Chapter 4: The Jealousy Game
The week that followed was a study in careful architecture. They built their days around the word ‘green.’ It was a tiny, bright flag planted in ordinary moments. A murmured ‘green’ when his hand found the small of her back in the grocery store aisle. A whispered ‘green’ against her temple when they woke tangled together, the morning light soft and forgiving. It was an affirmation, not of perfection, but of a fragile, chosen stability. The workshop door remained closed. The air inside, they tacitly agreed, needed to settle.
Bryce took a new job, a custom dining table for a family in the hills. The client had mentioned a niece helping with the design, a girl with some art school background. Her name was Jenna. Bryce relayed this over spaghetti, a neutral fact buried in the day’s debris. Trinity nodded, twirling pasta, her face a careful blank. The green flag didn’t waver, but something cold fingered its way up her spine.
The site was remote, spotty cell service. On Thursday, he was late. His text, when it finally arrived, was a dry dispatch: Client’s niece showed up with revised plans. Took a while to sort. Heading back now.
A niece with art school background. Revised plans. Trinity sat on their couch, her laptop a dark mirror. The ghost of Leo’s citrus cologne seemed to haunt the room. Her own tactics, reflected back at her, were suddenly monstrous. She saw Bryce in that sunny kitchen, the piece of trim on his shoulder, his face going still. The shame was fresh all over again. But beneath it, a hotter, more volatile feeling boiled. She had been the provocateur. She had worn the torn silk. What right did she have to this clenching in her gut, this metallic taste of fear?
He came in smelling of autumn air and fresh-cut oak. He dropped his keys in the bowl, a familiar, homecoming sound. He leaned down to kiss her, his beard scratching her cheek. She tasted coffee and the faint, foreign hint of someone else’s perfume—something floral and sweet, clinging to his flannel shirt.
She pulled back. “You smell like a garden center.”
He blinked, straightened. “Jenna was there. She brought the new sketches. She’s… enthusiastic.” He said it like it was a mild irritant, a splinter.
“Enthusiastic,” Trinity echoed, the word flat.
“Yeah. Talked a mile a minute. Had a lot of ideas about breadboard ends.” He shrugged out of his shirt, balling it up, heading for the laundry basket. A casual erasure. The gesture should have been reassuring. It wasn’t.
The cold feeling in her spine ignited. This wasn’t the calculated cruelty of her game with Leo. This was something wilder, more primal. It was a raw, scraping jealousy that felt like it was flaying her from the inside out. She followed him into the garage workshop, where he’d gone to put away his tool belt. The single bulb was on, casting a jaundiced glow over the silent lathe, the dormant tools.
He was at his bench, wiping down a chisel with an oiled rag. The methodical, loving motion. It was his meditation. It enraged her.
“Did she touch your arm?” The question came out sharp, a shard of glass.
Bryce paused. He didn’t look up. “What?”
“When she was talking a mile a minute about breadboard ends. Did she touch your arm? Lean in close to point at your precious sketches?”
He set the chisel down. The click on the seasoned wood was definitive. “Trinity.”
“Don’t ‘Trinity’ me. You came home smelling like her. You were late. You texted about her.” Her voice was rising, threading with a hysterical edge she despised. “Is she pretty? A bubbly little redhead with art school ideas?”
He turned now, his face guarded, weary. “It’s a job. She’s the client’s family. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It meant something when I did it!” she exploded, the words tearing out of her. “It meant I was a slut, a game-player, someone who needed to be punished and put on her knees! What does it mean when you do it, Bryce? Hmm? What’s the word for you?”
His eyes darkened. The weariness was evaporating, replaced by a glint of that same predatory stillness from the kitchen doorway. “That’s what
The weariness was evaporating, replaced by a glint of that same predatory stillness from the kitchen doorway. “That’s what this is?” he said, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. He took a single step toward her, the oil rag forgotten. “You get to stage a fucking performance with that boy, but I can’t spend an extra hour on a job without a trial?”
“It’s not the same!”
“It’s exactly the same.” Another step. The space between them crackled. “You’re in here, in my space, smelling like fear and spite instead of her cheap perfume. You’re constructing a narrative because the quiet we built is too fucking terrifying, isn’t it? You’d rather have a war.”
Her back hit the heavy frame of the lathe. The cold metal seeped through her thin shirt. “I’m not the one who came home smelling like another woman.”
“No.” He was in front of her now, his body blocking the light from the bulb. His hands, rough and warm, framed her face, forcing her to look at him. “You’re the one who’s about to learn what that feeling really costs.”
His mouth crashed down on hers. It wasn’t a kiss of reconciliation or gentle ‘green’. It was a claiming, brutal and suffocating. He bit her lower lip, tasted the sharp gasp she made, and plunged his tongue past her teeth. The floral ghost on his shirt was overwhelmed by the familiar scent of him—sweat, wood, and now, pure fury. One hand slid from her face down her neck, over the collar of her shirt, and closed around her breast. He squeezed, not to excite, but to demonstrate a strength she was deliberately provoking.
She pushed against his chest, a futile resistance that only hardened the muscles beneath her palms. He broke the kiss, breathing hard, his eyes scanning her face.
“You want to know if she touched me?” he growled. His hand left her breast and grabbed the hem of her shirt. He yanked it up, over her head, and tossed it onto the workbench. The cool air pebbled her skin. “Her hands were on the paper. Her ideas were in the air. They meant nothing.” He unfastened her jeans, the button popping, the zpper a harsh rasp in the quiet. “This is what matters. This skin. This cunt. My name in your mouth when you’re coming apart.”
He shoved her jeans and underwear down her thighs in one rough motion. They pooled at her ankles, a trap. He turned her, her bare stomach pressing against the cold, polished bed of the lathe. He kicked her legs wider, the stance awkward, vulnerable. She heard his belt buckle clink, the slide of his zipper.
He didn’t tease. He didn’t prepare her. The broad, blunt head of his cock nudged against her, and he drove in, a single, deep, conquering thrust that stole the air from her lungs. She was tight, unprepared, and the stretch was a bright, shocking pain.
“Fuck!” she cried out, her fingers scrambling for purchase on the smooth metal.
“That’s the idea,” he grunted, already pulling back and slamming home again. His body covered hers, one arm wrapping around her waist to lock her in place, the other hand fisting in her curls. He used the grip to arch her back, to tilt her hips for a deeper, more punishing angle. Each thrust was a furious piston, driving the lathe an inch forward with their combined weight. The machine’s silent wheel was a mocking eye beside her cheek.
“You think about her?” he snarled in her ear, his hips a relentless metronome. His balls slapped wetly against her with every impact. “You think about her while I’m splitting this perfect pussy open? While I’m fucking you so deep you’ll feel it tomorrow?”
“No—” she sobbed, but her body was betraying her, the initial pain melting into a searing, shameful fullness. The jealousy that had curdled in her stomach was being pounded into a different heat.
“Say my name.” It was a command, guttural and absolute. He released her hair only to bring his hand down in a sharp, stinging slap on her ass. The sound echoed. The burn blossomed. “Say it.”
“Bryce!” she gasped.
“Louder.”
“BRYCE!” she screamed, as he hit a spot that unraveled her. Her orgasm ripped through her, violent and unexpected, clenching around his driving length. She shook, a cry torn from her throat.
Feeling her convulse, his control snapped. His rhythm shattered into frantic, shallow pumps. “This is mine,” he choked out, his body bowing over hers. “This wet, greedy hole is fucking mine.” With a final, grinding thrust, he buried himself to the hilt and came. She felt the hot, pulsing jets filling her, a liquid claim more intimate than any seed on her thigh.
He stayed there, collapsed over her, both of them slick with sweat, breathing in ragged, syncopated gasps. Slowly, he softened and slipped out. He turned her around, her back against the lathe. His expression was unreadable, a mask of spent fury and something darker.
He looked down at himself, at his cock, glistening with her wetness and his own release. He met her eyes, his gaze holding a terrifying gravity.
SHE DROPS TO KNEES.
She dropped to her knees. The concrete bit into her skin through the thin fabric of her leggings, still tangled at her ankles. Her gaze was fixed on him, on the soft, wet evidence of their collision matting his dark hair.
She didn't wait for a command. Her hand, trembling slightly, reached out to steady his thigh. She leaned in, her breath hot against his skin. She extended her tongue and licked a slow, deliberate path up the underside of his shaft, collecting the mingled slickness of her own arousal and his thick, salty release.
The taste was primal, a stark mixture of salt and bitter musk. She closed her lips around the head, sucking gently, her tongue working in circles to clean every fold. He twitched against her mouth, a sharp intake of breath hissing above her.
“That’s it,” he grunted, his voice stripped raw. His hand settled on the crown of her head, fingers threading through her curls without pressure. “Clean your mess off my cock.”
She obeyed, taking him deeper, hollowing her cheeks. She moved with a focused, thorough intensity, her tongue lapping at the base where their fluids had dripped. The act was filthily intimate, a submission that felt strangely like parity after the violence. She drank him down, swallowing, until his skin was clean and she tasted only the clean heat of his flesh.
She pulled back, her lips slick and parted. She looked up at him, her hazel eyes wide in the dim light. His expression was fractured, the jealousy spent, leaving behind a hollowed-out exhaustion she recognized in her own bones.
He reached down, his hands under her arms, and lifted her to her feet. He held her there, against the lathe, her body bare and shivering. He rested his forehead against hers, their breaths mingling in the dusty air.
“Green,” he whispered, the word a ghost in the space between them.
It wasn’t a question. It was a desperate, shattered plea. She closed her eyes, letting the weight of him hold her upright.
“Green,” she breathed back, the sound barely audible.