Chapter 97: The Book Club Arrival
The check, crisp and heavy, burned a hole in the pocket of her tailored trousers as Amber navigated the winding, tree-lined streets of Queen Anne back toward the highway. The sky had bruised into a deep indigo, Charlotte’s skyline now a glittering bar graph of ambition against the dusk. Her hands, resting on the steering wheel, showcased the precise, glittering ombré she’d done on herself that morning—a walking advertisement. But her mind replayed a different loop: the cool weight of Marcus’s palm, the deliberate slide of his fingers against hers as he passed the paper, the unspoken currency in his eyes that had nothing to do with the amount written.
For the exceptional service.
She’d smiled, professional and polished, retrieving her hand as if from a faint electric current. “Thank you, Mr. Harrington. Enjoy your evening.”
The air in the car felt thin. She rolled down the window, letting the humid night rush in. She didn’t feel violated. She felt seen in a way that was clinical and hot all at once—a specimen of both craft and appetite under the gold chandeliers. It sharpened her focus to a needlepoint. The text to Kash had been a flare, a warning shot across the bow of their shared space. Propositioned. She hadn’t elaborated. She wanted to see the shape his reaction would take in person.
The penthouse elevator chimed its ascension. When the doors slid open, the air was different. The packing chaos had been pushed to the periphery. The lights were low. Kash stood at the living room window, his back to her, a silhouette against the city. He held a glass of amber liquid, ice cubes clinking softly as he turned.
He didn’t speak. His eyes traveled over her, from the elegant knot of her hair down to her heels, then back to her face. The silence was a live wire.
“So,” he finally said, his voice deceptively mild. “How was book club?”
She let her kit bag slide from her shoulder to the floor with a soft thump. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the folded check, and walked toward him. She held it out, not letting go when his fingers closed around it.
“Twelve hundred dollars,” she said, watching his face. “For five hours of work.”
He unfolded it with one hand, his gaze dropping to the amount, then to the florid signature: Marcus Harrington. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “He write this himself?”
“Pressed it into my hand.” She released the check. “His fingers made a point of it.”
Kash stared at the paper as if it were a confession. Then he slowly, deliberately, tore it in half. The rip was shockingly loud. He didn’t break her gaze as he let the pieces flutter to the floor between them.
“We don’t need his money,” he said, the mildness gone, replaced by a low, tectonic rumble.
“I know.” A thrill, dangerous and dark, spiraled up her spine. This was what she’d come home for. This fire.
He took a step closer. The scent of his cologne and something fiercer, purely male, washed over her. “What did he say to you?”
“Nothing explicit. It was all in the delivery. The look.” She held her ground. “He watched me the whole time. Like he was assessing a cut of meat he might want to buy.”
Kash’s free hand came up, his thumb brushing along her jawline, a touch that was both tender and threatening. “And what did you do?”
“I gave his wife the most spectacular fucking stiletto ombré of her life.” Amber’s smile was all sharp edges. “I charged him a premium for the privilege of watching me work. And I left.”
The glass in his hand found a side table with a definitive click. His other hand fisted in the silk of her blouse, not at the collar, but at her waist, bunching the fabric. “He wanted to have you in that pretty room. With all those books and all that money on the walls.”
“Yes.”
He leaned in, his lips a breath from her ear. “But you’re here. With me. Smelling like another man’house and looking like a fucking dream he’ll never touch.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. He kissed her, and it was nothing like the kisses in the shower or on the sofa. This was a brand. A punishment and a pledge. His tongue dominated her mouth, his teeth catching her lower lip hard enough to make her gasp. She met him with equal ferocity, her nails digging into the hard muscles of his forearms.
He broke the kiss, breathing raggedly. “Strip. Right here. I want to see what he saw.”
Her fingers trembled only slightly as she complied. The blouse first, the buttons slipping free. Then the trousers, the whisper of fabric pooling at her feet. The lace bra, the matching panties. She stood before him in the dim light from the window, her skin pebbling in the air-conditioned chill, her body a confident curve against the city’s geometric glow.
Kash’s eyes were black pits of possession. “Turn around.”
She turned, facing the window, seeing the ghost of her reflection and his larger, darker form behind her. He closed the distance, his body heat searing her back. His hands slid around to cup her breasts, his thumbs scraping over her nipples through the lace. He unhooked the bra with a swift, practiced tug, letting it fall away. His palms were rough on her bare skin.
“He imagined this,” Kash growled, his mouth on her neck, sucking a mark that would bloom purple by morning. “He sat in his leather chair and watched your hands move and pictured them on his dick. Pictured these tits in his face.” He pinched her nipples, hard, making her cry out. “But they’re mine. This cunt is mine.” One hand slid down her stomach, past the waistband of her lace panties. He didn’t caress. He plunged two fingers inside her, finding her already slick, hot, and clenched. “Even thinking about him gets you wet for me, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” she choked out, humping back against his hand, the crude words and the invasion coalescing into a single, blinding point of need.
“Filthy fucking girl.” He withdrew his fingers, slick and glistening, and shoved her panties down her thighs. “Bend over. Hands on the glass.”
She leaned forward, her palms flat and cool against the window overlooking the city Marcus Harrington probably felt he owned a piece of. The vulnerability was absolute, her back arched, her ass exposed to the room. She heard the rasp of his zipper, the rustle of clothing being shoved aside.
He didn’t enter her gently. He guided the thick, blunt head of his cock to her entrance and pushed in with a single, relentless thrust that buried him to the hilt. The stretch was exquisite, a filling burn that made her see stars. He groaned, a deep, shuddering sound of triumph.
“This is what he wanted,” Kash snarled, pulling almost all the way out before slamming back in. The impact jolted her forward, her forehead touching the cool glass. “He wanted to be the one splitting this pretty pussy open in his clean, quiet house.” He set a brutal, driving pace, each thrust a punctuation mark on his words. “But you’re here. Taking my dick like you were made for it. Because you were.”
She was reduced to sound, to sensation. Each slam reverberated through her bones, melted her thoughts. The city lights blurred into streaks. She could only grip the window frame and take it, her own arousal soaking the lengths of her thighs. The obscenity of their position—naked, fucking against a window in a penthouse they were leaving, with the ghost of a wealthy man’s leer still hanging in the air—drove her higher.
“Tell me who you belong to,” he demanded, his hand fisting in her hair, pulling her head back to arch her spine further.
“You!” she screamed, the word torn from her.
“Louder.”
“YOU! KASH! ONLY YOU!” Her voice cracked.
He released her hair, his arm banding around her waist, holding her up as his rhythm became erratic, animalistic. “Come for me. Now. Show me what’s mine.”
His free hand found her clit, his fingers rough and demanding, circling the swollen nub in time with his piston-like drives. It was too much. The coil snapped. Her orgasm detonated, a white-hot convulsion that clenched around his invading length with a violence that made him shout. She shook apart, her vision tunneling, her cries muffled against the glass.
Feeling her internal muscles milk him, Kash lost all control. With a final, brutal plunge, he buried himself as deep as he could go and let go. A raw, guttural roar ripped from his throat as he pulsed into her, hot and endless, claiming her depths with each jet of his release. He collapsed over her, his weight pressing her against the window, both of them slick with sweat, breathing in shattered rasps.
For a long minute, there was only the sound of their lungs fighting for air and the distant hum of the city below. Slowly, he softened and slipped out of her. A trail of their mingled fluids dripped down her inner thigh.
He turned her around, his hands framing her face. His eyes searched hers, the fury banked, replaced by a weary, profound intensity. “You okay?”
She nodded, her body still humming, her legs unsteady. “Yeah.”
He kissed her, softer now, a seal. Then he bent, picking up his discarded shirt, and gently wiped between her legs. The act was so tender it made her throat tighten. He tossed the soiled shirt aside and pulled her into his arms, just holding her as their heartbeats slowed.
“We’re leaving this city tomorrow,” he murmured into her hair. “That check is trash. That man is nothing. All this glass and steel…” He looked out at the view. “It’s just a backdrop.”
She rested her head on his chest, listening to the steady drum of his heart. The encounter with Marcus Harrington, which had felt so charged hours ago, now seemed small and distant, a speck on the rearview mirror. Kash had absorbed it, weaponized it, and incinerated it in their shared heat.
“I know,” she said. She looked past his shoulder, at the torn halves of the check on the floor. A thought, clear and calm, formed. “But the money was good. The principle is better.”
He looked down at her, a question in his eyes.
A slow smile spread across her lips. She disentangled herself, walked naked to where the check lay, and picked up the pieces. She carried them to the grand, unused fireplace. She knelt, took a match from the mantel, and struck it.
The flame caught the edge of the paper, curling it black before blooming orange. She dropped the pieces onto the grate. They watched together as Marcus Harrington’s twelve-hundred-dollar signature dissolved into ash.
“There,” Amber said, rising. “Now we’re done.”
Kash pulled her back against him, his chin resting on her head. They watched the embers die. The last thread, the final transaction, severed and burned. The penthouse was already a shell. Their future was waiting, a thousand miles away, in the scent of lake water and fresh lumber.
“Let’s go to bed,” he said. “We have an early flight.”
In the darkness of their bedroom, surrounded by half-empty suitcases, he pulled her close. His hands were just hands now, touching her without frenzy. His mouth was just a mouth, seeking hers in a quiet, lingering kiss. The storm had passed. What remained in its wake was a deep, solid calm, the kind that could build a home upon.
What remained in its wake was a deep, solid calm, the kind that could build a home upon. They lay tangled in the rumpled sheets, skin cooling, breathing synchronized. Amber traced the ridges of Kash’s knuckles where they rested on her hip. The city’s nocturnal glow painted silver lines across the floorboards, over the stacked boxes and zipped suitcases. It was the first true silence she’d felt in weeks, a vacuum where the buzz of leaving had finally stopped.
Then her body, spent and sated, tensed with a new, primal signal.
It was too quiet.
Not the peaceful quiet of sleep. This was an oppressive, hollow stillness. Her breasts, full and tender, ached with a sudden, physical reminder. She hadn’t fed the twins before her appointment. Kash was supposed to. Her head lifted from his chest.
“Kash.” Her voice was a crack in the silence.
“Hmm?” He sounded drowsy, his hand stroking her arm.
“Where are the babies?”
His hand stilled. A beat passed. Then he was upright, the sheets pooling at his waist. “They’re… they’re in the nursery. Asleep. I put them down before you got home.”
“You didn’t bring them in here? Not even once?” She was already swinging her legs out of bed, her heart beginning a hard, frantic drum against her ribs. She never slept through their nighttime fussing. Never. They were eight months old. They woke. They needed. The silence was wrong.
“I was finishing the crating for the artwork,” he said, his voice tighter now, edged with a dawning realization. “I checked on them. They were out.”
Amber didn’t wait. She was on her feet, snatching Kash’s discarded t-shirt from the floor and pulling it over her head. It smelled of him and sex. She padded barefoot out of the bedroom, down the hall, her steps quickening with each silent stride. The nursery door was ajar, a slice of darkness beyond.
She pushed it open. The nightlight, a soft glow shaped like a moon, illuminated two empty cribs.
The sheets were rumpled, the small, knitted blankets they loved were tossed aside. The room held the faint, sweet scent of baby shampoo and nothing else. No soft snuffles. No rustle of a sleeping body.
“Sidnee? Sincere?” Her whisper was a torn thing in the empty room.
Kash was behind her now, a solid wall of tension. She felt him freeze. “They were here. I swear to God, Amber, I put them down right here.”
“When?” She whirled on him, the fear turning sharp, accusatory.
“Maybe… four? Four-thirty? You texted you were on your way. I was in a zone, wrapping that damn sculpture.” He ran a hand over his face, the gesture stark with rising panic. “I thought they’d sleep through. They’ve been cranky with the change, I thought they were exhausted.”
“Four-thirty?” Her voice climbed. “Kash, it’s past ten! You haven’t checked on them in almost six hours?” The math was a cold blade. Six hours. In a strange, half-packed apartment. Her mind conjured horrors: silent choking, a limb caught, a fever spiking unseen.
“I got distracted!” he shot back, the guilt morphing into defensive anger. “You came home with that shit on your mind, with that check in your pocket–”
“Don’t you dare!” she hissed, shoving past him back into the hall. “This is not about that. This is about our children. Where are they?”
The penthouse, so vast and sleek, suddenly felt like a labyrinth of shadows. They split up, the earlier intimacy obliterated by a cold, sucking dread. “Sidnee! Baby!” Amber called, her voice breaking as she threw open the door to the second guest bathroom, then the walk-in pantry.Nothing. Only the hum of the refrigerator.
“Check the living room!” Kash barked, his footsteps heavy as he moved toward his study.
Amber ran. The living room was a cavern of geometric shadows cast by the furniture covers. The huge sectional, the floor-to-ceiling windows. No small, bundled forms. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps. “Sincere! Mama’s here!”
Then she saw it. The sliding door to the terrace, the one that led to the rarely-used rooftop patio, was not fully closed. A two-inch gap let in a sliver of the night breeze, making the sheer curtain whisper and flutter.
Her blood turned to ice.
“Kash!” The name was a scream ripped from her throat.
He was beside her in seconds, following her stricken gaze to the door. His face went pale. “No. No, they can’t…”
But the door was heavy. Too heavy for an eight-month-old. Unless it hadn’t been latched. Unless Kash, hauling boxes, had left it unsecured. The patio was safe, walled, but there were planters, ledges, the thin night air.
He reached the door first, yanking it fully open. The Charlotte night, humid and thick, rushed in. The patio was lit by low, recessed lighting along the floor. And there, in the far corner, half-hidden behind a large potted olive tree, was a nest.
Two portable bassinets, the ones they used for travel, had been pulled from a storage closet and placed side-by-side on the expensive outdoor rug. And inside them, swaddled in lightweight muslin blankets, slept Sidnee and Sincere. Their chests rose and fell in peaceful, untroubled rhythm. A baby monitor, its green light pulsing softly, sat on the patio table beside a half-empty bottle of whiskey and Kash’s laptop, screen dark.
Amber’s knees nearly buckled. She stumbled forward, falling to her knees between the two bassinets. She pressed her fingers to Sidnee’s warm neck, then Sincere’s, feeling the steady, strong beats of their hearts. They were fine. They were perfect. Deeply, dreamlessly asleep under the stars.
Kash stood frozen in the doorway, his expression unreadable. Then he moved, slowly, to the table. He picked up the monitor, then the whiskey bottle. He looked from the screen of his laptop to the sleeping babies, then back to Amber’s terrified, furious face.
“You brought them out here?” Her whisper was venomous. “You left them out here, alone, while you drank?”
“They weren’t alone!” he said, his own voice low and ragged. “I was right here. The monitor was on. I had the audio. I could hear every breath.”
“Outside, Kash? It’s windy! It’s… it’s not their room!”
“Their room is a fucking box!” he exploded, the words a violent, suppressed truth finally rupturing. He gestured wildly back toward the penthouse. “It’s all boxes! It smells like tape and dust! They were fussing, Amber. Really fussing. I tried everything. I walked them, I fed them, I rocked them. They wouldn’t settle. They know. They feel the chaos.”
He took a step closer, his eyes blazing with a desperate conviction. “So I brought them out here. Where the air is real. Where they could see the sky. I sat right there,” he pointed to the chair, “and I watched them. The sound of the city, the breeze… it knocked them out in five minutes. They haven’t slept that deep in days.”
Amber looked from his tormented face to her peacefully sleeping infants. The logic was insane. Reckless. And yet, she saw the truth in it. The nursery was a dismantled shell. The twins had been irritable. And here they were, in a profound, untroubled sleep she hadn’t seen since they’d started packing.
The fury drained from her, leaving a shaky, hollowed-out relief. It mixed with a residual, terrifying anger. “You should have told me. The second I walked in. ‘The babies are on the patio.’ You should have said it.”
“I know.” He sank into the chair, the fight gone. He looked shattered. “I got… lost. In my head. With you coming home, with that man… I just wanted them quiet. I wanted something to be calm. This worked. And then I forgot to close the door all the way when I came in to grab my drink. I’m sorry. Jesus Christ, Amber, I’m so sorry.”
She believed him. The care was there—the bassinets, the monitor, the blankets. The reckless, poetic thoughtfulness of it was pure Kash. But the oversight, the open door, the six unaccounted-for hours, were a chasm of neglect neither of them could ignore.
She didn’t touch him. She carefully gathered Sidnee into her arms, then Sincere, holding them both tight against the thin cotton of the t-shirt. Their warm, heavy weight was the only anchor in the world. “We’re putting them in our room. In the pack-and-play. Where we can see them, touch them, all night.”
He just nodded, staring at his hands.
She turned and carried her children back inside, away from the vast, starlit sky, into the enclosed, imperfect safety of walls. Kash followed a moment later, a bassinet under each arm. They didn’t speak as they set up the temporary crib in the corner of their bedroom. They didn’t speak as they settled the twins, who barely stirred.
Amber climbed back into bed, watching the gentle rise and fall of two small backs. Kash lay down beside her, not touching her. The space between them was now measured in more than inches. It was measured in the terrifying width of an open door.
The calm from before was gone. In its place was a raw, tremulous awareness of how fragile it all was—the children, their trust, this entire precarious future they were hurtling toward. The momentum of their leaving now felt different. It wasn’t an escape. It was a flight, and they were carrying the most fragile cargo imaginable.