True Affliction - Chapter 25

She remembered us long after we had mercifully forgotten ourselves.

He didn’t let go of my hand as we left the study, fingers laced tight, thumb stroking the inside of my wrist like he couldn’t quite believe I was walking beside him of my own accord. The house was dim, the last of the daylight gone, only the low sconces along the hallway throwing gold across the walls. He moved with that loose, predatory grace that always makes my pulse stumble, but tonight there was something coiled beneath it, something that made the air feel thicker.

I could taste the tension on him, sharp as metal. It was in the set of his shoulders, the way his jaw flexed every few seconds like he was biting something back. Whatever had happened with Ella, whatever ghosts she’d dragged into the light, they were still clinging to his skin.

We stepped into the kitchen and the lights came up soft, automatic, washing the marble in warm white. He released my hand only to flick the fridge open, scanning the shelves with the same ruthless efficiency he applies to everything else.

“Sit,” he said, voice low, already pulling things out: Parma ham, burrata, a loaf of sourdough that still smelled like the bakery. “You’re eating.”

“I’m really not-”

“Sit, Cait.” It wasn’t loud, but it cracked like a command all the same, and my knees obeyed before my brain caught up. I slid onto one of the stools, elbows on the island, watching him move. Watching the way his shirt pulled across his back when he reached high for a plate, the way his forearms flexed when he tore the bread.

He built two plates without asking what I wanted, because he already knew. A little pile of ham curled like rose petals, the burrata split open and dripping cream, thick slices of bread rubbed with garlic and oil. Simple. Perfect. He slid one in front of me and leaned back against the opposite counter, arms folded, eyes on me like I was the only thing in the room worth looking at.

“Eat.”

I picked up a piece of bread because arguing felt suddenly exhausting. The moment the taste hit my tongue he relaxed a fraction, shoulders dropping. But only a fraction.

I swallowed. “Alex.”

He raised a brow. Waiting.

“Andrea in the hospital,” I said carefully. “She made that comment about poison. Like she knew something. Like she was enjoying it.” I kept my voice level, therapist-soft, the one I use when I’m trying not to spook someone. “What was that about?”

His eyes flicked to mine, sharp and sudden, and for a heartbeat I thought he might actually answer. Then the corner of his mouth curved, slow and filthy.

“Curiosity, baby?” He pushed off the counter, prowled around the island until he was behind me. His hands settled on my shoulders, thumbs pressing into the knots at the base of my neck. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that gets little cats in trouble?”

His mouth brushed the shell of my ear and heat arrowed straight between my legs. I tried again. “Alex-”

“Shh.” He nipped my earlobe, just hard enough to sting. “Too many questions tonight, Cait.” His palms slid down my arms, then back up, gathering the hem of the cream cashmere top. “And I’m suddenly very interested in reminding you what happens when you poke around in things that aren’t yours.”

The top was over my head and gone before I drew breath, tossed somewhere behind him. Cool air kissed my skin; my nipples tightened instantly under the thin lace of my bra. His hands were already at my waistband, fingers hooked into the soft fabric. I pushed myself up to stand, legs unsteady with anticipation, giving him the leverage he needed as he dragged the trousers down my hips in one slow, deliberate pull, taking the knickers with them. The cashmere whispered against my thighs before pooling at my ankles, socks still on because he clearly liked the look of them.

He left me completely naked and didn’t remove a stitch of his own clothing. Just unbuckled his belt with one hand, the clink of metal loud in the quiet kitchen, and freed himself. Already hard, thick and flushed, the sight of him making my mouth water even as nerves sparked under my skin.

“Hands on the counter,” he said, voice rough. “Palms flat. Don’t move them.”

I obeyed. The marble was cold under my palms, grounding me even as my pulse rioted.

He stepped in close, chest to my back, one arm banding under my breasts, the other sliding down my stomach. No teasing tonight. His fingers parted me, found me slick and ready and two slid inside without warning. I gasped, back arching, and he curled them hard, hitting that spot that makes my thighs tremble.

“That’s it,” he growled against my neck, teeth scraping. “Soaked already. You want to ask questions, baby? Ask how easily I can make you forget every single one.”

He worked me ruthlessly. My hips tried to chase his hand and he pressed me forward, bending me over the island until my breasts were crushed to the cold stone, nipples aching.

“Stay,” he ordered, pulling his fingers free. I whimpered at the loss, but then he was there, the blunt head of his cock nudging my entrance, sliding through my wetness once, twice, coating himself.

He pushed in with one long, punishing thrust.

No slow stretch, no mercy. Just thick, bare heat filling me so completely my breath fractured. My walls fluttered around him and he groaned, low and filthy, hips flush against my arse.

“Fuck, Cait.” His hand fisted in my hair, pulling my head back so he could bite the curve where neck meets shoulder, hard. I cried out, the sting blooming into fire that shot straight to my clit. “This what you wanted? Me inside you so deep you can’t think?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He pulled out and slammed back in, setting a brutal rhythm, every thrust jolting me against the marble. The angle was perfect, devastating; the head of his cock dragged over that spot again and again until my legs shook and tears pricked my eyes from the intensity.

One hand left my hip, slid under me to pinch my nipple. Sharp, twisting just enough to make me sob then soothed it with his thumb. He did the same to the other, marking me in bites and sucks. Each pull of his mouth left a throbbing brand, proof that I was his to ruin tonight.

I was close already, embarrassingly fast, the coil in my belly tightening with every savage stroke.

“Alex- please-”

“Please what?” He slowed just enough to make me insane, rolling his hips in a filthy grind that had me clawing at the counter. “Please fuck you harder? Please make you come so hard you see stars?”

“All of it,” I gasped. “God, please-”

He snarled and gave me what I begged for. His hand slipped between my legs, fingers ruthless on my clit, and he pounded into me like he was trying to imprint himself under my skin. The orgasm crashed over me without warning. White-hot, blinding, my entire body locking down around him as I screamed his name into the marble. Wave after wave, relentless, until I was shaking and sobbing and still he didn’t stop.

Only when I was limp, boneless, did he let himself go. Three more brutal thrusts and he buried himself deep, coming with a guttural groan, pulsing hot inside me, filling me so completely I felt it everywhere.

He stayed there, locked inside me, chest heaving against my back. Slowly, gently, he turned my head and kissed me. Deep, possessive, tasting of salt and satisfaction.

When he finally pulled out, the warmth of him trickled down my thighs. I started to move, but his hand clamped on my hip.

“No.” His voice was rough, satisfied, dark. “Leave it.” He ran two fingers through the mess he’d made, smearing it higher, marking me inside and out. “I want to see my come sliding down these legs every time you take a step tonight. Want to know that every time you move, you’ll feel me. Want you wet and aching and remembering who you belong to.”

He pressed a kiss to the bite mark on my shoulder, soft now, almost tender. “Curiosity has consequences, baby,” he murmured against my skin. “Best you remember that.”

And God help me, I already couldn’t remember what I’d been curious about in the first place.

---

My legs refused to work. Properly, anyway. They trembled like I’d run a marathon barefoot over broken glass, and every small shift sent a warm, shameless reminder sliding down the inside of my thigh. Alex’s eyes tracked the movement with lazy satisfaction, the corner of his mouth curling as if he’d planned it down to the last drop.

He bent, slid one arm under my knees, the other behind my back, and lifted me against his chest like I weighed nothing at all. Naked, boneless, marked by his mouth and his teeth and his come, I let my head fall to his shoulder. The walk to the bedroom was slow, deliberate; he carried me as though he wanted the journey to last.

In the hush of the master suite he lowered me to the bed, the sheets cool against my overheated skin. I sank into them with a sigh I couldn’t hold back. He didn’t speak, just brushed stray hair from my face and began a trail of soft, almost chaste kisses: my forehead, the bridge of my nose, each closed eyelid, the corner of my mouth. When he reached my lips he lingered longest, tasting me slow and deep until my toes curled again.

Then he was gone.

I heard the soft scrape of a drawer, the quiet clink of a lighter. He walked to the balcony doors, pushed them open, and stepped out into the night. He lit the cigarette with a flick that looked angry even from here, cupped the flame, and drew the smoke in deep.

I watched him from the bed, propped on one elbow, sheet pulled only to my waist. The red blooms of his bites stood out against my pale skin, bruises shaped like his hunger. Between my legs I was swollen, tender, gloriously used. Every breath felt like him still inside me.

He didn’t look back at first. Just smoked and stared out. The tip of the cigarette glowed orange each time he inhaled, and the smoke curled up into the dark like it was trying to escape him.

I could have asked. A dozen questions hovered on my tongue: Ella, Andrea, the drawings, the man in the sea... But I knew tonight he’d built a wall higher than the one he usually wore, and I wasn’t cruel enough to batter myself against it when he was this raw.

So I simply watched him. And after a while he watched me back.

He turned his head, eyes finding mine across the room. Even in the half-light I felt the weight of that stare, possessive and exhausted and fiercely protective all at once. We stayed like that, silent, the distance between us humming with everything we weren’t saying.

When the cigarette was done he crushed it out carefully, came back inside, and closed the doors. He didn’t look at me again until he disappeared into the bathroom. Water started a moment later, the low thunder of the shower.

I lay there listening to it, feeling the ache in my body settle into something almost sweet. The sheets smelled of us now, sex and smoke and whatever dark thing he carried that he wouldn’t let me hold tonight.

He wasn’t long. Ten minutes, maybe less. When he returned his skin was damp, hair wet and pushed back, droplets clinging to the lines of his chest. He looked younger like this, stripped of every layer except the one that belonged only to me.

He climbed in behind me without a word, slid an arm under my neck, the other around my waist, and pulled me back against him. His chest to my spine, his thighs cupping mine, the heavy weight of his cock soft now against the curve of my arse. One of his hands splayed possessively over my stomach, fingers spread wide, as if making sure I was still there.

I felt his lips brush the bite mark on my shoulder, the one that throbbed every time my heart beat.

“Sleep, baby,” he murmured into my skin, voice rough with smoke and something that might have been surrender.

I threaded my fingers through his and held on.

And just like that, wrapped in the man who would burn the world before he let it touch me, I did.

---

Daniel pulled up outside the clinic with that same calm precision he did everything with.

I stepped out, smoothed my coat down, and lifted my chin as if yesterday hadn’t happened. As if I hadn’t fallen asleep in Alex’s study and woken up branded by his mouth and his mood, as if I hadn’t seen something in him crack open and then watched him plaster it over with sex and control.

The townhouse clinic stood polite and serene. I stepped through the door, already bracing for Maya’s wide eyes and Reece’s gentle, penetrating questions.

But the reception desk was empty.

Not even a stray paperclip. No Maya typing like her life depended on it. No coffee cup. No perfume. No warmth.

My shoulders dropped before I could stop them.

Relief washed through me in a way that made me feel guilty. Maya on leave meant no curious head tilt, no “Are you okay Cait?” with her bright, too-knowing eyes. And Reece being absent meant no professional kindness that would slice straight through my composure.

I hung my coat, checked the diary, and walked to my office with the careful steadiness of someone determined to have an ordinary day.

Ordinary.

As if my skin didn’t still remember Alex’s hands.

As if my body wasn’t still heavy with the echo of him.

This morning he’d woken like nothing had happened.

He’d rolled over, dragged me against him, and kissed me with that lazy, devastating hunger of his, like he’d woken up with one thought and one thought only.

Me.

His mouth on my throat. His hand sliding down my back. His voice, low and rough, murmuring my name like it was a possession he’d never stop claiming.

And then, after, when I’d been left soft and breathless and completely ruined, he’d simply got out of bed.

Showered. Shaved. Buttoned his shirt with the same calm brutality he uses when he’s closing a deal. He’d kissed my forehead, told me to eat, told me Daniel would take me in, and then he’d spoken about Ella as if she was a meeting.

“I’ll go to the office,” he’d said, fastening his watch. “Then I’ll go see her this afternoon.”

As if he hadn’t looked like a man standing on the edge of something.

As if he wasn’t bleeding inside.

He’d smiled at me. That smile that’s half charm, half threat. And then he’d walked out, leaving me staring after him in his bed, in his sheets, trying to work out if the normality was comforting or terrifying.

Because it wasn’t normal.

Not for what he carried.

Not for what I’d seen in his eyes last night.

I pushed the thought down as I always do, because I had a client in ten minutes and a job that demanded I be steady even when I wasn’t.

Theo arrived on time, looking sharply dressed and slightly frayed at the edges, the way successful men often are when their masks start to slip. He sat on the sofa and let out a long breath that sounded like it had been trapped in his chest for days.

“I did the breathing,” he said, tone half proud, half irritated. “It didn’t fix me.”

I managed a smile. “Breathing isn’t meant to fix you, Theo. It’s meant to remind your body you’re not dying.”

He huffed a laugh, rubbing his palms over his trousers. “My body hasn’t got the memo.”

We talked. We moved through familiar territory, work pressure, sleep patterns, the relentless perfectionism that sat in his bones like a disease. I listened. I asked. I held the space.

And for fifty minutes I was exactly who I needed to be.

But when he mentioned feeling like he had to perform calm while everything inside him was screaming, my mind betrayed me.

Alex.

His face last night, softened by something raw.

Then gone.

The switch.

The ease with which he’d turned pain into control.

The way he’d used my body like a distraction, like a balm, like a weapon.

Theo’s voice faded for half a second, and I caught myself just in time.

“How do you feel in your body when that happens?” I asked, steady, clinical, focused.

Theo’s gaze drifted up to the ceiling for a moment, like the answer might be written there in neat clinical print.

“Restless,” he said finally, shrugging. “Like I’ve got ants under my skin. I just… keep busy. Work. Gym. Anything. If I stop, it catches up.”

“And when it catches up?” I pressed gently, because I hated how much I wanted the next bit to mean something.

He exhaled through his nose, unimpressed with his own honesty. “I don’t let it. That’s the whole point.”

I waited, giving him space to go deeper, to name the fear beneath the performance, to touch the real wound.

But he didn’t.

He just flicked a look at me, almost sheepish, and added, “I don’t know. I just push it down. Have a drink. Put something on telly. Sleep eventually.”

And that was it.

No insight. No revelation. No language for the storm.

Something in my chest sank, quiet and heavy, because it wasn’t what I’d been searching for at all.

It was the same switch Alex wore.

The same neat trick.

Bury it. Move on.

And suddenly I wasn’t thinking about Theo’s work stress anymore.

I was thinking about a man who could kiss me like devotion and hide his grief like a weapon.

And how little that kind of control ever saved anyone.

I tried to tell myself I was overthinking. That his normal was how he coped. That a man like Alex didn’t unravel in daylight. Not in front of anyone. Not when he’d spent his life holding other people’s chaos together with his bare hands.

Still, it sat wrong.

You don’t survive pain by pretending it doesn’t exist. You survive by turning and looking it in the face.

And Alex didn’t look.

He devoured. He controlled. He distracted.

He buried.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of notes and quiet hallways, the clinic unusually still without Maya’s chatter and Reece’s gentle orbit. I locked my office and walked out.

Daniel was waiting at the kerb.

“Home?” he asked, already opening my door.

I should have said yes. I should have gone straight back, curled up in Alex’s house, and waited for him like the Victorian heroine my mother would scream about.

Instead I heard myself say, “Selfridges.”

Daniel’s eyes flicked to mine in the mirror once I was in.

“Very well.”

He drove, quiet as always, the city sliding by in wet lights and expensive windows. My mind kept trying to find Alex, kept trying to climb back into his study drawer and that journal and those drawings, but I forced it away.

Shopping. Normal. Distraction.

Selfridges greeted me with warmth and perfume and money, the kind of place where grief doesn’t exist unless it’s wrapped in tissue paper and handed over a counter. I wandered through beauty halls and silk scarves, letting my fingers brush things I didn’t need.

Until I found myself in stationery.

I stood in front of a glass display of pens, my reflection faint in the case, my eyes too alert for a woman just casually browsing.

Because I wasn’t browsing.

I was thinking about the black notebook in Alex’s drawer.

About graphite shadows.

About the precision in his hands.

And the violence in what he refused to say.

My gaze landed on a pen, elegant, weighty, black lacquer with silver detailing.

This is sentimental. This is foolish.

But my hand was already signalling for assistance.

I bought it. Had it boxed. Had it wrapped.

A gift for a man who already had everything.

Except peace.

Daniel watched me carry the bag out like it was a delicate animal.

“Anything else?” he asked once we were back in the car.

“No,” I said. “Just… home.”

On the drive back, my phone buzzed once more.

Alex: See you soon, baby.

My chest tightened at the endearment, at the ease of it. Like last night hadn’t existed. Like he hadn’t held me afterwards with smoke on his tongue and silence in his eyes.

Me: I’m on my way back too.

I didn’t add the part about Selfridges. I didn’t know why. It wasn’t guilt. It was… instinct. As if part of me didn’t want him to know I’d stepped into his secret world and come out holding something that matched it.

Daniel pulled up at the gate. He got out first, as always, scanning the street like he was wired to protect things that didn’t ask for protecting. He opened my door, waited while I gathered my bag.

“You’ll be alright?” he asked quietly.

I nodded, forcing confidence into it. “Yes.”

His eyes lingered a second too long. Then he gave me that nod again and left me to the house.

The moment I stepped inside, I knew I wasn’t alone.

Voices.

Low.

Male.

The living room light was on, spilling warmth into the hallway. I walked in, ready to call out, ready to let Alex pull me into him and pretend everything was fine for another night.

But I stopped.

Because he wasn’t alone.

I stayed hidden in the shadow of the hall, my heart thudding against my ribs, trying to make sense of the words before they made sense of me.

James looked wrong.

His face was drawn, his mouth pulled tight, and his eyes were wet, actually wet, as if whatever he’d been outrunning had caught him by the throat.

And Alex?

Alex was impossible.

He sat perfectly still, one arm draped along the back of the sofa, posture relaxed, but the stillness wasn’t calm. It was control. The kind that meant he could explode at any second and you’d never see it coming.

James’s voice cracked. “I need them.”

Alex’s jaw clenched, a muscle ticking once in his cheek. Disgust flashed, quick and violent, and then it was gone again, smoothed back into stone.

“You don’t need Ella,” Alex said quietly. “You need to leave her alone. Now.”

James shook his head, frantic, wiping at his face like he hated the evidence of it. “Don’t do this. Don’t pretend you’ve suddenly grown a conscience. It’s been good for us.”

Alex’s mouth curled, not a smile, something uglier. “Good for us.” He repeated it like it tasted foul. “This nonsense should have ended a long time ago.”

James’s eyes widened, fury bleeding through the tears. “You’ve forgotten far too quickly,” he hissed, voice rising, “that you once needed us.”

Alex leaned forward an inch, and the room seemed to shrink with him. “I needed escape,” he said, measured. “Not you.”

James’s hands clenched into fists on his knees. “Don’t rewrite it, Alex.”

Alex’s gaze sharpened, ice and fire at once. “You’re a parasite.”

The words landed heavy, final. James flinched as if he’d been struck.

Then Alex said something that made my stomach drop.

“I’m going to remind Ella,” he said, voice low, controlled, “about her son.”

James shot to his feet so fast the chair legs scraped. “You cannot do that.”

Alex didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He just watched James like prey.

James’s breath hitched, his voice raw now, panicked beneath the rage. “Do you want my wife to die this time?”

The air turned to glass. My throat closed.

Alex stood, slow and deliberate, the movement all menace. “If you drag Ella into you and Andrea one more time,” he said, each word precise, “I will destroy you.”

James shook, his whole body trembling with it, and for a second he looked less like a villain and more like a man backed into a corner by his own sickness.

Then the mask snapped back on, rage filling the cracks.

“Fuck you,” he spat, and stormed towards the hall.

I pressed myself tighter into the shadow, barely breathing.

James marched straight past me.

So close I could have reached out and touched his sleeve. I could see the wet track on his cheek, the wildness in his eyes, the way he didn’t even register the world around him.

He didn’t notice me at all.

The front door slammed a moment later, the sound echoing through the house like a gunshot.

I stood there, frozen, my fingers numb around the handles of the bag, my pulse roaring in my ears.

Alex didn’t come after him. He didn’t shout. He didn’t move.

For a moment there was only silence, thick and humming, and the unbearable realisation that I had just overheard something I was never meant to hear.

I tried to piece it together, my mind scrambling.

Ella and Andrea.

James needing them.

Alex calling it a mistake.

A son.

My stomach turned as I stared into the living room, at Alex’s unreadable profile, at the tension holding his body upright like wire.

Was James in some three-way relationship with Ella and Andrea?

Where did Alex stand in that twisted triangle?

And why did it feel like I’d just stepped into the mouth of something that had been waiting to swallow us all?

---

My loves,

Thank you for being here, for reading, for feeling every word with me.

I know I have not been as present on Substack lately. Life has been tugging at me in all sorts of directions, and I have been quieter than usual. But please know this… I have not stopped writing for you. Not for a second. The stories are still pouring out of me, the characters still whispering in my ear, the chapters still unfolding with all the heat, longing and delicious tension you adore.

You will always have your weekly chapters. That is our little promise to each other.

And I am hoping, very much, to be more active here in the coming weeks. I miss chatting with you. I miss the little comments, the excitement, the shared obsession over fictional men we probably should not love quite so much.

Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your loyalty. Thank you for loving this story the way you do.

I adore you. Truly.

Always yours 🤍

A💋