Chapter 11: The Dinner Table
The chandelier's light caught the facets of the crystal, scattering tiny rainbows across the white tablecloth. Joan watched one dance near David’s hand as he reached for his wine. She leaned in, letting the neckline of her red dress gape, and saw his eyes flicker down before meeting hers.
“So you’re in finance?” she asked, her voice a little too sweet, a little too interested.
“Commercial real estate,” David said, smiling. He was probably twenty-eight, with the clean, optimistic handsomeness of a man who hadn’t yet been truly broken by life. His suit was nice, but not as nice as the ones Marcus used to wear. The comparison was automatic, a cold stone in her gut that she soothed by letting her fingers brush his wrist. “Sounds important.”
“It has its moments.”
Across the table, Peter shifted in his chair. The movement was slight, but Joan caught it. She’d been cataloguing his reactions all evening—the clench of his jaw when she laughed, the way his knuckles went white around his steak knife. Lydia, blissfully oblivious, prattled on about a gallery opening from between them, her voice a pleasant hum under the conversation.
Peter took a long drink of his Cabernet, his eyes locked on Joan over the rim of his glass. They were dark, unreadable, but a muscle in his cheek twitched. She felt a thrill, hot and sharp, lance through her. This was better than any compliment David could give. This was real power, the kind that made a man twice your age forget his wife was three feet away.
After the main plates were cleared, Lydia stood. “Everyone, save room. I made a passionfruit tart. It’s Peter’s favorite.” She beamed at her husband, who managed a tight smile in return. “I’ll just go plate it up.”
The moment Lydia disappeared into the kitchen, Joan dabbed her lips with her napkin. “Please excuse me,” she said, her voice carrying just enough to reach Peter. She didn’t look at him as she pushed her chair back and glided from the dining room.
She didn’t turn toward the hall bathroom. Instead, she slipped into the cool, leather-scented darkness of Peter’s study and closed the door softly behind her. The only light came from the streetlamp outside, painting the spines of his law books in silver. She stood in the center of the room, heart hammering, waiting.
The door opened and shut again, much quicker. The click of the lock was deafening.
“What the fuck was that?”
He was on her before she could turn, his hands rough on her arms, spinning her to face him. His face was a mask of restrained fury in the dim light.
She shrugged, letting the coy smile she’d practiced spread across her lips. “Just being friendly. He’s nice.”
“Nice.” Peter spat the word. One hand slid from her arm, up over her hip, and under the hem of her dress. His fingers, calloused and hot, pushed past the flimsy silk of her panties without ceremony. He found her slit, already slick from the game, from the danger. “You’re soaking.”
“Am I?”
His thumb rubbed rough circles over her clit, making her breath hitch. “You do this to torment me. To get a reaction.”
“Maybe I just like attention,” she gasped, her hips starting to move against his hand.
“You have mine. It’s all you have.” His fingers plunged inside her, two, then three, stretching her. “This cunt is mine. This tight, greedy little cunt belongs to me.” He worked his fingers in and out, a brutal, claiming rhythm. “You were grinding on his leg with my cum still inside you from this morning. Don’t think I didn’t see.”
He withdrew his hand, the sudden emptiness a shock. He spun her around, bending her forward over the polished walnut of his desk. Papers crunched under her forearms. One hand yanked her panties down to her thighs, the silk tearing at the side seam.
“Peter—”
The head of his cock, huge and already leaking, nudged against her entrance. He didn’t tease. He didn’t ask. He drove into her with one savage thrust, burying himself to the hilt, punching the air from her lungs.
She cried out, a sharp, ragged sound lost in the leather and wood of the room.
“Say it,” he growled, his body covering hers, one hand fisting in her blonde hair to yank her head back. His other arm banded around her waist, holding her impaled, giving her no quarter.
“I’m yours,” she choked out.
“Again.”
“I’m yours!” The words were a sob, but not of pain. It was a release, a surrender she had orchestrated herself.
He began to fuck her then, in hard, punishing strokes that shoved the desk an inch across the floor with every slam of his hips. The wet, filthy sound of their joining filled the silent study. His balls slapped against her with each drive forward. She could feel every ridge, every vein of him as he tore her open, the burning stretch a perfect, vicious counterpoint to the hollow ache Marcus had left in her.
“This is what you wanted, you little slut,” he grunted into her ear, his breath hot. “You wanted me to lose my mind in front of my wife’s friends. You wanted me to claim you.”
She couldn’t speak. She pushed back against him, meeting his violence with her own, her nails digging into the wood. Her orgasm built not as a wave but as a detonation, starting in her clenched belly and erupting outwards, her cunt clamping down on him in frantic, milking spasms. She screamed into the crook of her arm, the sound muffled.
Feeling her convulse around him tore a raw, guttural groan from his throat. He slammed into her one last time, deeper than seemed possible, and held there. She felt the hot, pulsing rush of his cum flooding her, filling her up, a scalding brand. He shuddered against her back, his whole body going rigid.
For a long moment, they stayed like that, panting, joined, the scent of sex and sweat rising between them. Slowly, he softened and slid out of her. A trickle of his release followed immediately, tracing a warm path down her inner thigh.
He zipped his trousers, his movements efficient. He straightened his shirt, ran a hand through his hair. When he spoke, his voice was calm, eerily so. “Now go back to the table. Smile.”
Joan pushed herself up, her legs shaky. She pulled her torn panties up, the wet silk clinging unpleasantly. She smoothed her dress. In the dark, she could see his silhouette watching her, his anger spent, replaced by a grim, possessive satisfaction.
She opened the study door, the sounds of the dinner party—the clink of china, Lydia’s laugh—flooding back in. She walked down the hall, feeling the distinct, leaking warmth of him deep inside her. She paused at the dining room entrance, took a breath, and let a brilliant, triumphant smile touch her lips before she glided back to her seat.
Peter was already there, sipping his wine, discussing municipal bonds with the man to his left. He glanced at her, just once. His eyes were calm now, the storm passed. His claim inside her was a balm on his wounded self-image, a silent answer to her public flirtation.
Later, as coats were fetched and goodbyes were murmured, David found her by the door. “I had a really nice time tonight, Joan,” he said, his smile genuine. “Maybe I could take you out sometime? Get coffee?”
“I’d like that,” she said, taking the business card he offered, her fingers clean and dry. She smiled up at him, the picture of charming innocence.
She would never call. The number was ash in her hand. David had been a tool, a prop in her meticulous conquest of Peter’s entire self. She had needed to show Peter that his ownership was private, fragile. To everyone else, she was just a pretty, single girl being friendly. They didn’t see the fingerprints on her hips or the secret still dripping from her. They didn’t know she belonged to him.
And now, by forcing him to this reckless, frantic edge, she had shown him he had a vested interest in declaring so. The game had changed. She tucked the card into a vase on the hallway table, a forgotten thing, and went to help Lydia with the dishes, her body humming with victory and the profound, unsettling sense that she was, finally, in control.
She tucked the card into a vase on the hallway table, a forgotten thing, and went to help Lydia with the dishes, her body humming with victory and the profound, unsettling sense that she was, finally, in control. That control felt brittle a week later, fissured by an announcement Peter made with casual finality over a Tuesday breakfast. “I’ve got that merger summit in Chicago,” he said, scraping butter across toast. “Two weeks. Leaves Monday.”
Lydia sighed, a sound of domestic inconvenience. “Two whole weeks? The garden will go wild without you.” Joan kept her eyes on her yogurt, the spoon still in her mouth. A cold dread slithered through her. Two weeks was a canyon. It was time for him to forget the feel of her, time for David’s card to be found, time for everything to unravel.
Later, in the garage as he loaded his briefcase into the car, she cornered him. The air smelled of concrete and gasoline. “Take me with you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not.” She let her lower lip tremble, the pout she’d perfected in mirrors. “I could be your assistant. Carry your things. Take notes. You know I’m smart.” She stepped closer, her hand on his forearm. “We could be together all night. Every night. No listening for steps in the hall.”
Peter closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. The desire was plain on his face, a raw hunger that momentarily overrode his caution. “Jesus, Joan. Lydia would—how would I even explain that? And the days are packed with meetings. I wouldn’t see you.”
“So? I’ll shop. I’ll sit by the hotel pool. I’ll be waiting, naked, when you get back.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, a filthy promise. “I’ll have your cock in my mouth before the door even shuts.”
He let out a strained breath, his resolve visibly crumbling. He wanted to say yes. The want was a physical tremor in his hands. “One week,” he said, the compromise torn from him. “I go alone for the first week. You come out for the second. Tell Lydia you’re visiting that friend from high school, the one who moved to Milwaukee.”
“Chicago isn’t Milwaukee.”
“She won’t check a map, Joan. She trusts you.” The irony of the statement hung between them, acrid and unacknowledged.
A bright, sharp squeal escaped her. Victory. She didn’t hesitate. She dropped to her knees right there on the oil-stained concrete, her hands fumbling with his belt buckle. He hissed, his head swiveling toward the door to the house. “What are you—“
“Celebrating,” she murmured, pulling his zipper down. She took his flaccid cock into her hand, then into the warm, wet cave of her mouth. She worked him slowly, her tongue flattening against the underside of his shaft, her lips stretching as he thickened and hardened against her palate. She looked up, meeting his awestruck gaze. Peter’s head fell back against the car window with a dull thud. The sight of her, of her lipstick smearing, of her blonde hair falling around her focused, greedy face, was as potent as the sensation. He was helpless before it.
She sucked him until he was granite in her throat, until his fingers tangled painfully in her hair, until he groaned, “Enough, enough, or I’ll come.” She released him with a wet pop, smiling at the glossy, swollen evidence of her power. She tucked him away, zipped him up, and rose, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “One week,” she said.
“One week,” he agreed, his voice ragged.
The separation was a new kind of game. That first night, knowing his flight had landed, knowing he’d have texted Lydia goodnight from his sterile hotel room, Joan took the first picture. She was in her bed, the one Peter had first fucked her in. She was nude, the sheets a tangle at her waist. The light from her phone screen cast stark shadows across her breasts and belly. She held the camera low, angling it up the length of her body, a queen surveying her domain. She sent it. No caption.
The reply came a minute later. Christ.
The second night, she wore the lace teddy he’d bought her, the black one. She arched her back, letting one strap fall off her shoulder, her fingers pinching a nipple through the fabric. She sent it.
You’re trying to kill me.
The third night was the dildo. It was the pale, veined silicone one she’d ordered online, a pathetic substitute but a potent prop. She filmed a short video, ten seconds. The sound was off. It showed her spreading her legs, the head of the toy nudging her pink, glistening folds, then her hand pushing it halfway in, a slow, explicit invasion. She stopped it there, holding the penetration frozen on screen, a lewd tableau of absence. She sent it.
His reply took longer. When it came, it was a single line. I can’t fucking think.
She imagined him in a king-sized bed, alone and lonely, the glow of his phone illuminating his face. She imagined his silent rage, his unbearable ache. She powered down her own phone, rolling onto her stomach, pressing her face into the pillow that no longer smelled of him. The control was absolute, and it was utterly, hollowly lonely. She fell asleep with a smile, her hand between her legs, thinking of the week to come.