Chapter 7: The Eighth Claim
The word ‘seven’ seemed to hang in the air long after Catriona’s voice faded. It wasn’t a celebration. It was a tally mark on a prison wall.
Aidan didn’t move from his fetal position. Mei-Ling blinked slowly at the ceiling, her chest rising in shallow flutters. The silence was a physical thing, a wool blanket smothering the room.
Catriona swung her legs off the bed. The cool air of the suite kissed her skin, raising goosebumps. She walked to the minibar, the click of the latch abnormally loud. She poured three fingers of amber whiskey into a glass, didn’t dilute it, and knocked it back. The heat was a welcome violence.
“Get up,” she said, without turning. Her voice had lost its theatrical purr. It was flat, efficient. “Both of you. On your feet.”
There was a rustle, a groan of protest that was stifled. She heard the soft thud of bare feet on plush carpet. When she turned, they were standing by the bed, leaning on each other more than they’d admit. Aidan’s body was a map of sweat-dried salt and faint scratches. Mei-Ling looked impossibly small, her skin gleaming with a patina of exertion, her lower lip swollen.
Catriona approached them, the empty glass still in her hand. She looked from her husband’s hollowed eyes to the girl’s vacant ones. The grand fantasy felt thin here, in this raw aftermath. It was just work now. Hard, degrading, beautiful work.
“You’re thinking about the number,” Catriona said to Aidan, reaching out to trace the line of his jaw. He flinched, then leaned into her touch. “Stop. It’s just this. Her. Me. You.”
She turned to Mei-Ling, using the same hand to tilt the girl’s chin up. “And you. Are you still with us?”
Mei-Ling’s dark eyes focused, a professional reasserting itself from deep within the fatigue. “Yes,” she whispered, her voice raspy. “I’m with you.”
“Good.” Catriona’s smile returned, not the knowing one from earlier, but something tighter, more determined. “Then let’s make eight memorable. On the bed. Knees.”
She guided Mei-Ling, her hands firm on the girl’s narrow shoulders. Mei-Ling crawled onto the disheveled sheets, collapsing onto her forearms, her face buried in a pillow that still held the scent of Catriona’s perfume. Her back was a pale, elegant curve.
Catriona didn’t bother with ceremony. She climbed atop Mei-Ling, straddling her hips, feeling the heat radiating from the girl’s skin. She looked over her shoulder at Aidan, who was watching, a reluctant arousal stubbornly fighting through his exhaustion.
“You see how she presents herself?” Catriona said, her voice dropping into a confidential murmur. She reached forward, her fingers spreading Mei-Ling apart, revealing the slick, swollen evidence of the night’s use. “It’s an invitation, darling. A very specific one. Don’t keep her waiting.”
Aidan moved like a man in a dream. He knelt behind them, his hands settling on Catriona’s waist, then sliding past to grip Mei-Ling’s flanks. He entered her in one slow, inevitable push. Mei-Ling’s whole body stiffened, a sharp inhale muffled by the pillow.
Catriona rocked back, grinding against the base of his cock, using Mei-Ling’s body as a fulcrum for her own pleasure. She was a conductor again, feeling the rhythm through two instruments. She leaned forward, her red hair curtaining her and Mei-Ling’s face, her mouth against the girl’s ear.
“You take him so well,” she whispered, the words hot and pointed. “Every last bit. You feel how much he has left? It’s all for you.” Her hands found Mei-Ling’s small breasts, pinching the nipples, rolling them between her fingers until the girl arched her back with a stifled cry.
Aidan’s thrusts were deep and slow, a tired piston in a well-worn groove. His forehead was pressed against Catriona’s shoulder blade, his breath hot.
“Cat…” he groaned, a plea and a protest.
“I know,” she cooed, twisting to look at him. Sweat dripped from his brow. “But listen to her. She’s begging for it.” She reached back, her fingers tangling in his hair, pulling just enough to sting. “Give it to her. Now. I want to feel you let go.”
It was the pull, the sharp command, that did it. A shudder ran through him. His rhythm fractured into frantic, short bursts. He drove into Mei-Ling, his grip on Catriona bruising-tight, a raw, wordless sound tearing from his throat as he emptied himself inside the girl for the eighth time.
The collapse was gradual. He slumped forward, his weight pressing Catriona down onto Mei-Ling’s trembling back. For a long moment, they lay in a heap of spent limbs and shared breath.
Catriona was the first to move. She slid out from under him, her own skin sensitive and alive. She looked at the two of them, Aidan half-covering the smaller girl. A possessive thrill, sharp and sweet, cut through her. She knelt beside them, her fingers tracing the place where they were still joined, collecting the proof of his climax as it seeped from Mei-Ling.
She held her hand up, the evidence glistening in the low light. She looked at Aidan’s closed eyes, then at Mei-Ling’s profile, turned toward her, watching.
Catriona folded down her ring finger, leaving only the index finger and thumb extended.
“Two,” she said, her voice quiet but absolute in the silent room.
Aidan didn’t open his eyes, but a smile—fragile, exhausted, utterly genuine—touched his lips. They had crossed into a new territory, where the finish line was finally, terribly in sight.