Chapter 13
(Aria POV)
Morning came too soon. My body still thrummed with every place he’d touched me, every kiss he’d left burning on my skin. My thighs still ached from his exquisite tongue.
And yet when Marcus knocked on my door, his shirt crisp, his voice steady, he could’ve been carved from stone.
“Ready?” Was all he said.
At the distributor’s office, he was all business. Numbers, logistics, barrels and paperwork. I tried to focus, I did. But sitting beside him at the long conference table, his thigh hot against mine, his hand resting inches from my knee, all I could think about was last night.
So I tested him.
My heel brushed his shoe. My pen rolled across his side of the pad. Once, under the table, my fingers grazed the fabric of his slacks, quick as lightning.
He didn’t look at me. Not once. But I could see the tension in his face.
The meeting ended in his favor, contracts signed, problem resolved. I thought he’d take me straight home. Instead, he said, “Dinner. You should learn how these nights end.”
Which was how I found myself across from him at a dimly lit restaurant, white wine glinting in his glass and iced tea in mine.
He noticed. Of course he did. The flash of black silk under my blouse when I reached for the menu. The way my skirt slid higher when I crossed my legs. His gaze darkened, dropped, and when the waiter walked away, his hand landed on my thigh under the table, firm, possessive.
Heat shot straight through me. I shifted, just enough to let the silk slip higher, to remind him what I’d put on for him.
His hand moved up my thigh, my lips parting as his fingers pressed the edge of lace that wasn’t there. No panties, Just me, wet and waiting.
His thumb stroked once against my skin. Then again, then started making little circle movements that had me breathing heavier with little whimpers escaping my lips. His restraint breaking down, I could feel it in his touch.
“Marcus…” I whispered.
“Quiet.” His jaw was set, eyes never leaving mine as his fingers slid inside me. He whispered, “Jesus, you’re so fucking wet.” He didn’t stop until he found my clit already engorged and waiting.
I bit back a moan, gripping the edge of the table until my knuckles ached. The room around us dissolved into shadows and white tablecloths; all that existed was his hand, his touch, his control.
When his fingers came back glistening, he lifted them to his mouth, slow, deliberate. He tasted me. His eyes burned into mine as his tongue swept across his fingers, before he put them back in me. My pulse nearly broke me in half.
Another stroke. Then two. His thumb finding rhythm, sliding slicker with every pass. He slipped two fingers inside me, slow but relentless, and my eyes fluttered shut. It was too much, too good, and I bit down on my lip to hold back the sounds that wanted to pour out.
The table shook once as my leg jerked. He caught my knee with his other hand, steadying me, pinning me wide.
“Good girl,” he murmured, almost to himself, and the way he said it made me throb harder.
Every movement of his hand drew me closer, winding me tight, and I knew if he didn’t stop, if he didn’t pull away, I was going to come undone right there, in a restaurant, in his hand.
His pace quickened, relentlessly, knowing exactly how to unravel me. My breath came in shuddering gasps, legs quaking under the table. The tablecloth hid everything, but if anyone glanced our way, they’d see the flush in my cheeks, the way my chest heaved.
“Come for me,” he ordered, low and rough.
That did it. My body clenched around his fingers, hot and sharp, the orgasm tearing through me before I could stop it. I bit down on a moan, muffling it in the back of my throat as wave after wave shook me. My nails dug into the fabric, my entire body shuddering with the effort of staying quiet.
He kept his hand steady, working me through it, holding me open with his grip on my thigh until I slumped boneless in my chair, trembling, every nerve lit.
And then…
The waiter appeared, setting down plates with a smile too wide. “And for you two, so nice to see a father and daughter out together.”
The words hit like ice water. Marcus’s hand snapped back like he’d been caught stealing. His face shuttered, walls slamming up so fast it left me breathless.
“Enjoy your meal,” the waiter chirped, oblivious.
Marcus didn’t touch me again. Not through dinner. Not on the drive home. The silence between us was louder than the highway, sharper than glass.
And I sat in the passenger seat, aching, furious, replaying his hand on my thigh and the way it had vanished.
Father and daughter. They had no idea.
But Marcus did. And now he wouldn’t even look at me.
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(Marcus POV)
The drive back was brutal. Her silence was sharp. Mine was absolute.
My hands stayed on the wheel. Every mile that rolled under the tires was another mile I couldn’t take back.
Aria, with flashes of black silk, her skirt riding high, eyes daring me across the table. The way she shifted just so, letting me see what she wanted me to see. What she’d worn, and not worn, for me.
And God help me, I’d touched her. I reached for her. Slid my hand up her thigh in a crowded restaurant, knowing exactly what it meant.
Until the waiter’s voice cut through the air like a knife. Father and daughter.
My stomach dropped, blood gone cold. Because that’s what it looked like, didn’t it? That’s what it was close to being. Aria Bennett, twenty, my partner’s daughter, one year younger than my own. Emma’s age.
The thought hollowed me out. My daughter causing me to worry about her own choices, and here I was, letting myself drown in a girl the same damn age.
I’d sworn I’d never lose control like this again. Not after my marriage cracked. Not with my daughter watching me too closely. And yet one slip of lace, one look from Aria, and I was ready to throw away every line I’d drawn.
I kept seeing her sprawled across my bed, begging me to take her. Her moans had etched themselves into my bones. She thought she was playing with me, but she didn’t understand. This wasn’t a game. It was fire. And it would burn her if I let it.
She stared out the window, radiating fury at my retreat. She thought I didn’t want her. She had no idea how much I did.
I pressed harder on the gas, fighting the urge to pull over, drag her into my lap, and finish what I’d started.
Instead, I drove. Because that’s what men like me did. We drove. We endured. We let the silence eat us alive.
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(Aria POV)
The silence was killing me.
Mile after mile of headlights and highway. Marcus’s hands strangled the steering wheel, his jaw clenched like stone. He hadn’t looked at me once since the restaurant. Not once.
I couldn’t stand it. Not after what he’d done to me under that table. Not after the way his fingers had worked to open me up, the way he’d looked at me while tasting me like I was the only thing he wanted. And now he was acting like none of it happened?
No.
I shifted in the seat, tugging the hem of my skirt higher until I saw his eyes flick sideways, just for a second. A crack in the mask.
“You don’t get to do that to me,” I said softly, “and then shut me out.”
His knuckles whitened on the wheel. “Aria…”
“Would a daughter do this?” I cut in, my voice low, reckless.
Before he could answer, I leaned across the console, my hand sliding onto his thigh. Hard muscle jumped beneath my fingers. He inhaled sharply but kept his eyes on the road.
“Don’t,” he warned, voice rough.
I didn’t listen. I unbuckled my seatbelt and slid lower, my hand pressing higher, close to the evidence of how much he wanted me, no matter what his mouth said. I unzipped him. God, I had been waiting for so long to see his hardness. I was wet all over again.
“Aria.” His voice broke on my name this time, his hips shifting against my touch.
“You made me fall apart in public,” I whispered, my fingers grazing lightly over the tip of him. “Let me return the favor.”
He didn’t stop me. When my palm closed around him, thick and hard, his growl rumbled through the cab. His hips jerked once against my hand, the car veering just slightly before he wrestled it straight.
I stroked his shaft and felt him throbbing under my grip. Before my mouth could join in, his hand clamped around my wrist, holding me still. “If you don’t stop right now, I’ll pull over and fuck you on the hood where every car passing by can see us. Is that what you want?”
Heat tore through me, so strongly I almost said yes.
But then he shoved my hand away, chest heaving. “Not like this.”
The rest of the drive burned, my skin still humming where he’d almost let me, his need as obvious as the silence he was trying to bury.