Chapter 30: The Client's Command
The hotel room smelled of lemon sanitizer and hot electronics. Catriona stood at the center of it, a still point in the organized chaos of cables, light stands, and black fabric. She adjusted the fake glasses on her nose, the large frames slightly crooked. Her hair was pulled into a punishingly tight bun at the nape of her neck, and the grey pencil skirt she’d sourced from a vintage shop constricted her movement with every step.
“You look like you’re about to shush me,” Aidan said from behind the main camera, his eye pressed to the viewfinder.
“I might.” She smoothed her hands over the modest cardigan. “If you’re late returning your books.”
He grinned, that quick, wolfish smile that still made something twist low in her belly. “Client wants the Professor bit to feel authentic. A bit pretentious, a lot predatory. He specified ‘academic domination with a crude vernacular.’” Aidan lowered the camera. “You ready for this? It’s closer to home than the other stuff.”
She knew what he meant. This wasn’t a fantasy about alien abduction or medieval capture. This was her everyday armor, weaponized. The demure librarian, corrupted. It thrilled her more than she’d admit. “I’m ready. Let’s do the discovery scene first.”
Aidan nodded, all business now. He’d set up a cheap, laminate desk against one stark white wall. A few textbooks and a ledger were scattered across it. “Positions. You’re straightening the shelves, I’m at the desk reviewing your overdue notices. Action on my mark.”
She turned to the bookcase prop, her back to him, and began meticulously aligning invisible spines. Her heart was a steady, eager drum.
“And… mark.”
The soft, relentless hum of the camera motor filled the silence. She heard the rustle of paper, the creak of his chair.
“Miss Shaw.” His voice was different. Deeper, clipped, with an authoritative boredom that was new. A shiver traced her spine. “A word.”
She turned, clasping her hands in front of her. “Professor Thorne?”
He didn’t look up from the ledger. “Your selections this past month. The Story of O. Venus in Furs. The collected writings of the Marquis de Sade.” He finally lifted his gaze. The lights caught the cold appraisal in his eyes. “An interesting curriculum for a conservation intern.”
Catriona felt a flush creep up her neck. It wasn’t acted. “I… I find them historically significant.”
“Do you.” It wasn’t a question. He closed the ledger with a snap. “Come here.”
She walked to the desk, the click of her low heels loud in the quiet room. He leaned back, studying her like a specimen.
“I think your interests are less academic and more… practical.” He let the word hang. “I think you have a dirty little mind, Miss Shaw. I think you check out these books and you touch yourself in the stacks, wondering what it would feel like to be used like that.”
Her breath hitched. The script was just a framework, but he was coloring outside the lines, and it was perfect. “That’s not true,” she whispered, the protest feeble.
“Liar.” He stood suddenly, circling the desk. He stopped behind her, so close she could feel the heat of him through her clothes. His voice dropped to a murmur near her ear, audible only to her and the shotgun mic overhead. “Your file is full of transgressions. Late returns. Dog-eared pages. Stains on the covers.” His hands landed on her shoulders, heavy and possessive. “Filthy habits require discipline.”
He spun her around to face the desk and pushed her forward. Her palms flattened on the cool laminate. The camera on the jib arm swept in for a close-up of her face.
“Please,” she breathed, her eyes wide behind the glasses.
“Please what?” He gathered her skirt in one hand, yanking it up around her waist. The client had requested stockings and a garter, a detail of contrast. The pale lace looked obscene against the grey wool. His other hand hooked in the waistband of her plain cotton knickers and pulled them down to her knees. The air was cold on her exposed skin.
“Please, don’t…”
“You want it.” His belt buckle jangled, a sharp, metallic promise. “You’ve been begging for it with every filthy book you’ve handled. You want to be my little library slut, don’t you?”
She didn’t answer. He brought his hand down hard on her left cheek. The crack was startlingly loud. A bright bloom of heat spread through her. She gasped, a real, ragged sound.
“Don’t you?” he repeated, his voice a granite grind.
“Yes.” The word was a surrender. “Yes, Professor.”
“Good girl.”
There was no more pretending. He guided himself into her with a single, brutal thrust that stole the air from her lungs. The desk scraped against the wall. Her glasses slipped down her nose. He set a punishing rhythm from the start, his grip on her hips iron-tight, each snap of his pelvis driving a choked sound from her throat.
“Look at the lens,” he commanded, and she forced her eyes open, finding the dark glass of the camera just feet away. Her expression was a shattered thing—pain, shame, and a dawning, profound ecstasy.
“Tell them what you are,” he growled, not breaking pace.
“I’m… I’m your slut,” she panted.
“Louder.”
“I’M YOUR DIRTY SLUT!” she screamed, the words tearing from her, real and raw. Her polished bun was coming undone, strands of honey-blonde hair sticking to her damp forehead.
He fucked her like he was trying to erase David’s words from the alley, like he was claiming every secret thought she’d ever had in a quiet library corner. The cameras caught it all: the clench of her jaw, the flutter of her eyelids, the precise moment her performative pleading melted into genuine, desperate need. When she came, it was with a silent, shaking violence that seemed to ripple out from her core, leaving her limp over the desk. He followed seconds later, his own release a guttural groan against her neck, his body bowed over hers.
For a long moment, the only sound was their ragged breathing and the hum of the lights.
“Cut,” Aidan whispered, still inside her. Then he gently withdrew.
They broke apart carefully. Catriona peeled herself off the desk, her legs unsteady. She righted her clothes with trembling hands. Without a word, Aidan passed her a bottle of water and a towel. They drank, avoiding each other’s eyes, the transition from characters back to themselves a delicate, silent process.
Two hours later, the gear was packed away. The sterile room was just a hotel room again. They sat side-by-side on the edge of the bed, a laptop between them, reviewing the raw footage.
Catriona watched herself on screen, a stranger of exquisite depravity. “God,” she murmured. “The close-up on the… the penetration. It’s almost clinical.”
“It’s what he paid for,” Aidan said, his finger hovering over the trackpad. “The 4K shows everything. Every tear, every ripple.” He paused the playback on a frame of her face, eyes rolled back, mouth a perfect ‘O’. “You’re breathtaking.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. The scent of sex and sweat had replaced the sanitizer. “I felt breathtaking. It didn’t feel like acting at the end.”
“I know.” He closed the laptop. The room fell into a softer quiet. He was looking at her, a thoughtful, intense look that had nothing to do with professors or clients.
“What?” she asked.
“I want an encore.”
She blinked. “We just wrapped. The scene is in the can.”
“Not for them.” He placed the laptop on the floor. “For us. Right now.” His hand came up to cup her jaw, his thumb brushing over her bottom lip. “No cameras. No marks. No character.”
His meaning was clear. This was the line they never crossed on film—the final, unbroachable limit she’d set. The one act she saved only for the two of them, for the reality of their connection, away from the transaction.
Her nerves fizzed, a different kind of excitement. This was the secret within the secret. She nodded, a slow, deliberate dip of her chin.
He kissed her then, deep and searching, a world away from Professor Thorne’s calculated cruelty. It was all Aidan—warm, possessive, adoring. He laid her back on the slick black sheets, the material cool against her skin. He took his time, removing her clothes slowly, kissing each newly bared inch, dissolving the last ghost of the character with his tenderness.
When he finally moved over her, his eyes held hers. There was no script here, no camera to perform for. This was the raw, unrecorded truth of them. He entered her slowly, a profound, filling pressure, and she wrapped her legs around him, pulling him closer, anchoring herself in the feel of him, in the safety of his weight, in the private, wordless language of their bodies that belonged to no one else.
Outside, the city lights blurred into a distant galaxy. In the quiet, dark room, the only soundtrack was their shared breath, the rustle of sheets, and the soft, desperate sounds of a surrender that was, for once, entirely real.