling my cock right to the hilt with every thrust, my balls slapping against her arse.
The office fills with the sounds of our bodies slamming against one another. It’s feral and raw and turns me on even more.
Aries begins to moan again. Her voice is so full of desire that it only drives me to pound her harder. “I. Said. Be. Quiet,” I say, thrusting hard on each word, then driving my hand down on her arse cheek, which only increases the fervour of her moans.
I spank her again, the pale flesh turning pink. “I wasn’t joking, Aries.”
She’s quiet, but I can tell she’s close, given how she thrusts back against me, her fingers tense and pressing flat against the desk.
I slide a hand around her hips to find her swollen clit, and run circles over it, faster and faster, building the pressure.
Her cunt tightens around my dick, pulsing with the approaching orgasm, and I thrust deeper still, matching my movement with the circling of her clit until her legs are shaking and she’s jerking against the desk in the throes of pleasure she’s desperately trying to silence.
“Aries… Aries…” My voice is a low rasp, her name like a chant on my lips. Sparks of pleasure shoot through me, cutting me off as my orgasm approaches. The sensation spreads up my length as I spurt thick cords of cum into her. “Fuuuuck,” I groan.
When the blast of my orgasm fades, I lean over her naked back, pressing my shirt and suit jacket against her bare skin. I gently rub my palm against her arse where I struck her, soothing the inflamed skin. I want to stay buried inside her, keep her soft flesh beneath my palms. Trap her here between my desk and my body forever.
I rest my lips against her ear. “If that was break-up sex, we need to break up more often.”
“I’ll do this again if you will,” she murmurs.
An excruciating pain tears at the space behind my sternum, and when I speak my tone is full of regret. “I can’t. This was reckless. Anything else would be plain fucking stupid.”
I kiss the space between her shoulder blades, letting my lips linger there for a moment that stretches too long. I swear I can hear her heart beating; I’m that fucking close to it.
I slide my cock out of her, reaching over for some tissues from a box on the desk to catch our combined cum that leaks from her. I clean her up and toss the tissues in the bin.
I don’t want to walk away. I don’t want to leave this woman. But the risk is too huge, and I’ve already risked too much with her.
I fix my trousers and tuck my shirt in, hiding my sins beneath a suit for the second time in one evening.
A million things I want to say to her bubble up on my tongue, but I swallow back every single one until all that’s left is, “Good night, Aries.”
I let myself out of the room. I know it’s a shitty move to leave her naked and bent over my desk, but she knew what this was… she asked for it. And it was great, but if I don’t leave right this fucking second, I won’t be able to walk away at all.