Chapter 9: The Aftercare Ritual
The first thing she became aware of was the light—a pale, insistent gold seeping through the gaps in the blinds, painting stripes across the rumpled duvet. The second was the ache. A deep, internal throb that felt both alien and familiar, a map of the night’s journey etched into her muscles.
She shifted. A sharp, more localized twinge made her suck in a breath.
“You awake?” His voice was sleep-roughened, close to her ear.
She turned her head on the pillow. Aidan was propped on one elbow, watching her. His hair was a mess, his stubble darker, but his eyes were clear and intent. The usual morning-after ease was absent, replaced by a focused tension.
“Yeah,” she managed.
“Are you okay?” His gaze was searching, unwavering. “Particularly… your arse?”
The clinical concern in his voice, paired with the crude word, was so incongruously Aidan she almost laughed. She didn’t. She tested the sensation again, a careful internal inventory. “It’s… tender.”
His frown deepened. He rubbed a hand over his face. “I was worried I was too rough. Last night was… intense. For both of us.”
“I was an anal virgin too,” she said quietly, stating the plain truth. “I’m not sure how a well-used asshole is supposed to feel the morning after.”
The ghost of a smile touched his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He reached for his phone on the nightstand, the screen flaring to life. The condom wrappers and the whiskey bottle from hours before were pushed aside with a soft clink.
“What are you doing?” she asked, pillowing her cheek on her arm.
“What I should’ve done before,” he muttered, his thumbs tapping the screen. “Research.”
She watched him scroll, the dawn light painting his concentrated profile. This was the other side of him—the engineer, the problem-solver. The man who fixed things. It was strangely more intimate than anything from the night before.
“Ah,” he said, his eyes scanning. “Right. Okay.” He began reading aloud, his Yorkshire accent flattening into a deliberate, factual tone. “Post-anal intercourse care. Soreness is common, especially for beginners. Key points: warm baths, gentle cleansing, abstaining from further penetration for twenty-four to forty-eight hours to allow for tissue healing…” He scrolled further, his eyebrows lifting. “There are also… therapeutic practices some couples find beneficial for relaxation and recovery. Such as…”
He stopped reading. He looked from the phone to her, and a new, entirely different kind of intensity sparked in his gaze. The concerned protector was still there, but now he was looking at a diagram, a schematic for a solution.
“We’re going to do this properly,” he announced, putting the phone down. His voice had changed again—softer, but charged with purpose.
“Do what?”
“Aftercare.” He threw back the duvet. The cool morning air kissed her skin. “On your stomach.”
It wasn’t an order from the night. It was an instruction, gentle but firm. She complied, turning over, wincing as the movement pulled at sore muscles. She heard him get up, pad across the room to the en-suite. The sound of running water. He returned with a soft, warm, damp cloth.
He started there, with a cleanliness that was almost reverent. He cleaned her with the cloth, his touch so light it was a whisper. Then he tossed the cloth toward the laundry basket.
“Just relax,” he murmured, his hands settling on the backs of her thighs. “This isn’t about getting off. It’s about fixing what I might’ve bruised.”
His mouth followed his words. He didn’t dive in. He started at the base of her spine, a trail of soft, open-mouthed kisses descending slowly. By the time he reached the curve of her cheek, her whole body had softened into the mattress. The initial twinges of pain were fading under a wave of pure, melting sensation.
Then his tongue touched her.
Not like before. Not claiming, or conquering. This was exploration of a different kind. Mapping. Soothing. A slow, wet, circling pressure that made her gasp into the pillow.
“You’re incredible,” he whispered against her skin, his breath warm. The words vibrated through her. “Taking me like you did. So fucking brave.” His tongue traced her entrance, a feather-light pass. “So sexy. My perfect, filthy girl.”
The praise was a continuous stream, a counterpoint to the relentless, tender attention of his mouth. It dismantled her. The degradation from the night had carved her out; this praise was filling the hollows with something warm and golden. She felt tears prickle, absurdly, and buried her face deeper into the pillow.
He worked for what felt like an age, until she was liquid and pliant, until the soreness had been replaced by a low, throbbing need that was entirely new.
“Aidan,” she breathed.
“I know.” He kissed the small of her back. “I feel it too. But slow. It’s all about slow.”
He moved up her body, covering her. She felt him, hard and heavy against her thigh. He reached for the lube on the floor, the click echoing in the quiet room.
He prepared her again, but this was different. No ruthless conquest. A patient, meticulous reacquaintance. One finger, then two, moving with a hypnotic rhythm that matched the circling of his thumb on her lower back.
When he finally pressed against her, it was with an agonizing slowness that stole the air from her lungs. He was watching her face, turned to the side on the pillow, reading every flicker in her eyes.
“Tell me,” he said, his voice strained with the effort of holding back.
“It’s… a lot.” She swallowed. “But it’s good. It doesn’t hurt. It just… stretches.”
“Good.” He inched forward, a millimeter at a time. “You’re doing so good. Taking me so well. Better than last night. Softer. Open for me.”
He sank deeper, and the fullness was breathtaking. It was possession, but of a completely different order. This wasn’t about being used. This was about being cared for in the most fundamentally intimate way possible.
He began to move, a shallow, rocking grind that reached places inside her she hadn’t known existed. He kept talking, his lips against her ear, his voice rasping with emotion. “You feel like heaven. A tight, hot heaven I don’t deserve. My clever, beautiful Cat. All mine to look after.”
He refused to rush. He watched the clock on his nightstand. When her breathing hitched and her fingers clutched the sheets, he slowed further, drawing out her pleasure until she was sobbing with it. He brought her to the edge once, twice, and twice denied her, maintaining a brutal, exquisite control focused solely on her.
Only when a full hour had passed, the room now bright with proper morning, did his own restraint begin to fracture. His thrusts lost their measured pace, growing deeper, more urgent.
“Cat,” he groaned, a sound torn from the core of him. “I need…”
“Please,” she begged, shattered and complete. “Aidan, please.”
He came with a shudder that seemed to travel through both of them, his body curling over hers, his face buried in her hair. He held himself there, pulsing inside her, for a long, timeless moment.
Afterwards, he pulled out carefully and immediately gathered her against him, turning them onto their sides. He didn’t speak. He just held her, one hand splayed possessively over her stomach, his breathing gradually slowing against her neck.
The quiet was different now. Not charged with secrets, but thick with a new, unspoken understanding. The game had rules. It had a beginning, a middle, and an after. And the after was this: a silent, sunlit bed where the engineer worshipped the damage he’d done.
Finally, he spoke, his voice muffled against her skin. “Dave’s due back from his mum’s tonight.”
The real world, with all its complications, rushed back in like cold water. She didn’t move. “I know.”
“This changes things,” he repeated his words from the night, but the meaning had deepened.
“I know.”
He held her tighter. The guilt was no longer a distant presence. It was in the bed with them, sitting between their naked, entwined bodies. It was in the way his thumb stroked her hip, a rhythm of comfort and unease.
The game had started. But the player, Catriona realized as she stared at the dust motes dancing in the sunbeam, was no longer sure who was winning, or what the prize even was anymore.