Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Cerebrito
Catalina
A month isn’t long, not really, but in the accelerated half-life of office politics and kink, it feels like I’ve lived and died three times since Aiden and I decided to stop pretending.
A month is how long it’s been since I agreed, out loud, that he’s my boyfriend, and he agreed, out loud, that I’m his.
We did not announce it publicly except for in the Velvet Stag.
But here at PDI, we just keep showing up at the same time, sharing takeout in his office with the blinds down, and occasionally fucking with the kind of intensity that makes you see God.
But in the daylit world of Precision Dynamics, we’re still boss and subordinate.
The code is clear. No special privileges, no sidelong glances, nothing for HR to annotate in their little black file.
Sometimes I forget, and then remember, and the jolt of excitement is its own reward. Like today, for example.
The call with Zurich is at 9:00. At 8:59 he’s in his office, dialing in with the ice-cold composure of a man about to perform surgery on a moving train.
I step in with a last-minute sheaf of updated numbers, place them on his desk, and wait.
The laptop camera catches only the top half of his body, which is good, because I have plans for the other half.
I wait until the call is in full swing, four squares on the screen, five if you count the intern note-taker who can’t figure out how to mute. Only then do I ease open the door (he leaves it unlocked for me, always) and let myself in, silent as an embezzler.
He doesn’t look down. Not at first. But I hear the faint catch in his speech when my hands ghost up his calf, then higher, palm flat against the thigh seam of his slacks.
Under the table, I look up at him, all I see is his right hand, poised on the mouse, index finger flicking the wheel at regular intervals.
His left hand is under the lip of the desk, invisible to the camera.
The only tell is the grip, white-knuckled, veins raised, a silent SOS.
The buzz of conversation above me is white noise, a distant planet.
All that matters is the heat radiating off his body and the pulse that kicks when I undo the clasp of his belt.
He shifts in his chair, just a hair, but it’s enough.
I take the zipper slow, slow enough that he has to hold his breath to avoid the mic picking up.
Then I free him, cock already hard, flushed and heavy and perfect. I lick a slow stripe up the underside, tongue flat, deliberate, and feel him tense all the way up his spine.
Above, he’s talking about “vertical integration,” but his voice has dipped half a register. The Sato guy asks a question and Aiden answers, but his cadence is fucked, the syllables just a shade too slow, a fraction off the tempo that says: I am barely holding this together.
I take him in my mouth, deep, until I feel the blunt head brush the back of my throat.
I pull back, swirl my tongue, then sink down again, each movement exact, engineered, a code sequence built for maximum disruption.
He tastes like salt, metal, and last night’s whiskey, and I want to ruin him, right here, right now, on a video call with three billion dollars’ worth of clients watching.
His right hand stays on the mouse, steady as death.
His left, under the desk, balls into a fist, then relaxes.
He glances down, so fast only I would notice, and our eyes meet for one electric moment.
I smile around him, hollow my cheeks, and pick up the pace, just enough to make his thigh jump against my ear.
“…the Q3 projections are conservative by design,” he says, then there’s a pause. I hear the stutter, the gasp he barely catches.
One of the clients: “You okay, Aiden? You look a little, uh, distracted.”
He inhales through his nose, sharp. “Fine. Just…long day.” There’s a tremor in the word “long” that makes me want to laugh.
Instead, I double down, bobbing deeper, fingers working the base in perfect counterpoint to my mouth.
I can feel him fighting the urge to move, to fuck up into my throat and end it right here.
But he doesn’t, he holds out, the masochist.
The call drags. I keep at it, unhurried, thorough, like I have all the time in the world and no desire to stop. The drone of business-speak above becomes almost hypnotic. I watch the shadow on the wall as his body tenses, relaxes, tenses again, a metronome of willpower and want.
Five minutes in, he’s close. I can tell by the way his hand trembles, by the shift in his hips, by the way he stops using words with more than three syllables. I slow down, just a little, then speed up, then slow again, teasing him to the edge and back until I decide he’s earned it.
He ends the call two minutes early, a record. “Let’s touch base after you review the material,” he says, and snaps the laptop shut before the clients can even say goodbye.
The moment the screen goes black, his whole body sags. He doesn’t move for a long second, just sits there, cock still hard and glistening, breath shallow and rapid. I wait, still kneeling, until he lifts his hand off the desk and lets it rest, gentle, on the crown of my head.
“Fuck,” he says, voice ragged and raw.
I take him in again, once, twice, and finish him. He comes hard, shuddering, fingers tight in my hair, teeth bared like an animal. I swallow every drop, lick him clean, then sit back on my heels, wiping the corner of my mouth with my thumb.
I look up at him, chin raised, and say, “You’re welcome again.”
He just stares, eyes wild and dark, like he can’t decide if he wants to kiss me or strangle me or both.
In the end, he does neither, just reaches down, grabs the lapels of my blazer, and yanks me to my feet.
He kisses me, hard, all teeth and tongue and need, then lets go and straightens his glasses, breathing heavy.
“Get back to your desk,” he says.
“Yes, sir,” I reply, and this time I can’t hide the grin. I smooth my skirt.
He lets out a bark of laughter, sudden and sharp, and pulls me in for another kiss. There’s no question who’s in control, but the illusion is a thrill I never want to lose.
We straighten ourselves, smooth the hair, adjust the collars. We emerge from his office at 9:20, the picture of efficiency. No one is usually in the executive suite other than us, but I see the way his hand lingers at my lower back, the ghost touch that says, you are mine.
I walk back to my desk, my own pulse still racing, and I know I’ll be wet for the rest of the day.
I know he’ll watch me, hunger in his gaze, every time I cross my legs or lick the taste of him from my lips.
I know tonight after the date I planned for us, he’ll make me pay for every second of that call.
But for now, the game is mine. And I have never been more alive.
He thinks he’s prepared for my world but he has no idea what he signed up for tonight.
Aiden is not built for surrender, he’s a control freak in bespoke, a wolf who wants to be the sheepdog, never the sheep.
But that’s why I bring him here, because I want to watch the edges of his composure dissolve in the humidity of a place that gives no fucks for rules or credentials.
We walk up on the street of my apartment building just after sunset.
The air is thick with the smoke of a dozen grills, vendors hustling empanadas, a church group handing out pan dulce to kids fresh from soccer practice.
The sidewalk is pitted, patched a hundred times, but I could walk it in stilettos with my eyes shut.
Aiden keeps a half-step behind, his chin up, eyes moving in the constant sweep of a man who doesn’t know what to expect.
“This is…” he starts, then aborts.
I finish for him: “Loud? Disorganized? Third world?”
He laughs, but it’s a cough more than a chuckle. “You grew up here?”
I give him the side-eye. “You sound like you’re wondering how I survived.”
He shrugs, then immediately checks himself, clearly aware of the microaggressions at war inside him. “No, it’s just different. Warmer than the places I grew up.”
I consider this, stepping over a puddle and around a flock of grade-schoolers playing tag. “It’s a community,” I say. “Like that saying ‘It takes a village...”
At the corner, I duck into the bodega for a bottle of malt soda and a sleeve of Oreos, the kind they don’t sell outside the neighborhood.
The cashier is an auntie-type, silver hair, tattooed knuckles, who greets me with a familiar, “Mija, you don’t call, you don’t text, what, you’re too big-time now? ”
I lean over the counter and kiss her cheek. “I’m not famous yet, Tía. Maybe next year.”
She gives Aiden a long, slow up-down, not subtle at all. “You brought a date. Good. About time.”
Aiden smiles, polite, but I see the edge in it. He’s out of his comfort zone, but trying not to show it. It’s fucking adorable.
We walk on, sharing the soda and cookies, and I point out the murals, the one of Celia Cruz, her mouth wide with laughter, then the one of the Virgen de Guadalupe, patched and vandalized but still radiant.
Aiden is silent, taking it all in. Every so often, someone shouts my name from a stoop or a car window. I wave back, not breaking stride.
“Jesus. Do you know everyone here?” he asks.
I nod. “Pretty much. You hungry?”
He hesitates, like he’s afraid of what that might entail. “Always.”
I take him to Las Palmas, a hole-in-the-wall with plastic tablecloths and a wall of baseball photos. Inside, the owner, a woman shaped like a pear but with a pit bull’s energy, greets me like a prodigal daughter.
"CATALINA!" She booms it, three times the volume required. The room takes notice, and for a moment every eye is on us. I see Aiden shift, then brace, and then, almost, a flicker of amusement.