CHAPTER 0036- Thursday night

Elias’s flight landed at 8:40.

I knew because I tracked it. I knew because I’d spent the entire day cleaning an already clean house, changing sheets that didn’t need changing, and rehearsing versions of the truth that all sounded equally bad. By the time the garage door rumbled open at 9:15, my hands were cold and my pulse was doing something uneven in my throat.

He walked in with his bag over one shoulder and the tired posture of a man who’d spent two days in meetings. He set the bag down, loosened his tie, and looked at me standing in the kitchen like he’d been counting the hours too.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

He crossed the space, cupped the back of my neck, and kissed me. Slow. Thorough. The kind of kiss that felt like checking for changes. When he pulled back his eyes searched my face.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

He didn’t look convinced. He poured himself a glass of water, drank half of it, and leaned against the counter.

“House smells like lemon,” he said.

“I cleaned.”

“Thoroughly.”

I nodded.

He set the glass down and studied me for a long second. The quiet stretched. I felt the secret sitting behind my teeth like something that had gone bad.

“Riley.”

Just my name. Soft. Expectant.

I looked at the floor, then forced myself to look back up.

“I did something.”

His expression didn’t change, but the air around him did. “Go on.”

“Jake came over. And Jenna.” My voice sounded distant to my own ears. “Yesterday. We… all three of us.”

Silence.

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just looked at me with an intensity that made my skin feel too tight. The refrigerator hummed. Somewhere outside a car passed.

“Say it clearly,” he said at last.

“I had a threesome with Jake and Jenna while you were gone.”

He exhaled once through his nose. Then he nodded, slow, like something had just confirmed itself.

“Where.”

“Living room. And the floor.”

“Did you come.”

My face burned. “Yes.”

“How many times.”

“I don’t know. A few.”

He pushed off the counter and walked toward me. I stayed where I was. When he reached me he didn’t touch me. Just stood close enough that I had to tip my head back.

“I told you before I left,” he said quietly. “Don’t do anything you’ll have to confess when I walk through the door.”

“I know.”

“And you did it anyway.”

“Yes.”

His eyes moved over my face like he was looking for the version of me that had made that choice. “Was it good.”

The question landed harder than anger would have. I swallowed. “Yes.”

Something dark flickered across his expression. He reached up and brushed his thumb along my lower lip, almost thoughtfully.

“Go upstairs,” he said. “My room. Strip. Wait for me on the bed.”

“Elias—”

“I’m not going to ask again.”

I went.

His bedroom felt colder than usual. I took off my clothes, folded them neatly for no good reason, and sat on the edge of the mattress. My heart was slamming so hard I could feel it in my fingertips. Minutes passed. I heard him move around downstairs — the bag being carried, water running, the low sound of him on a brief phone call. Then footsteps on the stairs.

He came in and closed the door. He’d taken off his tie and watch. His shirt was open at the collar. He looked at me sitting naked on his bed and something possessive and sharp settled over his features.

“Lie back.”

I did. He walked to the side of the bed and looked down at me for a long moment.

“You keep testing the edges of this,” he said. “Seeing how far you can go before I stop being measured about it.”

“I wasn’t trying to—”

“Yes you were.” His voice stayed quiet. “Part of you wanted to see what I’d do. So I’m going to show you.”

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. He undressed without hurry, eyes on me the whole time, then climbed onto the bed and knelt between my legs. He didn’t kiss me. He just pushed my thighs wider and looked at the evidence of how nervous I was.

“Already wet,” he murmured. “Even now.”

He dragged two fingers through the slickness and pushed them inside me without preamble. I gasped. He fucked me with them slowly, deliberately, watching my face.

“You’re going to tell me everything,” he said. “What she did. What he did. How it felt. And you’re going to stay still while you do it.”

I did.

In broken sentences, between shaky breaths, I told him. Jenna’s mouth. Jake’s hands. The way they’d switched. The way I’d come with both of them touching me. He listened without interrupting, fingers moving inside me in a steady rhythm that made it harder to get the words out. When I finished he curled his fingers and pressed his thumb to my clit.

“Did you think about me.”

“Yes.”

“While they were inside you. Using you.”

“Yes.”

He pulled his fingers out, replaced them with his cock in one hard thrust, and the stretch punched a sound from my lungs. He didn’t give me time to adjust. He fucked me deep and controlled, one hand braced by my head, the other gripping my thigh hard enough to bruise.

“This is what you come back to,” he said against my ear, voice rough. “No matter how many people you let touch you. You still end up here. Open for me. Taking me like you were built for it.”

I moaned and reached for him. He caught my wrists and pinned them above my head.

“You don’t get to hold on yet.”

He kept the pace exact and punishing, every stroke dragging against the place inside me that made my vision blur. The orgasm built fast and mean. When I got close he slowed down just enough to keep me there, trembling, until I was making soft, desperate sounds under him.

“Please—”

“Please what.”

“Let me come. Please.”

He drove into me harder. “Then come.”

I broke with a cry, clenching around him, wrists still pinned. He fucked me through it without slowing, chasing his own release with a low, strained sound. When he came it was deep, grinding into me like he wanted to leave something permanent. He stayed buried afterward, forehead against mine, both of us breathing hard.

Eventually he pulled out. I felt the warm leak of him immediately. He looked down at the mess between my thighs, then back at my face.

“You’re not going to see either of them again,” he said quietly. “Not without me knowing. Not without me deciding. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Say it.”

“I won’t see them again without you knowing.”

He kissed me then — slow, deep, almost gentle — and the contrast made my chest ache. When he pulled back his eyes were still dark, but the sharpest edge had dulled.

“I’m still angry,” he said.

“I know.”

“But you’re here. And you’re mine. And that’s the part I’m choosing to focus on tonight.”

He lay down beside me and pulled me into his chest. His arm settled heavy around my waist. I listened to his heartbeat and the quiet of the house and the faint, distant knowledge that I’d crossed another line and somehow still ended up exactly where I’d started.

In his bed.

With his cum leaking out of me.

And the clear understanding that the next time I tested him, measured might not be an option anymore.