Chapter 4

The light in the apartment was soft and clean, filtered through half-closed blinds in quiet stripes across the floor. It had that late-morning stillness that felt like recovery — the kind of silence that follows something seismic, where breath moves easier but nothing feels the same. Craig stood at the kitchen island, turning a spoon absently in his coffee mug. It wasn’t about stirring — it was about motion. Something to keep his hands from trembling. Something to do while memory bloomed behind his eyes like heat.

He heard her before he saw her. The soft tread of bare feet, the hush of skin against polished wood.

Shannon padded in slowly, hair twisted up, skin still glowing with that impossible, unmistakable after-light. She wore one of his old shirts — soft, threadbare, just long enough to make the line of her thighs seem obscene — and moved with that lazy, sated grace that made something inside him twist. She looked like she’d just been thoroughly, relentlessly fucked. And she had.

But not by him.

She didn’t speak until she reached for a mug, her body brushing the edge of his.

“How do we talk about last night?” she asked softly, her voice scratchy with sleep and something else — vulnerability, maybe. Or want, still warm beneath the surface.

Craig let out a breath, the corner of his mouth tugging upward in something like a smile, but thinner. “I wondered if we even would. Isn’t that how these things usually go for most couples?”

“We’re not most couples.” She poured the coffee, the sound impossibly loud in the stillness. “That’s what makes us special.”

He glanced over at her, brow furrowing faintly. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, careful. “I’m just ... still processing. Seeing you like that. With him. What you did...”

Her look was calm, but not unkind. “You had your fun too.”

“I know. I know.” He lifted a hand, dropped it again. “I’m not blaming. It’s not about right or wrong. Everything just kind of ... unfolded. It’s more this feeling of—” he stopped, swallowed. Met her gaze. “Why does it hurt and still...”

“Feel good?” she said. “So good it scares you?”

He nodded, slow.

They sat across from each other at the island, the coffee cooling between them, elbows on stone. The silence that followed wasn’t empty — it was dense. Heavy with everything that hadn’t been named.

Shannon leaned forward, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. “It was a lot.”

“It was,” Craig said quietly.

“But it was also...” She hesitated, voice dipping lower. “It was good. Better than good.” She held his eyes now — a look both clear and trembling. “And afterward?”

He laughed softly — breathless, rough. “Afterward was...”

“The best sex we’ve ever had?” she offered, lips curving, something honest and hungry behind it.

He didn’t argue. “You were on fire.”

“I felt...” Her hand moved unconsciously across the rim of her mug, tracing. “Awake. Not like before wasn’t real, but...” She looked down, then back up again, voice dropping. “It was like my body remembered something it had never learned. Like you seeing me — like that — made me see myself too.”

Her words landed between them with the soft force of truth, and Craig felt the slow ache bloom in his chest again — not jealousy. Not even fear.

Just the unbearable weight of change.

He didn’t flinch. But something deep inside him pulsed — something raw and unguarded. A flicker of shame, maybe. Or grief. Or awe. He couldn’t name it. He only knew that part of him — the part that had watched her on her knees, lips stretched around Ron’s cock, her throat working, her eyes full of hunger — that part was still throbbing. Still stunned. Still hard.

And still wanting.

“I’m not saying we do it again,” Shannon said quickly, her voice a touch too fast, like she felt the weight of what hung in the air and wanted to ease it. “If that was a one-time thing, I can live with that. I can be okay.”

Craig looked at her then — not with judgment, but with something quieter. Something that shook him more than it should.

“But?” he asked, softly.

She didn’t smile. Didn’t deflect. Just looked at him across the space between them. Eyes open. Dark. Honest.

“But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want more.”

She let it sit there — naked and real.

“Not just with him,” she added, and her voice broke just slightly on the words. “With us. With whatever that was that got unleashed. That ... need.”

Craig’s throat worked around a swallow. He didn’t speak. Didn’t breathe for a beat too long. He wasn’t angry. Wasn’t scared. But something inside him was trembling — not from weakness, but from recognition. She was saying it out loud. And somehow, that made it more dangerous than anything they’d done with their hands or mouths.

“I’m not asking for permission,” she continued, softer now. Not defiant — just sincere. “And I’m not making any decisions without you. But I need to know where your head is, Craig. I need to know if that changed things for you. If it opened something you want to keep open. Or if it broke something we can’t fix.”

The silence that followed stretched out like skin pulled too tight. Craig stared into his mug like it might offer answers. Then, slowly, he looked up.

His voice, when it came, was low and steady, but threaded with something close to awe.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I know I liked watching you.”

He hesitated. Not from shame. But from the weight of the truth behind it.

“I know it made me feel ... insane. Turned on in a way I’ve never felt before. Like I wanted to crawl out of my own skin. Like I was losing you. Like I was part of you. All of it. At once.”

He exhaled, breath catching.

“Jealous. Proud. Small. Devastated. So fucking hard I thought I was going to explode just from watching your mouth on him.”

Shannon’s breath hitched — not from shock, but from recognition.

“That sounds about right,” she whispered.

Craig’s eyes stayed on hers. “I don’t know what it means,” he repeated. “But I can’t pretend it didn’t do something to me. Something I can’t take back.”

For a second, neither of them moved.

Then Shannon reached across the island, her fingers brushing his hand — just once. No squeeze. No plea. Just contact. Real and quiet and grounding.

Craig didn’t pull away.

They stayed like that — tethered by skin and memory and something deeper than logic. The coffee between them had gone cold. The sunlight had shifted on the floor. But the air around them was alive. Raw and full of breath.

They didn’t need to name what came next.

They just knew — the path forward wasn’t clear.

But it wasn’t separate.

Not anymore.

And that was enough.

For now.

Ron’s home office was deceptively minimalist — the kind of space that whispered wealth instead of announcing it. The walls were textured concrete, cool and raw, absorbing the light that filtered through slatted shades. The flooring underfoot was smooth, warm-toned wood, softened by a low runner of charcoal linen. It was quiet in here — not just in sound, but in tone. The kind of stillness that didn’t come from emptiness, but intention.

At the center of the room sat a broad matte desk — not glass, not chrome, just a wide slab of pale oak that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. Its surface was spotless, but not staged. Everything on it had purpose: a closed laptop, a minimalist lamp, a glass of water already collecting condensation, and a thin black folder resting at a clean diagonal like Ron had just set it down with unconscious precision.

Behind him, a single black-and-white photo hung on the wall. Not of a face or a skyline. Just a blurred landscape in motion — violent wind, or fire, or something unnameable sweeping through a field of tall grass. Craig couldn’t tell what it was. Only that it made him uneasy. It looked like something beautiful being devoured.

Ron didn’t stand when Craig entered. He didn’t need to. He was already settled, sleeves rolled to the forearm, body relaxed but upright, fingers tapping lightly against the side of his glass like he was keeping time only he could hear.

He glanced up. “You settled?”

Craig nodded, stepping inside. “More or less.”

“Good.” Ron reached toward the folder. “Had a call with your old boss this morning. He owed me a favour.”

He didn’t elaborate.

“Said he’d release you immediately if I wanted you that bad.”

Ron slid the folder across the desk with two fingers — slow, deliberate.

“And I do.”

Craig blinked. “Wait—seriously? I thought I’d have to finish out the month.”

“You’re free as of this morning,” Ron said, voice calm. “You can start now. I sent you an email with the access codes for all the West Coast files. Full client archive. Passwords. Notes. Active deal sheets.”

Craig let out a breath, a low, relieved sound he hadn’t meant to release. “Jesus. That’s...”

He caught himself. Smiled faintly. “Yeah. That’s good.”

Ron studied him — not appraising, not calculating. Just watching.

“You’re in now,” he said. “Real work. Real exposure. You’ll be managing direct clients by next week. I’m not holding your hand.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Craig said, trying to hold his tone steady — even as something in his chest pulsed at the weight of it all. “I’m ready.”

Ron gave a small nod — something close to approval, though he never said the word. He let the silence settle for just long enough to be felt, then leaned back in his chair, the leather sighing faintly beneath him.

“Good,” he said again, slower this time. Then added:

“But before we jump into work...”

He shifted forward, elbows resting lightly on the desk, hands steepled — not aggressive, not paternal. Just real.

“I think we need to talk about last night.”

Craig’s body stiffened before he could control it — a breath held too long, shoulders tensing by instinct alone. But across the desk, Ron didn’t move. He didn’t lean forward or sharpen his voice. He just lifted one hand — calm, steady — as if to say this isn’t a threat. Not yet.

“I value you, Craig,” Ron said quietly. “As a man. As a business partner. And I value Shannon too — the way she moves through a room, the way she looks at you, the way the air changes when she walks into it. What the three of us have right now? It works. But only if we’re honest about what it is.”

Craig didn’t answer. His mouth felt too dry. The silence stretched, heavy, but Ron didn’t fill it with noise. He waited — not for permission, just for attention.

“I’ve seen this before,” Ron said eventually, his tone dipping lower now. Not cold. Just true. “Couples touch the edge of something because it turns them on. Because it’s exciting. One night. One thrill. One glimpse into the dark.”

He let that linger. Then:

“But once that door opens ... it doesn’t close. Not really. Not the way you think.”

Craig’s fingers curled slightly around the edge of the chair. Not enough to show tension. But enough to feel it.

“I’m not saying this to make a move,” Ron said. “And I’m not trying to claim something that doesn’t belong to me. I’m saying this because I know how this goes. Because I’ve seen what it does to men who think they’re in control of the leash — until the leash is around their own throat.”

Craig’s eyes flicked up, something like heat stirring behind them. But Ron didn’t flinch. His voice stayed steady — smooth, firm, inexorable.

“I don’t do casual, Craig. You need to hear that. I don’t taste something real and pretend it was a party trick. If I take her again — and I mean really take her — it won’t be something you get to supervise. I won’t ask you. And she won’t ask either.”

Ron stood slowly, circling the desk, not aggressive but deliberate, each movement controlled like gravity worked slightly differently for him. He came to rest on the edge of the desk, close now — not looming, but present in that way Ron always was: impossible to ignore.

“She’s not like the others,” he said, voice lower now. “She’s open. Hungry. Not just for sex. For experience. For something that strips her down and shows her who she really is. And you saw it last night — that wasn’t performance. That wasn’t a one-time thing. That was her stepping through a threshold she didn’t even know she’d been walking toward.”

He paused. Let the silence breathe.

“If you open that door again, it won’t be a kink. It won’t be a favour. It won’t be safe. I’ll take her. Fully. Without apology. Without giving her back. And not because I want to own her. But because she will want to be taken.”

Craig’s jaw tensed, but he still said nothing.

Ron’s tone softened, but the power beneath it only sharpened.

“She’ll still love you,” he said. “That won’t change. But it won’t be the same. Not after she knows what it’s like to surrender like that. Not after I show her what it means to be undone without shame.”

He stood fully now, no longer between Craig and the desk, but beside him — the intimacy of proximity without any false gentleness.

“My advice?” he said, almost like a friend, almost like a priest. “Don’t open the door again. You got your thrill. You’re still standing. So is she. It worked. No shame in walking away from the edge before it gives out.”

His eyes found Craig’s. Held them.

“But if you do open it...” he paused, voice dropping to something quieter, more final, “I’ll take everything you give me. And more.”

Not a threat.

Not a promise.

Just the truth.

And then he stepped away, as if the weight of what he said had already settled — like he didn’t need to watch it land.

Because he already knew it would.

The apartment was dim but warm, the kind of low-lit hush that wrapped around the body like a blanket pulled up to the chin — comfort soaked in heat, not just from touch, but from memory. The bedroom flickered with the low glow of a half-watched movie, its sound a distant murmur that had long ago faded into background hum. Craig lay stretched across the bed, legs tangled in the blanket, one arm folded under his head, the other drifting lazy circles on the bare skin of Shannon’s thigh. She was curled against him, her body soft, pliant — still humming faintly from everything they hadn’t said since last night.

She wore nothing but a pale grey camisole, thin cotton clinging to the slight curve of her breasts, and lace-trimmed panties that seemed less like clothing and more like permission. She hadn’t bothered with modesty.