1. Anika #2
Something flickered in his expression. That competitive streak, the one that made him a killer in the boardroom, surfacing in the bedroom. “You want me to stop standing here?”
“I want you to fuck me like you mean it.”
He drove into me in one hard thrust.
I cried out, my back arching off the table, my hands scrabbling for purchase against the linen. He was big, he’d always been big, and the stretch of him filling me made my eyes roll back. He gave me half a second to adjust, and then he started to move.
Long, deep strokes at first. Pulling almost all the way out before driving back in, hitting that spot inside me that made sparks fly behind my eyes.
The table rocked with each thrust, crystal glasses clinking, and I didn’t care.
I couldn’t care about anything except the way he felt inside me, the way his hands gripped my hips hard enough to leave marks.
“Harder,” I begged.
He gave me harder. His control slipped, and suddenly he was fucking me in earnest, the sound of skin against skin filling the empty room. I reached up and grabbed his shoulders, pulling him down to me, and he buried his face in my neck while he drove into me.
“Touch yourself,” he growled against my throat. “I want to feel you come on my cock.”
My hand slid between us, finding my clit, rubbing in tight circles while he thrust. His eyes tracked every movement, that hungry gaze burning into me even as his rhythm grew erratic.
“That’s it. That’s my girl.” His voice was wrecked, barely recognizable. “Come for me, Anika. Now.”
The second orgasm crashed over me, harder than the first. I clenched around him, crying out his name, and felt him follow me over the edge. He buried himself to the hilt and pulsed inside me, his whole body shaking with the force of it.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. Just breathing. His forehead pressed to mine, his weight a warm anchor.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you.” He kissed my forehead. “More than anything.”
I believed him. In that moment, tangled together on a restaurant table surrounded by broken crystal and wine-stained linen, I believed him completely.
Then I heard it.
Soft footsteps and the murmur of voices. Neil’s whole body changed in an instant. Shoulders squaring, jaw tightening, the tender man from thirty seconds ago retreating behind the mask of the CEO.
“Sir.” Giovani’s voice, professionally neutral. “A word.”
Neil was already moving, straightening his clothes with practiced efficiency. “Don’t move,” he told me. “I’ll be right back.”
“What’s going on?”
“Just work. Five minutes.”
Just work. On our anniversary week celebration. On the night he’d bought out an entire restaurant so we could be alone.
I sat up slowly, pulling my dress back into place with shaking hands. Through the window, I could see Neil on the terrace with Giovani, his assistant’s head bent close as he spoke rapidly. Neil’s face was unreadable. Then he nodded once, and something in his posture shifted into business mode.
When he came back, he was already reaching for his jacket.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to handle something.”
“Now? Tonight?”
“I know.” He crossed to me, cupped my face in his hands. The kiss was soft, apologetic, completely different from ten minutes ago. “Giovani will take you home. I’ll be back before you fall asleep.”
“You said five minutes.”
“Anika.” Just my name. Like that explained anything.
“Fine.” I made myself smile. “Go. Save the world.”
“I love you.”
He kissed my forehead again, brief, and then he was gone. I heard him taking the stairs two at a time, already on his phone before he’d left the building.
Giovani appeared at my elbow like a well-dressed ghost.
“Mrs. Franco. The car is ready whenever you are.”
The drive home was silent. Manhattan scrolled past the tinted windows, all those lights, all those people living their lives while I sat in the back of a town car wearing a wrinkled dress and the ghost of my husband’s touch.
I could still feel him between my legs, still feel the phantom grip of his fingers on my hips.
And yet he was already somewhere else, handling something more important.
The elevator to our penthouse took sixty floors. I watched the numbers climb and tried not to count how many times I’d made this ride alone.
The triplex was dark when I stepped inside. Three floors of steel and glass and Italian marble, and not a single light on. I didn’t bother with them. I knew the path by heart.
My studio was on the top floor. I went there first, the way I always did when my chest felt too tight. My brushes waited where I’d left them. The canvas I’d been working on leaned against the wall, half-finished, accusing.
Thirty paintings, I thought. Anwesha wants thirty paintings.
You’ll smash it, Neil had said.
But he hadn’t asked when. He hadn’t asked what. He’d said the words and reached for his wine and moved on.
I stared at the blank canvas on my easel and picked up a brush. Put it down again.
Outside the window, the city glittered like a promise. And somewhere out there, my husband was handling something more important than me.