Chapter 24: A New Arrangement
The smell of coffee and sex lingered in the sunroom, a potent, domestic mix. The wicker chaise held the deep impression of their bodies. Jenny was curled in an armchair now, wrapped in one of Aidan’s flannel shirts. It swamped her, the sleeves hanging past her fingertips. She looked like a girl playing dress-up, but her eyes were a woman’s—clear, decided.
Catriona poured fresh coffee, her own robe cinched tight. The proposal had been circling in her head all night, a logical conclusion to the path they were already walking. She just had to give it words.
“We should make it official,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. She handed a mug to Jenny, then one to Aidan, who leaned against the doorframe, watching them both.
“Official how?” Aidan asked. His tone was careful. He’d learned to wait for her definitions.
“Jenny moves in. Until the baby comes. Maybe after.” Catriona sipped her coffee, the heat grounding her. “We stop pretending this is a visit. This becomes her home. Our home.”
Jenny’s breath hitched. The mug trembled in her hands. “Mark…”
“Is your husband,” Catriona finished for her. “And he’ll want you back. He’ll want his wife and his child under his roof. The question is, where do you want to be?”
The room was silent except for the distant chitter of a squirrel in the garden. Jenny stared into the black depths of her coffee. “I want to wake up feeling full,” she whispered. “Not just… physically. Everywhere. I haven’t felt empty once since I walked through your door. Not in my stomach, not in my heart.” She looked up, first at Catriona, then at Aidan. “The hollow is gone. You filled it.”
Aidan pushed off the doorframe. He crossed the room slowly, like approaching a skittish animal. He knelt in front of her chair, his big hands coming to rest on her knees. “Then stay.”
“And you?” Jenny asked, her voice small. “What do you get from this?”
Aidan’s green eyes darkened. “I get to know you’re safe. I get to know you’re cared for. I get to feel your body soften under mine because you trust me to hold you up.” He paused, his thumbs rubbing circles on her skin through the flannel. “And I get to put this baby in you, Jenny. Over and over. Until you’re so full of me there’s no room for anything else. Not fear, not sadness. Nothing.”
A shiver ran through Jenny, a visible tremor that started at her core and radiated outward. Her hazel eyes flooded, but she didn’t cry. She just nodded, once, a sharp, definitive dip of her chin.
Catriona felt a corresponding pulse deep within herself, a liquid heat that had nothing to do with the coffee. This was it. The contract was being written in looks, in breaths.
“Okay,” Jenny breathed. “Yes.”
The word hung there, simple and monumental.
Aidan didn’t smile. His expression turned fiercely intent. He stood, his movements economical, and took her mug, placing it on the wicker table. Then his hands went to the buttons of the flannel shirt she wore. His shirt. He opened it slowly, pushing the fabric aside to reveal her slim body, the gentle curve of her belly that was just beginning to hint at the life within.
The morning light gilded her skin. She didn’t shy away. She let him look.
“On the chaise,” he said, his voice gravel.
Jenny obeyed, rising and moving the few steps to the sun-bleached cushions. She lay back, her hair fanning out, her legs falling open in an offering that was both submissive and utterly confident. She knew what she was asking for. What she needed.
Catriona settled into the armchair Jenny had vacated, pulling her knees up to her chest. She watched, her own breath coming shallow. This was different from the frantic heat of the night before. This was ceremony.
Aidan undid his own jeans, pushing them down just enough. He was already thick and heavy, fully erect. He knelt between Jenny’s thighs, his hands sliding under her hips to tilt her up to meet him. He didn’t tease. He notched the broad head of himself against her, felt the slick, welcoming heat of her, and with one solid, relentless push, he was inside.
Jenny gasped, her back arching off the chaise. It was a gasp of sheer completion, of a space being perfectly filled. Her hands flew to his forearms, her fingers digging into the corded muscle there.
Aidan didn’t move. He stayed buried to the hilt, letting her adjust, letting her feel the sheer, stretching fullness. He dropped his head, his forehead touching hers. “This is yours,” he growled, the sound intimate, for her alone. “Whenever you need it. However you need it. You ask, and it’s yours.”
Then he began to move. Not a frantic pounding, but deep, claiming strokes that sank into her very center. Each thrust was a promise, a sealing of the pact. The wicker creaked a steady rhythm beneath them. Jenny’s cries were soft, broken things, whispers of “yes” and “more” and “Aidan.”
Catriona watched, mesmerized. Her hand crept under her own robe, her fingers finding the wet, aching proof of her own arousal. She touched herself in time with his thrusts, her eyes glued to the place where their bodies joined, to the dark, passionate focus on her husband’s face, to the blissful surrender on her best friend’s.
This was the arrangement. Not a schedule, not a set of rules. This was the bedrock: Jenny’s need, and Aidan’s relentless, physical answer to it.
He shifted his angle, driving deeper, and Jenny’s whole body tightened. Her orgasm washed over her silently, a series of internal flutters that made Aidan groan and pick up his pace. His own release followed, a long, shuddering climax that pumped his seed into her, a hot, claiming flood. He didn’t pull out. He collapsed over her, spent, still buried inside her as they both rode out the aftershocks.
Later, after Aidan had carried a boneless Jenny to the shower and then to their bed for a nap, Catriona found him back in the sunroom, straightening the cushions.
“You’re sure?” he asked her, his back turned.
She came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek to the solid warmth of his back. “I’ve never been more sure of anything. She’s where she belongs.”
He turned in her embrace, pulling her close. “I love you. You know that, right? This doesn’t change that. It… amplifies it.”
“I know.” And she did. His capacity for this, for this fierce, protective passion, only made her love him more.
From the bedroom, Jenny’s phone began to ring again. The tinny, insistent sound of Mark’s call. It rang once.Twice. A third time.
Then, silence.
A moment later, Jenny appeared in the hallway, her hair damp, wearing one of Catriona’s sleep shirts. She walked into the sunroom, into the pool of golden light, and slipped between them, fitting herself into their arms as if she’d always been there.
“I silenced it,” she said quietly, her face against Aidan’s chest. Then she looked at Catriona over his arm, a tired, peaceful smile on her face. “I’m home.”