Chapter 3: Morning After
The first sensation was a deep, pleasant ache. It radiated from her core, a tangible echo of the night that made Catriona stir with a soft groan before she even opened her eyes. The second sensation was weight—the solid, warm weight of an arm draped over her ribs, a leg thrown possessively across her thighs. And breath, steady and slow, against the nape of her neck.She opened her eyes. Aidan’s room was washed in the pale, sludge-grey light of a Manchester dawn. It seeped around the blinds, leaching colour from everything. The whiskey bottle stood sentinel on the nightstand. In the cracked mirror above the dresser, she could see the reflection of their tangled forms—a mess of red hair and pale skin and dark sheets.
She was sore in a way she’d never been.A used, stretched, delicious soreness.And she was still here.
His arm tightened infinitesimally around her, his voice a sleep-roughened rasp against her ear.“You okay?”
“Mmm.” She flexed her hips slightly, testing. A sharper ache flared, followed by a flood of memory so vivid it heated her skin. “Feels like I got fucking rearranged.”
A quiet chuckle vibrated through his chest.“Sorry. Not sorry.”
She turned in his arms, wincing only a little. His hazel eyes were sleepy, but clear.There was no awkwardness, no panic. Just a quiet, deep-looking assessment.She traced the line of his stubbled jaw. “No regrets?”
“Are you mental?” He caught her hand, kissed her palm.His lips were warm and soft. “I feel like I won the lottery and then got struck by lightning. Simultaneously.”
“Good.” She shifted again, her backside protesting, and a thought, bold and clear from the hazy morning, presented itself.She’d told him her fantasy. Last night, he’d fulfilled the crescendo of it. But the whole, explicit picture she’d painted in her mind… “You know, technically,” she began, her voice still husky with sleep, “you only completed two-thirds of my request.”
Aidan’s eyebrows lifted.He was fully awake now. A slow, knowing smile spread across his face.“Is that right?”
“It is.I was very specific. All three.” She held his gaze, watching the warmth in his eyes deepen into something hotter, more focused.The patient professor was gone. In his place was the man who’d pinned her wrists and split her open.“The fantasy’s… detailed. It has an order.”
He moved then, rolling her gently onto her back and settling over her, not pressing down, just caging her in.The sheets slipped to his waist.“An order, eh?Go on then. Educate me.”
The casual command sent a shiver through her. “Mouth first,” she said, the words leaving her lips barely above a whisper.“Then pussy.Then… finish there. Where you did last night.Claim all of it. In one go.”
He exhaled, a sharp, impressed sound. “Fuck, Cat.” He dipped his head, nuzzling the sensitive spot below her ear. “You’ve really thought about this.”
“Every time you walked out of the shower for the last two years,” she admitted, the confession floating into the dusty dawn light.That did it.Any lingering trace of sleep evaporated from his expression. He captured her mouth in a kiss that was less about tenderness and more about intent. It was slow, thorough, and devastatingly carnal.When he broke away, his breath was already uneven.“Right. Mouth first.”
He kissed his way down her body—her throat, the valley between her breasts, the soft swell of her stomach—with a reverent leisure that felt like torture. When he settled between her legs, he didn’t go for her core immediately. He pressed a kiss to the inside of each thigh, his stubble scratching pleasantly, making her jump. Then he looked up, his eyes holding hers with a dark promise.He shifted, moving back up her body.
The implication dawned on her, a hot wave of anticipation. He positioned himself on his knees beside her head, one hand guiding himself to her lips.“Open,” he murmured.
She did, her tongue meeting the soft, salty tip of him. He was half-hard, thickening swiftly in her mouth as she took him in, as far as she could.Her jaw stretched. He let out a shaky breath, his fingers threading into her hair, not forcing, just holding.“That’s it,” he whispered, watching her. “Christ, look at you.”
She sucked, swirling her tongue, her own need coiling tight and urgent between her legs. This was part of it—the submission, the service, the sheer obscene intimacy of it. He rocked his hips gently, fucking her mouth with shallow, controlled thrusts, his groans punctuating the quiet room. The scent of them, of sex and sleep and him, was overwhelming.When he pulled away, he was fully hard, glistening from her mouth. “Enough,” he growled, voice thick.“Need to be inside you. Properly.”
He moved down her body again, but this time there was no teasing. He pushed her thighs apart, his gaze burning over her slick, swollen flesh. He positioned himself and drove into her in one smooth, deep stroke.
She cried out, the fullness a shocking, welcome relief after the empty ache.This was different from last night—softer, somehow, but no less intense. It was claiming, yes, but it was also connection. He moved over her, inside her, with a rolling rhythm that felt less like fucking and more like a deep, resonant conversation. Their eyes stayed locked.He dropped his head to kiss her, sharing the taste of herself on his tongue.
“You feel… fucking perfect,” he gasped against her mouth, his thrusts gaining urgency. “Every time.Never felt anything like it.”
She was climbing fast, the coil wound impossibly tight. She could feel his control fraying, his rhythm becoming erratic, brutal.He was close. So was she.With a ragged sound, he pulled out again. She whimpered at the loss, disoriented, dizzy with need. But his hands were already on her, turning her, arranging her on her hands and knees. The position sparked a flash of pain from her sorest muscles, a pain that melted instantly into a deep, resonant pulse of want.
He slicked himself again with lube from the nightstand, his hands trembling. He knelt behind her, one broad hand smoothing over the curve of her arse.“This is what you wanted,” he reminded her, his voice a dark hymn. “All of you.Every part.”
He guided himself to her other entrance. The pressure was immense, familiar now and yet still shocking.She breathed out, pushing back, taking him. The burn was a bright, clean signal in her nerves. He sank in, deeper than last night, because now her body knew him, accepted him.A choked sob escaped her.It wasn’t pain. It was completion.He set a fierce, driving pace, each thrust a punctuated statement. One hand gripped her hip, the other slipped around to her front, fingers finding her clit, rubbing tight, desperate circles.
“This is mine,” he grunted, the words punching out with each snap of his hips.“This perfect, greedy arse. All mine.”
“Yes,” she keened, the pleasure building, a tsunami behind a fragile dam. “Aidan, please—”
“Gonna fill you up,” he promised, his voice breaking. “Gonna leave my mark so deep in you…”
The dam broke. Her orgasm crashed through her, a silent, blinding convulsion that pulled a scream from her lungs that was muffled by the pillow. Her internal muscles clenched around him in vicious, rhythmic pulses, and with a roar that was raw and unfiltered, he slammed into her one final time and held there. She felt the hot, sudden surge as he came, spilling inside her, the intimate flood triggering another, smaller ripple of aftershocks through her spent body.
They collapsed together, a heap of trembling limbs and shuddering breaths. He stayed buried within her for a long moment, both of them utterly still. When he softened and slipped out, she winced, feeling an odd, profound emptiness.
He gathered her immediately, turning her, pulling her into the shelter of his body.They didn’t speak. The room was silent except for their slowing breath and the distant hum of the city waking up.After a while, he kissed her sweaty temple. “Shower,” he said, his voice shot. “We smell like a brothel.”
She laughed, a weak, happy sound. “You say the sweetest things.”
The shower was small, steam quickly fogging the glass.They moved slowly, tenderly, under the hot spray. He washed her hair, his fingers massaging her scalp. She soaped his back, tracing the faint red lines her nails had left.There was no shyness, only a quiet, comfortable fascination. He touched the faint bruising on her hips with a look of pained pride. She saw the healed scar on his shoulder from a childhood biking accident she’d heard about but never seen.
“So,” he said, rinsing conditioner from her fiery hair, his hands gentle. “Roommate agreement needs an amendment, I reckon.”
She leaned back against his chest, the water sluicing over them. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. ‘Thou shalt not fantasize about other people’s arses’ is hereby revoked. Especially when said arse belongs to the roommate.”
She turned in his arms, slick skin against slick skin. “And what’s the new clause?”
He kissed her, a slow, steam-filled kiss that tasted of toothpaste and promise. “New clause is: ‘Thou shalt frequently and enthusiastically explore said arse, along with all other available and mutually agreed-upon territory.’”
“Legal jargon’s a bit shit, Professor.”
“I’ll workshop it.” He smiled, a real, easy smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “But the spirit of the agreement stands.This… isn’t a one-off, Cat. Not for me.”
The last whispered fear in her heart dissolved in the steam. “Not for me either,” she said, and the truth of it was as solid as the tile at her feet. She reached past him to turn off the water.The sudden silence was loud. “Now, about that breakfast you promised last night before you so rudely distracted me…”