Chapter 9: The Tenth Claim
The silence after ‘one’ stretched, thin and fragile. Aidan lay on his back, one arm slung over his eyes, his chest heaving. The tremors in his thighs were fine, constant vibrations. He felt hollowed out, scraped clean. The thought of moving, let alone performing again, was a distant joke.
Catriona watched him, her expression unreadable. She traced a fingertip through the damp patch on the sheet beside Mei-Ling. “Well,” she said, her voice a dry murmur. “The spirit is theoretically willing.”
Aidan managed a grunt. He peeked from under his arm. Mei-Ling was a still life beside him, her breath slowly evening out, her skin gleaming in the low light. The sight of her, so thoroughly used, should have stirred something. It only made the emptiness in his gut feel heavier.
“Don’t look so defeated, darling,” Catriona chided, but there was a sharp edge of assessment in her tone. The plan had a final, perfect beat, and she would not let it fade into a whimper. She slid off the bed, padding naked to the suite’s bar. The clink of ice in a glass was obscenely loud.
It was Mei-Ling who moved first.
With a soft, pained sigh, she pushed herself up. She didn’t look at Catriona or Aidan. Instead, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, her back to them, a delicate column of bruises and bite marks. Her black hair clung to her damp skin. She stood, wobbly for a second, then walked with deliberate, if slightly stiff, steps around to Aidan’s side.
She sank to her knees on the deep carpet.
Aidan lowered his arm, looking down at her. Her doe eyes were level with his spent cock, which lay limp against his thigh. Her expression was neither expectant nor seductive. It was calm. Professional. She reached out, not touching him yet.
“It’s a lot to ask,” she said, her voice husky from overuse. “Nine is… a championship number.” A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. “The tenth is for legends.”
Catriona paused, the glass halfway to her lips, watching from across the room. She said nothing, granting the stage.
Mei-Ling’s slender fingers finally made contact, a feather-light tracing along his inner thigh. He twitched, but it was a neurological spasm, nothing more. “The body says no,” she whispered, her breath warm on his skin. “But the mind… the mind can be persuaded.”
Her other hand came up, cupping him gently. She bent her head, not taking him into her mouth, but pressing her lips against the soft skin of his stomach, just above his hip bone. It was a kiss of unexpected tenderness. Then she looked up, her dark eyes capturing his.
“I have a gift for you,” she said, so quietly only he could hear. “One I don’t give. Ever.”
Aidan’s breath hitched. He said nothing.
“My contract is very specific. Very complete.” Her words were a slow, hypnotic stream as her mouth began to travel lower, her lips and tongue waking dormant nerves with impossible patience. “But there is one line, one clause, I insisted on. A final grace. For me.”
Her mouth reached its destination, not engulfing him, but teasing, coaxing, a masterclass in resurrection. A faint, traitorous throb answered her.
“If he reaches ten,” she murmured against him, the vibration shooting straight to his spine, “he can have what no one else has.” She lifted her gaze again, and the serene professionalism was gone, replaced by something darker, more personal. “My ass, Aidan. You get hard for me now, you finish inside her one last time, and I’ll let you take my virginity there. Everywhere else is just a job. That… that is my anniversary gift to you.”
The image exploded behind his eyes, vivid and obliterating. It cut through the fatigue like a scalpel. Not just her body, but her surrender. A violation she curated just for this moment, for him. A final frontier in a night of conquered territory.
A low groan escaped him. It wasn’t pleasure, not yet. It was the sound of a tectonic plate shifting.
Catriona set her glass down with a soft click. She understood the transaction instantly. She didn’t move, but her posture shifted, becoming an audience of one.
Mei-Ling saw the change in his eyes. She took him fully into her mouth then, her throat working open around him, deep and sure. Her hand stroked what her mouth couldn’t yet accommodate. It was not the frantic hunger of hours ago. It was a claim. A promise.
And it worked.
Aidan felt the blood returning, a slow, hot tide defying all laws of physics and exhaustion. His hand fisted in her long, black hair, not to guide her, but to anchor himself to the reality of it. He was rising, thickening, under the relentless pull of her mouth and the blinding, pristine image she had painted.
He was hard. Fully, achingly hard.
Mei-Ling released him with a soft, wet sound and sat back on her heels. She looked from his renewed erection to his face, her own cheeks flushed. “A legend,” she repeated, her voice firm.
Catriona finally approached, stopping beside Mei-Ling. She placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder, a gesture of alliance. Then she looked at her husband, at the fierce, defiant hunger rekindled in his eyes.
“Well then,” Catriona said, a slow, victorious smile spreading across her face. “Let’s not keep the legend waiting.”