Chapter 28: A New Recruit
The quiet after Fiona and Siobhan left had been a living thing, thick and unsettled. Aidan and Catriona had moved through it in a haze of silent cleaning—plumping cushions, collecting glasses, opening a window to let the cool evening air dilute the scent of them all. It was a mundane ritual that did nothing to scrub the afternoon from his skin.
He was loading the dishwasher when Catriona’s phone, facedown on the island, buzzed. Then buzzed again. A third time.
She picked it up, a slow smile blooming as she read. “It’s Clara.” Her voice was a purr in the dim kitchen light.
Aidan straightened, a dish still in his hand. “Clara?”
“From this morning.” Catriona’s eyes flicked to him, gleaming. “She can’t stop thinking about it. Says she’s been wet all day. That she keeps touching herself and it’s not enough.” She turned the screen toward him. The preview text was stark against the bright background: I need him again. Please.
A current, equal parts dread and pure animal hunger, jolted through him. “Again? Now?”
“Why wait?” Catriona set the phone down, coming around the island to stand before him. She placed her palms flat on his chest. “You saw her. She was perfect. Grateful. A little overwhelmed. She wants to worship it. Specifically, she asked if she could taste you.” Catriona’s thumbs brushed his nipples through the thin cotton of his shirt. “I told her to come over. She’s on her way.”
“Jesus, Cat.”
“She’s single, Aidan. No messy coverage required. Just hunger.” She traced the line of his jaw. “And I want to watch her kneel.”
Twenty minutes later, Clara stood in their living room, looking both more confident and more nervous than she had that morning. She wore a simple black wrap dress and high heels, her blonde hair down. Her gaze kept darting to Aidan, then away, a flush on her cheeks.
“You look well-fucked, Clara,” Catriona said pleasantly, pouring a single glass of wine and handing it to her. “It suits you.”
Clara took the glass with a slightly trembling hand. “I feel… different. Like my skin’s too tight.”
“I know the feeling.” Catriona settled into her armchair, curling her legs beneath her. It was her viewing throne. “Finish your wine. Then I want you to undress for him. Slowly. Let him remember what he’s about to get.”
Clara obeyed, sipping the wine, her eyes locked on Aidan’s as she drank. When the glass was empty, she set it down with a definitive click. Her fingers went to the knot at her waist. The dress fell open. She shrugged it off her shoulders, let it slide down her body to pool at her feet. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath.
The afternoon light was softer now, gentler, and it gilded her curves. The marks from his grip on her hips were faint bruises, blooming like shadows. She stood still, letting him look, her breath quickening.
“Now kneel,” Catriona instructed, her voice low and clear. “Before him. Look up at him.”
Clara sank gracefully to her knees on the rug, her hands coming to rest on her thighs. She tilted her head back, her expression one of open supplication. Aidan felt the commanding presence of his own body, the sheer physical power of this dynamic, coil tight in his gut.
“Touch him,” Catriona said. “Through his pants. Feel what you did to him.”
Clara’s hands lifted, her fingers pressing against the hard bulge in his sweats. She moaned softly, her eyes fluttering closed for a second. “God,” she whispered.
“Now take him out. I want to see your face when you see it again.”
With reverent hands, Clara pulled the waistband down. His cock sprang free, fully hard, thick and flushed against his stomach. Her lips parted on a sharp intake of breath, the same mixture of awe and fear from the morning flashing across her face. “It’s even bigger than I remembered,” she breathed.
“That’s your effect,” Catriona murmured from her chair. “Now taste him. Take him in your mouth. I want to watch you work.”
Clara leaned forward, her tongue darting out to tentatively lick the broad head. She glanced at Catriona, as if for approval, then opened her mouth wider, taking him slowly, inch by inch. Her eyes watered almost immediately, but she pushed, a determined, guttural sound vibrating around him.
Aidan’s head fell back. The wet, hot suction was expert, hungry. She used her hands, stroking what she couldn’t take, her head bobbing in a relentless rhythm. The sounds were obscene, wet gulps and choked breaths. He tangled a hand in her blonde hair, not guiding, just holding, feeling the movement against his palm.
“That’s it,” Catriona whispered. He forced his eyes open, looked over. She had her robe open, her fingers circling her clit in time with Clara’s strokes, her gaze fixed on the point where Clara’s lips stretched around him. “Look at her. She can’t get enough. She’d swallow you whole if she could.”
Clara redoubled her efforts, her moans constant now, her own need evident. She was rocking on her knees, fucking her own thighs together.
The pressure built in Aidan, a familiar, tightening wave. His grip tightened in her hair. “Cat… I’m close.”
Catriona’s movements stilled. Her voice cut through the room, sharp as a scalpel. “Stop.”
Clara froze, her mouth still full, a confused whimper escaping her.
“Pull out, Aidan,” Catriona commanded. “Not in her mouth.”
He withdrew, his cock gleaming with her saliva, straining and aching. Clara panted, her lips swollen and slick, looking dazed and desperate.
“Stand up, Clara,” Catriona said, rising from her chair herself. She walked over, standing just behind Clara’s kneeling form. “Look at me.”
Clara tilted her head back, her face upturned, a perfect canvas of arousal and confusion.
Catriona placed a hand on Aidan’s chest, feeling the frantic hammer of his heart. Her other hand pointed to Clara’s face. “There,” she said, her voice a dark, thrilling promise. “Mark her. I want to see it on her skin. On her pretty face.”
The command ripped through him, bypassing all thought. He fisted himself, stroked twice, and with a raw, guttural shout, let go.
The first hot jet hit Clara’s cheekbone, white against her flushed skin. She gasped, her eyes flying wide, but she didn’t pull away. The second splashed across her lips, her chin. The rest painted streaks across her forehead, her closed eyelids, pooling in the hollow of her throat. She stayed utterly still, breathing through her mouth, a living statue of surrender.
When he was spent, trembling, the only sound was their ragged breathing. Clara slowly opened her eyes, his release gluing her lashes together. She looked ruined, claimed, utterly beautiful.
A slow smile spread across her slick, stained lips. She tentatively licked at the seed on her mouth, her tongue collecting it. She swallowed, her eyes on Catriona. “Thank you,” she whispered, the words thick and sincere.
Catriona reached down, swiped a finger through the mess on Clara’s cheek, and brought it to her own mouth. She sucked it clean, her green eyes holding Aidan’s over Clara’s head. A slow, deliberate clap broke the silence—not loud, but measured. One. Two. Three.
“Perfect,” Catriona said. She bent, kissed Clara’s sticky forehead. “Go clean up. Use our bathroom.”
Clara rose on unsteady legs, a phantom in the twilight, and padded away.
Catriona stepped into Aidan’s space, her body pressing against his spent one. She kissed him, deep and searching, and he could taste the salt of his own release on her tongue. “You see?” she murmured against his mouth. “It’s not just the fuck. It’s the imprint. The memory she’ll carry on her skin until she washes it off. The memory she’ll taste for hours.” She pulled back, her gaze fierce. “We’re not just having sex. We’re making stories.”
From the hallway, they heard the gentle rush of the shower. A story, being washed down the drain. But the shape of it, Aidan knew, was etched somewhere else now. Not just in Clara, but in him. In the new, quiet violence of Catriona’s satisfaction.
She rested her head on his shoulder, watching the empty hallway. “Fiona texted while you were finishing,” she said casually, her breath warm against his neck. “David was ‘surprised but enthusiastic.’ Mission accomplished.”
He didn’t know what to say. The world had become a series of missions, of targets, of controlled detonations.
“Clara will leave soon,” Catriona mused, her fingers drawing idle patterns on his back. “She’ll be floating. And we’ll be here. Alone with it.” She looked up at him, her expression unreadable. “Who do you think should be next?”
The question hung in the darkening room. It wasn’t playful. It was strategic. She was already moving pieces on a board only she could see, and he was no longer just her weapon. He was her compass, too. His reaction, his hesitation, his hunger—it was all data for her next calculation.
The shower shut off. Down the hall, a story was drying herself with their clean towels, carrying the ghost of them out into the night.
Aidan held his wife tighter, saying nothing. The answer, he realized, was a trap door. And he was already falling.