Chapter 17: The Morning After
The first thing Suki was aware of was the weight. Not a bad weight. A solid, warm anchor. Aidan’s arm was thrown across her waist, his breath a slow, even tickle against the back of her neck. The second thing was the scent—vanilla, yes, from her candle, but underneath it, the distinct, musky perfume of sex and slept-in sheets.
Her eyes opened. Golden morning light cut through a gap in the velvet drapes, painting a stripe across the rumpled black silk. It illuminated dust motes dancing in the air, and the empty glass on her nightstand. The cameras were dark, silent sentinels in the corners. The room felt different. Charged, but quiet. The frantic energy of the stream had dissipated, leaving behind a heavy, tangible residue.
She shifted slightly. Aidan’s arm tightened, pulling her back against him. A low, sleepy sound vibrated in his chest.
On his other side, Catriona stirred. Suki could just see the wild cascade of auburn hair spilling over Aidan’s shoulder. Cat lifted her head, blinking. Her eyes found Suki’s over the landscape of her husband’s back. For a second, they just looked at each other. No grin, no wink. Just a raw, unguarded assessment.
Then Cat’s mouth curved. It was a softer version of her usual smile. “Morning,” she whispered, her voice husky with sleep.
“Morning,” Suki whispered back.
Aidan mumbled something unintelligible, nuzzling into Suki’s hair. His lips brushed her shoulder, a kiss so automatic and gentle it made her chest ache.
Catriona watched it happen. She didn’t look away. She propped her head on her hand, her gaze travelling from the kiss on Suki’s shoulder, down the line of Aidan’s arm around her, to the sheet tangled around their legs. The clinical lights were off. This was just them, in the messy, sunlit truth of morning.
“This is good,” Cat said, her voice still low, but thoughtful. “This is… really good.”
“What is?” Aidan’s voice was a rumble.
“This.” Cat gestured vaguely at the three of them. “The light. The vibe. It’s intimate. It’s real.”
Suki knew that tone. It was Cat’s ‘idea’ tone. A flutter of nerves, familiar now, started in her stomach. “Cat…”
“We should capture it,” Cat said, her eyes lighting up with that mischievous spark. “Just a little. For the premium feed. A morning-after vignette. No pressure. No chat. Just… this.”
Aidan was fully awake now. He lifted his head, looking at his wife over his shoulder. “You want to film right now?”
“Not a big production. One camera.” She was already sliding out from under the sheet, naked and unselfconscious in the honeyed light. She padded over to the nearest tripod, her movements efficient. “We just wake up. We be together. The subscribers who paid big last night… they’d fucking die for this. It’s the authenticity they’re craving, Sook. This is the gold.”
Suki looked at Aidan. His hazel eyes were calm, searching hers. “You okay with that?” he asked her, his hand still resting on her hip.
Was she? Her body felt sore in a deep, satisfying way. Her mind was a tangle of conflicting threads—friendship, performance, the startling new shape of their intimacy. But the practical part of her, the business part, knew Cat was right. This was gold. The raw, unscripted follow-up to the chaotic livestream. It would break the internet.
She nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Cool.” Aidan kissed her shoulder again, a quick press of his lips. “Just tell me what to do.”
Cat got the single camera rolling, framing the bed in a wide, beautiful shot. She didn’t retreat to the laptop. This time, she came back to bed. She slid in facing Aidan, so Suki was spooned behind him, and Cat was front of him, their legs intertwining. A three-way embrace in the sunbeam.
For a few minutes, they just existed. Aidan’s eyes were closed, a small smile on his face as Cat traced the scruff along his jaw. Suki watched, her forehead resting against his back, her fingers drawing idle patterns on his side. The camera saw it all: the sleepy kisses Cat placed on Aidan’s chest, the way Suki’s hand splayed possessively over his stomach, the contented sigh he let out.
It felt less like acting and more like permission. Permission to explore the new space they’d carved out.
Catriona’s hand drifted lower, under the sheet. Aidan’s breath hitched. He opened his eyes, looking at her. She just smiled, kissing him slowly, deeply. Suki watched their mouths move together, a familiar yet newly complex sight. Then Cat broke the kiss, nodding subtly toward Suki.
Aidan turned in Suki’s arms, his back now to Catriona, facing Suki. His eyes were dark, soft. He didn’t say anything. He just kissed her, a deep, waking-up kiss that tasted of sleep and Cat’s lip balm. Behind him, Catriona pressed closer, her body a warm line against his back, her hands sliding around to rest on Suki’s hips, her chin hooked over his shoulder.
It was slow, unbearably so. A languid exploration. Aidan touched Suki like he had all the time in the world, his hands memorizing the curve of her waist, the swell of her hip. Cat’s hands were there too, guiding, suggesting, sometimes touching Aidan, sometimes touching Suki, a constant, connective presence. Suki lost track of whose mouth was whose, kissing Aidan, then turning her head to find Cat’s lips waiting, the taste of her friend and her lover merging into one sensation.
When Aidan moved between Suki’s legs, it was with a quiet, focused intensity. Catriona shifted, reaching for the camera on the tripod. She brought it closer, handheld now, her movements steady as she knelt beside them. The lens wasn’t intrusive this time. It felt like a part of it, Cat’s eye, documenting.
The pace was a world away from the desperate frenzy of the night before. This was a slow, deep build, Aidan’s eyes locked on Suki’s, Cat’s silent, filming presence beside them a testament rather than a performance. Suki felt every inch, the stretch and the fit, and she let the soft, punched-out sounds leave her throat without restraint.
Catriona’s free hand found Suki’s, their fingers lacing together tightly on the sheet. She was watching through the viewfinder, but she was present, her breath coming in short, quiet synchronicity with theirs.
“Look at me,” Aidan murmured, and Suki did. She saw the tension coiling in his jaw, the sheen of sweat on his temples. She saw Cat’s reflection, tiny and inverted, in the dark lens pointed at them. She felt the precipice approach, not as a peak to be conquered for an audience, but as a shared, private summit.
He buried himself deep, his whole body shuddering, a muffled groan against her neck. Catriona moved the camera closer, angling it down, capturing the intimate, explicit truth as he pulled out. The visual was stark, almost obscene in its clarity—the thick release against her dark skin, the slow, inevitable drip onto the silk below.
Catriona held the shot until the last drop fell. Then she slowly lowered the camera. She didn’t turn it off. She just set it aside on the nightstand, still recording the quiet, collapsing aftermath.
They stayed like that, a tangled heap of spent limbs, the sunbeam now warm across their feet. Aidan’s head was heavy on Suki’s chest. Catriona curled into his back, her arm flung over both of them.
No one spoke for a long time. The only sound was their breathing settling, and the distant hum of the city below.
Finally, Catriona let out a long, contented sigh. Her voice was a whisper, aimed at the space between them. “That’s the one,” she said. “That’s the video that changes everything.”
Suki stared at the ceiling, feeling the warm, wet evidence seep into the sheet beneath her, feeling the solid reality of the two bodies wrapped around her. The line was gone. It had been erased not in the chaotic public spectacle of the livestream, but here, in the private, sun-drenched quiet of her own bed. There was no going back to before.