Chapter 3: An Unwelcome Reunion
The flat felt different in the cold, grey light of the following Tuesday. The silence was no longer peaceful, but heavy with things unsaid. The specter of what they’d done—what Colin had made her do—lingered in the air, a ghost in the scent of their shared shower gel and the indent on the sofa cushion that seemed to hold the memory of his hips driving into hers.
Penelope sat at her writing desk, a cup of tea gone cold at her elbow, staring at a blank document. Her deadline was a week away. The words that usually flowed so easily, the grand declarations of fictional love, felt like ashes in her mouth. How could she write about love when hers felt like a freshly skinned knee, raw and throbbing and grotesquely exposed?
Her phone buzzed. Again. Not Colin—he was across town, in a meeting with his editor about his next travel series. He’d kissed her goodbye that morning with a quiet intensity, as if sealing a pact. The buzz was from a number she’d deleted but still recognized. Alfie.
The messages had started yesterday. Polite, at first. Penelope, we need to talk properly. I deserve that much. Then, confused. I can’t stop thinking about what happened. It wasn’t you. He manipulated you. This morning, they’d turned persistent. I’m coming over. We need closure.Please.
She hadn’t answered. What was there to say? ‘Sorry my lifelong love emotionally manipulated me into a sexually demonstrative breakup right in front of you, hope you enjoy the pastries?’ Eloise’s voice echoed in her head. Collateral damage.
The buzzer from the building’s intercom sliced through the silence, sharp and alarming.
Her heart lurched. It couldn’t be Colin; he had a key. Eloise would just yell up the stairwell. She walked to the panel, her hand hovering. “Hello?”
“Pen. It’s me.” Alfie’s voice was tinny through the speaker, thick with an emotion she couldn’t place. “Please. Just let me in for five minutes. To talk. I’ll leave after, I swear.”
Guilt, that old, familiar anchor, pulled at her. He did deserve to speak. She owed him that. Colin’s voice, possessive and low, whispered in her memory. He’s an inconvenience. But he was a person. A person she’d used as a placeholder for six months. A person she’d humiliated.
“Okay,” she said quietly, pressing the button to unlock the downstairs door.
She opened her flat door, waiting. Her palms were damp. She wore old leggings and one of Colin’s jumpers, the sleeves rolled. She looked like she belonged to someone, and she braced herself for Alfie’s reaction.
He looked worse than she’d imagined. The gentle neatness was gone. His sandy hair was unkempt, his eyes shadowed. He wore the same jacket from Sunday, wrinkled. He carried a bottle of wine—the nice Chablis she liked.
“You brought wine,” she said stupidly.
“A peace offering,” he said, offering a weak smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He stepped inside, his gaze sweeping the room, pausing on the sofa before flinching away. “Can I…?”
“Yeah. Of course.” She closed the door, leaning against it. “Alfie, I’m so—”
“Don’t.” He held up a hand. “Don’t apologize yet. Just… let me talk.” He set the wine on the coffee table and ran a hand through his hair. “I haven’t slept. I keep replaying it. The things he said. The things you… did.” He swallowed hard. “It felt like a nightmare. But the part I can’t get past, Pen, is that you wanted it. I saw your face. You weren’t a victim. You were a participant.”
She had no defense. It was true.
“I loved you,” he continued, his voice cracking. “Maybe it wasn’t some epic, dramatic thing. But it was real. I cared for you. I thought we were building something. And you… you were just waiting for him to snap his fingers.” His eyes met hers, full of a hurt so deep it was frightening. “I need to understand. Was any of it real? The dinners, the weekends away, meeting my parents… was I just a warm body until he decided to claim his property?”
“No,” she whispered, tears spilling over. “It wasn’t like that. I did care for you. I tried to move on. I wanted what we had to be enough.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“No.”
He nodded, as if confirming a terrible diagnosis. He looked broken. And then, something shifted in his expression. A desperation, a last-ditch attempt to salvage his pride, or maybe just to feel something other than this crushing defeat. He stepped closer. “One last time.”
She blinked. “What?”
“One last time. With me. Not with him watching, not as some… performance. Just you and me. A proper goodbye.” His voice dropped, pleading. “Let me have that memory instead of the other one. Please, Pen. For closure. Then I’ll go, and I’ll never bother you again. You can have your chaos.”
It was a terrible idea. A catastrophic idea. But the guilt was a physical weight on her chest. She had dismantled this good man. If this one, intimate act would give him peace, could she deny him? It felt like the least she could do, a twisted form of penance. Colin’s face flashed in her mind, his possessive fire. She pushed it away. This wasn’t about Colin. This was about cleaning up a mess she’d made.
“Okay,” she heard herself say, the word floating out of her on a breath of exhausted resignation.
Alfie’s eyes widened, then flooded with a mix of triumph and sorrow. He reached for her, his touch hesitant at first, then more assured as she didn’t pull away. He kissed her. It was familiar, gentle, nothing like Colin’s consuming fire. It tasted like goodbye and regret. She kissed him back, mechanically, her mind screaming at the wrongness of it.
He walked her backwards toward the bedroom, his hands moving to the hem of the jumper. “This is his, isn’t it?” he murmured against her lips.
She nodded, mute.
“Take it off.”
She obeyed, pulling it over her head, standing in her leggings and a simple bra. The air was cool on her skin. Alfie’s eyes traced her, but there was no heat in his gaze, only a sad determination. He kissed her again, his hands on her hips, guiding her down until she was sitting on the edge of the bed. He knelt before her.
The position sent a jolt of pure, undiluted dread through her. This was too intimate, too submissive. She saw his plan in his eyes. He wasn’t going to make love to her. He was going to try and reclaim a piece of her, in the way he thought might compete with the raw, graphic memory Colin had created.
“Alfie, wait—”
“Shhh,” he said, his hands going to the waistband of her leggings. “Just let me. Let me do this for you. One last time.”
He helped her out of them, his movements clinical. Then he leaned forward, his intention clear. He was going to put his mouth on her, a final, intimate act of service and possession. Penelope’s mind spiraled. She felt frozen, trapped in the tidal wave of her own poor decisions.
Just as his head dipped, the bedroom door, which had been slightly ajar, swung open.
Colin stood in the doorway.
He wasn’t in a meeting. He was here, still in his coat, his hair wild from the wind outside. His face was the colour of chalk, his green eyes wide, uncomprehending for a single, shattered second. Then they turned black.
Time stopped, crystallized in the horror of the scene: Alfie on his knees between her legs, her half-naked on the bed, the promise of a moment ago hanging in the air like poison.
Colin moved.
It wasn’t the controlled storm from the living room. This was pure, unfiltered rage. He crossed the room in two strides, his hand closing in the collar of Alfie’s shirt. He yanked him upwards and backwards with such force that Alfie cried out, stumbling, falling hard against the dresser with a crash.
Colin didn’t even look at him. His gaze was locked on Penelope, and the devastation in it was more terrifying than any anger. “You told him he could touch you?” The question was a bare, wounded thing.
“Colin, it wasn’t—”
“I saw what it was!” he roared, the sound raw enough to scrape the walls. He turned his fury on Alfie, who was pushing himself up, his face pale with shock. “You come into her home? After what you saw? You think you can just… just take what’s mine?” Colin’s voice trembled with a violence that seemed to shake the room.
Alfie, backed against the dresser, found his own anger. It was fueled by humiliation, by the sight of Colin’s undeniable claim stamped all over Penelope’s space, her skin. “Yours?” Alfie sneered, a reckless, broken courage in his eyes. “Is that what you tell yourself? You don’t own her. You just shout louder and break things. That’s not love, that’s vandalism. Do you even know how to make her feel good? Or do you just know how to make a mess?”
Colin went very still. The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
A new voice cut through from the hallway. “He’s not entirely wrong, you know.”
Eloise stood there, a grocery bag in one hand. She must have used her key. Her blue eyes were cool, analytical, taking in the scene: Colin vibrating with fury, Alfie defiant and terrified, Penelope shivering on the bed. “I brought soup,” Eloise said flatly. “Apparently, I’m an idiot.”
“Get out, Eloise,” Colin said, the words barely audible.
“Or what? You’ll break me, too? Like you break everything you touch when it comes to her?” Eloise dropped the bag by the door, stepping fully into the room. She looked at Alfie, not without pity. “You shouldn’t have come here. You’re poking a bear with a fresh wound.”
“He’s not a bear,” Alfie spat, his eyes on Colin. “He’s a child. A spoiled, violent child who’s never been told no. Can you even satisfy her, Colin? Or do you just fuck her like you’re trying to win a fight? Is that all you have? Brute force?”
The challenge hung in the air, toxic and direct. It wasn’t about sex. It was about competence. It was about Colin’s deepest, unspoken fear—that after all this, he wasn’t enough, that his love was too jagged, too destructive to truly give her what she needed.
Colin’s head turned slowly toward Eloise. His own sister. His gaze was terrifyingly empty. “You agree with him.”
Eloise crossed her arms. “I think your methodology is fucking appalling. I think you’re so consumed by your own feelings you’ve forgotten Pen is a person, not a trophy. And yeah, right now, you look like a brute. A very pretty, very jealous brute.”
A horrible, mirthless smile touched Colin’s lips. It was the most frightening expression Penelope had ever seen on him. “You want to see a brute, El?” He took a step toward her. “You want to defend him? To question what I can do? You think you understand any of this? You, with your notebooks and your righteous distance?”
Eloise didn’t back down. Her chin lifted. “I understand that love isn’t a hostage situation. Maybe if you fucked with half the passion you use for intimidating people, you wouldn’t have to worry about botanists in your bedroom.”
The words were a slap. Colin closed the distance between them in a heartbeat. He didn’t hit her. He grabbed her upper arms, his grip bruising. “You think you’re so clever. So above it all. You’ve been watching us for years, judging. Let’s see how clever you feel when you’re not watching. When you’re part of it.”
“Colin, no!” Penelope found her voice, scrambling off the bed.
Eloise’s eyes flashed with real fear for the first time, but also a perverse, challenging fire. “What are you going to do, Colin? Fuck me, too? If you think you can control me that way, try it. See what happens.”
It was a dare thrown into a powder keg.
Colin looked at her, at her defiant, mocking face, and something in him broke past a point of no return. This was no longer just about Penelope. This was about every challenge, every doubt, every person who stood between him and the obliterating truth of his need. He was going to burn it all down.
“Okay,” he said, softly.
He pushed her. Not hard, but with a decisive force that sent her stumbling back against the wall next to the bedroom door. Before she could recover, his hands were on the button of her jeans.
“Stop it!” Penelope cried, lunging forward.
Colin’s head snapped toward her. “You stay there,” he commanded, the authority in his voice absolute, glacial. “You made your choice when you let him kneel for you. Now you watch the consequences.”
Eloise was struggling, not with genuine physical resistance—Colin was too strong—but with shocked disbelief. “You’re insane! Get off—”
He yanked her jeans and underwear down in one rough motion, turning her to face the wall. He unzipped his own jeans. There was no preamble, no tenderness. It was punishment. It was dominance. It was answering Alfie’s challenge in the most brutally graphic way possible.
He drove into her.
Eloise cried out, a sharp, pained sound that was nothing like pleasure. Her hands slapped against the wallpaper, her body stiffening. “Don’t—Colin, please—”
He didn’t stop. His movements were hard, relentless, mechanical. His eyes were fixed on Alfie over Eloise’s shoulder. “You ask if I can satisfy her,” Colin gritted out, each thrust punctuating his words. “You ask what I have. This. This is what I have. The will to take what’s mine. The willingness to burn the whole world down. You think love is gentle? You think it’s polite? It’s this. It’s ugly. It’s real.”
Eloise was sobbing now, quiet, shattered sounds. “Stop. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Colin demanded, not slowing.
“For provoking you! For what I said!”
“Say it again. Say I’m a brute.”
“You’re a brute!” she wept.
“And whose brute am I?” His hand tangled in her short hair, pulling her head back.
“Hers!” Eloise gasped, the words torn from her. “You’re Penelope’s!”
Colin finally stilled, though he didn’t withdraw. He looked at Penelope, his chest heaving. The fury was still there, but it was mixed with a terrible, imploding grief. He released Eloise, who slumped against the wall, shaking.
He turned to Alfie, who stood paralyzed, his face a mask of horror and a shameful, undeniable arousal. The scene had broken something in him, too.
“On your knees,” Colin said to Penelope, his voice hoarse.
She was crying silently, tears streaming down her face. She moved slowly, her body numb, and knelt on the carpet.
“You, too,” Colin said to Eloise.
Eloise, after a moment of trembling hesitation, slowly sank to her knees beside Penelope, pulling her clothes up with clumsy, shaking hands.
They knelt side by side before Alfie, a mirrored image of submission. Colin stood behind them, a hand coming to rest on each of their heads, not a caress, but a brand.
“Tell him,” Colin said.
Penelope closed her eyes. The words were ashes, but they were the truth. The only truth left in the wreckage. “His is the only one I need,” she whispered.
“Louder.”
“His is the only one I need!” she cried, the admission tearing her open.
Colin’s fingers tightened slightly in her hair. He looked at Eloise. “You.”
Eloise’s breath hitched. She looked up at Alfie, her best friend’s ex, witnessing his total annihilation. Her voice was a broken thread. “He’s… he’s adequate. You’re not.”
“Say it properly,” Colin growled.
“Colin’s cock is the only one that matters,” Eloise choked out, the crude words sounding like a death knell for their old friendship. “You’re inadequate. We don’t need you.”
Alfie stared at them, the two women on their knees, claimed and broken by the same man. The last of his defiance drained away, leaving only a hollow, sick emptiness. He looked from their tear-streaked faces to Colin’s icy, triumphant gaze.
He was painfully, viscerally aroused. And utterly, finally defeated.
And utterly, finally defeated.
The silence that followed was a living thing, thick and suffocating. It was broken by the ragged sound of Eloise trying to steady her breathing, by the soft, helpless tears still tracking through Penelope’s freckles. Colin’s hands remained on their heads, a benediction and a shackle. Alfie just stared, his own arousal a visible, shameful curve in his trousers, his face slack with the understanding that he had been erased.
Then Penelope spoke. Her voice was wrecked, scraped raw from crying, but it cut through the room with a sharp, unexpected clarity.
“It wasn’t fair.”
Colin’s fingers twitched in her hair. “What?”
She tilted her head back to look up at him, ignoring the pull on her scalp. The tears made her vision swim, but her gaze was direct. “You were furious. About him.” She jerked her chin toward Alfie, who flinched. “About him almost… going down on me. But you just fucked Eloise. Against the wall. So how is that fair?”
The question hung there, absurd and profoundly logical in the carnage. It wasn’t about fairness in any normal sense. It was about the twisted economy of punishment and possession they were now operating within. Colin’s jaw worked. He looked from Penelope’s tear-streaked defiance to Eloise, who was trembling, her face pressed against her own knees, her shoulders hunched.
A different kind of tension seeped into the room. The blinding rage was receding, leaving behind a complicated, ugly mess of consequences. Colin’s gaze settled on his sister. The brutal, possessive fury that had driven him against her was gone, replaced by a dawning, sickened horror at his own actions. He had crossed a line that could never be uncrossed, and the person he’d dragged over it with him was his little sister.
He removed his hand from Penelope’s head. Slowly, as if moving through deep water, he crouched down beside Eloise. She flinched away from his touch.
“Eloise,” he said, his voice unrecognizable. It was stripped bare, hollow.
“Don’t,” she whispered into her knees.
“Look at me.”
She shook her head, a tight, frantic motion.
He didn’t force her. Instead, he sat fully on the floor, his back against the same wall he’d pinned her to. He didn’t touch her. He just sat there, close, his long legs bent, his head in his hands. The picture of abject ruin. “Christ,” he breathed, the word a prayer and a curse. “Eloise. I’m… I am so sorry. That should never have happened. I am a monster.”
A wet, shuddering sob escaped her. It was a sound of pure relief. An acknowledgment of the violation. Penelope watched, still on her knees, a strange detachment settling over her. Her own hurt was a cold stone in her stomach, but this—watching Colin shatter for Eloise—was something else.
“I can’t take it back,” he said, his voice cracking. “I can’t fix that. But… fuck.” He lifted his head, his eyes desperate. “Let me try. Please.”
Eloise slowly, slowly, lifted her face. It was blotchy, her mascara smudged into dark shadows. She looked ancient. “Try what?” Her voice was small, broken.
Colin didn’t answer with words. He moved with a new, excruciating slowness, a direct contrast to his earlier violence. He reached for her, his hands hovering, asking permission. She didn’t nod, but she didn’t pull away. He gently guided her to lie back on the carpet, his movements so careful they were almost reverent. He positioned himself between her legs, which were still tangled in her jeans around her ankles.
He looked up at her. “This is an apology,” he said, his tone deadly serious. “Nothing else. Just an apology.”
Then he bent his head.
He didn’t shove her thighs apart. He nudged them gently, making space. He pressed his mouth to her inner thigh first, a kiss so soft it was barely there. Then another, higher. His approach was agonizingly tender, a direct repudiation of everything that had come before. He used his lips, his tongue, the barest hint of his teeth, not to claim, but to soothe. To worship the space he had violated.
Eloise gasped, a sharp intake of breath that wasn’t fear. Her hands, which had been clenched at her sides, slowly unfurled, her fingers digging into the carpet pile. A low, broken sound escaped her as Colin’s mouth found her core. It wasn’t the frantic, performative act Alfie had attempted. This was meticulous. This was about listening. His tongue was a slow, wet stroke of atonement, circling, exploring with a focus that was entirely about her response, her pleasure, her comfort.
He was making her wet. Not with rough, hurried friction, but with a relentless, gentle patience that was somehow more devastating. He was apologizing with his mouth, rewriting the memory of dry, painful taking with one of giving, of exquisite, focused care. Eloise’s back arched off the floor, a silent, surrendering curve. One of her hands lifted, trembling, and settled in his hair, not to push or pull, but to anchor herself.
Penelope watched, the cold stone in her gut heating into a slow, burning jealousy. It was irrational, ugly, but it was there. He was giving Eloise this. This tenderness. This repair. What was he giving her? A command to kneel. A front-row seat.
Colin’s eyes were closed, his entire being concentrated on the task. Eloise was making soft, helpless noises, her earlier tears of pain morphing into something else entirely. Her hips began to move, just a subtle rocking, meeting the rhythm of his tongue. It was the most intimate thing Penelope had ever witnessed, and she was utterly outside of it.
Colin lifted his head for a moment, his lips glistening. “Okay?” he murmured, his voice rough.
Eloise could only nod, a frantic little movement. He returned to her, his technique deepening, becoming more assured. He found a rhythm that made her cry out, her thighs tightening around his head. He was bringing her to climax with a selfless dedication that was the absolute antithesis of the man who had taken her against the wall minutes before.
It was then that Colin turned his head. His eyes, dark and intense, found Penelope’s over Eloise’s trembling body. The connection was electric, a live wire strung between them in the wreckage. In his gaze, she saw the complexity of it all: the apology to his sister, the unbroken possession of her, the madness that still held him. He didn’t stop what he was doing to Eloise. He held Penelope’s stare as he made his sister come.
Eloise’s climax was quiet, a series of shuddering gasps that shook her whole frame. Colin gentled her through it, his movements slowing to soft, lingering kisses until she went limp, her hand falling from his hair to splay on the carpet, spent.
Only then did Colin look away from Penelope. He pressed a final, chaste kiss to Eloise’s inner thigh before sitting back on his heels. He looked wrecked, beautiful, and utterly in control again.
His gaze shifted to Alfie, who had been standing frozen, a forgotten statue in the corner of the room. Alfie’s face was a canvas of tortured arousal and profound shame. He had just watched Colin destroy a woman and then worship her back into coherence, all while maintaining a searing connection with the woman he truly loved. It was a masterclass in psychosexual dominance, and Alfie was utterly, hopelessly outmatched.
“You wanted a taste,” Colin said to Alfie, his voice quiet but carrying the weight of the room. It wasn’t a question.
Alfie’s throat worked. He nodded, a jerky, pathetic motion.
“One last taste,” Colin amended, his tone leaving no room for negotiation. “That’s it. You get three licks. One on her slit. One on her clit. One at her entrance. That’s your goodbye. Then you walk out that door and you never look back. You never call. You never text. You cease to exist. Understood?”
Alfie’s eyes were wide, hungry, defeated. He nodded again.
“Penelope,” Colin said, not looking at her. “Come here. Kneel by the bed.”
The order was a bucket of cold water. The warmth of watching him pleasure Eloise, even through her jealousy, vanished. She was being put back on display. A consolation prize for the loser. She moved stiffly, her body aching, and knelt as instructed, facing Alfie. The carpet fibers scratched her knees.
Colin stayed where he was, near Eloise’s feet, a spectator now. A king allowing a beggar a scrap from his table. “Go on,” he said to Alfie, his voice devoid of emotion.
Alfie approached like a man going to the gallows. He sank to his knees before Penelope, his eyes huge and pleading. He didn’t look at her face. His entire world had narrowed to the space between her legs. He leaned in, his breath hot and shaky.
The first lick was a long, slow drag up her center. It was clumsy, desperate. It held none of Colin’s artistry, only a sad, hungry longing. Penelope closed her eyes, disconnecting. She felt nothing but a vague, clinical wetness.
“Clit,” Colin instructed from across the room.
Alfie’s tongue found the sensitive nub, circling once, twice. It was too direct, too rough. Penelope flinched, her body refusing to respond. It was just a muscle, performing a function.
“Entrance,” Colin said, his voice a low thrum.
Alfie obeyed, his tongue pressing, kitten-soft, at her opening. A beggar at the gate. He lingered there, a soft, pleading sound escaping him. He pulled back, his eyes desperate. “Please. Let me… let me tongue fuck her. Just once. Please, Colin.”
“No.” The denial was flat, absolute.
Alfie’s shoulders slumped. He looked broken. Then, a last, wild hope lit his eyes. “Her asshole. Just one lick. There. Please. One lick on her asshole and I’ll go. I swear to God.”
A beat of silence. Penelope’s eyes flew open. She stared at Colin, horrified. He met her gaze, his own unreadable. He was weighing it. The final humiliation, the ultimate claim. A place Alfie had never been, would never be again. A brand.
“Fine,” Colin said.
The word was a nail in a coffin. Alfie sobbed in relief, a choked, ugly sound. He shuffled forward on his knees, his hands coming up to grip Penelope’s hips to steady himself. He leaned in, his tongue, warm and wet, swiping a firm, deliberate stripe over her other hole.
It was over in a second. The intimacy of it was grotesque, a violation that had nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with power. Alfie sat back on his heels, his chest heaving. He looked from the place he’d just kissed to Penelope’s blank face, to Colin’s impassive one. The transaction was complete.
“Now get out,” Colin said, softly.
Alfie didn’t need to be told twice. He scrambled to his feet, fumbling with his clothes, not meeting anyone’s eyes. He staggered from the bedroom, his footsteps hurried in the hall, followed by the sound of the front door opening and closing with a soft, final click.
The silence he left behind was different. It was exhausted. It was full of the things they had done to each other.
Penelope stayed on her knees, trembling. The frustration was a live wire inside her now, buzzing and sharp. She had watched Colin give Eloise a soul-shaking orgasm as an apology. She had been given to Alfie like a human pity-party platter, three clinical licks and a demeaning swipe that left her cold and empty. The injustice of it was a bitter pill on her tongue.
Colin stood up. He walked over to her, his movements tired. He offered her a hand. She ignored it, pushing herself up on shaky legs.
“Don’t,” she said, her voice trembling with a new kind of anger. “Don’t touch me.”
He dropped his hand, his expression wary. “Pen—”
“You made her come,” she whispered, the accusation sharp in the quiet room. “You were so gentle. You apologized to her. What was that for me? Huh? What was my apology? Letting him… letting him do that? While you watched?”
“It was what he needed to leave,” Colin said, but his voice lacked conviction.