Chapter 7: The Morning After
The golden light of late afternoon felt like a lie. It was too warm, too normal, spilling across Jenny’s kitchen table and illuminating the dust motes floating above the abandoned teacups. Catriona sat at the table, wrapped in one of Jenny’s thin floral robes. She felt the quiet ache deep inside her, a persistent, dull throb that was both a memory and a question.
Jenny was at the sink, her back to the room, washing a single cup over and over. Her movements were slow, deliberate. The water ran clear. Catriona could see the tension in her friend’s shoulders, the way her spine seemed to curve under an invisible weight.
“He’ll come back,” Catriona said, echoing her own words from the night. They sounded less certain now, in the plain light of day.
“I know,” Jenny replied, her voice barely above the whisper of the tap. She placed the clean cup on the drainboard with exaggerated care. “I can still feel him. Like a ghost. Or an anchor.” She finally turned, leaning against the counter. The robe she wore gaped slightly, and Catriona could see the faint, bluish bruise on the pale skin of her inner thigh. A souvenir. “Does that make me pathetic?”
“It makes you human.” Catriona stood, the tile floor cool under her bare feet. She walked to the window, peering through the lace at the empty street. “I feel it too. It’s all I can think about. It’s like he rewired something.”
“He did what we asked,” Jenny murmured.
“We asked for a baby,” Catriona said, turning to face her. “We didn’t ask for this… hunger.” She touched her own lower belly. “This feels separate.”
Before Jenny could answer, the back door opened. No knock. Just the soft scrape of the key and the sigh of hinges. Aidan stepped into the kitchen, filling the doorway. He wore his work clothes—dark jeans, a faded henley stretched across his shoulders, a trace of star-chart ink on his knuckles. He brought the outside in with him: cool air, the smell of distant rain, and a focused intensity that instantly charged the room.
His green eyes scanned them, taking in the robes, their loose hair, the charged silence between them. He didn’t smile. He just closed the door and leaned against it.
“Jenny,” he said, his voice a low rumble.
She flinched at her name, a tiny, birdlike movement. Then she straightened, her chin lifting slightly. A show of bravery that made Catriona’s chest tighten.
Aidan pushed off the door. He crossed the kitchen in three long strides. He didn’t speak, didn’t ask. His hands went to the tie of her robe, pulling it loose. The fabric fell open. He turned her gently, firmly, to face the counter, his body crowding behind her. One broad hand smoothed up her spine, then pressed between her shoulder blades, bending her forward.
“Aidan,” Catriona heard herself say, but it wasn’t a protest. It was a recognition.
He met her gaze over Jenny’s bowed back. His look was dark, permission-seeking and command-giving all at once. Catriona gave the faintest nod. She watched, rooted to the spot, as he freed himself from his jeans. The sight of him, thick and heavy and already fully erect in the mundane kitchen light, was still a shock to the system.
Jenny made a small, choked sound as he pressed into her from behind. Her hands flattened against the worn laminate countertop, fingers splaying. He entered her with a single, deep, uncompromising push, and her head dropped forward, a soft cry escaping her lips. She was still tender, swollen from the night and morning, but she took him, her body yielding with a wet, accepting sound.
Catriona’s mouth went dry. This was different from the bed. This was sharper, more exposed. The clinical brightness of the afternoon showed everything: the flex of Aidan’s thighs as he drove into her, the tremor in Jenny’s legs, the way her whole body jolted with each deep stroke. There was no tenderness here, not now. This was pure function, a brutal, beautiful mechanics of deposit. His hands gripped her hips, holding her in place, his rhythm a steady, piston-like surety. Jenny’s cries were muffled against her own arm, a mixture of overwhelm and a profound, gasping relief.
It was over quickly. Aidan’s body locked, a tendon standing out in his neck as he pressed himself as deep into her as he could go, grunting with the effort of release. Catriona could see the pulse of it, could almost feel the hot rush. He stayed there, buried, for a long moment, his breath harsh in the quiet kitchen. When he pulled out, Jenny slumped over the counter, her body limp. The proof of his work spilled from her, a thick, white trickle down her inner thigh, vivid against her skin.
Aidan turned. His gaze found Catriona, and the hunger in it was a live wire. He didn’t wipe himself clean. He just walked toward her, his intent clear. The scent of sex and salt and Jenny was on him.
“My turn?” Catriona whispered, the words ash in her throat.
“You watched,” he said, his voice rough. “Now you feel.”
He untied her robe, pushed it off her shoulders. The air was cool on her skin. He lifted her as if she weighed nothing, setting her on the edge of the kitchen table. Teacups rattled. The lace curtain brushed her shoulder. He pushed her legs apart, his hands rough on her thighs, and stepped between them.
The first thrust was a reclamation. Catriona cried out, her hands flying back to brace herself on the table. He was everywhere, stretching her, filling the empty, aching space his earlier departure had left. This wasn’t the shared, dreamlike claiming of the night before. This was daylight reality. This was her husband, smelling of another woman, fucking her with a single-minded ferocity that shattered every civilized pretense. She could see Jenny, still leaning against the counter, watching them through a curtain of blonde hair, her eyes wide and dark.
Catriona’s orgasm was a brutal, unexpected theft. It ripped through her, wringing a raw shout from her throat. He didn’t slow. He chased his own, his pace becoming erratic, frantic. When he came, it was with a snarling groan, his forehead dropping to her shoulder, his body shuddering as he pumped his release deep into her womb. The heat of it was startling, a vivid, internal claim.
He held her there for a minute, his weight against her, his breath hot on her neck. Then he stepped back. He looked at both of them: Catriona, spread on the table, Jenny, damp and marked against the counter. A grim, satisfied expression flickered across his face. He tucked himself away, zipped his jeans.
“I have to get to the observatory,” he said, his voice back to its normal, grounded timbre, as if he’d just commented on the weather.
And then he was gone. The back door clicked shut.
The silence he left behind was deafening. The only sounds were their ragged breathing and the drip of the kitchen tap.
Slowly, Catriona slid off the table. Her legs trembled. She and Jenny looked at each other across the space. No smiles this time. Their faces were flushed, their eyes shell-shocked. The evidence of him was on both of them, on the table, on the floor.
Jenny pushed away from the counter. She walked unsteadily to Catriona, reached out, and touched a spot on Catriona’s neck. A love bite, Catriona realized. She hadn’t even felt him do it.
“He’s never going to look at us the same way again,” Jenny said, her voice hollow.
Catriona took her hand. Their fingers were slick. “We’re never going to look at each other the same way again,” she corrected.
They stood there in the pooling afternoon light, connected by the shared, dripping proof of what they had asked for, and what they had become.