Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
Never Better
Catalina
We don’t speak on the drive back. The car’s cabin is silent but for the city’s smear against the glass and the low white noise of Aiden’s breathing.
He keeps both hands on the wheel, his jaw set at the angle I recognize from hard drives and harder choices.
My head lolls against the seat, neck loose with exhaustion and post-adrenaline comedown.
I watch the skyline climb and collapse in the reflection, my face a bruised blur in the window.
I want to break the silence with something clever, but it’s like my voice has gone underground. And anyway, I think we’ve both earned the right to a few miles of nothing.
Aiden’s penthouse is the same as always and completely unrecognizable.
The place still smells like ozone and concrete and the residue of old money, but there’s a charge in the air, like static before a storm.
The front console holds my mask, a bruise-blue velvet half-face, carelessly discarded.
The custom rope cabinet stands open, one coil half-unwound and draped over a chair like a crime scene.
I step out of my shoes and leave them wherever they fall.
He hangs his keys on the hook by the door, runs a hand through his hair, then just stands there, looking at me as if he wants to say something and can’t decide which language to use. The urge to touch him, just to confirm we’re both still here, still solid, spikes in my chest.
Instead, I walk straight to the kitchen and pour us each a glass of water. My hand shakes only a little, but I keep my back to him until I’m sure I can control the smile in my voice.
“Should we talk about it?” I say, not turning around.
He’s right behind me now, moving silent as a rumor. “Which part?”
I snort. “Pick one.” My hand is still clutching the glass like a flotation device.
He says, “You look incredible tonight,” and I feel his breath in my hair.
I tip my head back until I see him upside-down, the lines of his face even starker in the halo of kitchen light. “You’re not supposed to say that to your assistant.”
He takes the glass from my hand and sets it aside. “No,” he says. “I’m not.”
I pivot, and suddenly we’re inches apart, the entire city thirty-four floors down and getting further away by the second.
I don’t wait for him to close the distance. I just press forward, let my forehead rest against his chest. He’s so damn steady, even now. His arms come around me, a slow compression like someone checking to see if a box will hold its contents.
I don’t know how long we stand like that. Maybe it’s a minute, maybe it’s until the planet resets its axis.
When he finally releases me, he does it all at once, like he’s afraid he’ll never let go if he lingers. I don’t move, not for a while.
It’s him who breaks the quiet, voice stripped of affect: “You should sleep.”
Something in the flatness of it catches me. “That’s not what you were going to say.”
A beat. Two.
“No.”
I wait. He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his thumb grazing my cheekbone on the way back down. He leaves his hand there, just barely.
“Stay.” The word comes out rough at the edges, like it cost him something to say it.
The back of my throat tightens. “Okay.”
He locks the doors, kills the kitchen light. I walk ahead, letting the ambient city spill blue over the corridor. I don’t bother to check if he’s following, I know he is.
In the bedroom, everything is low-lit and still. There’s a gold lamplight on the dresser and nothing else. My club dress is sticky with sweat and bad memories. I peel it off with a theatrical groan, letting it puddle at my feet.
I wait, facing the window, for him to join me. He does, but he doesn’t touch, just stands a pace behind, the back of my neck prickling with anticipation.
“Do you want—” he starts.
“Yes.” I cut him off, because the thing I want more than anything is for him to stop parsing every word, every gesture. “I want you to stop asking and start acting.”
I hear the soft exhale of a smile. “You’re sure.”
I spin and walk to him, braless in nothing but my underwear and a thin film of club sweat. “I’m sure.”
He lets me come to him, lets me set the distance, lets me press up on tiptoe and kiss the spot just below his jaw. It’s salt and aftershave and something underneath, fear, maybe, or hope.
He cups the back of my head. There’s no gentleness, just a deliberate pressure, like he’s holding me in place so the world won’t tip.
Our lips meet, and it’s different than before, not urgent, not hungry, but slow and almost mournful.
He kisses like he’s memorizing the taste, the shape, the sharpness of my teeth.
I thread my fingers under his shirt, find the warmth of his skin, feel his pulse racing despite all appearances. I want to tell him it’s okay to lose control, that I’ll catch whatever shatters, but I know he wouldn’t believe it.
So instead I let my hands do the talking, dragging nails down his back until his composure fractures. He breaks the kiss, buries his face in my hair, and for a second just breathes me in.
He walks me backward, hands braced on my shoulders, and the backs of my knees hit the edge of the bed. I fall onto it, not graceful, not coy, just splayed and ready.
He stands over me, shirt half-buttoned, watching my chest rise and fall. “Tell me to stop,” he says. It’s not a question, but a line drawn in the sand.
“If I wanted to stop,” I say, “I wouldn’t be here.”
He’s on me then, not rough, but insistent.
His hands slide over my arms, my ribs, the curve of my waist. He kneels on the mattress, trapping me between his legs, and kisses the hollow at the base of my throat.
Every nerve lights up. He knows exactly where to go, how to touch, how to wait for my body to ask.
I dig my heels into the sheets, arch into him.
He strips his shirt off, then his pants, everything so matter-of-fact it’s like he’s shedding armor, not clothing.
I watch the muscles move under his skin, the plane of his stomach, the old scars I’ve always wanted to trace with my tongue.
I do, and he shudders, almost enough to make me laugh.
He tugs my underwear down my hips, slow enough to drive me insane, and drops them over the edge of the bed. He kisses my knees, the inside of my thigh, then mouths up my body in a line of heat.
He pauses at my breast, teeth grazing my left nipple, and I yelp, more surprise than pain. “Fuck, Aiden.”
His mouth curves against my skin. “I like when you say my name.”
“You’re so full of shit,” I say, but I’m already lost in the way he’s devouring me, piece by piece. He presses his fingers between my legs, finds me soaking and laughs, low and guttural.
“I barely touched you,” he says.
“You touched enough,” I bite back.
He pushes two fingers inside, slow but firm. His thumb circles, relentless, and I swear I can feel my bones dissolve. He keeps his eyes on mine the whole time, as if he wants to see the exact moment I break.
I claw at his shoulders, drag him down for a kiss, and when I come it’s with a cry that rips out of me and hangs in the air like a broken note.
He slows, then stops, then pulls me against him, my legs wrapped around his waist. We stay like that for a long minute, forehead to forehead, breathing in the same small circle of air.
He kisses my temple, the tip of my nose, the line of my jaw. “You okay?”
I laugh, a ragged sound. “Never better.”
He leans back, stares at me, then says, “I mean it. If you want to stop, ”
I cut him off with a bite to his collarbone. “Shut up and fuck me, Mr. St. James.”
He does. He slides inside me, slow, stretching me out, letting the ache build until I think I’ll crack open. He moves with the patience of a man who could spend all night right here, and maybe he will. Every thrust is a question. Are you still with me? Every answer is yes.
I hook my ankles behind him, grind my hips up to meet each stroke. He buries his face in my hair, murmurs my name like it’s the only word he knows. He fucks me like he’s trying to stake a claim, but the way he holds my hand makes me feel like I’m the only person in the world.
When I come again, it’s softer, almost silent, just a shudder that runs up my spine and out through my fingertips. He follows, the rhythm of his body stuttering as he lets go. For a second, we hang there together, suspended above everything that waits outside this bed.
Then he collapses beside me, arms wrapping me in, and for the first time in weeks, I feel safe.
We don’t talk for a long while. I listen to the city, to our breathing, to the faint whir of the HVAC kicking on. I think I could fall asleep like this, heavy-limbed, wrapped in warmth, nothing urgent left to say.
But he’s not asleep. I know because the blue glow of his phone lights the wall. He’s reading, not scrolling, and the tension in his jaw is back.
I don’t ask right away. I just watch the light reflect in his glasses on the nightstand, the way his thumb never stops moving.
Finally, I say, “What’s wrong?”
He sets the phone face-down, hesitates, then says, “The board’s called an emergency session. Eight a.m. Sharp.”
I prop myself up on my elbow, hair sticking to my cheek. “That bad?”
He nods, but doesn’t look at me. “They’ll want blood. Mine, or…” he stops.
“Or mine,” I finish.
He flinches. I reach for the phone, and this time, he lets me take it.
I flip it over, wake the screen, and scroll through the email chain. The subject lines escalate from “Urgent: Emergency Session” to “Re: Leaked Materials, Board Response Required.” There’s a new message every few minutes, each one clipped, legal, impersonal.
I hand the phone back. He takes it, but his thumb hovers over the screen, and I watch him read the same line twice.
I reach over and press it face-down on the nightstand.
He looks at me.
I kiss his jaw, the hinge of it where tension lives, then the side of his neck, slow enough that I feel his pulse stutter and reset. His arm comes around me, and this time the muscles loosen, just slightly, just enough. I tuck myself against him, my head on his chest, his chin resting on my hair.
The city bleeds through the glass. Neither of us speaks for a long time.
Finally I say, “Whatever it costs tomorrow, we pay it together. That’s the only number that matters.”
He exhales, long and unsteady, and pulls me closer. Outside, the city keeps its indifferent hum. But in here, the math is simple.
I wake up before the alarm, sweat-damp and braced for impact.
There’s no reason to move, Aiden’s body is an iron band at my back, the sheets twisted around our legs, the air pressed flat and heavy by the things neither of us dared say last night.
I stare at the ceiling, counting the seconds until the sky is more indigo than black, until the edge of the day filters through the glass.
He stirs behind me, pulls me closer, his arm tightening like he’s already bracing for the day. His voice is rough with sleep. “What time is it?”
I check the clock. “Six-twelve.”
He exhales, long and slow. Neither of us move.