Chapter 3: A Call Across the Ocean
The rain was a constant, misting drizzle that coated the base in a fine, oily sheen. It beaded on the windows of the briefing room, distorting the view of concrete barriers and parked Humvees into grey blobs. Inside, the air was warm with the smell of wet wool, industrial cleaner, and the bitter tang of stale coffee from a pot that had been burning for hours.
Simon stood at the back, arms crossed, his gaze fixed on a map of a region he’d been to three times before. The briefing officer’s voice was a monotone drone about local liaisons and fuel depot security. Routine stuff. Mundane, even. His body was here, in Surrey, but his mind was two places at once: back in a colorful classroom smelling of glue, and in a hotel room that smelled of her.
“Something on your mind, LT?” a voice muttered beside him.
Gaz, leaned against the wall, was watching him with that perceptive calm of his. Soap, on Gaz’s other side, was actually taking notes, for once.
“No,” Simon grunted.
“Right. You’ve just got the look of a man who’s mentally disassembling and cleaning a carbine for the third time today. Which you did. Physically.”
Simon didn’t answer. The briefing ended with a shuffle of chairs. They filed out into the corridor, the echo of boots on linoleum a familiar percussion.
“How’s the lad?” Soap asked, falling into step. “Survived his first week of academia?”
“He’s fine. Loves it, apparently.” The words felt thick. She’s proper nice, Dad.
“That’s good,” Gaz said, leading them towards the mess. “Means you’re doing it right.”
“Making up for lost time,” Simon corrected, the old bitterness a familiar coat he put on. “First two years, I didn’t even know he existed. Now I know, so I’m there. Simple maths.”
“Bullshit maths,” Soap said bluntly. They grabbed trays, the clatter of cutlery and the murmur of a hundred other conversations forming a bubble of noise around them. “You’re there because you’re his dad. Not to balance a ledger. Nichole still using that to her advantage?”
Simon stabbed a piece of rubbery chicken. A week ago, he’d gotten a text. Since you’re so keen on being ‘active parent’ now, you won’t mind if I pop to Ibiza for a fortnight? Xx. Followed by the formal email with the revised custody schedule. He’d just written back Fine. What else was there? If he objected, she’d weaponize his absence, his job, his previous ignorance. He was trapped in her narrative, where his current effort was just penance, not parenthood.
“She does what she wants,” he said finally, pushing his plate away. “She always has.”
Gaz sat back, studying him. “And you let her, because you think you owe it to the boy. To be the stable one. To never say no to more time.” He took a sip of water. “He knows, you know. Kids always know who the reliable one is. He’s not clinging to her, is he? He’s clinging to you.”
Simon remembered Oliver’s small hand in his, the silent walk to the school gate each morning. The way his son’s eyes scanned the playground until they found Miss Mensah, then the subtle relaxation. He was the safe harbour. The knowledge was a point of pride and a crushing weight.
“He shouldn’t have to cling,” Simon said, his voice low.
“So change the posting,” Gaz said, his tone casual, like he was suggesting a different route to the motorway. “Request a post with more stability. Training cadre. Logistics. Something that doesn’t have you bouncing out the door with two days' notice for six months.”
The idea sat between them, humming like a live wire. It was the logical move. The father move. It was also a kind of surrender. This life, this unit, this specific, hard-edged purpose—it was the only identity he’d had before Oliver crashed into it. Taking a desk job felt like amputating a part of himself.
“And do what?” Simon asked, but it wasn’t a real question. It was fear.
“Be there,” Soap said, shrugging. “You’re clearly the favorite parent. Stop using the shit one as an excuse to beat yourself up. Build a life the kid can actually count on.”
Build a life. The phrase echoed. It implied foundations. A home that wasn’t a temporary rental. Routines that lasted longer than a leave period. It implied possibility. The image of Yaa Mensah, laughing as she swept up glitter, flashed again. That was part of a life. A warm, bright, sticky part he had no right to even consider.
Later, in the gym, he tried to pummel the thoughts into submission. The heavy bag swung violently on its chain with each punishing blow, the impacts shuddering up his wrists and into his elbows. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Each strike was a punctuation mark. Nichole’s smile. Oliver’s worried eyes on his first day. Yaa, bending over in that classroom, the memory so vivid it was a physical ache.
“Alright, easy on the equipment, you great brute,” a familiar voice called.
Soap was leaning on the squat rack, grinning. “You’re picturing someone’s face on that bag. Hope it’s not mine.”
Simon stopped, chest heaving, sweat dripping from his brow onto the faded canvas. He grabbed his water bottle, drinking deeply.
“Just thinking.”
“Dangerous pastime,” Soap said. “Look, about that posting. Gaz isn’t wrong. You’re different now. Since you found out about the kid. Better, maybe. Less… surgically removed from the human race. But you’re also splitting yourself in half. That’s no good for him, and it’s a fucking liability out here.”
“I’m focused on the job.”
“You’re distracted. I saw you in that briefing. You were a thousand miles away. Probably at a bloody parents’ evening.” Soap’s grin faded into something more serious. “I’m not having a go. I’m saying… choose. Really choose. Be all in here, or be all in there. This halfway shit will get you knacked.”
Simon wiped his face with a towel. The truth of it was a cold stone in his gut. He was distracted. He’d nearly missed a cue during a drill yesterday because he was wondering if Oliver had remembered his water bottle. A small, stupid error. Here, small errors had consequences with capital letters.
He took a shower in the stark, tiled room, the water almost scalding. It didn’t cleanse the feeling. He dressed in fresh fatigues, the fabric stiff and impersonal. His phone, stored in his locker, buzzed as he pulled it out.
A photo. Oliver, in what looked like a soft play centre, face smeared with what was probably ice cream, giving a thumbs-up. The message was from Nichole’s number.
All good here! Having a blast! Don’t worry, his teacher lady emailed the weekly plan, I’ll make sure it gets done. Maybe. ;) Xx
The casual dereliction, the wink, the way she mentioned his teacher lady. It felt like a violation. Like she’d somehow contaminated the one pure, professional connection he had in that world. His thumb hovered over the screen. He wanted to type, Don’t call her that. He wanted to ask for details. He wanted to know if Yaa had mentioned him.
He locked the phone and shoved it in his pocket.
The walk back to his bunk was through long, empty corridors. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a sickly green hue. His footsteps were the only sound. He felt the split Soap had mentioned, a real, almost physical fissure. One path led deeper into these sterile, echoing halls, into deployments and defined objectives. The other led to school gates, uncertain emotions, and a woman whose smile felt like a lifeline he was too afraid to grab.
He stopped at the unmarked door to his private bunk, a minor privilege of his rank. He pushed it open. The room was Spartan: a neatly made bed, a desk, a shelf with a few books and a single framed photo of Oliver. No personal touches. A temporary cell.
He sat on the edge of the bed, the springs groaning under his weight. He picked up the photo. Oliver was laughing, a missing tooth on full display. He’d taken it during their last weekend together, at a park.
Build a life.
He looked around the blank room. This wasn’t a life. This was storage. Oliver deserved more. He, Simon, was starting to want more. The wanting was the terrifying part. It made him vulnerable. It gave the world leverage.
He lay back, staring at the acoustic-tiled ceiling. Behind his eyes, the two images played on a loop: the map from the briefing room, and Oliver’s drawing of the three stick figures. The mission, and the reason for it. They were supposed to be the same thing. For the first time, they felt like they were at war.
He knew Gaz was right. He had to choose. But choosing felt like choosing which limb to sever. He closed his eyes, and in the dark, he didn’t see combat zones or tactical diagrams.
He saw deep brown eyes, full of a gentle warmth that had, for one night, burned white-hot. And he heard a small, trusting voice saying, She’s proper nice, Dad.
The memory of Oliver’s voice was a ghost in the sterile quiet of his bunk. She’s proper nice, Dad. It was a clean, simple truth from his son, one that highlighted the tangled, compromised mess of everything else. Simon switched off the light, letting the deep institutional dark swallow the room. He drifted into a thin, unsatisfying sleep filled with fragmented images: a map of Surrey melting into a child’s painting, the smell of gun oil fading beneath the scent of wax crayons.
Yaa didn’t know what to make of Nichole.
She showed up to drop off Oliver the following Monday in a sleek SUV, sunglasses perched on her head despite the overcast sky. Her smile was wide and bright, a perfect veneer of motherly concern. “Have the best day, my love!” she’d chirp, ushering Oliver towards the gate with a light push on his backpack. But it felt detached, a performance. Oliver would stumble forward, then turn back, his small face already pinched. “Mum, look at my rocket!” he’d call, holding up a crumpled drawing from his bag.
Nichole would already be half back to her car, offering a wave without really looking. “Wow! Amazing, baby! Show your teacher!”
Yaa could read Oliver’s body language like one of her simple picture books. It screamed a desperate need for her attention, a yearning to impress her. In class, he was blossoming—curious, careful, making friends. But his casual five-year-old revelations were like little cracks in Nichole’s polished facade. “My dad’s tuna bake is the best,” he’d announce during lunch, pushing his own soggy cafeteria pasta around. “Mum says it’s bland but she’s wrong.” Or, quieter, while building a block tower, “I asked Mummy to play hide and seek last night but she was busy on her phone.”
Each snippet made Nichole’s brisk, smiling drop-offs seem more fabricated. Yaa would meet her at the classroom door in the afternoon, delivering the standard cheerful summary of Oliver’s day. Nichole’s eyes would dart over Yaa’s shoulder, already moving on. “Lovely, thanks. C’mon, Oli, chop chop, we’ve got pilates.” She never asked a single follow-up question.
And then Thursday happened.
A relentless, cold rain sheeted down all morning, turning the playground into a miserable lake. The afternoon drop-off was a chaotic parade of dripping umbrellas and grumpy parents. Nichole had been in a particular rush, virtually shooing Oliver out of her car under the shelter of the awning. He’d stumbled, his lunch box tumbling into a puddle. She hadn’t gotten out. She’d just driven off after a muffled call of “Bye!” through a barely-lowered window.
Oliver arrived at the classroom door soaked, his coat clinging to him, his lower lip trembling. Yaa spent ten minutes with him in the quiet cloakroom, peeling off the wet layers and finding a spare jumper from the lost property box. “She didn’t say goodbye properly,” he whispered, a single fat tear cutting through the rain on his cheek.
“Sometimes grown-ups are in a hurry, sweetheart,” Yaa soothed, her heart cracking. “But she loves you very much.”
The final bell rang. One by one, the children were collected. Leo, Amelia, Chloe. The classroom emptied. Oliver sat at the reading corner, methodically turning the pages of a book without seeing them. The rain tapped a frantic rhythm against the windows. Sumaya left, then Suni, calling a sympathetic “Good luck!” over her shoulder. Yaa turned off the main bank of lights, leaving just the soft glow of the corner lamp.
She was the last teacher standing.
There was no sign of Nichole.
Forty minutes past pickup time, the administrative office was closed. Yaa entertained Oliver with board games, then with drawing. She made him a cup of weak squash from the staffroom. Her calls to the number on file went straight to a breezy, full voicemail. Hi, it’s Nic! You know what to do. Text messages delivered but received no reply. A cold, professional worry solidified in Yaa’s chest. Did something happen? An accident? Should she call the police?
Her phone buzzed on the art table, an unknown number flashing. She snatched it up. “Hello?”
“Miss Mensah.” The voice was a low, tense baritone, crackling with a poor signal and something hotter. Simon. “It’s Simon Riley. I’m about twenty minutes out. I’m coming to get Oliver.”
The relief was immediate, followed by a sharp confusion. “Okay. He’s here, he’s fine. We’re in the classroom.” She paused. “Is… is everything alright with Nichole?”
A sharp, humorless scoff traveled down the line. It was a sound of pure, venomous frustration. “She apparently had better things to do than be a parent today. Got a text an hour ago saying she ‘got her days mixed up’ and was already at the airport for a girls’ weekend. Sent a fucking emoji.”
Yaa closed her eyes, absorbing the blistering anger in his words. She could see him, jaw clenched, probably driving too fast through the rain-slicked dark. “I see,” she said softly, her voice calm. “We’ll be here. Drive safely.”
She didn’t hang up. She could hear the steady, aggressive rhythm of his windscreen wipers in the background, the low growl of an engine. He was breathing heavily, a measured, controlled sound that spoke of rage held in check by sheer will. Yaa just waited patiently, the phone pressed to her ear, a silent anchor in his storm.
“He’s okay?” Simon asked finally, the words gruff.
“He’s perfect. A bit sad earlier, but he’s been a champion. We’ve been drawing dinosaurs.”
Another pause. The wipers swished. “Right. Thank you. For staying.”
“It’s my job,” she said, but it felt insufficient. It was more than that now. “We’ll see you soon.”
She ended the call and looked over at Oliver. He’d fallen asleep on a nest of cushions, one hand curled under his chin. In the lamplight, he looked so much like his father—the same slope of the brow, the same stubborn set to the mouth in repose. The rain continued its relentless tattoo. She pulled her cardigan tighter and watched the empty, dark corridor, listening for the sound of boots that would stop being just a memory.
The only sounds were the rain's constant whisper against the window and Oliver’s soft, rhythmic breathing from the cushion fort. Yaa watched the dark, empty mouth of the corridor until a shape finally filled it, moving with a heavy, hurried certainty that scattered the puddles of shadow. Simon. He was dripping, his black jacket dark with rain, hair plastered to his forehead. He stopped just inside the classroom doorway, his broad frame making the space suddenly feel cramped, charged.
His eyes found Oliver first, the sleeping boy illuminated in the pool of lamplight. All the rigid anger seemed to drain from Simon’s posture, his shoulders slumping slightly. The hard line of his jaw softened, his blue-gray eyes clouding with a profound, weary sadness as he took in the scene—his son alone, safe, but ultimately waiting. He crossed the room in two long, silent strides, his boots leaving damp prints on the linoleum.
He crouched, movements deliberate and quiet. “Oli,” he murmured, his voice a gravelly whisper. He placed a large, careful hand on the boy’s back. “Hey, mate. Time to go home.”
Oliver stirred, blinking sleepily. Recognition dawned, and his face transformed. “Dad!” he cried, scrambling up to wrap his arms around Simon’s neck. “You’re back!”
Simon gathered him up, holding him close, his face buried for a second in his son’s hair. “I’m back. I’m not going away again. Not like that.” He pulled back to look at him. “Sorry I took so long, yeah?”
“S’okay,” Oliver mumbled into his shoulder, then peeked over at Yaa. “Miss Mensah looked after me. We drew Pteranodons.”
Simon’s gaze lifted to meet Yaa’s over Oliver’s head. The intensity was still there, but the heat had banked into something more complex—gratitude, shame, a raw vulnerability. “Thank you,” he said, the words weighty.
“It was no trouble, really,” she said, offering a small smile.
“It was,” he insisted, his tone leaving no room for argument. He stood, Oliver perched on his hip like a much younger child. “Where’s your stuff, champ?” Oliver pointed to his backpack and dry coat, neatly hung. Simon retrieved them, handling the small, bright garments with a startling delicacy.
As they moved toward the door, Oliver, still clinging to his father, asked the question casually. “Is Mummy coming later?”
Simon’s step hitched, almost imperceptibly. He adjusted his grip on Oliver. “Not tonight, buddy. Just us.” The evasion was smooth, practiced, and it made Yaa’s heart ache. He didn’t look at her as he said it.
They walked out into the now-dim main hall. Yaa followed, locking the classroom door behind her. At the school’s main entrance, Simon paused, watching as she zipped her own coat and pulled a worn leather satchel over her shoulder. “You’re walking?” he asked.
“Just to the bus stop on Church Road."
The rain hadn’t let up, slashing diagonally through the glow of the streetlamps and pooling in oily puddles across the empty car park. The bus stop was a distant, dimly lit refuge through a curtain of water.
“Don’t be stupid,” Simon said, his voice cutting through the drumming on the roof. He shifted Oliver’s weight on his hip. “You’ll be soaked through in seconds. I’m driving you.”
Yaa shook her head, tightening her grip on her satchel strap. “It’s fine, really. The bus comes every twenty minutes.”
Simon’s gaze was unwavering, a flat, pragmatic certainty in his eyes. “It’s pissing it down. You stayed late because of my mess.” He nodded towards the exit. “Car’s just there.”
The finality in his tone sparked a flutter of rebellion, but also a deeper, more inconvenient thrill. It was the same voice from the bar, stripped of its boozy warmth, all blunt command. She hesitated, the image of a cold, crowded bus seat and damp jeans decidedly unappealing.
“Simon, I’m–”
“Get in the car, Yaa.”
Her name, spoken in that tone, did something to her knees. It wasn’t a request. It was an order, wrapped in a low, gravelly resonance that vibrated in the space between her ribs. She held his stare for a heartbeat longer, then surrendered with a slight, almost imperceptible nod.
“Alright.”
His car was a practical, sturdy SUV, its interior smelling faintly of wet dog, though there was no pet, just the earthy scent of damp wool and old crisps. The backseat was a landscape of child-domination: booster seat, abandoned action figures, a forgotten juice box rolling in the footwell. Simon strapped a sleepy Oliver into his seat with methodical efficiency before rounding the hood and sliding behind the wheel. Yaa busied herself with her seatbelt, hyper-aware of the confined space, the sheen of rain on his forearms as he gripped the steering wheel.
The engine growled to life, and warmth began to seep from the vents. Oliver, revived by the movement, became a chatterbox in the back.
“Miss Mensah, my dad got a new dinosaur book. It has a Liopleurodon. Its teeth were this big.” He yawned widely between sentences. “We saw a digger on the motorway. A big yellow one. Dad said it was a JCB but I think it was a Caterpillar. Do you know diggers?”
Yaa smiled, turning in her seat to engage him. “I know they’re very loud and very muddy.” The simple conversation was a relief, a familiar professional script. Yet every bump in the road jostled her closer to Simon’s solid presence in the driver’s seat. She could see the tense line of his shoulder, the way his knuckles were pale on the wheel.
“Dad’s making tuna bake tonight,” Oliver announced with supreme authority. “It’s the best. Even better than chips. The cheese gets all bubbly and he puts peas in it so it’s healthy but you can’t really taste them. Do you like tuna bake, Miss Mensah?”
“I do, yes,” she said, her stomach choosing that moment to gurgle quietly. She’d skipped lunch.
“You should have some! Dad makes loads.” Oliver leaned forward as far as his straps would allow, his voice pleading. “Dad, can Miss Mensah come for dinner? Please? She’s hungry. I heard her tummy.”
The air in the car thickened instantly. Simon’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, meeting his son’s eager ones, then darting to Yaa’s profile. “Oliver, Miss Mensah has her own plans. Don’t pester.”
“But she stayed with me. And it’s raining. And you said we should say thank you properly.” The child-logic was irrefutable. Oliver’s lower lip began to tremble, the emotional exhaustion of the day resurfacing. “Please, Dad?”
Yaa watched the internal battle play out across Simon’s profile—the reluctance, the ingrained desire to avoid complication, warring with his innate decency and his son’s heartbreaking plea. He let out a slow, controlled breath that fogged the cool window slightly.
“It’s a long drive back to your place after,” he said to Yaa, his voice low. Not quite a question. A stated obstacle.
“I…” She was about to recite another polite refusal, but Oliver’s wide, hopeful eyes in the mirror undid her. And the thought of returning to her quiet, empty flat suddenly felt profoundly lonely. “If it’s truly no trouble.”
Simon was silent for a long moment, navigating a roundabout. “It’s no trouble,” he finally said, the words sounding pulled from him. “Just… tuna bake.”
Simon’s apartment in Deptford was a testament to a collision of lives. The building was a bland, modern block, but behind his door was a split reality. One half was pure, disciplined Simon: a clean, grey sofa, a single framed military photograph on the wall, boots lined with grim precision by the door. The other half was a hurricane of Oliver: a scatter of Duplo across the rug, a faint, waxy smell of crayons, bright plastic toys overflowing a basket, sticky handprints on the glass balcony door. It wasn’t messy, but it was vibrantly, unavoidably lived-in. A child’s art was taped to the fridge—the three stick figures.
Oliver dragged Yaa by the hand to see his room while Simon vanished into the galley kitchen. The small bedroom was a cocoon of blue blankets and dinosaur posters. “That’s my bed. And my T-Rex. His name is Chompy.”
Dinner was a quiet, oddly domestic affair. The tuna bake was, as promised, excellent—creamy, studded with sweet peas, topped with a crisp, golden crust. Oliver, revelling in his role as host, peppered Yaa with questions about school until his words began to slur with fatigue. Simon spoke little, his responses to his son soft and patient, his glances at Yaa measured.
As Oliver pushed his last pea around his plate, Simon cleared his throat. “Got some news, mate.” Oliver looked up. “Had a talk with my boss. Going to be working from here more. Different job. Means I’ll be around. For school runs, dinners… all of it.”
Oliver’s fork clattered onto his plate. His small face underwent a transformation of pure, unadulterated joy. “Every day?”
“Not every day. But most. No more big trips away for a long while.”
Oliver launched himself from his chair, colliding with Simon’s torso. “Yes! Yes! Best day ever!” He hugged his father fiercely, then turned and hugged Yaa around her legs. “Did you hear? He’s staying!”
After the jubilant chaos of bath time and pajamas, Simon read a story in Oliver’s room, his deep voice softening around the edges of the fantastical tale. Yaa waited in the living room, listening to the murmurs, the giggles, the final goodnight. This was a Simon she had only glimpsed—a tender, patient giant. The contrast with the man from the hotel, and the brooding soldier from the school gate, was dizzying.
He emerged, closing the door with a quiet click. The apartment settled into a thick silence, punctuated only by the hum of the fridge. He stood for a moment, running a hand through his hair, before walking to the kitchen and pulling two beers from the fridge. He offered her one.
“Thanks,” she said, taking it. They stood feet apart in his living room, two islands in a sea of child-friendly clutter.
“He’s asleep. Finally.” Simon took a long pull from his bottle. “Thank you. For today. For… indulging him.”
“He’s easy to indulge. He’s wonderful.” She paused. “That’s amazing news. About your job.”
He shrugged, a tight, defensive movement. “Wasn’t sustainable. The other way. Gaz was right. Soap. Couldn’t be half in.” He looked at her directly then, the weight of it in his eyes. “First two years, I didn’t know he existed. Nichole didn’t see fit to tell me. Then, when she did, it was a weapon. A guilt trip. My absence was my original sin. So I tried to be present, but on her terms. Which meant she got to flit in and out while I carried the weight, always feeling like I was paying a debt, not being a father.”
The words came out in a low, relentless torrent, as if a dam had cracked. He told her about the manipulative texts, the last-minute trips, the way she used Oliver’s attachment to him as proof of his earlier failure. Yaa listened, her heart aching for the little boy in the next room, and for the man before her, whose love for his son was so obviously his anchor and his open wound.
“You’re not paying a debt, Simon,” she said softly, when he finished. She took a step closer. “You’re just… his dad. And you’re doing an amazing job. He adores you. That’s not guilt. That’s love.”
He looked away, his jaw working. “I’ve been a dick to you. At school. Avoided you.”
“I noticed.”
“It’s because…” He forced his eyes back to hers, the conflict naked in them. “I can’t see you without remembering. That night. Every fucking detail. It’s in my head all the time. And it’s… inconvenient.”
A flush spread from Yaa’s chest up her neck. The admission was a lit match tossed into the quiet room. “It’s in my head, too,” she whispered.
The air became solid, charged. Simon’s gaze dropped to her mouth. “Yeah?”
She nodded, unable to speak. The memory was suddenly visceral: the crush of his body, the bite of his stubble, the obscene, wet sounds of their coupling.
“I think about your tits in my mouth,” he said, the filthiness of the words a stark contrast to his low, controlled tone. “The way you clawed at my back. I’ve wanked myself raw thinking about the sounds you made when you came.”
Yaa’s breath hitched. A bolt of pure, slick heat shot through her. The professional boundary, already fragile, shattered. “I’ve touched myself thinking about you filling me up,” she confessed, the words leaving her in a shameful, exhilarating rush. “About how you felt. So big. I’ve fantasized about it in the staff toilet.”
A low groan escaped him. He closed the distance between them in one stride. His beer bottle was discarded on a shelf with a thud. His hands came up, cradling her face, his thumbs rough on her cheeks. His eyes searched hers, asking a silent, urgent question.
She answered by rising onto her toes and crushing her mouth to his.
It was nothing like their first kiss in the bar. That had been all heat and promise. This was a conflagration. It was teeth and desperation, a fierce, clawing hunger. Simon’s tongue plunged into her mouth, claiming her with a savage intensity that made her knees buckle. He held her up, one arm banding around her waist, hauling her against the solid wall of his body. She could feel the hard ridge of his erection pressing into her stomach, even through his jeans.
He walked her backwards until her shoulders hit the wall beside the fridge. The framed photo of his unit rattled. His mouth left hers to blaze a wet, biting trail down her neck. “Fuck,” he growled against her skin. “I can’t think straight around you.”
Her hands were everywhere—tangling in his short hair, dragging down the broad planes of his back, fumbling for the hem of his jumper. He helped her, pulling it over his head and tossing it aside. The sheer scale of him, the defined muscle covered in scars and old ink, stole her breath. She kissed his chest, his collarbone, her fingers tracing a rough, knotted scar along his ribcage.
“Yaa,” he pleaded, his voice ragged. He grabbed the waistband of her trousers, popping the button. The zip snarled down. His big hands shoved them, along with her underwear, down over her hips. They pooled at her ankles. The cold air of the apartment hit her exposed skin, followed immediately by the searing heat of his palm cupping her mound.
“So wet,” he muttered, his fingers sliding through her slick folds. “Fucking dripping for me. Is this for me? For remembering?”
“Yes,” she gasped, her head falling back against the wall as he found her clit.
“Say it.”
“I’m wet for you, Simon. Because I remember your cock.”
He drove two fingers inside her without warning, a deep, brutal thrust that punched a cry from her lungs. His mouth covered hers again, swallowing the sound. He fucked her with his fingers, his pace relentless, the heel of his hand grinding against her clit with each stroke. It was crude, obscene, a raw claiming. The squelching sound of her arousal filled the space between their ragged breaths.
“That’s it,” he gritted out, watching her face contort. “Come on my fingers. Do it. A little thank you for looking after my boy.”
His words, filthy and tender all at once, tipped her over. Pleasure detonated, white-hot and shattering. Her body clamped down around his invading fingers, waves of contraction wrenching a sob from her throat. He kept her pinned to the wall, working her through it, his own breath coming in harsh pants against her ear.
As the last tremor subsided, he slowly withdrew his fingers. He brought them to his mouth, his blue-gray eyes locked on hers, and sucked them clean with a deliberate, vulgar relish. The sight sent a fresh jolt of desire through her spent body.
He was fumbling with his own belt buckle, his intention terrifyingly clear, when a small, sleepy voice cut through the haze.
“Dad? I need water.”
They froze. Simon’s head dropped forward, his forehead resting against the wall beside her head with a soft thud. A raw, frustrated sound rumbled in his chest. Yaa’s mind, scrambled by orgasm, scrambled further by sudden, panicked sobriety. She was half-naked against a wall in her student’s home.
“One second, mate!” Simon called, his voice strained but remarkably even. He pulled away from her, his face a mask of agonised restraint. He gently tugged her trousers back up over her hips, his hands surprisingly steady. “Bathroom,” he whispered, jerking his head down the hall. “Get sorted.”
She fled, her legs unsteady, her heart hammering against her ribs. She closed the bathroom door and leaned against it, listening to the muffled sounds of Simon getting a glass of water, his low, comforting murmurs to Oliver. She looked at her own flushed, wanton reflection in the mirror, her lips swollen, her eyes dark and dazed. The heat between her legs was still a throbbing echo.
Outside, she heard Oliver’s door close again. Silence.
Then, a soft tap on the bathroom door. “Yaa?”
She opened it. He stood there, bare-chested, his hair mussed, his eyes burning with unresolved need and profound apology. “I…” he began.
“It’s okay,” she breathed.
“It’s really not.” He reached out, traced a fingertip along her jawline, a gesture so at odds with what they’d just been doing. “Stay. On the sofa. Just… stay.”
She nodded, unable to form words. He fetched a blanket and a pillow, his movements efficient once more. They did not touch again. She lay on the sofa, surrounded by the scent of him and the ghost of his son’s laughter, her body humming with the aftershocks of his fingers. He stood in the doorway of his bedroom for a long moment, watching her in the dark, before turning and disappearing inside.
Sleep was a long time coming. Every creak of the building, every sigh from Oliver’s room, was a spike of awareness. The tension had not dispersed. It had merely been compressed, folded into the shadows of the quiet apartment, waiting.