Chapter 5: The Confession
The sweatshirt hit the floor with a soft whisper of fabric. Jenny stood before him, her body pale and curved in the diffused grey light. Aidan’s breath hitched. This wasn’t the blur of frantic movement from their first time. This was a slow unveiling, a deliberate presentation. She watched him look at her, her chin lifted, no shyness in her now.
“See something you like?” Her voice was low, a trace of a challenge in it.
He couldn’t form words. He reached for her, but she caught his wrist. Her grip was surprisingly strong. “Uh-uh,” she murmured. “My turn.”
She stepped into him, her hands sliding up his chest, over his shoulders, pushing his jacket back. It fell to the floor. Her fingers worked at the buttons of his shirt, methodical, her knuckles brushing the heat of his skin. Each released button felt like a breach in a dam. When the shirt was open, she spread her hands flat on his chest, her thumbs rubbing over his nipples. A shock went through him.
“You’re so tense,” she observed, her eyes flicking up to his. She leaned in and pressed her mouth to the center of his chest, a hot, open kiss. Then she sank to her knees.
The world narrowed to the sight of her, dark hair cascading over her shoulders, her face level with his belt. She looked up at him, holding his gaze as her fingers found the buckle. The rasp of the leather, the click of the metal, were obscenely loud in the quiet room. She unbuttoned his trousers, drew the zipper down slowly. The fabric gaped. She didn’t pull them down. Instead, she nuzzled against the cotton of his boxer briefs, breathing him in, her nose and lips tracing the swollen outline of him. A low groan escaped him.
“Jenny…”
“Shhh.” She hooked her fingers into the waistbands and tugged everything down in one motion. He sprang free, thick and heavy, and her eyes widened slightly, a flicker of that initial awe he’d seen before. But it was gone in an instant, replaced by pure hunger. She didn’t hesitate. She took him into her mouth, deep, her tongue flattening against the throbbing underside.
Aidan’s head fell back. His hands fisted at his sides. It was different now. There was no surprise, no disorientation. There was only skill and consuming purpose. She worked him with a focus that was almost clinical, like she was studying his responses, learning what made him jerk, what made his breath catch. She used her hands, her mouth, the wet, hot suction pulling a thread of pleasure so intense it was near pain from the base of his spine.
He couldn’t take it. He tangled his hands in her hair, not to guide, just to hold on. “Stop… god, stop or I’ll…”
She released him with a wet pop, breathing heavily. She looked wrecked and utterly powerful. “You’ll what?” she breathed, her lips glistening.
He hauled her up, crushing his mouth to hers, tasting himself on her tongue. He walked her backward until her knees hit the edge of the mattress and they tumbled onto it. The blankets were cool, smelling of her cinnamon perfume and sleep. He covered her body with his, the feel of her skin against his everywhere a minor revelation.
“Condom,” he gritted out, the last shred of his engineer’s brain firing.
“Drawer,” she gasped, turning her head toward the nightstand.
He fumbled one-handed, scattering pens and hair ties, finding the small box. He sheathed himself clumsily, his hands shaking. When he moved back over her, she opened for him, her thighs falling apart. He pressed the broad head of himself against her. She was slick, ready, but still so impossibly tight. He remembered the torn lace on the duvet, the proof of her victory. This was his.
He pushed in. A sharp, bitten-off cry escaped her lips, her eyes squeezing shut. He stilled, buried to the hilt, feeling her body flutter and clench around him in shocked waves. “Okay?” he rasped, sweat beading on his temple.
She nodded, her eyes opening. They were dark pools, full of tears and triumph. “Don’t stop.” Her voice was raw. “Please.”
He began to move. It was nothing like the frantic, guilty pace of before. This was slower, deeper, a deliberate claiming. He watched her face as he filled her, as he withdrew, as he sank back in. Her expressions shifted like weather—a wince of pain, a flare of shock, a dawning, overwhelming pleasure. Her hands scrambled over his back, her nails digging in.
“Aidan,” she whispered, then said it again, louder, a mantra. “Aidan, Aidan.”
His name in her mouth shattered something final inside him. He drove into her, losing rhythm, losing thought. The room dissolved into sensation—the slap of skin, her ragged breaths, the creak of the old bed, the distant vendor’s music weaving into the sound of their pounding hearts. Her back arched off the mattress, a silent scream on her lips, and he felt her inner muscles grip him in a series of fierce, rhythmic pulses. It pulled his own climax from him, a raw shout torn from his throat as he emptied himself into the condom, collapsing onto her, spent and shaking.
For long minutes, there was only the sound of their breathing slowing. The grey light had deepened toward evening. He rolled off her, disposing of the condom in a trash bin piled with crumpled notes, and fell back beside her.
She turned onto her side, propping her head on her hand. Her free hand came up and traced the line of his jaw, his lips, his salt-and-pepper stubble. “I used to watch you,” she said quietly, her voice husky. “When I was cleaning. I’d see your running shoes by the door, the coffee mug you always left on the desk. I’d listen to you talk to your wife on the phone. Your voice.”
He turned his head to look at her. The confession didn’t shock him. It felt inevitable.
“I’d imagine what you were like,” she continued. “Not the polite Mister Sullivan. The other you. The one who wanted more.” Her finger traced his collarbone. “I was right.”
Aidan stared at the ceiling, at a hairline crack in the plaster. He felt hollowed out, scoured clean by her. The guilt was there, a cold, leaden weight in his gut, but it was muffled, distant, drowned out by the roaring memory of her saying his name.
“This can’t happen,” he said, but it sounded weak, even to him.
“It just did,” she replied simply. “Twice.”
He sat up, swinging his legs off the bed. The floor was cold under his feet. He started gathering his clothes, his movements mechanical. Shirt, trousers, belt. Each item felt like a piece of a costume he had to put back on.
Jenny watched him dress from the nest of blankets, not trying to stop him. Her expression was unreadable.
“When?” she asked as he fastened his belt.
He paused. “When what?”
“When will you be back?”
The certainty in her voice was a gale force. He looked at her, this girl in her messy room, who studied human anatomy and tasted of his own desperation. He had no answer. He had no control here.
His phone, buried in his jacket pocket on the floor, buzzed. Once. Then again. The specific, double-vibrate pattern of a call from Catriona.
The sound was a bucket of ice water. The real world crashed back in, with its schedules and obligations and his wife’s trusting face.
He scooped up the jacket, pulled out the phone. The screen glowed in the dim room: Catriona. He didn’t answer. He just stood there, holding it, the buzzing feeling like a live wire in his hand.
Jenny’s eyes dropped to the screen, then lifted back to his face. She didn’t smile. She just nodded slowly, as if she’d expected it. “You should go,” she said, her voice flat now. “You know the way out.”
He looked at her for another long moment, the space between them suddenly vast and cold. Then he turned, walked out of her bedroom, through the cluttered living room, and pulled the apartment door shut behind him with a soft, final click.
In the silent hallway, he leaned against the wall, head bowed. He could still smell her on his skin. Below the cinnamon and sex, underneath it all, was the faint, clean scent of lavender soap.