MORNING

I woke up alone in the middle of the enormous bed, sheets tangled around my waist, morning light cutting cold and white through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

My body ached.

Not just a little soreness...deep, throbbing reminders between my legs, on my hips where fingers had gripped too hard, on my breasts where mouths had been greedy. The kind of ache that made my face burn before I even opened my eyes fully.

Last night came rushing back in flashes.

Nico’s mouth on my throat. Matteo’s silent stare from the chair. That terrifying ghost sensation that made it feel like both of them were touching me at once. The way my body had clenched and betrayed me over and over while I cried. The way they had taken turns and then taken me together, the echo bond turning every thrust, every lick, every moan into something overwhelming and shared.

I pressed my thighs together and felt the sticky evidence still there. Shame flooded me so fast it made my stomach twist.

I had come so hard I couldn’t breathe. Multiple times. While sobbing. While hating them. While hating myself even more for how wet I got, how my hips had rocked back against them, how I had moaned their names like I needed them.

This was supposed to be a contract. Cold, business. Save my family.

Instead I had been fucked by two men who could feel everything I felt, and my body had welcomed it like it had been starving for it.

I sat up slowly, pushing messy hair out of my face. The robe from last night was on the floor. I picked it up and tied it tight around myself like it could hide what had happened. My legs felt unsteady when I stood.

The penthouse was quiet. Too quiet.

I made my way to the kitchen on bare feet, the marble ice-cold against my skin. A woman in a black uniform was already there, setting out breakfast with quick, efficient movements. She didn’t look at me.

“Good morning,” I said quietly.

“Mrs. Black.” She placed a cup of black coffee in front of me without asking how I took it. Her eyes flicked over me once ...quick, assessing...then away again. Like she knew exactly what I’d been doing last night and had decided I wasn’t worth acknowledging.

Mrs. Black.

The title felt like a slap. I wrapped both hands around the warm mug and stared into the black liquid, trying not to think about how my thighs still felt slick, how my nipples were still sensitive against the robe, how my pussy still throbbed with the memory of being stretched and used by both of them.

I forced myself to speak. “Is… Mr. Black here? Either of them?”

“Mr. Black left at six.” She didn’t specify which one. “Mr. Matteo is in the gym.”

I nodded and headed down the hallway she indicated, coffee cup warm in my hands, robe clutched tight.

The gym door was open. I heard the rhythmic, hard thud of fists hitting a heavy bag before I saw him.

Matteo was there. No shirt. Sweat glistening on his shoulders and down the hard lines of his back. Tattoos moved with every powerful strike... ink covering his chest, ribs, wrapping around his sides. He hit the bag with controlled fury, precise and relentless, like he was working something out.

He didn’t stop when I walked in. Didn’t acknowledge me.

I leaned against the doorframe and watched him, the coffee forgotten in my hands. The scar on his jaw caught the light. His breathing was steady, focused.

“Morning,” I said.

Nothing.

I took a sip. “The coffee machine looks like it could launch satellites."

He finally stopped. Turned. Looked at me with those flat gray eyes, chest rising and falling.

I swallowed. “You stayed in the chair last night.”

Something flickered across his face...too quick to read.

“You were watching,” I continued, voice quieter. “While we… while you felt everything.”

He reached for a towel and wiped his face. His voice came out rough. “Go eat breakfast.”

“I had coffee.”

“That’s not breakfast.”

“Very concerned about my nutrition for someone who didn’t even introduce himself properly last night.”

He looked at me for a long beat. There might have been the tiniest hint of something in his eyes, but it vanished.

“Matteo,” he said.

“I know. I’m Aurora.”

“I know.”

Of course he did.

The strange sensation hummed faintly between us again... that low-level frequency I was starting to recognize. Not a full touch this time, just… presence. Awareness.

“Does it bother you?” I asked softly. “That it reached me? That you felt… everything I felt last night?”

He was quiet for so long I thought he wouldn’t answer.

“Yes,” he said finally.

At least he was honest.

He turned back to the bag. I pushed off the doorframe and walked back toward the kitchen, the ache between my legs flaring with every step, a constant humiliating reminder.

I wasn’t just married to one cold man.

I was married to two.

And they could feel every single time my body betrayed me.

The worst part?

A tiny, terrifying part of me already wondered what it would feel like the next time.

And that scared me more than anything.