Chapter 34: The Return
The drive home from the airport was a blur of muted highway lights and the low thrum of the rental car’s engine. Aidan’s body felt like it had been disassembled and hastily put back together. Specific aches announced themselves with every turn of the steering wheel—a deep tenderness in his lower back, a raw feeling in his shoulders. The phantom scent of hotel soap and sex seemed welded to his sinuses.
He parked in the driveway of their modest, familiar bungalow, the sight of its pitched roof and warm porch light hitting him with a wave of dizzying normality. He sat for a minute, his forehead resting against the cool leather of the wheel. The two million. Sloane’s clinical gaze. Thea’s demanding whispers. They were like a film reel superimposed over the hydrangeas Catriona had planted by the steps.
Pushing the car door open felt like a monumental effort.
The living room air was warm, sweet with the scent of vanilla from a lit candle. The fire in the hearth crackled, painting the walls in jumping amber light. And there they were.
Catriona and Suki were curled on opposite ends of the deep velvet sofa, a plaid blanket shared across their laps. An empty bottle of red wine and two glasses sat on the coffee table. They weren’t talking. They were just… waiting. Both pairs of eyes lifted and fixed on him as he dropped his duffel bag by the door with a soft thud.
“Well,” Catriona said, her voice a rich, warm ribbon in the quiet. “Look what the cat finally dragged in.”
Suki just smiled, her green eyes reflecting the firelight. She looked softer here, in a loose sweater and leggings, not the sleek, commanding presence from their first meeting. More real.
“Hey,” Aidan managed. His voice sounded rusty, foreign.
“Come here,” Catriona commanded, patting the space on the floor between the sofa and the fireplace. “Sit. You look like you’ve been through a war.”
He obeyed, sinking onto the thick rug with a grunt. The heat from the fire soaked into his tired muscles. Catriona leaned forward, her auburn hair falling around her shoulders. She studied his face, her playful smile not quite reaching her eyes. She was reading him, the way she always could.
“So?” she prompted. “Was it awful? Amazing? Weird? All of the above?”
Suki tucked her feet under her, drawing her knees up. She was watching him too, but her gaze was more cautious, like she was approaching a spooked animal.
“It was… a job,” Aidan said, the simplification feeling like a lie as soon as it left his lips. “They were very professional.”
“Professional,” Catriona echoed, tasting the word. She reached out and ran her fingers through his scruffy beard. “You smell different.”
Suki’s nose wrinkled slightly. “Yeah. You do. Like… other perfume. And lube.”
A hot flush crawled up Aidan’s neck. He felt exposed, laid bare under their combined scrutiny in a way he hadn’t under the camera lights. This was worse. This was real.
Catriona’s fingers stilled. Her playful demeanor solidified into something more focused. “Tell us,” she said, and it wasn’t a request.
So he did. Haltingly at first, then in a stumbled rush. The villa. The schedule. Sloane’s clipboard. Thea’s encouragement. The filming, the exhaustion, the relentless pace of it. He left out the dollar amounts. He left out the final offer. Those felt like secrets he needed to hold onto, just for now. But he told them about the six loads. The order. The clinical precision of it all.
When he finished, the only sound was the pop of a log in the fire.
Suki had gone very still. Her green eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted. Aidan couldn’t tell if it was horror or fascination.
Catriona, however, slowly sat back. A slow, deep smile spread across her face. It was proud, possessive, and utterly thrilled. “Six,” she breathed. “My god. I knew you had it in you. I knew.” She looked over at Suki, her expression triumphant. “See? A fucking champion.”
Suki blinked, pulling herself from whatever thought had trapped her. She looked from Catriona’s proud face to Aidan’s weary, sheepish one. A different kind of curiosity sparked in her eyes now, cutting through the shock. It was closer to the look she’d given him over coffee a lifetime ago—assessing, intrigued.
“You must be wrecked,” Suki said softly.
“I feel like I got hit by a truck,” he admitted.
Catriona stood up in one fluid motion. “Well, we can’t have that.” She walked to the kitchen, her hips swaying. He heard the pop of a cork, the happy fizz of champagne. She returned with a full bottle and three mismatched crystal flutes she’d inherited from her grandmother. She poured, handed them each a glass, and knelt on the rug in front of him.
“A toast,” she declared, holding her glass aloft. “To my husband. The ultimate team player.”
They clinked glasses. The champagne was sharp and cold, bursting on his tongue. It felt like life returning.
Suki sipped hers, then placed it carefully on the table. She slid off the sofa to join them on the floor, moving closer to Aidan than Catriona was. Her warmth was a new point of contact. “It sounds intense,” she said, her voice low. “But also… kind of powerful. To just… perform like that. On demand.”
“It was fucking impressive is what it was,” Catriona corrected, draining her glass. She set it down with a decisive click. Then her hands went to the hem of his t-shirt. “Okay. Off. All of it. I want to see the damage.”
There was no refusing her. He raised his arms, letting her pull the shirt over his head. The cool air hit his skin. Suki’s intake of breath was audible.
He looked down. The faint bruises on his hips from Thea’s heels. The red marks on his shoulders from Sloane’s grip. A whole map of the weekend’s work was drawn on him in faint, telling signs.
“Jesus,” Suki whispered. Her fingers hovered over a mark on his collarbone, then touched it, feather-light. The contact sent a jolt through his spent system.
Catriona traced the line of his spine with a single nail. “Mine,” she said, and the word wasn’t playful anymore. It was a brand. “All this. Still mine.” Her hands went to his belt buckle. He didn’t help, but he didn’t stop her. The belt loosened. The button of his jeans popped. The zipper hissed down.
Suki watched, her breath coming quicker now. As Catriona tugged his jeans and boxers down over his hips, Suki’s gaze dropped, and her lips parted again. He was soft, exhausted, but the visual evidence of his use was undeniable.
Catriona sat back on her heels, surveying him. A fierce, dark pride glowed in her eyes. Then she looked at Suki. “Taste,” she said, her voice dropping to that conspiratorial whisper from the first night. “Go on. See what two million-dollar professionals taste like.”
Aidan’s heart hammered against his ribs. This was the reclaiming. This was the ritual.
Suki didn’t hesitate. She moved forward on her knees, her green eyes locked on his. There was no performance in her now, only a deep, consuming curiosity. She bent her head, her dark hair curtaining their connection from Catriona’s view for a moment.
Her mouth was warm. Her tongue was tentative, then sure. She explored him with a thoroughness that was scientific and deeply intimate, cleaning away the last invisible traces of the other women. She tasted salt, skin, and something faintly chemical. She made a soft, thoughtful sound in her throat.
When she pulled back, her lips were damp. She met his gaze, and something solidified between them in that look. A door he hadn’t known was closed now hung open.
“Well?” Catriona pressed, her voice husky.
“Successful,” Suki said, her own voice thick. She didn’t look away from Aidan. “Tastes like a successful mission.”
“Good.” Catriona shoved him gently backward until he was lying on the rug. Then she straddled his chest, her knees on either side of his head, her own jeans gone. She was bare, warm, and utterly familiar. She looked down at him, her auburn hair a fiery cascade. “Now you taste home,” she commanded, lowering herself onto his mouth. “You remember who you belong to. You make me come.”
He obeyed. His tongue found the familiar, beloved terrain. This was his anchor. This taste, these sounds, this particular shudder in her thighs. This was reality. He licked with a devotion that was part apology, part worship, drawing her deeper into the feeling until her hands were fisted in his hair, her hips rolling against his face, her cries short and sharp as she broke apart above him.
While he was still bringing her down, he felt Suki move. She shifted, settling over his hips. He felt her heat against him, a profound, tight pressure even in his softened state. He opened his eyes, looking past Catriona’s trembling stomach to see Suki above him, her sweater now off, her beautiful skin glowing in the firelight. She was guiding him into her, her face a mask of intense concentration and want.
“Mine too, now,” she breathed, and it wasn’t a question. She sank down, taking him in, her incredible tightness a shock even now. She began to move, a slow, grinding rhythm, her eyes closed, her head falling back.
Catriona, spent, rolled off to the side, propping her head on her hand to watch. Her expression was one of rapt, satisfied awe.
Aidan was a conduit. His mouth was filled with the taste of his wife, his body being sheathed by his wife’s best friend. The exhaustion, the guilt, the confusion—all of it was burned away in the primal fire of their possession. They were rewriting the weekend’s narrative on his skin, in his flesh.
Suki’s pace quickened. Her breaths became ragged gasps. “Come on, Aidan,” she pleaded, her voice breaking. “For me. Just for me this time. I want to feel it.”
It shouldn’t have been possible. But under her insistent heat, surrounded by them, a final, weak surge gathered from somewhere deep. He arched beneath her, a raw, broken sound tearing from his throat as he spilled inside her.
She milked him through it, clenching around him until he was utterly empty, truly hollowed out at last. Then she collapsed forward onto his chest, her sweat-slick skin pressed against his.
For a long time, the only sounds were the fire and their slowing breaths. Catriona’s hand came to rest on his head, stroking his hair. Suki’s heartbeat thudded against his ribs.
“So proud of you,” Catriona whispered into the quiet.
Suki nuzzled into the crook of his neck. Her voice was a sleepy, sated murmur. “When you talk to them about next month… ask if they need a third girl for that kidnapping scene.”
Aidan froze. The secret was out. It had been there in the air all along.
Catriona’s hand stilled in his hair for a second. Then she resumed stroking. Her voice was calm, unsurprised, as if she’d known it all along. “Yeah,” she said softly, her gaze meeting Suki’s over his spent body. A new pact was formed in that look. “Ask them about that.”