Chapter 24: Calls
The silence after he said “three more days” had stretched, grown teeth, and fed on the air between them. They’d ordered room service, eaten fruit without tasting it, and the sun had climbed to its merciless zenith. The villa was too quiet, a pristine cage.
Her phone, charging on the nightstand, buzzed with a familiar, jarring tone. The screen lit up: Rohan Calling...
Anya froze, a piece of papaya halfway to her lips. Sid watched her from across the table, his expression unreadable. The buzzing was an accusation.
“Ignore it,” he said, his voice low.
It went to voicemail. The silence returned, thicker. Then it started buzzing again. Rohan Calling...
“He’ll worry,” she said, more to herself than to him. She wiped her hands on a napkin, heart thudding. She answered.
“Hey, you!” Rohan’s voice was bright, tinny through the speaker. “Finally! I’ve been trying. How’s paradise?”
Sid stood up. He walked around the table with a predator’s quiet grace. Anya’s breath hitched. He knelt before her chair, his hands sliding up her bare thighs, pushing the thin silk of her robe apart.
“It’s… beautiful,” Anya managed, forcing lightness into her voice. Sid’s mouth was on her inner thigh, his stubble scratching. She clenched her jaw.
“That’s my girl. Miss you. Wish I was there.”
Sid’s tongue licked a slow, torturous path. His eyes locked on hers. He mouthed the word quiet.
“Miss you too,” she whispered, the lie sour on her tongue. Sid’s thumbs hooked into her underwear, dragging them down her legs. She shifted to help him, a helpless, traitorous movement.
“What are you up to today? Going to snorkel?”
Sid’s head dipped between her legs. His tongue, hot and flat, pressed against her. Her free hand flew to his hair, not to push him away, but to fist in it. A sharp gasp escaped her before she could swallow it.
“Anya? You okay?”
“Fine—just… stubbed my toe. On the… bedpost.” She was trembling. Sid’s tongue was relentless, circling her clit, then plunging deep, then circling again. Wet, obscene sounds, mercifully muffled by her body and the phone. Pleasure coiled, tight and dangerous. She was swelling under his mouth, betraying her with a slick, eager heat.
“Clumsy,” Rohan laughed. “So, snorkeling?”
Sid inserted a finger, then two, crooking them inside her. His mouth sealed over her clit and sucked. Her vision blurred. She bit down on her own knuckle to stifle a moan.
“Y-yes. Maybe. Later.” The words were ragged. Sid added a third finger, stretching her, fucking her with them in a steady rhythm that matched the work of his tongue. It was too much. She was going to come, on the phone with her boyfriend, with her boss’s face buried in her cunt.
“You sound out of breath. You at the gym there or something?”
“Yes,” she choked out. “Yes. On the… treadmill.”
Sid redoubled his efforts. His other hand gripped her hip, holding her down as she began to buck against his mouth. The orgasm broke over her, violent and silent, a seizure of pleasure that ripped through her center and radiated out to her fingertips. She shook, her throat locked in a silent scream, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
“Wow, good for you. Anyway, I’ll let you go. Love you.”
She couldn’t speak. Sid’s tongue was gentle now, lapping at her, prolonging the shudders.
“Love you too,” she forced out, and ended the call. The phone clattered from her numb fingers onto the table.
Sid rose, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He was hard, his erection straining against his shorts. He looked down at her, flushed and ruined in the chair. There was no triumph in his eyes. Only a hollow, shared sickness.
“Get on the bed,” he said.
They fucked in a furious, wordless haze afterwards, a futile attempt to obliterate the call, the voice, the guilt. It was rough, almost angry, and when they finished, they fell into an exhausted, dreamless sleep as the afternoon sun bled across the floor.
It was dusk when his phone rang.
The shrill, proprietary tone carved through the hazy silence. Sid stirred, groaning, and fumbled for it on his bedside table. The screen’s light illuminated the sharp planes of his face. Priya Home.
He answered, his voice instantly smoothing into the easy, affectionate baritone he reserved for her. “Hey, darling.”
Anya lay beside him, still, listening. The sound of his wife’s voice, cheerful and distant, was a splinter of glass in her ear.
“No, no, it’s fine. You woke me from a nap, actually. Jetlag’s a killer.” He ran a hand over his face. Priya said something, and he chuckled. “Yeah, the meetings went well. Very productive.”
As he spoke, he turned his head. His eyes found Anya’s in the dark. They were black, unreadable. His free hand reached out, tracing the line of her arm, her shoulder. He cupped her breast, thumb brushing her nipple. She flinched.
“Mmhmm. Thinking of you too,” Sid said into the phone, his voice a warm lie. His hand drifted down her stomach, through the coarse hair, and his fingers slid inside her. They were still slick from their earlier sex. She was swollen, sensitive. She clenched around him.
“Oh, absolutely,” Sid continued, his conversation effortless. “We should circle back to that when I’m home. The vendor situation needs a firm hand.” His fingers pumped slowly, deeply. Anya pressed her lips together, her body arching involuntarily. “I’ve had to be very… hands-on here. Assess core competencies directly.”
He withdrew his fingers and shifted his body. In one movement, he rolled on top of her, his weight pinning her. He never broke his conversational flow. “No, don’t worry about it. I’ve got it under control.”
He guided himself into her. She was impossibly tight, still tender. He pushed in with a single, relentless thrust, seating himself to the hilt. Anya’s gasp was swallowed by the pillow.
“Yeah, the team is great. Very motivated.” He began to move, a slow, deep, punishing rhythm. Each withdrawal was almost complete, each thrust a full, claiming penetration. The bed creaked. “Anya? She’s… performing beyond expectations. A real asset.”
His words, spoken so casually to his wife, while his cock split her open, were the most debasing thing she had ever experienced. She turned her face away, but he caught her chin, forcing her to look at him. His eyes were hard. Watch, they seemed to say. Watch this happen.
“I miss you,” he said to Priya, his voice softening with a practiced, wifely tenderness. He sped up, driving into Anya with more force. The slap of skin, the wet sound of their joining, filled the space around his honeyed lies. “Can’t wait to be home. Love you. Bye.”
He ended the call and dropped the phone onto the sheets. The civilized mask vanished. What was left was raw, feral need.
“You hear that?” he grunted, his pace turning brutal. “She misses me.” He slammed into her. “She loves me.”
Anya couldn’t take it. The emotional violence of it shattered her. A sob wrenched itself from her throat.
“Shut up,” he snarled, his hand covering her mouth. “You don’t get to cry. You don’t get to feel wronged.” He was fucking her into the mattress, a mechanical, hateful motion. “You’re just a fuck. A convenient, tight little fuck. Tell me that’s all you are.”
She shook her head beneath his hand, tears streaming.
“Say it!” he roared, his control snapping.
“I’m just a fuck!” she screamed against his palm, the words muffled, broken.
He came with a savage groan, pouring into her, his body collapsing. He rolled off immediately, leaving her feeling empty, defiled, and dripping.
They lay in the dark, two ruined things on expensive linen. The only sound was their ragged breathing, and the eternal, indifferent whisper of the ocean beyond the villa.
Two more days. The sentence had become a life term.