Chapter 23: The Aftermath of Obsession
The grey dawn had solidified into a pale, watery morning when Pace stirred. The space beside him on the floor was empty, the indentation in the rug still warm. The silence was wrong. It wasn’t the silence of sleep, but the held-breath quiet of empty rooms. He was alone.
A low, possessive thrum started in his chest. He pushed himself up, his body protesting with a hundred new aches. The parlour was a disaster zone of discarded clothes, empty glasses, and the lingering, musky scent of their night. But it was empty.
Then he heard it. The distant, tinny echo of water hitting tile. From the ensuite bathroom.
He moved silently, a predator on bare feet. The door to the bathroom was ajar, a plume of steam curling into the cooler air of the bedroom. Through the gap, he could see the vague, blurred shapes through the fogged glass of the shower enclosure. The sound of the water was a steady roar, but beneath it, there were other sounds. A gasp, choked and sudden. A low, masculine groan.
Pace stopped at the door, his hand resting on the frame. The glass was streaked, condensation running in rivulets. He could make out Lina’s silhouette, pressed against the wet tile. And another silhouette, taller, broader, moving behind her with a rhythmic, urgent cadence. John.
His clone’s hand was clamped over Lina’s mouth, his fingers splayed across her cheek. Her head was tilted back against his shoulder, her body arching into his thrusts. John’s other hand was braced against the wall beside her head, his form a dark, possessive shadow enveloping hers.
A cold, sharp fury sliced through Pace’s veins, clean and bright. It was instantly followed by a surge of heat so potent it made his vision swim. The two emotions warred, twisting together into something far more complex than jealousy.
He pushed the door open. The steam billowed out, warm and thick, carrying the scent of soap and sex. The sound of the water masked his entrance. They hadn’t heard him.
John was fucking her hard, his hips pistoning, the wet slap of skin on skin audible even over the shower’s din. Lina’s eyes were squeezed shut, her expression one of intense, focused pleasure beneath John’s silencing palm. Her hands were pressed flat against the slick tile, her nails scrabbling for purchase.
Pace leaned against the vanity, crossing his arms. The marble was cool against his skin. He watched. He let the image burn itself into his mind: his face, his body, moving inside his woman without his permission. A slow, dangerous smile touched his lips.
“Oh,” he said, his voice cutting through the steam and the water and the sounds of their coupling. “So my clone has finally got the gut to cuckold my woman now.”
The effect was instantaneous. John froze, his body locking mid-thrust. His head snapped around, his eyes wide, a deer in headlights. Lina’s eyes flew open, violet pools of shock. John’s hand fell from her mouth.
“Pace!” she gasped, trying to turn, but John’s body held her pinned. “You were asleep! We didn’t want to wake you— mmph!”
Pace was on them in three strides. He wrenched the shower door open, the blast of hot spray hitting his chest. He didn’t look at John. His eyes were only for Lina. He grabbed her face, water streaming down his arm, and kissed her.
It was a claiming, a reconquest. His tongue plunged into her mouth, tasting the shower water and her own unique sweetness. She moaned into him, her body still impaled on John, her hands coming up to clutch at his shoulders. The kiss was brutal, deep, a reassertion of primary ownership.
He broke it, breathing hard, water dripping from his chin onto her face. He looked past her, at John, who stared back, breath ragged, still buried inside her.
John swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. His voice was rough with lust and a defiant challenge. “Lina,” he said, his eyes locked on Pace’s over her shoulder. “If he fucks you, I want you to suck me off again. And then I’ll enter you too. Feel both of us. Please.”
Lina shivered, a full-body tremor that made both of them feel it. She looked from one to the other, steam wreathing their mirrored faces. A slow, wicked smile spread across her lips, the scientist thrilled by the volatile experiment. “Ahh…” she breathed, her voice a husky promise. “You boys are insatiable.”
Pace held John’s gaze for a long, charged moment. The hierarchy was fluid here, in the steam. He saw no fear in John’s eyes, only a desperate, naked hunger. He gave a single, curt nod.
“Turn her around,” Pace commanded, his voice low.
John obeyed, pulling out of her with a wet sound that made Lina gasp. He turned her gently in the confined space until she faced Pace, her back now to John. The water cascaded over her silver-blonde hair, plastering it to her skull, streaming over her breasts, her stomach, the slick, swollen evidence of their earlier activities.
Pace’s hands slid down her slick sides, settling on her hips. He lifted her effortlessly, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms locking around his neck. He didn’t enter her immediately. He held her there, the head of his cock pressing against her, a teasing, maddening pressure.
“Suck him,” Pace ordered, his voice a rumble against her ear.
Lina didn’t need telling twice. She leaned back, arching her spine, her head finding John’s groin behind her. John groaned as her mouth found him, hot and wet and eager, her tongue swirling around his length before she took him deep into her throat.
Pace watched, mesmerized, as she serviced his clone. Then he drove up into her.
Her cry was muffled around John’s cock, a vibration that made John shout and buckle, his hands coming to brace against her shoulders. Pace’s thrust was deep, final, a reclaiming of territory. He set a punishing rhythm, each upward surge grinding her onto him, each retreat almost pulling him free before he slammed home again.
The shower became a cage of steam and sensation. The water beat down on them, a tropical rain that did nothing to cool the heat. Lina was the pivot, the conduit. She choked and gagged on John, her throat working, her nails digging into Pace’s back. Pace fucked her with a focused, possessive intensity, his eyes on John’s face over her shoulder, watching every flicker of pleasure, every shared grimace.
“Harder,” John rasped, his hands tightening on Lina’s shoulders. “Pace, fuck her harder for me.”
Pace obeyed, his hips snapping forward with brutal force. Lina screamed around John’s cock, her body convulsing in a sudden, sharp orgasm that clamped down on Pace like a vise. He rode it out, his own pleasure coiling tight, a spring about to break.
John pulled himself from her mouth with a wet pop. “My turn,” he panted, his voice frantic. “My turn inside her. Now.”
Pace didn’t stop. He kept moving, his thrusts becoming shallower, faster, a frantic race toward his own end. “You want her?” he grunted, his breath coming in harsh gasps. “Take her.”
He didn’t pull out. Instead, he shifted his grip, turning Lina in his arms, still speared on him. He maneuvered her until she was facing John, her back to Pace’s chest. He held her tight against him, his cock buried to the hilt inside her.
“John,” Lina moaned, reaching for him, her hands sliding over his wet chest.
John stepped forward, his eyes wild. He hooked her legs over his arms, lifting her slightly. Pace supported her weight from behind. For a terrifying, glorious moment, John pressed against her, the tip of his cock nudging at her already-stretched, Pace-filled entrance.
“Do it,” Pace growled into her ear, his teeth grazing her lobe. “Take us both.”
John pushed.
Lina’s cry was shattered, a sound of pure, overwhelming sensation. It was a slow, impossible stretch, a burning fullness that transcended pain and bloomed into something else entirely. She was impossibly full, stuffed, split open on them. Pace could feel John through the thin barrier of her body, a pressure, a presence, a completion of a circuit.
They found a ragged, three-part rhythm. Pace would pull back, and John would press forward. Then John would retreat, and Pace would surge in. They moved in opposition, a piston engine of flesh, driving her between them. Lina was beyond speech, her head lolling against Pace’s shoulder, her mouth open in a continuous, shattered moan. Her hands clutched at John’s biceps, her body a quaking, overstimulated vessel.
Pace watched John’s face, seeing his own ecstasy mirrored there, reflected back at him through the shared violation of the woman they both claimed. It wasn’t about John anymore. It was about the symmetry, the perfect, violent math of it.
John came first, with a roar that echoed off the tiles, his body seizing, pulsing inside her. The new, hot flood of sensation tipped Pace over the edge. His own climax tore through him, a blinding, white-hot detonation that emptied him into her depths, mixing with John’s release.
They slumped together, a shuddering, waterlogged tangle under the relentless spray. Pace’s legs threatened to buckle. John’s forehead rested against Lina’s collarbone, his breath heaving. Lina was a boneless weight between them, supported only by their locked arms.
Slowly, carefully, they disentangled. John pulled free first, then Pace, both movements drawing soft, oversensitive whimpers from Lina. They lowered her gently until her feet found the slippery floor. She swayed, and they held her upright, the water washing away the evidence of their union.
No one spoke. The only sound was the shower and their ragged breathing. Pace reached past her and turned the water off. The sudden silence was abrupt, ringing.
He looked at John. Water streamed down the clone’s face, identical to his own. There was no triumph there, no gloat. Just a spent, profound exhaustion. A shared secret.
Lina peeled herself from their grasp, wobbly but functional. She took a towel from the rack, not looking at either of them, and began to dry herself with methodical, clinical strokes. The scientist was reasserting herself, brick by brick.
“The water pressure is adequate,” she said, her voice hoarse but composed. “But the simultaneous penetration, while theoretically stimulating, presents a high risk of muscular trauma. The fascia is not designed for such—”
Pace started laughing. It was a raw, breathless sound that surprised even him. John blinked, then a slow grin spread across his face, echoing Pace’s own.
Lina stopped drying her hair and looked at them, her violet eyes narrowed. “What?”
Pace just shook his head, grabbing a towel for himself. He didn’t have the words. The words were back in the steam, mixing with the water and going down the drain. All that was left was the clean, quiet aftermath, and the unspoken knowledge that the line, once crossed, was now a country they inhabited together.
He tossed the other towel to John. “Dry off,” he said, his voice rough. “We’ve got business with the Lucianos today.”
John caught the towel, his eyes meeting Pace’s. Business. The outside world. A world where they were not this. Nodding, he began to dry himself, the simple movement a return to order, even as the ghost of Lina’s cries echoed in the tiled room.