Purely Professional (Simon Foster Fanfic) 18+
Pt 2 of 3
Pt 1 is here
Summary: After being an asshole for a whole week Simon loses it when he sees Hazel talking to his best friend...
Warnings: Smut, medium degradation, simon being an asshole! age gap, toxic relationship, unprotected sex, infidelity, p in v, a little ch0king, domSimon
Word Count: 11k (a little long)
gif from @cestpasfaux24601
...
She woke to Simon's breathing, slow and even, his arm loosely draped across her waist.
Her first thought was how good he looked like this. Unguarded in a way he never was awake. The face that spent its days calculating, assessing, finding the precise gap between what people said and what they meant, completely still. Her second thought was that she was an idiot for having a first thought like that.
She knew about Gemma. Everyone in Parminster did. The name carried that particular weight of a thing the town had witnessed and not forgotten, passed around in lowered voices, handled carefully. His first wife. And then Kate, who Hazel had known vaguely growing up, only three years older, who had a warm laugh and no idea her husband had spent three months arranging a twenty-two year old analyst into a corner.
That was the thing about Simon. He could give you his entire attention, all of it, the full weight of those blue eyes, the complete quality of being the only interesting thing in his world, and then remove it so cleanly you'd wonder if you'd imagined it. Gemma had learned that. Kate was learning it slowly, without knowing she was learning it. And Hazel, lying in the grey early light of a bedroom that wasn't hers, was beginning to understand the syllabus.
No one was ever truly Simon's. They just had the loan of him for a while and didn't know the terms until the repossession.
She needed to leave.
She shifted slowly. His arm tightened.
Shit.
She lay very still. Waited. His breathing stayed even. She moved again, careful, inch by inch, the way you moved when the ground might give, and he grunted once, low, and she froze with one foot on the floor and her heart in her throat.
He kept sleeping.
She gathered her things in under a minute, moving through the dark room by memory, not turning the lamp on. Shoes by the door. Coat on the hook in the hallway. She put it on and let herself out and pulled the door shut behind her with both hands.
The cold hit her immediately.
She stood on the front step for a moment. Through the door the house was warm and quiet and smelled of him and the urge to go back in was so specific and so physical she had to actually move her feet to counter it. Even knowing what waited. Even knowing he would wake up and look at her with that composed, amused expression, his hand finding her hip before she could think better of it.
She walked.
By nine she was at her desk, legs crossed, eyes on the screen.
She was not thinking about it. She was reading a client brief that required no thought with great concentration. When she paused, to take a sip of coffee, to change a tab, it came back in flashes. Not the full thing. Just pieces. His teeth at her neck, the dark quiet laugh when she had reacted, his hands which had known exactly what they were doing and had taken their time knowing it.
She kept typing. Kept her head down. Performed, for the benefit of nobody, the appearance of someone with nothing on her mind.
At ten she heard the door.
She knew before she had processed it. The specific quality of it, unhurried, the faint impression the room had been expecting him. Her shoulders went tight and she kept her eyes on the screen and typed something that was not a word and did not correct it.
His footsteps crossed the floor.
Slow. Even. Getting closer in a way that was either completely normal, his office was at the end of the floor and this was his route, or completely deliberate. With Simon those two things were never mutually exclusive. The anticipation was unbearable and she refused to show it and kept her eyes on the screen.
They stopped at her desk.
His scent hit her before anything. Nothing remarkable, just him, the particular way he smelled that she had spent a night learning without meaning to and now couldn't unfind.
She kept her eyes on the screen.
He didn't say good morning. He didn't say anything for a moment, just stood there. She could feel him looking at her the way you felt a light source, without needing to confirm it.
"Kate's coming in at lunch."
Hazel's fingers stopped on the keyboard.
"If she asks," he said, the voice he used for administrative details, for things that needed handling, "the Barrington call ran over yesterday. Kept a few of us late."
A few seconds passed.
"Alright?"
She looked up then. Couldn't not.
He was looking at her with that composed, unhurried expression, the one she had been trying to read for three months and was no closer to reading now despite everything, despite the dark and his arm around her and the particular way he had said her name. He was looking at her like she was a piece of the logistics. Useful, currently, in a specific and practical way.
"Fine," she said.
"Good." He moved on. Unhurried. His office door opened and closed.
Hazel turned back to her screen.
She sat with it for a moment, the full shape of it. She had been in his bed eight hours ago. She had lain there with her face against his shoulder and felt, in the dark, like something that mattered. And he had walked in this morning and the first words out of his mouth were a cover story. Not for her benefit. For his.
Hazel decided to leave at lunch.
She usually stayed. Bought something from outside and brought it back to her desk and ate it over whatever she was working on, which wasn't glamorous but was efficient and kept her head down, which was generally where she preferred it. Not today. For starters she couldn't sit in the same building as Kate Foster's uncalculating smile and produce a cover story with a straight face. Strange, given that she had just slept with Kate’s husband. The logic wasn't clean. It was just what she had.
She got her coat and left without telling anyone.
She drove around for a while with no particular destination, taking turns at random.Parminster in the middle of a Monday offered very little in the way of escape. Every street had something on it that was Simon adjacent.
She found a space eventually, unsurprisingly, at one of the three pubs in town. The one on Barrow Street that showed football. She pushed the door open and the smell of it hit her, beer and old wood and chip fat, and something in her shoulders dropped half an inch.
Liverpool were playing Newcastle on the screen above the bar. She sat down, ordered food and a drink she needed more than she would admit, and turned her face toward the television.
Slowly, as Liverpool went two up before the half hour, she began to feel like herself again. The specific suffocating quality of the morning, Simon's voice delivering Kate's with that smugness, the three hours she had spent not looking at his office, began to loosen its grip. She ate her food. She watched the game. She stopped, temporarily and with effort, judging herself quite so hard.
She ordered a second drink. She shouldn't've, she should've left after the first. But she didn't and she heard them before she could place them.
Two men at the table around the partition behind her, close enough that their voices came through the gap in the wood clearly, underneath the noise of the match. She wasn't listening. She was watching a Liverpool midfielder do something elegant in the opposition half.
Then the name.
"Did Simon tell you?"
She went still.
"About the girl? Yeah he told me." The first voice, and she had it now, the familiar register of it landing in her chest like something dropped from a height. Neil Baker. One of her father's long-time colleagues. The man who had gotten her the job with Simon. Most importantly, Simon’s best friend. "Bumped into him this morning getting coffee. Going on about it like he'd done something impressive."
"Patrick's daughter."
"Patrick's daughter," Neil confirmed. "Twenty-two years old and he's acting like he's won something."
"To be fair she's —"
"She's your best mate's kid, John." John Graham, her dad’s best friend. She desperately wanted a hole to open beneath her and swallow her whole.
A pause. "Right. Yeah."
"Don't."
"I'm just saying I've met her. She's not —"
"I know what she is," Neil said. "I interviewed her three months ago. Sharp girl. Good girl."
Hazel stared at the television. Liverpool had scored a third. The bar around her reacted and she didn't move and didn't hear it.
"So what happened?"
"What always happens with Simon." The sound of a glass being set down. "He decided he wanted something and he went about getting it. Took him three months apparently."
"She went to him?"
"Showed up at his door," Neil said. "His words. Said she looked like a lost puppy standing there. Said it was the easiest thing he's done in years."
A beat of silence.
"That's a shitty thing to say about someone," John said.
"Simon's a shitty man when he wants to be."
"You've known him long enough."
"Too long," Neil said. "He's my mate and he's a shitty man. Both things are true." A pause.
"Does Kate know?"
"Kate never knows," Neil said. "That's the pattern. That's always been the pattern."
Hazel set her glass down.
She put both hands flat on the table and looked at the television where the football was still happening, indifferent and continuous, and breathed at a pace she was managing with deliberate effort.
Lost puppy.
She had stood on his doorstep. She had knocked. She had gone in when he stepped back from the door and she had stayed and she had felt, in the warm dark of a bedroom that wasn't hers, like something that mattered. And he had gotten his coffee the next morning and told Neil Baker she looked like a lost puppy and it was the easiest thing he'd ever done.
She picked up her glass. Finished it. Put on her coat. Gathered her bag.
She came around the partition slowly and naturally. She only got three steps toward the door before she felt the silence change behind her.
She turned.
Neil was looking at her.
He had gone completely still, his glass halfway to his mouth, his face doing something complicated and rapid that he was trying to manage and not quite managing. John, beside him, followed his eyeline and had the grace to look at the table.
Neil and Hazel looked at each other across the pub.
His expression moved through several things in quick succession. Surprise, though he was working to contain it. Something that might have been shame, or the nearest thing Neil Baker had to it. And surprisingly underneath both of those, something more complicated that she didn't want to look at directly right now.
She held his gaze for a long moment.
She didn't say anything. There was nothing to say that wouldn't cost her more than the silence would. She just looked at him with the expression she had been practising all morning, the one that gave nothing, and then she turned and walked out.
The door closed behind her.
Outside the air was cold and bright. She stood on the pavement with her hands in her pockets and felt the full weight of it settle.
Lost puppy.
She had a sudden violent urge to call her father, which she immediately and firmly set aside. She had another urge to go back to the office and put her resignation on Simon's desk, which was more satisfying to imagine than it was practical.
She got in her car and sat in the car park for a while with the engine off.
Her phone buzzed.
Neil: Are you alright.
She stared at it. He had been watching for her to reach the car. He felt worse about what she had overheard than he would ever say out loud and this was the closest he could get to saying it.
She thought about the office in the morning. The easiest thing he'd ever done.
Hazel put the phone in the glovebox, started the engine, and drove back to work.
—
The rest of the week went by with impeccable professionalism.
Completely, almost aggressively professional. She arrived at nine, left at six, did her work cleanly and well, spoke when spoken to and not beyond it, and produced for the Barrington file a revised executive summary that was objectively the best thing she had written since joining Alderton. She knew this. She didn't mention it. She sent it to Simon's inbox at four fifteen on Tuesday and received back a single line: Good. Move to client stage. She filed it and opened the next thing.
She did not look at his office from across the floor, not once, not for the whole week, and if this required a level of concentrated effort that nobody around her could see then that was fine. That was the point.
Simon, for his part, was exactly what he always was. Composed, precise, running the team with the flat efficiency of someone who had no unresolved business anywhere.
Kate had come in at lunch on Monday as promised. Hazel had been back from the pub by then, at her desk, eyes on screen, and when Kate appeared at reception with her warm smile and her dark hair Hazel had looked at her computer with the focused attention of someone solving a genuinely difficult problem and had not looked up again until she heard the lift.
Thursday afternoon the email came round.
Team drinks tomorrow, The Anchor, 6pm. Celebrating the Barrington close. Attendance strongly encouraged.
Strongly encouraged in a small firm was a specific kind of language. It meant optional in the way that things were optional when your boss would notice if you weren't there. Hazel read it and thought: no. She had no interest in standing in a pub watching Simon be composed and authoritative and buy rounds with the easy generosity of a man who had nothing on his conscience.
And it would’ve stayed no if she hadn’t overheard them when leaving the building.
Simon and Geoff, the senior partner, the man above Simon, the one Simon had to be pleasant to.
"Neil coming tomorrow?" Geoff said.
"He said so," Simon said. "Whether he actually shows up is another matter."
"He usually does when it's your round."
Simon laughed. Brief, genuine. "Unfortunately yes."
Their voices moved away down the stairs.
She stood at her desk with the file open on her screen and looked at nothing in particular.
Neil was going.
She thought about the pub on Monday. His glass halfway to his mouth. The complicated expression moving across his face before he could manage it. The text she had not replied to. She thought about what she had overheard – sharp girl, good girl, followed by: showed up at his door looking like a lost puppy.
Easiest thing he's ever done.
Something shifted. It revealed a side of her she didn’t recognize. Cold and calculating. She decided she was going.
—
Looking at her wardrobe Hazel kept repeating to herself that she wasn’t doing anything calculated. She was going to a work drinks, she needed to wear something, these were the facts. She had work clothes and weekend clothes and she needed something between the two. Something that said she had come from the office but had not tried, specifically, to look like this.
After an hour she had two options. She chose the one that made her feel less like a lost puppy. Paired the low v-neck cut with a long necklace and big earrings.
Looked in the mirror for a moment. Composed. A little more put together than she usually allowed herself to be in a professional context, still deniable, still within the bounds of a Friday evening work drinks, but only just.
Lost puppy.
She picked up her coat and bag and headed towards The Anchor.
The mantra kept repeating in her head. She was going to a work drinks to celebrate a deal she had contributed to. She was going to have one drink, maybe two, be professional and unremarkable and go home. She was going to stand in the same room as Simon Foster and feel nothing and stand in the same room as Neil Baker and feel nothing and drink her drink and leave.
That was the plan.
The other plan, the one she was not officially entertaining, the one that had assembled itself somewhere between the email, the wardrobe and the mirror and the earrings, had to do with the specific look on Neil Baker's face across a pub three days ago. The glass froze halfway to his mouth.
She reached the door of The Anchor much quicker than she expected. Alderton people clustered near the back, a table pushed out to accommodate the group, jackets on chair backs, the particular looseness of colleagues who had stopped being colleagues for the evening. Someone had already got a round in. The Barrington close had apparently warranted the good wine, which meant Geoff was paying, which meant everyone was in a good mood.
Hazel got a drink at the bar first. Gave herself thirty seconds with her back to the room. A breath before walking into something she had decided to walk into. She turned around.
Simon was at the far end of the table.
Talking to Geoff, jacket off, producing the version of himself reserved for senior company – and looking ridiculously attractive. He hadn't looked up when she came in. She took a sip of her drink, found a space at the near end of the group, and slid into it. Priya was on her second glass and delighted about the Barrington close in the genuine way of someone who had done most of the unglamorous work on it.
She was fine. Composed. A person at work drinks with nothing on her mind.
She felt the moment Simon looked up.
Didn't turn to confirm it. Just felt it land, that specific quality of attention, and took another sip and laughed at something Priya said and kept her eyes where they were.
Neil arrived at half seven.
He came through the door already pulling his coat off, scanning the room before he had fully cleared the entrance. He found Geoff first, shook hands, said something that made the table laugh. Then his eyes moved and found her.
A pause. Almost nothing.
Then he smiled and crossed the room and sat in the empty seat beside her.
"Hazel."
"Neil."
He looked at her – a proper look, taking stock of something he hadn't expected. "You look well."
"Thank you."
"I mean it. You look —" he paused, reconsidered, picked up a menu he didn't need. Looked at it.
Put it down. Picked up a beer mat. Put that down too. Small movements, slightly uncharacteristic. Neil Baker being almost something she would describe as uncertain.
"Different," he finished.
"Good different or bad different."
"Interesting different," he said.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the honest one." He glanced toward the bar. "Drink?"
"I have one."
"You've had that one for a while."
She looked at the glass. He was right. "Another drink then."
"Thought so." He signalled without looking at the bar, still watching her. "Didn't know you'd be here tonight."
"Strongly encouraged."
"Geoff's doing?"
"The email's doing."
"Geoff writes those emails like they're subpoenas,” he said.
She almost smiled. "Is that why you come?"
"I come," Neil said, "because Simon buys the first round when Geoff's watching and I've learned to time my arrival accordingly."
"Calculated."
"Efficient," he said. "There's a difference."
The drinks arrived. He handed hers over without ceremony and settled back in his chair with the ease of a man entirely comfortable in his own company, which she had always found one of his better qualities. He didn't fill silences for the sake of it. He just sat in them until something worth saying came along.
"How's the job treating you," he said.
"Fine."
"Fine as in fine, or fine as in the thing you say when you don't want to answer."
She looked at him. "You're perceptive for someone who's just arrived."
"I'm perceptive generally," he said. "I just don't always advertise it." He took a drink. "Alderton's not a bad firm. Simon runs a tight team."
"He does."
"Demanding though."
"Yes."
"Particular," Neil said. "About work. About most things." Neutral, watching her, leaving a door open to see if she'd walk through it.
She didn't. "The work's interesting. I like the Barrington mandate."
"I heard. Simon mentioned the trust dynamic observation."
"Did he."
"Said it unlocked the whole thing." Neil paused. "He doesn't say that about most people's work."
"He said two words to my face about it."
"That's practically a standing ovation from Simon." No irony in it, which meant he meant it, which meant he knew Simon well enough to calibrate that precisely. "You've made an impression."
"Mm."
"Is that good or bad."
She looked at her drink. "Depends on the day."
Neil was quiet for a moment. He turned his glass on the table, once, twice, a small slow rotation. "How are you finding Parminster," he said. "Genuinely. Small town after Bristol."
"Quieter," she said. "Everyone knows everyone."
"That bother you?"
"Sometimes."
"Information travels fast here," he said, and there was something in it, not quite an apology, not quite an acknowledgment, just a weight behind the words that sat between them for a moment.
She looked at him directly. He held it, didn't look away, didn't qualify what he'd said.
"Yes," she said. "It does."
A beat. Something passed between them, not comfortable exactly, but honest, and she found she preferred it to pretending.
"Your dad still fishing on Saturdays?" Neil said.
The shift was deliberate and she let him make it. "Every week. Drags my uncle along. Neither of them catches anything."
"The point was never the fish."
"No," she said. "I don't think it was."
"Patrick's a good man," Neil said quietly. Nothing to do with fishing.
"He is," she said.
He looked at her, something careful moving across his face, a man deciding how much he was going to say. Then he picked up his drink and whatever he had almost said went with it.
"Tell him I said hello," he said instead.
"I will."
She looked at him, all open and steady and familiar. It surprised her when she found tonight for the first time it had an edge she hadn't noticed before. Or had noticed and filed away under things that weren't her business.
She drank her drink and let herself be easy for a few minutes and didn't think about the other end of the table.
Almost didn't think about it. But it was a feeling, a prickling, a gut punch. She was aware, the whole time, of Simon at the other end of the table.
She could feel him not looking at her with the same precision she could feel him looking at her. His attention was deliberately redirected, held in place elsewhere. She watched Neil laugh at something she said and let the laugh land and did not glance toward the other end of the table.
The second drink arrived.
At eight Neil leaned slightly closer and lowered his voice.
Not close enough to be obvious. Just enough that what he said next was hers only.
"Why are you here tonight?”
She kept her expression easy. "I’m here for the drinks."
"Hazel."
"Neil." The smile came anyway, small and traitorous, arriving before she could do anything about it. The fourth drink had loosened something she had spent all week keeping carefully in place.
He looked at her with the patient expression of a man who had been reading rooms since before she was born. Something pulling at the corner of his mouth, not quite a smile yet, the thing that came before one, the private acknowledgment of a man who found a situation more interesting than he intended to. "I've known you since you were eighteen," he said quietly. "I know the difference between you just being somewhere and you being somewhere with a purpose."
She said nothing.
"I also know Simon."
"I don't know what you're —"
"Yes you do." Not unkind. Just direct. "Whatever you're thinking. It won't work on him. And it'll cost you more than it costs him."
She looked at her drink. "I'm at a work drinks, Neil."
"In that top."
"I'm allowed to wear whatever I want."
"You're allowed everything," he said. "I'm just telling you, you're better than this play."
She looked at him then. Directly.
"Maybe," she said. "But I'm going to make it anyway."
Something shifted in his face. Not disappointment exactly. Recognition. He picked up his drink.
"Alright," he said quietly. "On your head."
And he didn't move away.
—
At nine the group thinned. Babysitters and trains, the gradual dispersal of a work drinks past its natural end. The table contracted. She was aware of the distance between her end and Simon's end shrinking without anyone moving specifically toward anyone else.
She was on her fourth drink.
Neil was telling a story about a case he had worked years ago, something involving Geoff and a client dinner that had gone badly wrong, and she was laughing at it, genuinely, when she felt it.
Simon, now three seats away, had turned and was looking at her.
Not the assessing look. Not the managed quality of attention she had learned to brace for over three months. Something more direct, stripped of its usual machinery. A man who had been watching all evening and had stopped pretending otherwise.
She held it.
For the first time all evening she held his gaze directly, across the contracted table, four drinks in, Neil beside her. She smiled at him.
Not warmly. Not coldly. Full and composed and utterly opaque.
Something moved in his jaw.
She turned back to Neil.
It was Geoff who did it, innocently and without any idea what he was doing.
"Hazel," he said, expansive with wine and good feeling, "Simon tells me the Barrington note was essentially yours. The trust dynamic observation."
"It was a team effort."
"Come on." Geoff waved a hand. "He said it cracked the whole thing open."
She glanced at Simon.
He was looking at his glass. Unhurried. Composed.
"Generous of him," she said.
"She's being modest," Simon said pleasantly, addressing the table rather than her. "She's good at that."
Priya smiled. Geoff nodded approvingly. The table received it as a compliment and moved on as tables did.
Neil, beside her, went very slightly still.
She had understood it the moment it left his mouth. Not about the work. About modesty. About underplaying, staying quiet, not making things difficult. A compliment built like a cage, assembled in front of witnesses, each bar a word chosen with precision. She's good at that. At being the version of herself that showed up at doors. That stayed
"I've been working on it," she said. Her voice was even. "Modesty doesn't come naturally."
"No," Simon said, eyes meeting hers briefly. "I imagine not. Though you seemed to manage it well enough this week."
The table didn't catch it. Why would they. It was perfectly calibrated for that – audible enough to land on her, innocuous enough for everyone else. Priya was already talking to someone. Geoff was refilling his glass. Nobody saw the way it hit because nobody knew where to look.
She held his gaze.
"Practice," she said simply.
"Clearly." He picked up his drink. "You're a quick learner. One of your better qualities."
One of. The implication of the others left hanging, unnamed, in front of a table full of colleagues who were not listening and would not have understood anyway. She felt it move through her like something cold.
She kept her face exactly where it was and picked up her drink.
Neil touched her arm under the table, leaned in.
"Come outside," he said quietly. "Two minutes."
"I don't smoke."
"Neither do I," he said. "Come outside."
She looked at him. He wasn't performing concern. He was just asking.
She put her glass down. "Back in a minute," she said to Priya, who nodded without looking up.
They got their coats and slipped out through the side door and the cold hit immediately, clean and sharp after the warmth of the pub. The smoking area was a narrow strip of pavement with a standing ashtray nobody had emptied recently. Empty at this hour. Just the two of them and the cold and the muffled noise of the pub behind the door.
Neil leaned against the wall and looked at the sky.
She stood beside him and breathed.
"He's a bastard," Neil said finally.
"He's my boss."
"Both things are true."
She almost smiled. "You've been friends for twenty years."
"Twenty-three," Neil said. "Which is how I know exactly what he was doing in there." He paused. "You alright?"
"Fine."
His eyes found hers, insistent.
"I'm fine, Neil."
He looked at her sideways. "You know what I find interesting," he said.
"What."
"He hasn't looked at you directly all evening."
"He looked at me plenty."
"Not directly," Neil said. "He looks just past you. Or at his glass right after. Have you noticed that?"
She hadn't let herself notice that.
"It means something's getting through," Neil said simply. "With Simon that's the tell. When he stops looking directly it means he can't trust what his face will do if he does."
She was quiet for a moment.
"You're very good at reading him," she said.
"Twenty-three years." He pushed off the wall slightly. "He hates this, by the way. Us out here."
"He doesn't own me."
"No," Neil said. "But he'd like to. That's the distinction he hasn't made peace with yet."
She looked at him. He looked back, steady, something in his expression that was both kind and entirely clear about what it was.
"You should go back in," he said.
"So should you."
"In a minute." He looked up at the sky again. "Go back in, Hazel. Let him see you walk back in without me."
She understood what he was offering. The small, deliberate gift of it. She also understood it said as much about Neil as it did about Simon — that he would arrange something in her favour and call it nothing and mean something by it anyway.
She didn’t say thank you, just nodded, and walked back in.
She found Priya at the bar and sat down beside her and made small talk that she could not have repeated five minutes later. She nodded and responded and kept her shoulders loose and her expression easy and felt, more acutely than she had all evening, the burning quality of a pair of eyes on the back of her neck.
Let him look. Let him sit across a pub with his composed face and his careful glass and his one of your better qualities and look at the back of her head and feel whatever he was feeling that he would never in a thousand years name out loud.
Geoff left soon after, expansive goodbyes, the handshakes of a man who had drunk well and closed a deal and felt, temporarily, that the world was broadly in order. Then the associates, coats and scarves, the usual cheerful untidy exit. Priya hugged her, which she hadn't expected.
It hit her then, a sharp, cold spike of awareness that was indistinguishable from fear. The side door had remained shut; Neil hadn't come back in. The rest of the firm had vanished into the Friday night, leaving a vacuum in the corner of the bar that contained only her and Simon. Her better judgment finally overrode the alcohol, and she began, with the quiet precision of a cornered animal, to calculate the distance to the exit.
She pulled her coat on fully and was reaching for her bag when she felt it.
A hand, flat and warm, pressing at the small of her back. Not asking. Pressing her firmly back down onto the bar stool she had just risen from, with the calm certainty of someone who had made a decision and was not particularly interested in negotiating it.
She sat.
"You're staying for a bit longer."
Not a question. The voice low and close, just behind her ear.
She turned her head.
Simon was standing at the bar beside her, close enough that the turn brought their faces near enough to matter. He hadn't sat. Just there, one hand still warm at her lower back, the other resting on the bar, looking at her with an expression she had not seen all evening. Nothing managed about it, nothing directed elsewhere.
She met his eyes.
Dark in the amber light, the blue of them swallowed into something with more heat in it. She held them for a moment and then let her gaze drop – deliberately, slowly – to his mouth.
Then back up.
His breath stopped.
She felt it, the half second where the control he had maintained all evening simply paused. His hand at her back pressed slightly flatter. She doubted he knew he had done it.
She looked at him with the full composed opaque smile and said nothing and let him stand there with nowhere to put it.
The bar hummed around them. Nobody was watching.
He ordered two drinks without asking her. Slid hers across. Sat.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
"You spent the entire evening looking at your glass," she said.
"Careful management of a difficult situation." He took a drink. "You'd know something about that."
"Would I."
"You've been performing all week." He said it pleasantly. "Very well, I thought. The summary was excellent."
"You said two words about it."
"Good. Move to client stage." A beat. "I thought the economy was appropriate given the circumstances."
She looked at her drink.
"You didn't come here tonight for the drinks," he said.
Flat, unhurried, dropped into the conversation like something he'd been holding all evening.
She kept her expression where it was. "Didn't I."
"No." He turned his glass once on the bar. "You came to see what I'd do."
"That's a very self-important reading of a Friday work drinks."
"Is it." Not a question. "You chose that specific top. You spent forty minutes at the near end of the table making Neil the center of the room. You watched me not watching you with the concentration of someone waiting for a result." He paused. "It was well executed, by the way."
"You imagine a lot."
"I observe a lot. There's a difference." He looked at her steadily. "You want me to want you badly enough to show it. You wanted to sit across that table and make me feel something I couldn't manage and watch me try to manage it anyway."
She said nothing.
"And you're angry," he continued. "Which is fair. Monday was — not my finest moment."
She looked at him. "Which part."
"The cover story. The delivery of it."
"The delivery," she repeated.
"I was blunt. I could have been less blunt."
"You were efficient," she said. "I thought efficiency was appropriate given the circumstances."
Something moved at the corner of his mouth. "Fair."
"Kate's a real person," Hazel said. Quietly, without heat. "You know that."
"I'm aware of that."
"Are you?"
"Hazel."
"Because the way you walked in on Monday —" she stopped. Reordered. "You walked in and the first thing you said was a logistics problem."
He looked at his glass. "I know."
"That's it?"
"What would you like me to say?"
"Something that suggests you noticed."
"I noticed," he said. And it wasn't an apology. Just an admission. He had noticed and had done it anyway and was telling her so now with the same composure he brought to everything.
She breathed in slowly.
"You noticed," she said.
"Yes."
"And."
"And nothing." He looked at her. "That's not a satisfying answer. I understand that. But it's the honest one."
She turned her glass on the bar. Once. Twice.
"Neil told me it won't work," she said. "Whatever I'm doing tonight. He said it'll cost me more than it costs you."
"Neil's right."
"And yet here you are."
"Here I am," he agreed.
She looked at him. "Does it not bother you at all? Any of it. Kate. Neil knowing. Me sitting at that desk all week while you walked around like nothing had happened."
"Something had happened," he said. "I just don't find it useful to carry it around the office."
"I wasn't asking you to carry it. I was asking you to acknowledge it."
"I'm acknowledging it now."
"In a pub at nine o'clock because I made you jealous."
His jaw tightened. Slightly.
"You weren't making Neil the center of the room because you wanted Neil," he said.
"You don't know what I want."
"I know exactly what you want." Still level, but with something underneath it now. "You want me to be the one who can't manage it. You want to be the one walking away with the upper hand for once. You want me to feel what you felt on Monday morning." He looked at her. "How am I doing."
She held his gaze. "You tell me."
"You're sitting here," he said. "You haven't moved. You're not going to move. And you know as well as I do that the reason has nothing to do with the upper hand."
"Don't."
"You came here tonight wanting something specific," he said. "The same thing you wanted when you knocked on my door. And it's got nothing to do with winning."
"I said don't."
"Why not. You spent the whole evening arranging the room around what I might feel. You wore those earrings and sat with Neil and laughed at his stories and didn't look at me once for three hours. All of that, and you won't let me say the obvious thing."
She looked at the bar.
"Say it then," she said quietly.
"You want me," he said. "Despite everything you know. Despite Monday and Neil's face in that pub and every sensible thought you've had this week. You still want me and you hate yourself for it and tonight was the closest you could get to not admitting it."
The bar hummed. A glass clinked somewhere behind them.
She didn't say anything for a long moment.
"That's a very comfortable position for you," she said. "Knowing what I want."
"It's just accurate."
"It lets you off the hook entirely. I want you, therefore whatever happens is on me."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to." She looked at him. "Lost puppy, Simon."
The silence that followed was different from the ones before it.
His expression didn't change. But something behind it did. He looked at her and for one unguarded moment there was nothing managed about it at all.
Then it closed.
"Who told you that," he said.
"Does it matter?"
"Neil."
"I was in the pub," she said. "Monday. You'd already been for your coffee." She held his gaze. "The easiest thing you've done in years."
He said nothing.
"That's what I was." She kept her voice even. "On your doorstep. The easiest thing."
"Hazel —"
"It's ok. You don't need explain it. I've come to terms with it,"
He was quiet. Something in his expression that wasn't defensiveness, wasn't composure. Something with more discomfort in it than he would ever name.
"It was a stupid thing to say," he said finally.
"Yes."
"To Neil of all people."
"Yes."
"I'm not going to tell you it wasn't what it sounded like," he said. "Because it was." He looked at his glass. "That's a worse answer than a denial, I know."
She said nothing. Let him sit in it.
"You're not a lost puppy," he said quietly. "It was a shitty thing to say."
"It was."
"And you heard it."
"I heard it."
"I'm sorry for that," he said.
She looked at him. Simon Foster, saying sorry, in a pub, at nine-fifteen on a Friday. She did not know what to do with it.
"That doesn't fix anything," she said.
"No."
"It doesn't change Monday, or Kate, or the fact that Neil Baker now thinks —"
"I know what Neil thinks."
"Do you care?"
A pause. "About Neil's opinion, yes. A certain amount."
"And about mine?"
He looked at her then. Fully.
"More than is sensible," he said. "Given everything."
She looked at him. He looked back.
"That's not an answer," she said.
"It's the most honest one I have tonight."
A beat.
"You're very good at that," she said. "Giving me just enough."
"You're very good at wanting just enough to keep taking it," he said. The edge was back now, something with a blade in it.
She felt it land.
"There he is," she said quietly.
"I've been right here." He looked at her steadily. "You just preferred the version that was apologising."
"I preferred the version that was being honest."
"That was honest." He turned his glass. "You do keep taking it. That's not an insult. You've known what I am since before you knocked on my door. Neil made sure of that. And you knocked anyway."
"People do stupid things."
"Yes," he said. "And then they do them again." His eyes moved over her face. "Which is why you're still sitting here."
She opened her mouth.
"Don't tell me you're leaving," he said. "You've picked up your bag twice."
She put the bag down.
He watched her do it. Something in his expression – not triumph, but the quiet acknowledgment of a man who knew the outcome before the game started.
"I don't like you very much right now," she said.
"I know."
"I mean it."
"I know you mean it." He looked at her. "That's not the relevant question."
She looked at the bar. The pub had thinned, just the tail end of a Friday, bar staff beginning the slow work of last orders.
"This is a bad idea," she said.
"It was a bad idea the first time."
"That's not reassuring."
"I'm not trying to reassure you." He stood and set his glass down. Picked up his jacket. "Come outside."
She looked up at him.
"Not a question," she said.
"No." He looked down at her, steady, unhurried. "Come outside, Hazel."
She sat for one more moment. Felt the full weight of it, everything she knew and was about to do anyway.
She picked up her coat.
The air hit her at once, sharp enough to make her flinch, and she had barely cleared the door when he did it.
One hand flat against the wall beside her head, the other in his pocket, and suddenly she was between him and the pub wall with nowhere particular to go and he was looking down at her with an expression that had none of the evening's management left in it.
She didn't step back. There was nowhere to step.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi." The corner of his mouth.
She held his gaze. Her heart was doing something she was not going to let him see. "You're in my space."
"I am."
"Deliberately."
"Obviously." He didn't move. Just looked at her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him cutting through the cold, his forearm against the wall just above her shoulder. "You're cold."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine." His eyes moved over her face, unhurried. "You've been not fine since Monday and you've been very professional about it."
"Can you —" she gestured vaguely at the arm against the wall.
"No," he said pleasantly.
She looked at him. He looked back. Neither of them moved.
"This is what you do," she said. "You know that. You get someone in a corner and you just — wait."
"Is it working."
"No."
His mouth curved. "You've looked at my mouth twice in the last thirty seconds."
She hadn't realised she had. She kept her expression where it was. "Occupational hazard. You're very close."
"I am," he agreed. He shifted his weight slightly, just enough that the distance decreased by something she felt precisely. His eyes dropped to her mouth. Came back up. Slow and deliberate, making no attempt to disguise it.
She breathed in.
"You're doing that on purpose," she said.
"Doing what."
"You know what."
"Tell me," he said quietly. The voice he used when there was no audience. Low and unhurried and entirely focused on her.
She looked at him. At the expression with no performance left in it, at the arm braced above her head, at the specific quality of his attention which had been the problem since the vending machine three months ago and had apparently not stopped being the problem.
"You've wanted this all week," he said. Not cruel. Just direct. His eyes on hers, not letting her look away. "Every time you didn't look at my office. You were thinking about it."
She turned her head and their faces were suddenly close enough to matter, his jaw next to her cheek, and she could feel him breathe and neither of them moved and the not moving was its own specific unbearable thing.
"You first," she said. Barely above a breath.
A pause.
"No," he said softly. "I don't think so."
She pulled back just enough to look at him. His eyes were dark in the cold air, the blue of them swallowed into something with more heat in it, and he still hadn't moved, still had one hand against the wall and one in his pocket, and the patience of it, the absolute certainty of a man who had decided she was going to be the one and was content to wait the whole night if necessary, was completely and utterly insufferable.
She kissed him.
He responded immediately. The hand that had been in his pocket found her waist and pulled her in with a firmness that made very clear the patience had been a choice and not a limitation. His other hand left the wall and came to her jaw and she felt the cold air and his warm hands and the specific satisfaction of a man who had gotten exactly what he wanted and knew it and didn't bother pretending otherwise.
His body pressed her against the wall before she could draw another breath, leaving no space for hesitation or questions. She felt his hardness instantly and realized he’d been like this for a while. The knowledge sent a flush of heat through her.
Her body betrayed her first. Her legs parted almost on their own, and he settled between them with a low groan, his cock lodging firmly against her core through their clothes. The pressure was perfect and devastating. She could feel every inch of him, hot and heavy where she ached the most.
He grinned against her mouth, dark and satisfied.
“Took you all evening,” he murmured, rolling his hips in one slow, deliberate stroke.
The friction dragged his cock right where she needed it, and the sound that tore from her throat was unholy. Simon chuckled, low and dark, the sound vibrating against her lips.
His hands turned greedy. One slid down to her ass, squeezing hard as he pulled her leg up around his hip, opening her further. The other fisted tightly in her hair, yanking her head back to expose the line of her throat.
He attacked it with teeth and tongue claiming every inch while she could do nothing but arch against the wall, eyes fluttering shut, completely at his mercy.
In one moment of clarity, cutting through everything else, Simon registered where they were. The street. The pub twenty feet away. He pulled back, breathing hard, forehead briefly against hers.
"The office isn't far," he panted against her face.
She looked up at him. "My house is closer."
Something moved in his expression. Then he straightened his jacket and looked at her.
"Lead the way."
She did, walking quickly. Simon’s hands never left her body. One stayed at the small of her back, the other occasionally sliding up to curl possessively around the nape of her neck, steering her through the quiet streets as if he already owned the route. Half the time it felt like he was the one leading, guiding her exactly where he wanted her to go.
They made it to her door.
She stopped in front of it, keys suddenly clumsy in her hand. He was right behind her, chest pressed to her back, hands firm on her hips, and he felt the tiny hesitation before she could even process it.
“Don’t tell me you’re thinking again,” he murmured against her ear, voice low and rough with warning.
She wasn’t.
The key turned. The door swung open.
Simon didn’t give her time to think, to speak, or even to turn on a light. The moment the door clicked shut behind them, he spun her around and pushed her back against it, mouth crashing into hers with unrestrained hunger. One hand fisted in her hair, the other gripping her thigh as he hiked it up around his hip, grinding his still-hard cock against her core with a low, filthy groan.
“Christ,” he growled against her mouth, shifting his hips again, letting her feel every thick inch of him.
Hazel’s hands scrabbled at his shoulders, then his shirt, pulling him closer even as her mind spun. His mouth moved to her neck, biting down hard enough to make her gasp, then soothing the sting with his tongue. His free hand shoved her coat off her shoulders and yanked at the hem of her top, desperate to get to skin.
She moaned when his palm finally found her breast, squeezing roughly through her bra before pushing the lace aside. His thumb dragged over her nipple, and she arched into him, legs trembling.
“Simon–”
“Shut up” he said, voice dark and breathless. He bit her collarbone, then licked the mark. “You’re done thinking for the night.”
He dropped to his knees with a hunger that felt almost violent. He shoved her skirt up around her waist in one rough motion, bunching the fabric carelessly, and yanked her soaked underwear down her legs until it tangled around one ankle. The cool air kissed her bare skin for only a heartbeat before his mouth was on her.
He devoured her.
His tongue slid through her folds in one long, filthy stroke, licking up the evidence of how wet she already was. The moment he tasted her, a low, hungry groan vibrated against her core. He didn’t start slow. There was no gentle exploration, no teasing licks. He went straight for her clit, sucking it hard into his mouth while two thick fingers pushed inside her without warning, stretching her open in one smooth thrust.
Hazel’s head fell back against the door with a heavy thud. The impact barely registered. Her hand flew to his hair, fingers twisting tight in the dark strands as a broken, shameless moan tore from her throat.
“Oh god—”
Simon didn’t let up for even a second. He fucked her with his fingers in deep, relentless strokes, curling them expertly against that spot inside her while his tongue worked her clit with vicious precision. Every sound she made seemed to spur him on. The wet, obscene noises of his mouth and fingers filled the quiet hallway, mingling with her ragged breathing and the occasional low, satisfied groan that rumbled from his chest.
She could feel how slick she was, how easily his fingers moved inside her, and the knowledge that he could taste and feel exactly how desperate she was made heat flood her face. Shame twisted low in her belly, sharp and hot, but it only made her wetter.
“Simon—” Her voice cracked, thighs trembling as she tried to stay upright. “Fuck—slow down—”
He pulled back just enough to speak, lips glistening, voice rough and dark with lust.
“No,” he said simply, before diving back in.
This time he added a third finger, stretching her wider, thrusting harder while his tongue flattened against her clit and dragged in slow, heavy strokes. He was eating her like he was starving: messy, possessive, completely lost in the taste of her. His free hand gripped her ass, holding her open for him, fingers digging into the soft flesh as he pulled her harder against his mouth.
Hazel’s legs started to shake violently. Her hips jerked forward on their own, chasing the brutal pleasure even as her mind spun with embarrassment at how loudly she was moaning, at how quickly he was unraveling her right here against her own front door.
She was embarrassingly close, the coil in her belly winding tighter with every thrust of his fingers and every filthy pull of his mouth.
Simon felt it. He groaned against her, the vibration shooting straight through her clit, and doubled down until her vision blurred.
When she came, it hit her like a wave crashing over her head.
Her back arched off the door, a strangled cry ripping from her throat as her walls clenched violently around his fingers. Pleasure tore through her in brutal pulses, her hips grinding shamelessly against his face while he kept licking and fucking her through every shudder, drawing it out until she was whimpering, oversensitive, and barely able to stand.
Only when her trembling started to ease did he finally pull back.
His mouth and chin were slick with her. He looked up at her from his knees, eyes dark, pupils blown wide with raw hunger, and slowly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
She was still panting, legs weak, when he rose to his feet, crowding her against the door once more. His hand slid between her thighs, two fingers dragging lazily through her soaked folds, collecting the mess he’d made of her.
He brought those fingers to her lips.
“Open,” he ordered quietly.
Hazel’s breath hitched. For a fraction of a second her mind tried to resist, but her body had already surrendered. Her lips parted obediently. Simon’s eyes darkened as he slid his fingers into her mouth, letting her taste herself on his skin. He pressed down gently on her tongue, watching with hooded eyes as she closed her lips around him and sucked, cleaning every trace.
He watched her for another long moment, thumb brushing her lower lip as he slowly withdrew his fingers.
Then the corner of his mouth curved, dark and satisfied.
“Where’s the bedroom?”
The question cut through the haze like a blade. Hazel blinked, still catching her breath, lips tingling from the taste of herself. She swallowed hard.
“Down the hall,” she whispered, voice hoarse. “Last door on the left.”
Simon didn’t waste another second.
He spun her around, one arm banding around her waist as he walked her forward, guiding her through her own house with the same calm authority he used in the office. His free hand stayed on her body the entire time – sliding up her ribs, cupping her breast through her clothes, then slipping down to squeeze her ass as they moved. Every few steps he leaned in to bite the side of her neck or drag his teeth along her shoulder, keeping her mind scrambled and her body aching.
When they reached the bedroom door he didn’t bother with the light. He pushed her inside, kicking the door shut behind them with his foot. The room was dark except for the faint glow of streetlight filtering through the curtains, just enough to see shapes and silhouettes.
In one fluid motion he shoved her onto the bed. She landed on her back with a soft gasp, skirt still rucked up around her waist, top askew. Simon followed her down immediately, crawling over her like a predator who had finally cornered his prey. His mouth found hers in a deep, filthy kiss, letting her taste herself on his tongue again as his hands worked to strip the rest of her clothes away.
He peeled her top off, then her bra, tossing both aside without care. His palms covered her breasts, squeezing and kneading as his thumbs dragged over her already-tight nipples. When she arched into his touch he made a low sound of approval and moved lower, kissing and biting his way down her stomach until his mouth hovered just above where she was still throbbing and slick.
“Look at you,” he murmured, voice dark with lust.
Hazel’s cheeks burned with fresh shame, but her hips lifted toward him anyway, betraying her completely.
Simon chuckled softly, the sound vibrating against her skin.
He spread her thighs wider. "You're going to give me another one, yeah?"
She nodded.
"Use your words."
"Yes."
Simon’s eyes stayed locked on hers as he straightened above her, the faint streetlight painting sharp shadows across his face.
He shrugged out of his jacket and let it fall to the floor. Then he pulled his tie loose with one sharp tug and tossed aside. His fingers worked the buttons of his shirt one by one, revealing the hard planes of his chest, the faint trail of dark hair that disappeared beneath his belt. When the shirt dropped, Hazel’s gaze traced the lean muscle, the sharp cut of his shoulders, the way his stomach flexed with each breath.
He unbuckled his belt slowly, the metallic clink loud in the quiet room. The zipper came down next. He shoved his trousers and boxers down in one motion and stepped out of them, completely naked now, cock heavy and flushed dark, already glistening at the tip.
The sight of it made something low in her belly clench with equal parts hunger and fear.
Simon wrapped a hand around himself and stroked once, slow and lazy, eyes never leaving her face. Then he climbed back onto the bed, knees pushing her thighs wider apart as he settled between them. The head of his cock dragged through her soaked folds teasing her entrance before he let it slap heavily against her clit.
The wet smack made her jolt.
He did it again. Harder. The obscene sound of skin on wet skin filled the room as his thick cock slapped against her swollen clit over and over, each impact sending sparks through her oversensitive nerves.
“You’re making such a fucking mess already,” he murmured, voice dark with satisfaction.
He dragged the head down again, notching it right at her entrance. Then he pushed in slowly.
Hazel’s mouth fell open on a silent gasp.
The stretch was overwhelming. He was thick, hot, and he gave her every inch with deliberate patience, letting her feel the way her walls had to open around him. She could feel the heavy drag of him inside her, the way he filled her so completely that there was no room left for thought. When he finally bottomed out, hips flush against hers, the blunt head of his cock pressed right against the deepest part of her and she let out a broken, whimpering sound she barely recognized as her own.
Simon groaned low in his throat, the sound vibrating through his chest where it pressed against her breasts. His body covered hers completely now. The heat of his skin was everywhere: his chest against her breasts, his stomach against her belly, his thighs pinning hers open. She could feel the rapid thud of his heartbeat where their bodies met, the faint sheen of sweat already starting to slick his back under her palms.
“Having you like this,” he confessed against her mouth, “is worth every day of that week.”
He stayed buried deep for one long, devastating second – letting her adjust, letting her feel every throbbing inch of him – before he started to move.
And then he destroyed her.
There was nothing slow or careful left in him. His hips snapped forward and didn't stop.
Hazel's head fell back, mouth open, the sound she made swallowed by the dark room. She couldn't think. All she could do was take it. The drag of him against every sensitive spot, the way each thrust shoved her up the bed, his body pinning her down with a weight and heat that left no room for anything else.
He fucked her like the week had cost him something.
The headboard found the wall. Kept finding it. The rhythm of it steady and brutal and completely indifferent to anything outside this room.
He shifted slightly, hooking one of her legs higher over his arm, opening her wider. The new angle let him sink even deeper, and the wet slap of his hips meeting her ass grew louder, more obscene.
“That’s it,” he panted, hips snapping faster. “You’ve been clenching around nothing all week, haven’t you? Thinking about this cock while you sat at your desk pretending to work.”
He leaned down, teeth scraping along her jaw before he bit down on the side of her neck, sucking hard enough to leave a mark.
“Bet you were soaked in that pub tonight,” he continued, voice dark and mocking. “Sitting there laughing with Neil and dripping for me.”
Hazel cried out, the shame and pleasure twisting together so tightly she couldn’t separate them. Her walls fluttered around him, clenching greedily with every brutal thrust. Simon groaned at the feeling, hips stuttering for half a second before he fucked her even harder, the headboard banging louder against the wall.
Without warning, his hand slid up her body and wrapped around her throat. He enforced just enough pressure to make her acutely aware of his palm against her pulse, his fingers bracketing the sides of her neck. He squeezed gently, then firmer, cutting off just enough air to make the edges of her vision blur and her pussy clench violently around his cock.
“Eyes on me,” he ordered, voice low and rough.
Hazel’s gaze snapped to his, wide and glassy. The lack of air made everything sharper, she was right on the edge and he knew it.
Simon leaned closer, forehead almost touching hers, his hand still firm around her throat as he kept pounding into her with ruthless, steady strokes.
“Tell me the truth,” he growled, thumb pressing lightly against her windpipe. “Right now, while I’m fucking you stupid – tell me what you were really thinking about when you were sitting next to Neil tonight.”
Hazel’s mouth opened on a choked moan. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t lie. The words spilled out between broken gasps, dragged from her by the brutal rhythm of his cock and the dizzying pressure around her throat.
“I… I wanted you to see,” she whimpered, voice strained and small. “I wanted you to watch me with him… wanted you to get jealous… wanted you to drag me out and take me like this…”
Simon’s eyes darkened, a cruel little smile tugging at his mouth as he tightened his grip just a fraction more.
“Keep going.”
“I liked that he wanted me,” she gasped, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes from the overwhelming pleasure and lack of air. “But I only sat there… because I knew it would make you look at me. I wanted you to lose control… I wanted you like this…”
Her voice cracked on the last word as her orgasm crashed into her without mercy. Her whole body seized, pussy clamping down hard around his cock as she came with a strangled cry, thighs shaking violently around his hips.
Simon didn’t let up. He kept fucking her through it, hand still wrapped around her throat, riding her through every pulsing wave while she fell apart beneath him.
“That’s my girl,” he murmured, voice dark with satisfaction. “Finally being honest.”
He kept going until his rhythm faltered. His hips stuttered once, twice, then slammed forward one final time, burying himself to the hilt as he came with a low, guttural groan that sounded like it was torn from his chest.
The first hot pulse of his release flooded her, thick and deep. He kept moving through it, shallow, grinding thrusts that pushed his come even deeper while he emptied himself inside her. Pulse after pulse, he filled her until she could feel the warmth spreading, until it started to leak out around his cock with every slow grind of his hips.
He stayed buried deep inside her as the last spasms rolled through him, his body heavy and trembling on top of hers. His hand finally loosened completely from her throat, sliding up to cup her jaw instead as he pressed his forehead to hers, both of them breathing hard in the sudden, heavy silence.
For a long moment neither of them moved. The only sounds were their ragged breathing and the faint, wet sound of his cock still twitching inside her cum-filled pussy.
Finally, he exhaled a long, shaky breath and slowly pulled out. The moment his cock left her, a thick trickle of his come leaked from her swollen pussy and slid down between her cheeks. Hazel made a small, embarrassed sound at the feeling.
Simon watched it with dark, satisfied eyes, then pressed a brief kiss to her forehead.
“Don’t move,” he said quietly.
He got up from the bed. The sudden absence of his weight and warmth made Hazel’s chest tighten with a sharp, irrational spike of fear. He was leaving. Of course he was leaving. This was her house, her bed, and Simon Foster didn’t stay the night anywhere he didn’t have to. She lay there frozen, listening to his footsteps retreat down the hallway, heart hammering even though her body was still heavy and boneless.
He was gone.
She closed her eyes, trying to brace herself for the click of the front door, for the cold silence that would follow.
Instead, she heard the faucet run in the bathroom.
A minute later Simon returned with a warm, damp cloth. He climbed back onto the bed without a word and gently spread her legs again. The cloth was soft and warm as he carefully wiped her clean. He took his time, almost tender now, though his touch still carried that quiet possessiveness.
When he was satisfied, he set the cloth aside and looked down at her.
“Go pee,” he told her, voice low but firm. “You’ll thank me in the morning.”
Hazel blinked, still dazed. She nodded weakly and slid off the bed on shaky legs. Every step reminded her of what he’d just done to her — the ache between her thighs, the faint stickiness still on her skin, the way her body felt thoroughly used.
She expected the front door to click shut while she was in the bathroom. She expected to come out to an empty house.
But when she stepped back into the bedroom, Simon was still there.
He was lying against the headboard, completely naked, one arm casually resting behind his head, the sheets pulled up just enough to cover his hips. The faint streetlight caught the sharp lines of his chest and shoulders. He looked entirely at ease, like he belonged in her bed.
He didn’t ask if he could stay the night.
He didn’t say anything at all about leaving.
He simply looked at her and lifted the covers on the other side of the bed in a silent invitation.
Hazel stood there for a second, barefoot and wearing nothing but the faint marks he’d left on her neck and thighs. Her mind was still too foggy to form any real protest or question. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t argue. Couldn’t do anything except crawl back into bed.
The moment she slid under the covers, Simon pulled her against him. He tucked her head under his chin, one arm wrapping around her waist to hold her flush against his chest, the other hand resting possessively on her hip. His skin was warm, his heartbeat steady and strong against her ear.
Hazel let out a shaky breath and melted into him. The fear that had spiked when he left the room dissolved completely. There was only the heavy warmth of his body, the faint scent of sex and sweat and him, and the deep, dreamless exhaustion pulling at her.
“Go to sleep,” he murmured against her hair, voice quiet but still carrying that unmistakable edge of command.
Hazel didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her eyes were already drifting shut, body sinking heavy and boneless into his hold.
Simon held her tighter, fingers tracing lazy circles on her lower back until her breathing evened out.
And for the first time in a very long time, Simon Foster stayed the night.
