Page 30 of Mister St. James

Cat moans into my mouth, her pace picking up and I can feel the flutters of her orgasm as it builds. “More,” she whispers and I am all too happy to oblige.

“I love how your body feels against mine,” I murmur, biting her bottom lip. “I love how wet you are for me every time I touch you.” I thread my fingers through her hair and yank her head back, licking a hot trail along her jaw to her ear and whisper, “And how you say my name when you’re about to come.”

“Oh fuck, Aiden.” She gasps, scratching at my back, raking her nails down my arms, leaving marks everywhere she can reach. I love it. I want to be marked by her. I want to wear her need like a tattoo.

I flip her over while her body is still clenching around me and fuck her slow at first, then harder, letting go of every bit of control I’ve banked all day, all week, all year. The incoherent sounds she is babbling in my ear, the sound of skin on skin, the bed rocking, the ragged breathing, it’s perfect.

“You are mine, Catalina.”

She comes again, harder this time, the orgasm rolling up her body, making her shudder and clench around me. When she says my name this time it’s not a moan, it’s a sob. That’s my undoing. I drive into her, hard, and lose it, coming with a grunt and a growl, collapsing onto her shoulder, breath gone, brain fried.

We lie there for a minute, catching our breath, neither of us speaking. Her hand is on my back, fingers tracing little circles, grounding me.

Eventually, I roll to my side, pulling her with me so we’re tangled together, front to back. I bury my face in her hair, inhale the sweat and perfume, the afterglow.

She shifts, just enough to nestle her ass against my lap. “That was…” she starts.

“Yeah,” I say, not needing to finish the sentence.

She turns, smiles up at me, eyes heavy-lidded and lazy, a different person than the one who started the night. “You gonna make me breakfast in the morning?”

“Whatever you want,” I say.

I kiss her again, soft, and let my hand rest on her hip, memorizing the shape of her, the way she fits against me. I want to keep this moment. I want it to last.

She shifts to face me before drifting to sleep point five seconds after. Her head fits perfectly in the crook of my shoulder, her leg draped over mine, the whole length of her body radiating a heat that seeps into my bones. I should sleep, too. I want to. But every time I close my eyes, I see the marks on her wrists, the way she smiled at me over the kitchen island, the way she laughed without self-consciousness or calculation.

I watch her breathe. Slow, even, unguarded. I remember the first time I touched her, how I tried to maintain clinical detachment, how I made a project out of every line and hollow. Now, I can barely keep myself from tracing the length of her skin, learning it all over again.

She shifts, murmurs something, a dream, maybe, or just a static pulse of her brain sorting out the day. I want to ask her what she’s dreaming about, but I don’t. Instead, I hover my hand just above her skin, not quite touching, feeling the magnetism of her body pull at mine.

I think about the way everything has changed. How my routines have been corrupted, rewritten, recompiled with her as the primary variable. How the idea of vulnerability, once a threat vector, now feels like something I want to chase down and dissect. I was obsessed, at first, with the fantasy of the forbidden, the control. But now, lying next to her in the dark, I realize what I want most is to see what happens when I let go.

I am cataloguing, always cataloguing. The way her hair falls over her face in sleep, the way her breaths hitch when she’s close to waking, the way she always reaches for my hand even when she doesn’t know it. I list them all, the data points of intimacy, as if the right equation will reveal the secret at the core.

I am so lost in the recursion that I almost miss the chime.

My phone vibrates, low and insistent, on the nightstand. I ignore it at first, but it chimes again, then again, rapid-fire. Urgent.

I disentangle myself from Cat, careful not to wake her, and grab the phone. The message is from an unknown number. No name, no context, just the text:

I know what you’re doing.

There’s a photo attached.

I open it, expecting spam or a misfire, but what I see is worse. It’s a shot of the the Velvet Stag, from the balcony. Cat and I, mid-scene, her arms pinned behind her, the rope vivid against her skin. Our faces are partly masked, but not enough. You could run this photo through a basic image recon and match us in seconds.

Another text arrives.

Nice harness. Very elegant. Would be a shame if the board, or your investors, saw it.

I feel my blood go cold, then hot. My hand clenches around the phone so hard I’m afraid it might break. I scan the room, as if the sender is here, watching. The moonlight feels invasive, the bed exposed. I look down at Cat, still asleep, still innocent of what’s about to hit us.

My mind splinters into threat analysis. Who took the photo? When? Was it a club member, a plant, a random voyeur? How did they get my number? How many copies exist?

I sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the screen, the image of Cat and me burned into my retina. For the first time since I started this company, since I built this life, I have no idea what to do next.

I look at her. The way she sleeps. The way she trusts me, even when I don’t deserve it.