Chapter 5: The Sunday Roast
The silence over the cold roast was thick enough to carve. Catriona pushed a piece of carrot through congealed gravy, the clink of her fork against the plate absurdly loud. Aidan ate with the methodical focus of a man finishing a job, his eyes on his phone screen, scrolling through engineering schematics.
Her body still hummed. The ache between her legs was a satisfied, persistent echo. The memory of the kitchen table against her cheek, the smell of lemon polish and his skin, the shocking intimacy of his mouth on her there—it played on a loop beneath the mundane reality of chewing cold beef.
He’d helped her plate the food. His fingers, which had been inside her minutes before, had calmly arranged roast potatoes. The juxtaposition was more destabilizing than the act itself.
“Gravy’s set into a paste,” she said, just to break the quiet.
“Mhm.” He didn’t look up. “Microwave’s fucked. Knew I should’ve fixed it.”
It was so ordinary. So stupidly, beautifully ordinary. A laugh bubbled up in her chest, tinged with hysteria. She swallowed it with a sip of water.
His phone buzzed on the table. A name flashed on the screen: Dave.
The air in the kitchen shifted. Aidan’s thumb hovered. He glanced at her, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes—not guilt, but calculation. He answered, putting it on speaker.
“Alright, mate?” Aidan’s voice was easy, broad Yorkshire flattening the vowels.
“Mum’s sent you a tupperware. Some kind of stew. Beats your burnt offerings.” Dave’s voice was cheerful, amplified in the quiet room. “I’m just turning onto our street. Fancy a pint? The Bell’s still open.”
Catriona froze. Her fingers tightened around her fork. Their street. She was sitting here, in a Sunday dress, her underwear in a damp ball in her bedroom, full of him. The evidence was literally inside her.
Aidan’s gaze held hers. “Nah, can’t. Got an early video call with some contractors in Bahrain. Need to prep.”
“Working on a Sunday? You’re a sad case. Cat in?”
“Yeah, she’s here. We just ate.” Aidan’s eyes didn’t leave her face. “Quiet night.”
“Right. Tell her I said hi. I’ll shove this tub in the fridge for you. See you later.”
The call ended. The silence returned, but now it was charged, electric with the near-miss. They heard the key in the front door, the shuffle of Dave kicking off his shoes, the rustle of a carrier bag.
Catriona’s heart hammered against her ribs. This was different from the morning with the shower. This was direct, personal. Dave was in the next room.
Aidan stood up slowly. He walked around the table to her. He placed a hand on the back of her neck, his thumb stroking the nape. It was a claim, a comfort, a brand. “Take your plate to the sink,” he said, his voice low. “Then go to your room. Read a book.”
“He’ll—”
“He’ll ask if you want tea. You’ll say no, you’ve got a headache. You’re going to have an early night.” His instructions were calm, impossibly so. “Do it.”
She stood, her legs steady. She picked up her plate and his, carrying them to the sink. She could hear Dave humming in the hallway.
As she walked past the kitchen doorway, Dave appeared, holding a plastic container. “Oh, hey Cat! You look… tired. Everything alright?”
She manufactured a small, tight smile. “Just a long week. Head’s pounding. I think I’ll turn in.”
“Right, right. Get some rest.” Dave gave her a sympathetic nod and headed into the kitchen. “Aidan, you miserable workaholic, where do you want this slop?”
Catriona didn’t wait to hear the answer. She climbed the stairs, each step a measured escape. In her room, she closed the door and leaned against it. The mundane exchange downstairs was a surreal coda to the afternoon’s raw passion. She could still feel him. The stickiness on her thighs had dried, a secret parchment.
She didn’t read. She sat on the edge of her bed, listening to the muffled rise and fall of their voices below—Dave’s booming laugh, Aidan’s drier replies. The domestic soundscape she’d lived in for two years now felt like a set, a stage behind which her real life pulsed.
Her phone lit up on the nightstand.
Aidan: He’s gone to his room. Xbox.
A pause. Then another message.
Aidan: You did good.
Three words. They unspooled something tight in her chest. A validation she hadn’t known she needed. This wasn’t just about the sex. It was about the performance, the compartmentalization, the cool execution of his orders under pressure. She had done good.
Catriona: It felt dangerous.
Aidan: It was. That’s the point.
Catriona: Is it?
A longer pause. The ellipsis appeared, vanished, appeared again.
Aidan: Come to my room.
Her breath caught. Now? With Dave down the hall, awake, present? The risk was geometric, exponential. It wasn’t a calculated window of time; it was an active defiance.
Catriona: He’ll hear.
Aidan: Let him hear you walk down the hall. Let him think you’re going to the bathroom. Then be quiet. Be a ghost.
The instruction was a cold thrill. It spoke to a deeper layer of the fantasy—not just being used, but being stolen, taken from under the very nose of the oblivious world. It spoke to absolute trust.
She waited five minutes, her ear tuned to the repetitive thump-thump-thump of digital gunfire from Dave’s room. Then she turned her doorknob with silent, painstaking care. The hallway floorboard, the one that always creaked, was a mile of enemy territory. She stepped over it, a practiced move from midnight fridge raids. Three steps to his door. It was slightly ajar.
She slipped inside. The room was dark, only the faint orange glow of the streetlamp outside painting stripes across the bed. He was standing by the window, outlined in that sour light, watching her.
He didn’t speak. He pointed to the space in front of him on the floor.
She went, the carpet rough under her bare feet. When she stood before him, he placed his hands on her shoulders and pressed down. She understood, sinking to her knees. The posture was one of absolute submission, but here, now, it felt like a clandestine meeting of co-conspirators.
He was already hard, pushing against his sweatpants. He freed himself, the shape of him just visible in the gloom. He didn’t guide her head, didn’t force. He simply presented himself and waited.
She took him into her mouth, the taste of him and her still lingering, salt and skin. She moved slowly, conscious of every sound, every shift of her own body. The only noises were the wet, soft sounds of her efforts and the distant, tinny barrage from a video game. Her world narrowed to this: the weight on her tongue, the sound of Dave’s game, the strip of light under the door.
His hand came to rest on her head, not pushing, just holding. A connection.
When his body tensed and he spilled into her mouth with a suppressed, shuddering sigh, she took it all, the final, silent consummation of the evening. He held himself there for a moment, then gently withdrew.
He crouched down in front of her, his face level with hers. In the dark, she could barely see his expression. He leaned forward and kissed her, deep and searching, tasting himself on her tongue. It was more intimate than anything that had come before.
“Go back to your room,” he whispered against her lips, his voice ragged. “Sleep.”
She did, ghosting back down the hall, the gamer’s soundtrack her cover. In her own bed, the taste of him still in her mouth, she understood the new boundary they’d crossed. It wasn’t about scheduling around Dave’s absences anymore. It was about existing around his presence. The game had changed.
And she, curled in her sheets, had never felt more awake.