22. AUDIENCE
alistair
She’s watching me from the shadows.
The most interesting part is that I can’t see her. Not a silhouette, not a shift in the dark—nothing. Yet I know she’s there, just out of sight. And that’s exactly what makes this so intoxicating.
Ariella might believe she’s clever enough to breach my security systems. That she slipped through unseen and untouched.
The truth is far simpler—I let her in. If I wanted to, I could’ve intercepted her the moment she crossed the threshold and ended this little game before it even began.
But where’s the fun in that?
I wanted to see how far her obsession would go if I loosened the leash. I wanted to watch her test the boundaries she thinks she’s clever enough to outmaneuver. I wanted to measure the depth of her audacity.
She’s a bird freshly lured into its cage. And I’m the one who fucking built it.
The fact that she blends so seamlessly into the shadows—or worse, that she still na?vely believes I don’t know it’s her—sends a sharp, electric rush through my bloodstream.
Being watched like this doesn’t dull my senses. It refines them—every nerve more aware, more attuned with the amusement of being watched.
It’s strangely intoxicating to know my student is watching me stripped bare beneath the cascade of water. My hand wraps firmly around my cock, grip unhurried, as the water pounds against my back.
I don’t rush it. I just let her watch.
Don’t mistake this for me chasing some cheap thrill of secrecy or extramarital indulgence. I’d never stoop that low.
There’s nothing illicit about this—not when the woman occupying my house under the title of wife is nothing more than a calculated placement by the Triarch Dominion as a high-class surveillance device with a fake wedding ring.
They understood exactly what I am beneath the surface—a leashed predator, tolerated only so long as I remain useful.
So yes—Delilah Hertley may be my wife on paper, but not in any meaningful sense of marriage.
Hell, the part that curdles something in my gut is that I’m legally bound to something that only mimics a human being. She isn’t one.
She’s a Synthète.
And it doesn’t end there. I’m expected to touch her. To perform the rituals of intimacy as if it’s nothing more than another obligation. To press my lips against synthetic skin and pretend it carries a soul.
I’m required to fuck an abomination and call it matrimony.
A flicker of something darker threads through the controlled rhythm of my hand. Heat coils low in my abdomen, but it’s not just physical—it’s sharpened by the awareness behind the glass. By the silent presence drinking in my every movement.
So don’t blame me if I enjoy being watched by an actual human while I get myself off.
A contented sigh leaves me. I wrap my hand tighter around my shaft and leisurely drag my palm upward, then back down in a measured glide. I continue the rhythm, steady and controlled.
It feels perversely satisfying to have a real human audience to witness your release—to know someone with warm blood and curious eyes is absorbing every movement.
I increase my pace gradually, strokes turning firmer, faster. Skin slides against skin in wet, slick sounds that echo faintly beneath the rush of water. The noise is obscene, intimate, and so unapologetically good.
My head falls back as a low and unrestrained groan rips out of me. I wonder if her breath caught hearing that. If her pupils dilated in the dark.
For now, I can only imagine her hazel eyes looking up at me, and her hand stroking my cock.
Better yet, me fucking her mouth. The thought alone makes my cock twitch in my hand mid-stroking
Heat gathers at the base of my spine. The beating organ in my chest spikes up. My balls draw tight and heavy, tingling with the warning tremor of release building fast and merciless.
I’m close.
My hand drives harder and faster—each stroke rougher than the last, hips subtly thrusting into my grip. A flash of fucking her throat intrudes into my mind again. Another groan tears out of my throat, louder this time, and I don’t attempt to mute it.
Let her hear me.
Let her understand exactly what her presence does to me.
My free hand braces against the wall, palm flat against cool tile as the pressure crests. My head drops forward, breath punching out of me, and I come undone.
White streaks spatter against the wall. It’s stark and obscene before the shower water dilutes them, and washes them away as if it never happened.
My hand slows into long, languid strokes, milking out the last pulse, squeezing every final drop until my breathing evens out.
It’s been a long time since I came this hard.
Sex with the Synthète does make me climax at times—her body is designed for efficiency, responsive in ways most biological women aren’t. I won’t deny the superior mechanics. But mechanics alone aren’t hunger.
You can refine sensation.
You can program responsiveness.
You can simulate warmth and mimic desire.
But you can never replicate humanity.
And no matter how perfectly she’s constructed, Delilah will never replace the heat of a real woman watching me from the dark.
I feel her presence in every step I take—from the moment I shut off the shower to the slow drag of the towel I wrap low around my waist.
That awareness clings to me like a second skin. The only thing separating us is the thin veil of light spilling across the room. But I don’t attempt to dilute the thrill yet.
The closer I get to stepping out of the bathroom, the further she retreats into the dark.
However, one thing is for certain—Ariella isn’t running from me but pacing me, maintaining a steady distance between us.
By the time I push the door open with another towel draped loosely over my neck, the room has shifted around her absence. Or rather her concealment.
A faint flutter catches my attention near the curtains the moment I click the door shut behind me.
I pause. A chuckle slips past my lips.
She might’ve considered the window to escape.
I bet on any number she’s still here—pressed into the shadows just behind the fabric, watching, waiting. Testing how far she can exist in my space without being dragged into the light.
“Honey, I made you some pancakes,” Delilah chirps, her voice cutting cleanly through the tension.
I still had the towel in my hand, pausing mid-motion to dry my hair.
My gaze shifts to her, watching her step into the bedroom.
She stands composed as ever, holding a plate stacked high—caramel syrup glistening under the light, it looks indulgent, dripping down the edges of freshly baked pancakes.
They do look delicious.
But I have something far more interesting in mind. Let’s put on a show for my audience.
In unhurried steps, my feet move towards her, watching the way her eyes track me, the subtle shift in her posture, the faint swallow of anticipation.
Golden eyes darken with something close to hunger the more I close the distance between us.
Her breath stutters just slightly when my hand lifts. I reach for the plate to grab one.
A flicker of disappointment slides beneath the surface before she smoothes it away.
I almost smirk, while bringing it to my mouth and taking a bite. The perfect level of sweetness floods my mouth as I take my time savoring it, humming in approval.
Then out of nowhere I say. “Kiss me, Delilah,” swallowing it down.
Delilah has no fucking idea why I asked for it on my own after so many days. She simply sets the dish aside and rises onto her toes to press her lips to mine.
The kiss should feel alive, but there’s a faint coolness to it, something that doesn’t quite settle under my skin.
It’s not as warm as it should be for a human. Even so, I take her face in my hand, fingers tightening at her nape just enough to control.
A pleased sound slips past her lips at the taste of me.
I pivot her without breaking the kiss, guiding her body until her back faces the curtains.
That’s when my eyes open mid-kiss, and I’m staring into the hazel eyes of my stalker.
Just as I assumed, Ariella never left.
She’s lingering behind the curtain, peeking through with enough care to pass unnoticed by anyone else. But not me. I feel her gaze as much as I can see it—now she knows I know.
And instead of panicking, she keeps watching me, deepening the kiss.
I kiss her like I’d kiss Ariella. Fuck.
The thought alone shifts something dark and electric through me.
Delilah melts into it instantly, a breathy moan spilling against my mouth as she clings closer.
In three years of marriage, I’ve never touched her like this—never kissed her with this kind of feral hunger, this unrestrained collision of want and control.
I didn’t even know I was capable of it.
And all it does is make me think of Ariella. Of what I’d do to her if it were really her lips clashing against mine.
We end up on the bed in a blur of movement—hands, fabric, heat. I position us instinctively, so I don’t need to turn my head to see Ariella.
All it takes is the slightest flick of my eyes upward to watch her watching me.
Clothes disappear between touches, growing rougher.
My gaze keeps drifting back to the curtains, pulled like a magnet I’ve no intention of resisting at all.
Delilah doesn’t notice. Even if she does, I don’t care.
I just need to see if Ariella stepped out to watch me fucking my wife.
The thought alone drives something brutal through me. My cock hardens to a point that borders on being painful, every nerve hypersensitive to the thrill of being seen like this—of performing for her without ever touching her.
In one swift motion, I flip Delilah onto her stomach. Her body yields easily, hips lifting, ass pressing back into me with a reflex she’s been conditioned into.
My hand comes down against the back of her neck, forcing her face into the mattress, holding her there. The other wraps around my cock, stroking just a couple of times before I push forward into her.
I never check if she’s wet.
She’s trained for this. Conditioned to respond, to be ready, to take whatever I decide to give. And I take advantage of it every single time.
Just like now.
A sharp moan tears out of her the moment I fill her in one thrust. Her body clenches around me, reacting exactly the way it’s supposed to.
I never liked to look at her face each time I fucked her. I’ve always taken her from behind, always kept her turned away, detached from the act in a way that made it easier to exist through.
Right now, that habit serves me perfectly—it’s not her I’m seeing. It’s Ariella Keinston.
The bed shudders beneath us with every brutal thrust, the headboard knocking faintly against the wall in a growing rhythm, harder and faster. I lift my gaze again—inevitably, instinctively—and find her.
She’s no longer careful. The faintest shift in fabric betrays her presence
Ariella peers from behind the curtain with a recklessness that borders on deliberate now.
A slow, almost disbelieving breath drags through my lungs as my eyes lock onto the subtle movement of her hand sliding down and disappearing lower along her body.
For a second, I wonder if I’ve finally lost the line between control and delusion.
But no. I know what I saw.
Ariella Keinston is touching herself to the sight of me fucking my wife.
The thought pulls a raw growl out of me. My grip tightens involuntarily, hips snapping harder into Delilah as something dark, possessive, and entirely unhinged coils through my chest.
She doesn’t know the truth—doesn’t know what Delilah really is, what this marriage actually means—which almost makes it worse, or better… I can’t decide.
For now, the only thing corrupting my mind is to keep extending the moment.
Relentless pressure builds low in my back. My balls draw tight, the sensation climbs too fast, and drags higher by the image burning my mind—Ariella being railed under me.
A rough and unrestrained groan tears out of me, making me come hard.
The force steals the rhythm from my body, thrusts breaking into slower, deeper strokes—long, dragging movements wringing the feeling dry.
My head dips, breathe ragged, control slipping just enough to let the edge bleed through me before I force it back down.
Eventually, the motion stills, and I drop back onto my knees. The weight of a dull, satisfying tension lingers beneath my skin.
Delilah rolls onto her back, chest rising and falling in uneven breaths, her body spent.
I don’t look at her for long. Instead, I stand and head straight for the bathroom to clean up.
Water hits my skin again. It’s meant to ground me, but my mind doesn’t follow. It stays behind the curtains. On the shadow that moved. On the way, her hand disappeared between her legs like she couldn’t tame her desires anymore.
I don’t usually fuck after a shower. It’s inefficient. Unnecessary. An inconvenience.
But tonight? I don’t regret it. Not even the slightest.
When I step back into the room, dressed in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, the air feels calmer.
Delilah is already asleep, her breathing soft and even, the bedside lamp on her side turned off.
My gaze goes to the curtains first. No movement. Too still.
I scan the room slowly, every corner, every shadow, every possible place she could be hiding.
Nothing. No presence. Has she left?
An exhale from something between dismissal and dissatisfaction slips past my lips.
I shake my head and walk back to the bed. The mattress dips under my weight as I pull the blanket over my body and settle in to sleep.
Then I switch off the lamp on my side, letting darkness swallow the room. But as I lie there, staring blankly at the wall, something in my gut refuses to settle.
A persistent instinct presses at the back of my mind, telling me tonight isn’t over yet.
Despite that, a yawn slips free, and my eyelids fall shut for a deep slumber forever.