(for the next couple of weeks — including other hcs and asks ofc 😘) these are literally just fics i have ready to be typed up :))
BABY BLUES — maekar targaryen x wife!reader
— In which, amid the happiness and chaos of welcoming your newborn, your husband feels a sense of jealousy and neglect on not being able to be alone with you for longer than five minutes. And he makes an effort to act on it. (smut, fluff)
THE STRANGEST THING — blind!baelor targaryen x wife!reader
— After the events of the trial of Ashford, Baelor is left mortally wounded and without his sight. As he regains memory and the ability to walk, he relearns you and your family all over again, and yet it’s as if nothing had ever changed. (angst, fluff)
THE GHOST ON THE SHORE — maekar targaryen x baelor’s wife!reader / baelor targaryen x wife!reader
— You and your brother in law are both haunted by the death of the one person who meant the most to you in your lives. Now you are left to pick up the pieces together, a new future, a new marriage, and something new blossoming under the surface. (angst, fluff, potential smut)
THE SHAME OF LIFE — bf’s dad!simon foster x reader
— When Tom starts neglecting you, his girlfriend, spending more time out late at night without a single text, his father finds ways to comfort you. Because who else better? (smut)
SMILE LIKE YOU MEAN IT — maekar targaryen x wife!reader, aegon ‘egg’ targaryen / mother!reader, ser duncan / reader
— Weeks after the arrival back to Summerhall, you and Maekar are left with a decision to wait for your youngest son’s and his hedge knight’s arrival without a single word, or search for him yourself. And going to find him on your own, the pair of you ended up with more than bargained for. AKA the time you and your husband end up on the road with Dunk and Egg. (fluff, minor angst)
A LITTLE RESPECT — ser duncan the tall x targaryen!reader, aerion targaryen x sister!reader (one sided)
— Dunk intends to prove how much he loves you, adores you, worships you, even if that means a certain someone in between you both, has to watch. (smut)
— —
A/N: ps let me know if you’d like to be tagged for any of these sexies 😘💗
summary: he finds you after leaving him for three months while you are pregnant with his child
word counter and tw: (4,5k) smut, pregnancy, cheating, jealousy
Weeks after that night when you gave him everything he asked for, your body still carried the invisible marks he left behind.
You could still feel the memory of his fingers digging into your hips, the rough taste of his saliva when he spat into your mouth before kissing you furiously, the thick heat of his semen filling you as he murmured against your ear: “I want you to get pregnant with me… I want you to carry my child and for the whole world to know.” You had moaned, nodding, lost in desire, because in that moment nothing else existed. Only Simon Foster. The married man. The man who would never fully be yours.
At first everything continued as usual.
You went on with your life. But then the delay came. One day. Two. A whole week. Subtle morning nausea, the exhaustion that made you sleep late on weekends. You bought the test at a Boots on a side street, far from your usual neighbourhood, pulse racing. You locked yourself in the bathroom, stared at the two blue lines and time stopped.
You were pregnant.
With him.
You sat on the edge of the bathtub for almost an hour, the test trembling in your hand, silent tears falling uncontrollably. Part of you felt a strange euphoria: you were going to have a child. A piece of Simon growing inside you. The other part knew the reality you had always avoided facing head on. Simon was not going to leave your mother. You were the other woman. Never the wife.
You couldn’t force him to choose. You didn’t want to be the reason his family fell apart. And you definitely didn’t want to raise a child in secret, seeing him only when he could slip away for a few hours between meetings and family dinners.
That same afternoon you made the decision.
You were going to move.
You started looking for flats in Manchester, about three hours away by train. A place where no one knew you, where you could start over as a single mother. You updated your CV, contacted an old university friend who worked in HR there, began secretly packing: clothes, books, the few things that didn’t immediately remind you of him. You kept the positive test in a jewellery box, along with the ultrasound you had done at a private clinic on Harley Street. No one knew.
Ten more days passed. Simon texted you several times. First casual messages “When can we see each other?”, then more urgent ones “Are you okay? You’re not answering.” You read them and left them on seen. Every time his name appeared on the screen you felt a knot in your chest, but you deleted any reply before sending it. You couldn’t. If you spoke to him, if you saw him even for a second, you would fall again. And this time it wouldn’t just be you who fell.
One night, while folding clothes and putting them into cardboard boxes, your phone rang. Unknown number. You ignored it. It rang again. And again. On the fourth attempt you answered without thinking.
“Yes?”
Two seconds of silence. Then his voice, deep, restrained, as if he had been holding back rage for days.
“So it’s true.”
Your heart slammed against your ribs so hard you had to lean against the wall.
“Simon…?”
“You’re pregnant. And you’re moving. Were you ever planning to tell me or were you just going to disappear with my child?”
His voice trembled with fury and something deeper. Something dark. Something that had always made you tremble with both desire and fear at the same time.
You didn’t answer. The words got stuck in your throat.
“I called you more than twenty times. I texted you. You went to the clinic last Thursday, did you think I wouldn’t find out? A mutual acquaintance told me everything because she’s worried about you. Moving? To Manchester? With my child inside you?”
He was breathing hard. You could picture him perfectly in your mind: pacing in his study, shirt unbuttoned at the collar, dark eyes shining with that mix of anger and possession that had driven you crazy from the first day.
“I’m not going to leave you alone,” he said, and his tone dropped to an almost dangerous whisper, like when he had you against the wall speaking into your ear. “You can’t escape me. Not now. You’re mine. That baby is mine. And I won’t allow you to take what belongs to me anywhere.”
He paused. You heard him swallow, trying to control himself.
“Answer me. Now. Or I’ll come find you myself. And when I find you… you’re going to remember exactly why you’ve never been able to say no to me.”
The silence that followed was suffocating. You kept the phone pressed to your ear, your free hand trembling over your barely rounded belly, feeling the world you had tried to rebuild vanishing once again.
And he didn’t hang up. He waited.
Because Simon Foster never accepted “no” for an answer.
Never.
You left anyway and it was three months. Three months in which you managed to truly disappear.
You moved to Manchester without leaving a trace. You changed your phone number, deleted the social media accounts he knew about, even asked the few mutual friends not to mention anything if he asked. The new flat was small but bright, on a quiet street near Didsbury, with views of a park where you started walking every morning to ease the nausea.
The pregnancy was progressing well: you were already at week sixteen, your belly noticeable under loose t-shirts, and the ultrasounds confirmed it was a boy. A son. Every time you felt him move it was like a secret shared only with you.
And then he arrived. Someone new. His name was Tom. He worked in digital marketing, he was kind, funny, stable. Nothing like Simon. He took you to normal dinners, to the cinema, hugged you without asking for anything more than company. You started officially dating him a month ago. It wasn’t love yet, but it was peace. It was something that didn’t make you feel guilty every morning when you woke up.
Until that Saturday afternoon.
You were in the kitchen making tea when the doorbell rang. You thought it was Tom, who had forgotten his keys again. You opened the door without looking through the peephole.
And there was Simon.
Dressed in a dark coat, hair a little longer than you remembered, eyes fixed on you as if they had never stopped searching. Your heart jumped so hard you thought it would burst out of your chest. The mug you were holding trembled in your hand.
“What… what are you doing here?” you managed to say, voice barely a thread.
He didn’t smile. He just looked you up and down, pausing at your rounded belly, visible even under the oversized sweater.
“Didn’t you miss me?” he asked quietly, with that dangerous calm he always used when he was about to break something.
The rational part of your mind screamed: No. Go away. Don’t let him in. But the emotional part, the one that had never stopped hurting, whispered: Yes. God, yes. Seeing him there, on the threshold of your new life, brought back everything you had tried to bury: the smell of his cologne, the way his jaw clenched when he was jealous, the way he touched you as if you were the only thing that mattered in the world.
You didn’t answer. You just stood there staring at him, pulse thundering in your ears.
Simon took a step forward, crossing the threshold without asking permission. He closed the door behind him with a soft click. The small hallway suddenly felt tiny.
He approached slowly. You backed up until your back hit the wall. He raised a hand and placed it carefully on your belly, fingers spread, feeling the soft curve beneath the fabric.
“Mine,” he murmured, almost to himself. There was pride in his voice, a deep, possessive satisfaction. “My son.”
He lifted his gaze to you. His eyes shone.
“What is it?” he asked.
“A boy,” you answered in a whisper, unable to stop yourself.
A slow smile spread across his face, genuine for the first time in months. He liked it. He liked it very much. He leaned a little closer, his breath brushing your cheek.
“Aren’t you going to let me in?” he said, voice hoarse. “After all this time… aren’t you going to let me into your house, into your life… into you?”
You were about to answer when the sound of a key came from the lock.
The door opened again.
Tom walked in, grocery bag in one hand and a smile that froze when he saw a stranger standing in front of you, hand still on your belly.
“Everything okay, love?” he asked, frowning. “Who’s this?”
Simon turned slowly, not removing his hand from you until the last second. Then he extended his other hand toward Tom with a charming smile, the charismatic one he used in business meetings, in any situation where he needed to win someone over.
“Simon Foster,” he said, voice warm and confident. “I’m her stepfather.”
He paused perfectly, letting the words sink in.
“Her mother and I… well, let’s just say family is complicated, but we’ve always been very close. I came to see how she was doing. I hadn’t seen her in months and… well, as you can see, things have changed quite a bit.”
Tom blinked, confused but not hostile. Simon was good at this. Very good. His tone was kind, almost fatherly, with that natural air of authority that made people trust him without questioning too much.
“Oh… I see,” Tom said, relaxing a little. “Nice to meet you, Simon. I’m Tom, her… boyfriend.”
Simon shook his hand firmly, looking him straight in the eye.
“Pleasure, Tom. I’m glad she’s in good company.”
But when he looked back at you, the smile turned darker, something only you could see. A silent reminder.
This isn’t over.
And in that instant, with both men in your hallway, you felt the world you had built so carefully begin to crack again.
Because Simon Foster hadn’t come to say goodbye. He had come to claim what he considered his.
Simon maintained the impeccable façade throughout the entire conversation in the hallway. He spoke to Tom as if they were old acquaintances: he asked about his job in marketing, made a witty comment about football that drew a genuine laugh from the guy, even offered him some fatherly advice about handling stress in a city like Manchester. Tom, who wasn’t stupid but also didn’t suspect anything, visibly relaxed. He liked Simon. How could he not? The man was charismatic, self assured, with that deep voice and that smile that made anyone feel important in his presence.
You, on the other hand, were a bundle of nerves. You stood by the wall, hands crossed over your belly as if you could shield it from what was happening. Every time Simon looked at you, you felt a treacherous heat rise up your neck. The pregnancy hormones made everything worse: the desire you had tried to bury for three months came back with force, like a wave hitting you without warning. You wanted to be strong. You wanted to tell him to leave. But every time you opened your mouth to speak, the words got stuck.
Tom, oblivious to the tension, checked his phone clock.
“Shit, I’m running late. I have to stop by the office to pick up some documents before they close.” He came over to you, gave you a quick kiss on the cheek and squeezed your hand. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours, okay? Take care. And… Simon, pleasure. Thanks for coming to check on her.”
Simon shook his hand again, with that perfect warmth.
“Take care yourself, Tom. And thank you for taking care of my… daughter.”
Tom smiled, grabbed his keys and left. The door closed with a soft click.
The silence that remained was heavy, charged.
Simon turned toward you slowly. The charismatic smiles were gone. Only that intense, possessive gaze remained, the one that had always disarmed you.
“I’m not going to allow another man to raise my son,” he said quietly, without beating around the bush.
You swallowed hard, trying to keep your voice steady.
“You’re married, Simon. To my mother. If she finds out about this, she’s going to hate me. She’s going to hate me forever.”
He took another step closer. The space between you disappeared.
“I don’t care,” he replied, with absolute calm. “These three months that you were gone, I signed the divorce papers. I have them. There’s no marriage anymore.”
You blinked, stunned. You didn’t know what to say.
Your heart was pounding so hard you thought he could hear it.
“What…?”
Simon came even closer. Now you were trapped between him and the wall. You could smell his cologne, that mix of wood and leather that drove you crazy. His hand returned to your belly, this time with more intention, stroking the curve with open fingers.
“I plan to make you my wife,” he said, looking straight into your eyes. “I’m not going to hide anymore. I’m not going to share you. That child is mine. You are mine. And I’m going to marry you. The way it should be.”
You didn’t know how to respond. The words tangled in your throat. Part of you wanted to scream no, that you had built a life without him. The other part… the other part only wanted to surrender.
Simon tilted his head, his mouth centimetres from yours.
“Have you fucked him yet?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
You closed your eyes for a second, feeling the heat rise to your cheeks.
“No,” you answered, almost voiceless.
He raised an eyebrow, pleased.
“Why not?”
You opened your eyes and looked at him. Tears threatened to fall, but you held them back.
“Because I didn’t want another man,” you admitted, voice trembling. “I couldn’t. Not after you.”
Simon exhaled slowly, as if those words were exactly what he needed to hear. His hand moved from your belly to your cheek, caressing it with his thumb.
“Good,” he murmured. “Because I won’t allow anyone else to touch you. Never again.”
He leaned in and brushed your lips with his, a soft kiss at first, almost tentative. But when you felt his tongue asking for entrance, when his body pressed against yours and you noticed how hard he was against your hip, you knew the resistance was crumbling.
The hormones, the accumulated desire, the love you had never stopped feeling… everything was conspiring against you.
And Simon knew it.
Because he had always known exactly how to make you his.
Simon didn’t wait any longer. His lips found yours in a deep kiss, slow at first, as if he wanted to savour every second of the surrender he already knew was coming. He kissed you with contained hunger, tongue invading your mouth while his hands slid up your sides, lifting the sweater with deliberate slowness.
“How much did you miss me?” he murmured against your lips, without pulling away completely, his warm breath brushing your skin.
“So much,” you whispered, voice breaking, almost a moan. “So much, Simon… too much.”
He growled in satisfaction, a low, throaty sound that vibrated in your chest. His hands kept moving: he pulled the sweater over your head, let it fall to the floor without looking. Then the bra, unhooked with skilful fingers that remembered every centimetre of your body. When you were left with your breasts bare, fuller and more sensitive because of the pregnancy, Simon looked at them for a moment, eyes darkened with desire.
“Fuck… look at you,” he said, almost reverent.
His hands moved down to your jeans. He unbuttoned them, pulled them down along with your underwear in one fluid motion. You stood naked in front of him, vulnerable, with the slightly rounded belly standing out on the soft curve of your body. Simon knelt slowly, never taking his eyes off that small protrusion. He ran his fingers over it with possessive tenderness, tracing soft circles around your navel.
“This… this is mine,” he murmured, voice rough with emotion and lust. “My child. Inside you. Fuck, I love seeing you like this.”
He lifted you easily, as if you weighed nothing, and sat you on the kitchen table. The cold edge of the wood made you shiver, but the heat of his gaze made up for everything. Simon knelt between your legs, opening them with care but firmness. He looked up at you from below, eyes locked on yours while his hands slid up your thighs.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said, with a dark half smile. “I should punish you for running away from me for three months. For making me search for you like a madman. For letting another man get anywhere near you.”
He paused, leaning in until his breath brushed your sex.
“But I need to taste you,” he continued, voice lower, rawer. “I need to taste you after so long, I need to remind you why you’ll never be able to forget me.”
Without waiting for an answer, he brought his mouth closer. First a soft kiss on the inside of your thigh, then another closer. When his tongue finally touched you, it was as if lightning ran through your whole body. You moaned without being able to help it, hands flying to his hair, clinging to him while he licked slowly, devotedly, exploring every fold as if he wanted to memorise you again.
“So sweet…” he murmured against you, the words vibrating on your skin. “So mine.”
His hands held your hips, keeping you open for him while his tongue became more insistent, deeper. He circled your clit with slow licks, then sucked gently, making your hips arch against his mouth. The pleasure was intense, almost painful from how much you had missed him. The hormones amplified everything: every touch, every lick, every moan that escaped you.
Simon looked up for a second, lips glistening with your wetness, eyes shining with triumph.
“Tell me no one else has touched you here,” he demanded, voice hoarse.
“No one,” you gasped. “Only you. Always you.”
He smiled, satisfied, and dove back between your legs, devouring you with more urgency. He brought you to the edge again and again, stopping just before you came, prolonging the torture until you were trembling, begging in broken whispers.
And when he finally let you fall, when the orgasm tore through you like a violent wave, Simon didn’t pull away. He kept licking slowly, collecting every drop, prolonging the aftershocks until you were limp on the table, breathing hard, tears of pleasure at the corners of your eyes.
Simon lifted you from the table with ease, as if you were made of feathers. Your legs were still shaking from the orgasm he had just given you, but he didn’t give you time to recover. He carried you in his arms, crossing the small hallway to the bedroom without effort, never stopping kissing your neck, your collarbone, the hollow between your swollen breasts.
He laid you on the bed carefully, but not gently. It was possessive care, the care of someone reclaiming what he had always considered his. He took off his shirt in quick movements, revealing the torso you remembered so well: firm, marked by time and the gym, with that fine line of hair leading down to disappear into the waistband of his trousers. He unbuckled his belt, lowered the zip and got rid of everything else until he stood naked in front of you.
He climbed onto the bed, positioning himself between your open legs. He looked at you for a long moment, running his eyes over every change in your body: the fuller breasts, the darkened nipples, the rounded belly you could no longer hide. He ran his open palm over that curve, pausing right where the baby moved slightly, as if he knew his father was there.
“My woman,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Carrying my child. Fuck, you’re perfect.”
He leaned down and kissed you deeply, tongue tangling with yours while one hand slid between your thighs. His fingers found your entrance still wet, slippery from his mouth and your earlier pleasure. He slid two fingers in slowly, curling them upward to brush that spot that always made you arch your back.
“I want to hear you,” he said against your lips. “I want you to scream my name like before. Like always.”
He began moving his fingers with a slow but firm rhythm, thumb pressing your clit in precise circles. You moaned, hips rising involuntarily toward his hand. He smiled against your mouth, satisfied.
“That’s it, baby… let go.”
He withdrew his fingers only to replace them with his cock. He positioned himself at your entrance, rubbing the head against you, coating himself with your wetness. He entered slowly, centimetre by centimetre, giving you time to adjust. The stretch was intense, almost overwhelming after months without him, but your body remembered him instantly: it opened for him, welcomed him as if he had never left.
When he was fully inside, he stayed still for a second, breathing hard against your neck.
“God… you’re so tight,” he growled. “So hot.”
He began to move. First slow, deep, every thrust deliberate so you could feel every inch. Then faster, harder. He held your hips with one hand while bracing himself beside your head with the other, leaning down to kiss your neck, bite your earlobe, whisper filthy things in your ear.
“Say it,” he demanded, picking up the pace. “Say my name.”
“Simon…” you gasped, nails digging into his back.
“Louder,” he ordered, thrusting harder, hitting that spot inside you that made you see stars.
“Simon…! Simon!”
He growled with pleasure, changing the angle slightly to better graze your sensitive spot with every movement. Your legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper. The pleasure built fast, unstoppable, amplified by the hormones, by the pent-up desire, by the simple fact of having him inside you again.
“Scream for me,” he said, voice hoarse, almost desperate. “I want the whole fucking building to know who you belong to.”
You couldn’t hold back any longer. The orgasm tore through you like lightning, intense and prolonged. You screamed his name without control, body convulsing beneath his, inner walls clenching around him in rhythmic pulses.
“Simon…! Simon! God, Simon!”
He didn’t stop. He kept moving, prolonging your pleasure until the aftershocks left you trembling. Only then did he speed up his own thrusts, chasing his release. He tensed above you, growling your name against your neck as he spilled inside, deep, hot, marking you again.
Simon stayed on top of you for a moment longer, breathing against your neck, his warm, familiar weight pressing you into the mattress. He didn’t pull out completely; instead, he slid a hand down your side, caressing the curve of your belly with a tenderness that contrasted with the intensity of what had just happened.
“We’re not finished,” he murmured, voice low and rough, brushing your ear. “Not even close.”
You could barely speak. Your body felt heavy, legs weak, heart still racing wildly. The orgasm had left you exhausted, sated, but also vulnerable.
“I’m tired, Simon…” you whispered, almost voiceless. “I can’t anymore.”
He lifted his head to look at you. His eyes were dark, bright with desire, but there was also something softer in them. A promise.
“Then don’t do anything,” he said, kissing your forehead slowly. “I’ll do all the work. Don’t worry about anything. Just let me take care of you… let me feel you.”
You had no strength to argue. You just nodded, a small, almost imperceptible movement.
Simon smiled against your skin, satisfied.
He turned you carefully, first onto your side and then onto your stomach, placing a pillow under your hips to lift you slightly and avoid pressing on your belly. He settled behind you, knees gently opening your legs. His hands roamed your back, sliding down your spine to your hips, massaging the tense muscles as if he wanted to erase any trace of fatigue.
“Relax,” he whispered, kissing the nape of your neck. “Just feel.”
He entered you again from behind, slowly, deeply, without hurry. This time there was no wild urgency; it was a steady, controlled rhythm, every thrust measured to graze all the spots that made you tremble. His hands held your hips, guiding you back against him without you having to move. You could only arch your back a little, moan softly against the pillow, let him do everything.
And it was exquisite.
The angle was perfect: every movement hit exactly where you needed it most, the constant friction, the internal pressure amplified by the pregnancy, by how sensitive you were. It had never felt so good. Never so intense, so complete. It was as if your body had been made for him, as if every cell responded only to his touch. The pleasure grew slowly but inevitably, building in soft waves that left you breathless.
Simon leaned over you, chest pressed to your back, one hand sliding under your body to caress your clit with slow, precise circles. The other hand rested on your belly, protecting it, feeling how you clenched around him.
“Like that…” he growled against your ear. “Feel how I fill you. How I make you mine again.”
You couldn’t answer with words. Only muffled moans, his name escaping your lips in broken whispers. The orgasm came differently this time: not explosive, but deep, prolonged, like a warm current running through you from your feet to the nape of your neck.
You trembled beneath him, inner walls pulsing around him in rhythmic spasms, and Simon let out a low, almost animal groan when he felt you unravel.
He kept moving a little longer, prolonging your pleasure until the aftershocks left you gasping. Only then did he speed up slightly, chasing his own release. He tensed, buried himself to the hilt and spilled inside you with a low growl of your name, body shaking against yours.
He stayed still for a long while, breathing hard, kissing your back, your shoulders, the nape of your neck. Then he pulled out carefully and turned you again so you were facing him. He pulled you against his chest, one hand on your belly, the other tangled in your hair.
“Sleep,” he murmured, kissing your temple. “I’m staying here. I’m not letting you go again. Not you. Not him.”
And in that moment, exhausted, sated and with your heart still racing, you knew you no longer wanted to escape.
Not anymore.
Part of the same universe series — but each fic can be read on its own
content: He’s lying to you. You’re lying to him, but only one of you is really smart enough to figure out the other is lying.
words: 3.2k
cw: MDNI 18+ p in v, oral (m receiving), unprotected sex, cream pie, age gap (reader is in her twenties) infidelity, she is manipulative, often lies, and is not a very good person, but we support woman's rights AND wrongs in this house.
a/n: the entire vibe of this fic is inspired by B.A.S. by Megan Thee Stallion.
Your thumb rubbed against your finger where your engagement ring and wedding band should currently be sitting. Your best friend, Liz, had forced you to take it off telling you it was an eye sore, especially for someone your age to be wearing. You rolled your eyes, but compiled.
She was not wrong. You were supposed to be going to the club every night not playing trophy wife to someone over twenty years older than you. Though you knew life did not always work the way it was supposed to.
Your eyes watched her from across the bar watching as she flirted with a handsome blonde that she no doubt planned to go home with, “It seems your friend ditched you,” a man said, as a body slid into the seat next to you.
You hummed, “That was the plan all along. I was just an accessory for the night,” you said, taking a sip of your drink before turning to face the person to you.
Your eyes trailed over him for a minute appraising him. He was handsome, there was no doubt about that with striking blue eyes, a dark beard and hair. He was probably older, in his forties, you hummed in approval before turning back to your friend.
“You’re too pretty to be an accessory,” he told you, smoothly.
You could see his left hand in your peripheral vision, and though he currently wore no ring there was a white ring around his sun kissed skin allowing you to know exactly what you needed to know, but you did not mind not truly.
You were lying to him.
Just as he was lying to you.
Even without a direct lie muttered yet, the game had already started. You smiled, turning back to him slightly, “Your girlfriend know you're out flirting with young woman?” you questioned.
“No, girlfriend,” he replied, to which you knew wasn’t technically a lie. “Does your boyfriend know he’s let a pretty thing like you stray too far from his sight?”
“Are you saying if you were my boyfriend you would not let me leave your sight?”
“Only a fool would,” he replied, easily, smiling once more as he held your gaze.
You assessed him, your eyes scanning your face, and finally you smiled, easy, not real, but as close as it could get. You did not know exactly what mask to put on yet, but you were sure you could figure it out in no time, “How old are you?” you asked directly.
“Thirty-nine,” he answered, and you assumed that was the truth. He would not say he was that old for a line. Some men would go lower, but he did not choose to. You assumed it was because he believed he had no reason too.
“You could almost be my dad,” you pointed out, smiling as you took another sip of your drink.
“Ouch,” he laughed, shaking his head as he signaled down the bartender, “I’ll take another,” he said holding up this empty bottle, “And she’ll take another,” he said, nodding to your empty drink.
“I’ve never seen you before,” he then said, fully turning toward you.
“I could say the same for you. Well no maybe I’ve seen you at one of my dad’s barbecues,” you said.
He shook his head laughing, “I just moved here,” you told him.
“From where?”
“Is that really what you want to know?” He stared at you, holding your gaze, seeming intrigued by you, “What’s your name?” you then asked.
“Simon. What is yours?” he then asked.
You ignored his question, instead leaning forward invading his personal space, making the sign clear, “Ask what you want too, Simon,” you told him, holding his piercing eyes.
“Do you want to get out of here?” he questioned, an easy smile on his lips.
“Not to do what you want to do. I’m saving myself for marriage,” you told him, the lie so smooth it was believable. You could see it on his face immediately, the change, the thought that this is where the night would end. You leaned back smiling, “But we can go back to my apartment and get to know each other.”
You could see his interest only peak. The thought of the game, of being the first to have you. To ruin you, “Alright,” he nodded, before flagging down the bartender once more. You downed your drink as you pulled your card from your bag.
He pulled his wallet out to pay, but you beat him to it, handing the bartender the card. “On my…dad don’t worry,” you told him with a grin.
“Daddy’s little girl?” he questioned, leaning onto the bar, his eyes flickering over you
“Something like that.”
“You should lock your door,” he told you, as you pushed open the door, never once pulling out any keys.
“Probably,” you shrugged, moving into the apartment, throwing your bag onto the couch, as he shut the door behind him.
“Want a drink?” you asked, moving into the attached kitchen pulling out a bottle of wine.
You watched him look around searching for something that would give any personal information, but he would none.
“Do you have a roommate?” he asked, as you poured each of you a glass of wine.
“No, only one bedroom,” you said, leaning against the counter. There wasn’t much to look at a couch, a book shelf with a few books. There was no kitchen table, there were no extra chairs and if he looked he would find no food in the fridge, but you knew he wouldn't.
He was too busy thinking he was playing his own game. Trying to think of how to get into your pants. He moved toward you taking his glass from your outstretched hand standing in front of you, “I do not do this often,” you lied.
He took a sip of the wine, “Do what?”
“Invite random men home, but…there’s just something about you.”
He grinned, like he had won. You downed the wine before setting it down on the counter next to you. His eyes followed you as he did the same, setting his glass down next to yours. You looked down feigning to be bashful, a complete contrast to the woman at the bar.
You knew this act would not have to last long, his cock already getting hard and soon he would begin to think with that instead of his mind. His fingers moved under your chin before forcing you to look up.
You stared at him for a moment, before leaning in, pressing your lips to his. If he was taken back by the action he did not act it, and you figured you could drop the act now, having him exactly where you needed him.
His hands moved, cradling your face as he pinned you further to the counter. His tongue swept across your bottom lip for entry, and you allowed him in, your hands moving to his chest fingers trailing down his clothed stomach causing him to tense under you.
Your hands moved unbuttoning his shirt, you could feel him grin in the kiss, as he pulled away pulling your shirt from your head. You pushed the material back before running your hands down his toned chest.
His hands moved down to your jeans, unbuttoning them and pushing them down your legs, and your hands moved toward his belt as you kicked the denim onto the floor. You held his gaze as you un-buttoned his trousers, before pushing them down to his feet.
He stepped out of the pool of his clothes, pushing them off to the side. You sank down to your knees as you looked up to him, as your fingers wrapped around the waist band of his boxers before pulling them down.
You did not smile when you pulled his cock free, despite the fact that you wanted to. It was longer than your husband and thicker too. You almost abandoned the thought of sucking it all together, just to feel it inside you, but you wanted his mind to turn further into mush.
You leaned forward pressing a kiss to the tip, before dragging your tongue down his length causing him to groan. You finally leaned forward taking him into your mouth. You hollowed your cheeks out slightly as
You pushed your thighs together as his groan filled the air as you continued to bob up and down his length, occasionally looking up at him through your lashes, already finding his heated gaze on you.
You could tell he was getting closer to release causing you to finally pull away with a wet pop as you stood back to your feet, wiping the salvia from the side of your mouth, “You gonna stare at me all night or you gonna fuck me?” you questioned, raising a brow.
“I’ll be so gentle,” he promised, confusing you for a minute, but then you remembered you were supposed to be a virgin. You could have laughed that he still believed that lie, but you still did not tell him the truth.
“No, no that’s okay I want my first time to be memorable,” you lied, causing him to grin, as he spun you, pressing your stomach against the counter as he kicked your legs apart. His hands moved around the front of you pushing your panties to the floor.
His mouth moved to nip at your neck as he unclasped your bra before throwing it across the room joining the rest of your discarded clothes.
His cock ran through your slick folds, “You’re soaked,” he muttered.
“No shit,” you replied, causing him to laugh.
He pushed into you without warning causing you to moan out slightly as you gripped the counter top. You could not see his face, but you could feel his smug expression causing you to purposefully clench around him causing him to groan.
He began to thrust into you, fucking you harshly from behind. “Fuck,” you moaned out, pushing back into him further, as his grips around your hips tightened no doubt bound to leave bruises.
“Harder,” you instructed.
He obliged, the sound of flesh slapping against each other filling the room as you could feel his balls hitting your back. You reached around grabbing one of his hands and placing his finger firmly on your clit.
He understood immediately as he began to circle the swollen pearl, causing your toes to curl as the coil in your belly threatened to snap at any moment. “Faster,” you moaned out.
Once more he did as he was told, quickening both his finger and thrusts causing you to moan out, as you felt the waves of relief washing through you. He felt you clamp down around him causing him to moan, his own orgasm claiming him as he spilled inside you.
Both of your ragged breaths filled the room and neither of you moved for a minute. You finally turned back looking at him with a smile, before standing fully wrapping your hand around him to drag him back toward the bedroom. Hopefully his wife did not expect him home at a decent hour.
Simon let out a huff, “I thought you didn’t even like him,” he said as he finished setting the table looking at his wife in confusion. Her former co-worker Doctor Jackson Andrews, was coming over to dinner, something he could not understand fully.
He knew the man had recently returned, but still could not make sense of it. Gemma had never failed to make her displeasure of the man known.
“I don’t, but he went away for five years and now he’s back with a new wife.”
His eyebrows drew together, “So?”
“I’ve heard she’s only a little older than twenty!” she exclaimed, causing him to nod knowingly. The thought was berserk to her, a middle aged man older than themselves being married to someone so young, and no doubt she thought it had something to do with money.
The doorbell suddenly rang and Gemma smiled, moving toward the door. “Simon!” she finally called for him. He sighed making his way out to greet their guests.
“This is my husband,” he could hear her introduce, as he made his way toward the entry way, “Simon, this is Jack’s wife.” The man smiled looking up, but instantly froze as his eyes met your face.
You hardly faltered staring at him with a small smile, “Nice to meet you, Simon,” you greeted, causing his blood to go cold.
Dinner was a painful event. Well, for Simon Foster anyways. Gemma conversed you with a flood of questions, and it was easy to tell she was judging you. He could tell you were well aware, but did not let your face show it answering her questions.
His eyes had stayed on the obnoxiously large diamond on your hand all night watching it reflect in the dining room light, “I know you said you grew up in London, but where are you parents from?”
You shrugged, “My parents died when I was two I don’t know much about them,” you told her, with a shrug, your eyes flickering up to Simon as you watched his jaw tick as you revealed yet another lie from last night.
“I’m sorry, where is your bathroom?” you asked, pushing your chair back.
“I can show you,” Simon instantly volunteered, which he was guessing is what you were hoping for.
You two made it out of the dinning room no longer in view of them when he stopped, “You’re fucking married?” he questioned, turning toward you.
“You’re seriously mad that I’m married?” you questioned, your arms crossed over your chest as you raised a brow, your eyes looking around at the framed photos of him and his wife, even their son, “That’s actually hilarious,” you told him.
“Whose apartment did we fuck in?” he questioned, running a hand through his hair.
You smirked at how panicked he seemed, “Mine. Jack owns the building.”
“You still lied to me!” he hissed, taking another step toward you, almost having the pair of you chest to chest. You would have been more worried about the other two, but you could hear their voices still talking to each other as they talked about something that they no doubt both thought was too intelligent for the pair of you.
You nodded, “Oh, my poor baby, and you’re not a liar?” you ask, taking a step toward him, “What do you call what you do to your darling wife then? I would almost feel bad for her if she had not spent all night judging me,” you told him.
He let out a ragged breath wanting to take the conversation away from him, and how he was in the wrong just as much as you were, “Leave him,” he then instructed.
You stared at him a monet your eyebrows daring together, “Are you fucking serious?” you asked, causing him to nod, “Leave her,” you counter, laughing slightly, as you watch his jaw tick slightly.
“Done,” he lied straight through his teeth. You watched his face, and it was almost believable, almost, but that bull shit would not work on you, not in the slightest.
You smirked, “You’re a liar, but don’t worry I’ll be sure to think of you while he fucks me tonight. I imagine you’ll do the same,” you muttered, going to turn from him to head back to where both of your significant others currently talked.
His hand reached out wrapping around your throat, your head meeting the back of the wall causing you to grin at him, his fingers digging in your flesh, “Careful Perfect Simon you are going to cause a scene,” you told him.
He held you for a moment and you watched your words flutter through his brian for a moment before finally letting you go, “Leave him. I–I will take care of you” he stammered out.
You laughed as you stared at him for a moment thinking he was joking, but you saw the serious expression on his face causing you to nod, “My ring alone is worth more than anything you’ve ever owned…how could you possibly take care of me the way he does?”
You smirked watching him splutter, “If you wanna fuck you have my number, but I’m not fucking leaving him, ever,” you told him. It should have been the end of the discussion, but you could tell he was getting frantic. He did not like the idea of sharing you, but him fuckign both you and his wife was a different story.
“I’ll tell him!” he suddenly declared, getting desperate. He would not actually tell him, and you knew that, but he wanted to throw that in your face than you would throw it in his. He wanted to drag you low, but did not know you could always go lower.
He watched you waiting for you to freeze, to start to apologize for recent actions, but you took a step forward, your hand moving to connect with his face, his face swinging to the side. “Then I’ll make sure to send your wife the nice video of you I have. Of course my face is completely covered. I wouldn’t wanna take away from the star of the show,” you told him, taking a step back.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, and you could immediately see the panic in his face, causing a sense of satisfaction to fill you.
Before you could answer you heard your name called out, you turned with a smile the mask from dinner being placed on flawlessly it almost made Simon’s head spin. Your husband appeared in the hallway, his eyes flickering between the pair of you.
“Everything alright?” he asked, moving to slide in next to you, his hand splaying across your waist possessively.
“He was telling me about Tom’s football, and we just got to talking, you know how I am,” you said, with a grin. You looked innocent, sweet even.
Simon watched the interaction in something close to awe. The way you controlled the environment and how he was so clueless as he fell for it. Just like Simon had fallen for it, and no donut every man fell for it. You were a chameleon adjusting to your environment flawlessly.
“I think my wife could fill a room with conversation from herself,” your husband joked.
You let out a laugh, and it almost sounded real, “I’m tired. Is it alright we head out, my love?” you asked, looking up to him with a smile.
“Of course, dear,” he told you, before casting Simon a polite smile, the pair exchanging a friendly handshake, “Let me go say good night to Gemma,” he told you.
You turned back giving the man a hug as you heard your husband, steps carrying into the other room, “If you get bored you know my number,” you whispered into his ear, biting the lobe before pulling away with a real grin, smug before you turned walking towards the door.
You had not even pulled out of the driveway when your phone buzzed, and you instantly recognized the number as Simon’s causing you to almost let out a laugh.
Unknown Number
Same place as last time?
You
Who is this?
Your phone then rang causing you to smile as you turned the device off completely, before turning to your husband, “Gemma invited us back next week.”
“Oh, that sounds lovely. I cannot wait. You should give me Gemma’s number. It will be nice to be in close contact with her, incase I ever need to send her something.”
Against Your Better Judgment (Simon Foster x Reader)
Summary: You cannot stand Simon Foster, for you have dealt with his type before. But what starts as irritation turns into something dangerous, until one night you cannot tell if you chose him, or if he chose you first.
Word count: 6.2K
Tags: 18+/MINORS DO NOT INTERACT, EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT, pure filth at the end, porn without plot, what plot?, let’s be honest there is no plot, explicit smut, rough sex, hate sex, unprotected sex (p in v), oral sex (f and m receiving), vaginal fingering, hair pulling, choking, she/her pronouns, AFAB reader, English is my second language, Simon might be OOC a little?, had this in my drafts for too long haha, the title sucks I know
Please let me know if I’ve missed anything!
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, setting, or story of Doctor Foster. This work is a fanfiction created for enjoyment and non-commercial purposes only.
A/N: Listen, I cannot stand this fucker, but Bertie looks so handsome as Simon so I just had to get this out of my system. Purely self-indulgent mess. This can be considered a bit of an AU, set after season 2 of Dr. Foster. Thank you as always for all the follows, likes, reblogs and comments! <3 <3
You hated how often you thought about Simon Foster.
It was deeply irritating.
You had known him for barely a month, and yet somehow he kept appearing in your mind at the most inconvenient moments. Not because you liked him.
Quite the opposite really.
Simon Foster was the kind of man you instinctively disliked. He was too calm, too charming and too aware of the effect he had on people.
And worst of all, he knew it.
You noticed it the first night you met. The small smile he gave people when they laughed at his jokes, the way he listened just a little too carefully before answering, as if every response was calculated. Everyone else seemed impressed. Jane certainly was.
“He is nice.” Your best friend said the next day over coffee.
You had stared at her. “Nice?”
“Yes.”
“Oh please, everything about him is rehearsed.”
Jane rolled her eyes. “You are impossible.”
“Nope, no. I am just telling you the truth.”
What bothered you most of all was how easily Simon seemed to get under your skin. Effortlessly, like he took one look at you and figured out exactly what words to use and how far to push. He just watched, waited and slipped in comments that lingered longer than they should.
And then there was the other problem. He was handsome, annoyingly very handsome. The kind of composed attraction that made people lean in without realising, and made everything he said more convincing than it should be.
And then there were his eyes. Blue, sharp and unsettingly focused. The kind that did not just look at you, but also seemed to read you and your thoughts. There was something almost hypnotic in the way they held your gaze, something that made it harder than it should to look away.
And you hated it. You hated that you noticed and that it made it harder to ignore him.
It all started precisely three weeks ago, at a dinner Jane insisted you attend.
You arrived late at the restaurant, which meant everyone already claimed their seats around the table. It was loud, glasses clinking, your best friend waving at you from the corner like she had been waiting all night.
“Finally!” She said as you slid into the empty chair across from her. “I thought you would not turn up.”
You rolled your eyes. “I promised I would. The meeting just overran.”
It was the first time your friend group was meeting Daniel’s, Jane’s new boyfriend, friends. It was important to you to be there for her, even though all you wished you could do right now was crawl into bed after a long day at work. But you would not do that to your dear friend, never.
Jane hummed in understanding, and poured you a glass of wine before turning to the man sitting next to you. “This is Daniel’s good friend, Simon.”
The man looked up. And for a moment you forgot to breathe.
Fuck, he was so handsome. Dark hair, neat beard, piercing blue eyes, and the kind of calm confidence that made people lean toward him without realizing it.
He smiled, like he knew exactly what effect he had.
“Simon.” He repeated, offering his hand.
You looked at it for a second longer than necessary before shaking it, introducing yourself. His grip was warm, steady, holding your hand just a little too long. Like he meant to.
“So…” He said easily, leaning back in his chair. “I have heard a lot about you.”
You raised an eyebrow. “Well, that sounds concerning. What exactly have you heard?”
Jane laughed. “I told him you are the one with a strong personality.”
“Strong personality?” Simon said, eyes flicking back to you with interest. “That was not the word you used.”
“Let me guess.” You said dryly. “She said I am the difficult one.”
“Something like that.”
Of course.
You watched him carefully now. His relaxed posture, his easy smile, the way he seemed completely comfortable in a room full of people he just met. He effortlessly drew attention without seeming to try. Men like that were never simple, they were never what they seemed. They were too controlled, too self-assured, and far too aware of the effect they had on others.
“What do you do, Simon?” You asked.
“Property development.” He replied smoothly.
You gave a short nod. “Right.”
He tilted his head slightly. “You sound like you do not believe me.”
“I did not say that.”
“You did not have to.”
You rolled your eyes and looked away from him while sipping your wine. So, you tried to ignore him. You really did.
But every few minutes, you felt it, that quiet irritating awareness that Simon was watching you. Not constantly and not in a way anyone else was going to notice. But just enough.
Like he was choosing when to look. And like he knew exactly when you would feel it.
The dinner moved on, Jane and her boyfriend were talking about a trip they were planning, someone at the other side of the table was complaining about work. You were halfway through another glass of wine, when Simon suddenly spoke to you.
“So…” He said your name casually. “How long did it take you to decide you did not like me?”
You looked at him, as the table went a bit quieter. “I did not say I did not like you.”
“No.” Simon agreed calmly, a smirk on his lips. “You just looked at me like I was lying about my own name.”
Jane snorted loudly.
“Well…” You said, setting your glass down. “If the shoe fits.”
Simon leaned back in his chair, clearly entertained.
“Are you always this suspicious of people you have known for five minutes?”
“Only the ones who try too hard.”
His eyebrow lifted slightly. “Try too hard?”
“The smile…” You said, gesturing vaguely toward him. “The calm confidence. The vague job. Everything is so… polished.”
“And that is a problem?”
“Yes, because it is a performance.”
A few people at the table exchanged glances, sensing the tension, but Simon did not seem bothered at all. If anything, he looked more interested now.
“Oh, so you have figured me out already?” He said lightly.
You shrugged. “Men like you are not complicated.”
“Men like me?”
“Charming, self-assured, artificial. Usually it means you are hiding something.”
For the first time, Simon was quiet. Something dark flickered behind his eyes, just beneath that calm, easy smile. It was as if he was already assessing you, calculating exactly how far he could let you see, and how far you might follow.
Then he smiled again, slower this time. “And what exactly do you think I am hiding?”
You met his gaze without hesitation. “I am sure I will find out sometime.”
Across the table Jane muttered an “Oh my God” under her breath.
Simon laughed softly. “I like her.” He said to the others at the table.
“For the record-” You added coolly. “The feeling is not mutual.”
Simon leaned slightly closer towards you. Not enough for anyone else to question it, but just enough that it shifted into something more private.
“That is alright.” He said, his blue eyes flickering from your eyes to your lips and back up, amused. “You noticed me. That is the important part.”
Something in your chest tightened. Annoyance, irritation, and something else you refused to name.
You simply stared at him, for a second longer than necessary. Then you turned away with a scoff, picking up your glass like you did not just get caught in something you did not understand. You were determined not to look or speak to him again for the rest of the night. Not to give him anything else.
Beside you, Simon did not move. But you could feel it. He was still smiling.
⚬ ⚬ ○ ⚬ ⚬
You did not think you would see him again so soon, but a week later after your coffee date with Jane, she insisted on you coming to a small house party that Daniel had organised.
“Just a few people.” She promised.
You should have known better, because the moment you walked into the flat you saw him.
Simon was leaning against the kitchen doorway, talking to Daniel. The sleeves of his blue shirt were rolled up, the colour catching light in a way that made his eyes sharper. A drink rested loosely in his hand. He looked calm and relaxed, exactly as your remembered, like nothing in the room could unsettle him.
His eyes moved to you, slowly, the look just enough to be intentional. They moved over the dress you were wearing, taking their time, long enough that you felt it. When they met yours across the room, that familiar half-smile appeared on his face.
“Unbelievable.” You muttered under your breath.
Jane followed your gaze and sighed. “Please, try to behave tonight.”
“I always behave.” You exclaimed, offended. “It is him who is at fault.”
“He is one of Daniel’s good friends.” Jane reasoned. “And I need you to get along with him.”
“Jane-”
“Please.”
Pursing your lips, you exhaled loudly and nodded. “Fine, I will try my best to behave… for you only.”
She smiled, giving you a kiss on the cheek and thanking you. The two of you drifted toward the refreshments table, picking up drinks and falling into easy conversation.
Across the room, Simon excused himself from Daniel. You did not notice at first. He was already moving toward you, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world. He called out your name slowly and deliberately, making your skin crawl. You were not sure if it was in a good way or bad.
“Simon.” You nearly sneered.
“Nice to see you again.” His smile did not leave his face.
“That is debatable.”
Jane laughed and slipped away towards Daniel, leaving you alone with him.
Traitor, you thought.
“You look disappointed.” He said, taking a sip of his drink.
“I was hoping you would not be here.” You decided to be honest.
“Oof!” He clutched his heart. “That hurts.”
You rolled your eyes. “You will survive.”
Simon took a small sip of his drink, studying you. “You have been thinking about me.”
You scoffed immediately. “Do not flatter yourself.”
“It was not flattery.” He chuckled. “You asked about my kids.”
You blinked, caught off guard. “How do you know that?”
“Daniel mentioned it.”
You let out a small groan, irritation creeping in. You were never asking Jane anything about him again.
“Well congratulations then.” You said instead, dryly. “You are a topic of conversation.”
“I am honoured.”
“You should not be.” You shot him a glare.
Simon stepped a little closer, just enough so you could smell his cologne and feel that same irritating awareness you felt before.
“You are still suspicious of me.” He said.
“Yes.”
“Even after a month?”
You shot him another look.
“That seems excessive.” He smirked into his glass.
“You have not given me a reason to change my mind.” You retorted.
Simon looked amused again. “You are very determined.”
“I do not have to try.”
A small silence stretched between you. People continued to move around the room, music playing softly in the background. You were about to leave and find Jane, when Simon asked quietly.
“You know something?”
“What?”
“You keep telling yourself you hate me.”
You narrowed your eyes at him. “Because I do.”
“But you still talk to me.”
“That is because you keep appearing.”
“Do not put that on me.” He said. “You keep reacting.”
You opened your mouth to argue back, but he suddenly stepped closer. Not unlike a predator stalking its prey, the tension between you shifting. Your eyes widened, lips pursed. The air between you tightened, charged in a way you did not like.
“See?” He said softly.
“What?” You hissed.
“You are giving me that look.”
“What look?”
“The one where you are deciding whether to argue with me or walk away.”
“I should walk away.” You whispered.
“You should.” He agreed, a faint smirk pulling at his lips.
And this time, you did.
You turned, scanning the room for Jane. You tried to put as much distance between you and him as possible. Your thoughts were tangled, your irritation sharper than before. But underneath it, you could feel your heartbeat a little faster now.
And that annoyed you most of all.
A few hours later, the noise inside the flat was starting to feel suffocating. The music was too loud and there were too many people talking at once. The alcohol in your system was making everything a little warmer.
You slipped out onto the balcony for air. The night was cool, your hands rested on the railing, closing your eyes for a second. You inhaled deeply.
Peace.
For around a minute, because the balcony door slid open behind you.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me…” You muttered, not needing to turn around to see who it was.
A quiet chuckle answered you. “You are so dramatic.”
Simon stepped out, closing the door behind him. The noise from the party dulled instantly, leaving only the hum of the cool night.
You exhaled sharply. “Do you follow everyone this much or am I just lucky?”
“I came out for air, same as you.” He said calmly.
“Last I saw, there was a window in the kitchen.” You crossed your arms. “You could have used that."
“Hmm… too crowded.”
You glanced at him. He leaned casually against the railing beside you, like it was the most natural thing in the world that you ended up alone again. The faint glow from inside the apartment lit one side of his face. He was so annoyingly handsome. You looked away quickly, irritated at yourself for thinking that.
“You are very determined…” You said. “To annoy me.”
“I am not trying to annoy you.”
“You are succeeding anyway.”
Simon watched you for a moment, his eyes attentive, like he was waiting for something. Then said calmly: “You are the one who seems bothered by me.”
“Because you are an arrogant asshole.”
“That is not the worst thing someone has said about me.” His tone was mild, but there was something behind it, something that did not quite match the ease of his posture.
You let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “At least you admit it.”
For a moment you both just stood there, the night air moving lightly around you.
“You decided this, didn’t you?” You murmured, looking him straight in his blue eyes.
“Decided what?” He asked, smirking.
“That we would end up out here, alone.”
A pause followed. Simon did not deny or agree with you, only giving you that same measured look.
“You left the room.” He said simply. “It is simply a coincidence that we ended up alone again.”
The answer felt like a deflection, but it was still true.
You shook your head. “How do you even do this thing?”
“What thing?”
“You make everything sound like it just… happens.”
“Sometimes it does.”
“No, not with you it does not.” You said sharperly.
He did not argue.
That was the problem, because most people would push back, try to defend themselves, try to prove you wrong. Simon did neither. He just let the silence stretch, like he knew you would be the one to break it.
“You are not even going to argue?” You asked, unable to leave it alone.
“You decided you did not like me before I even said three words to you.” He said, a flicker of something passing through his eyes.
“I call that having a good instinct.” You retorted.
He studied your face again, like he was taking you apart, piece by piece. “And what does your instinct say now?”
You met his gaze. Up close like this it was harder to ignore how calm he always looked, like nothing rattled him. Like he was always slightly ahead in every conversation.
“I think…” You said slowly. “You enjoy getting reactions out of people.”
He smiled faintly, but did not say anything.
“And I think you are used to women liking you.” You continued.
“Statistically speaking, that tends to happen.” He said smugly.
“There it is!” You exclaimed, gesturing at him.
“What?”
“That smug confidence.”
Simon stepped a little closer, not aggressively, just enough that the space between you felt smaller, tighter. You felt it immediately, goosebumps running down your spine.
“Does it bother you?” He asked, tilting his head to the side.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it is fucking fake.”
His eyebrow lifted. “You are so very sure about that.”
“I am.”
For a second, neither of you moved. The night air brushed against your skin, the music muffled behind the glass. But all of it was overshadowed by how close he was. Close enough you could feel his warmth, close enough that you could smell the faint scent of his cologne and drink. Close enough to feel the steadiness in the way he held himself, like was not affected by this, like he knew the way you were.
“You really do not trust me at all.” He said quietly.
“No.”
“And you barely know me.”
You shrugged. “I have met your type before.”
Something in his expression flickered, subtle. You knew what it could mean. Interest, desire.
“And what type is that?”
You tilted your head, studying him the way he studied you. “The kind that causes problems.”
He rolled his eyes at that, smiling in annoyance. “Right.”
Then, he leaned in just slightly towards you. It was close enough that your breath hitched before you could stop it. His gaze dropped to your lips.
It was brief, and your body reacted before your mind caught up, a flicker of heat, a flicker of something dangerously close to anticipation.
“This is exactly what I meant.” You said, trying to get in control of the situation, but your voice was soft.
“What?” Simon asked.
“This…” You gestured between you. “You standing so close, saying just enough-”
“And still…” He interrupted, blue eyes lifting back to yours. “You have not moved.”
Your pulse stuttered. You really should have moved, should have stepped back, but you did not. It would be easy to blame the alcohol humming through your veins, but that was not the whole truth.
Suddenly, Simon leaned in more, close enough that you thought that he would kiss you.
But he did not, instead lingering there.
“Unbelievable.” He whispered, almost to himself. “You spout all of this shit towards me, yet you stay.”
You opened your mouth to respond, but he stepped back. And just like that, the distance returned, abrupt and disorienting.
“I will leave you to your good instincts.” He added lightly, already turning toward the door.
And he was gone.
The balcony immediately felt quieter without him. You groaned loudly, running a hand through your hair, frustration settling in your chest. Simon was not wrong. Despite your annoyance, despite everything, you did not move. You were drawn to him like a moth to a flame. And that realisation irritated you even more.
⚬ ⚬ ○ ⚬ ⚬
You were halfway into your coat when Jane appeared by your side.
“You are leaving already?” She asked.
“Yeah, I am tired.” You said, pulling your sleeve straight.
“I will call you a taxi.” Jane said, already reaching for her phone.
“I can do that myself.” You sighed.
“I know. I just-” She hesitated, lowering her voice slightly. “I have been reading things. About drivers. I do not want you going alone.”
You exhaled. “God Jane, you should not be reading the tabloids! Nothing is going to happen to me.”
“I am serious. Just do this for me.”
Before you could argue further, wanting to say that you always end up doing this or that for her, she turned, scanning the room.
“Simon!” She called.
You stiffened immediately. He was already looking in your direction, because of course he was.
Jane smiled with relief when he approached. “You are going that way, right? Can you ride with her? Just make sure she gets home.”
“Jane, I do not need a fucking escort.” You retorted before Simon could say anything. “I will be fine.”
She ignored you, only looking at him.
Simon glanced at you, then back at her. “Of course.”
You opened your mouth to protest again, but something in the certainty of the situation stopped you. Jane looked reassured and Simon looked… unsurprised. Like this had always been the plan.
“Great!” She said, squeezing your arm. “Text me when you get home.”
⚬ ⚬ ○ ⚬ ⚬
The ride was quiet. The city passed in blurred lights outside the window, casting shadows across you. You sat on one side, Simon on the other, the space between you filled with everything unspoken: resentment, irritation and something thicker, that made the air feel heavy and charged.
You did not speak or look at him, determined not to give him the satisfaction of drawing you into another heated exchange. But you felt his eyes on you, steady and unyielding, tracing the curve of your neck, the way your dress clung to your thighs as you shifted slightly.
The silence between you was intimate in a way that twisted your stomach. His presence invaded it, the faint scent of him stirring an unwelcome heat low in your belly, which you desperately tried to ignore.
It was the alcohol and the close proximity, you reasoned with yourself.
The taxi finally stopped outside your building. You quickly gave the driver some cash, and slammed the door behind you with more force than necessary.
The cool air hit your flushed skin, but it did nothing to quell the awareness still buzzing through you. Then you heard the other car door slam shut behind you, like he was done pretending this night could end without confrontation. You looked for your keys, heart pounding as his footsteps echoed.
“What do you think you are doing?” You said, turning towards him as you entered the building.
“Making sure you get home safe.” He said, following you in.
You exhaled sharply but did not argue. You did not have the energy, and something told you it would not matter anyway.
The hallway inside your building was quiet, dimly lit. Your footsteps echoed softly as you walked toward your door. You could feel him behind you, close enough that you could sense the heat radiating from his body, and the unspoken promise of collision hanging in the space between.
At your door, you fumbled slightly with your keys.
“You are nervous.” He said, smiling.
“I am not.” You muttered, pushing the key into the lock.
“You are.”
You turned and immediately stilled. He was closer than you expected, close enough that the air between you felt charged, thick with something you did not want to name. The light above flickered faintly, catching in his blue eyes, which seemed darker now.
For a moment neither of you moved.
“I did not need you to walk me to my door.” You said, softer than you intended.
“I know.”
“Then why did you?”
His gaze did not waver. “Because I wanted to see what you would do.”
The answer landed somewhere low in your chest, unsettling in a way you could not explain. You scoffed. “Insufferable asshole.”
But your voice lacked conviction. You held his gaze though, trying to steady yourself, aware of the alcohol singing in your veins, and the way your pulse picked up its pace.
He took a step closer, his eyes flicking to your lips, just for a second. But you felt it like a touch.
The space between you disappeared.
“God...” He murmured, his voice rough at the edges. “You make this difficult.”
Your breath caught. You did not step back, you did not move at all, which felt like the biggest mistake of all.
“This is a bad idea.” You whispered.
“Maybe…” He replied.
Neither of you moved away. For a moment, everything stilled. The quiet hallway, the faint hum of the building, the space between you shrinking without either of you fully choosing it.
Then, he kissed you.
Or maybe you kissed him.
It happened too naturally. His lips crashed against yours with a raw and unyielding hunger that stole the breath from your lungs. It was not timid or hesitation at all, like he knew you would not pull away.
And you did not.
Your hand found his shirt, fingers twisting into the fabric, gripping it as if to steady yourself, while his hand tangled in your hair. He gripped it firmly, tugging your head back and deepening the kiss. He forced your lips to part open with his tongue, thrusting it deep in your mouth in a bold move that made you gasp. It was the kind of kiss that carried every argument, every glance, every moment of tension that was building between you.
The world narrowed down to the press of his lips, the warmth of his hands, the quiet intensity of the moment that neither of you was willing to break.
A low moan escaped you as his tongue tasted every inch of you. His free hand settled to your lower back, pulling you closer so you could feel the hard ridge of his cock, pressing insistently through his pants.
He was kissing you like he had all the time in the world, like he owned the night, savouring the way you melted into him.
It was infuriating. The pace, and the desire you had for him. You pulled him towards your door, your back meeting it, as you stumbled slightly. The door gave way behind you and you moved inside without thinking.
“This is wrong.” You said against his lips and hissed as he tugged at your lower lip with his teeth.
“I think you have been fighting this all night.” Simon murmured, capturing your lips again before you could say anything else.
The kiss was deep, all teeth and fury, your nails digging into his shoulders as you pulled him closer. You hated him, hated the way your body betrayed you, heat pooling low between your legs as his tongue invaded your mouth again.
This is a mistake! You are a mistake Simon! The voice inside your head screamed, but you did not listen to it. You pulled him through the hallway and into the living room, moaning loudly as his hands roamed roughly over the curves of your body, pulling you dress up.
“Tell me to stop then.” He said mockingly, knowing what you were thinking. He pressed hot kisses on your neck, teeth grazing your skin hard enough to leave a mark.
“Fuck you.” You spat, but groaned loudly as his fingers trailed up your thighs and he cupped you between your legs. His hot breath fanned your neck, and he chuckled when his fingers pushed your panties to the side and he found out how wet you were.
“God, you are so wet already…” He taunted, pushing his middle finger inside you fully, smirking at your loud moan.
You did not say anything to him, but the way your hips arched into his touch screamed louder than any words ever could. Simon’s eyes darkened with triumph as he pushed you towards the couch, easing you down onto it with a deceptive gentleness that belied the desire raging between you.
Your breath hitched as he sank to his knees, his fingers hooking into the waistband of your panties and yanking them off in one swift pull. The sudden rush of cool air kissed your exposed folds, making them clench in anticipation. His hands gripped your thighs, prying them open, leaving you vulnerable and aching. You clutched the edge of the couch, nails digging into the fabric. Your stare was locked on his with a mix of defiance and raw hunger twisting low in your stomach.
Simon’s mouth descended on you without mercy, claiming you without a shred of restraint. His tongue dragged flat and along your slick folds, plunging into your dripping heat before latching onto your clit. He sucked it hard between his lips, his tongue flicking the swollen nub in merciless circles that shot sparks up your spine. Two thick fingers drove into you, and he curled them to stroke that sensitive spot inside. Your knees trembled and your body nearly arched off the cushions of the couch.
“God, you are so wet…” He growled, his voice muffled against your pussy. “All that hate, and look at you, dripping for me.”
“Shut up!” You groaned, your fingers twisting into his hair and pulling hard enough to sting. But whatever else you wanted to say dissolved into a moan as he devoured you, his tongue thrusting in and out of you with filthy precision, before his fingers pushed back in. You ground against his face, hips rolling to chase the pleasure that was building fast, your walls clenching around his fingers.
Just as the wave crested, he pulled back, denying your release with a wicked smirk.
A loud whine escaped your lips.
“You really think I would let you cum so easily?” He taunted you again, but his voice was rough with lust, his eyes near black.
“I fucking hate you…” You whispered.
Simon stood slowly, chuckling, dragging the back of his hand across his glistening lips, that smug glint in his eyes promising more torment. He unbuckled his belt, shoving his pants down to free his thick cock, painfully hard and throbbing with need, the head already beaded with pre-cum. You instinctively bit your lip at the sight. He did not need to do any convincing to guide you off the couch and down onto your knees. The carpet bit into your skin as you settled before him.
“Be a good girl, and maybe I will let you cum.” He said, stroking himself.
You glared up at him, your chest rising and falling with each breath. Nonetheless you moved, your hand pushing his own away, and wrapping around his cock. You gave him a few slow strokes from the base to the tip, before leaning forward to take him in your mouth. His taste blossomed on your tongue, your lips stretching wide around his girth. You sucked him as deep as you could, hollowing your cheeks, drawing a guttural groan from him.
His fist tangled in your hair, controlling the rhythm as he rocked forward. “Yes, that is it… Swallow it all. Show me how much you despise me.”
You tried to take him deeper, his thick length hitting the back of your throat and making you gag around him. Your nails scrapped red trails down his thighs as he fucked your mouth with shallow thrusts. The obscene sounds echoed through the room, saliva dripping down your chin.
“Fuck, your mouth feels so good.” He rasped, watching you through hooded eyes, utterly consumed by the sight in front of him.
You squeezed your thighs together, the friction grinding against your swollen clit, in desperation for your own release. But Simon’s grip on your hair tightened before pulling you off his cock with a wet pop, strings of saliva connecting your lips to him.
Using your hair as leverage, he hauled you to your feet, spinning you around and shoving you forward to the couch, until your body pressed against the cushions, your ass thrust high in the air. He nudged your legs wider before slotting himself behind you, the blunt head of his cock prodding at your entrance.
“You want this cock buried inside you, don’t you?” He asked, teasing your slick folds and coating himself in your arousal. “Beg for it then.”
“Go to hell.” You shot back, but your body betrayed you as your hips pushed back greedily, seeking to take more of him in. The need clawed at you, fierce and unrelenting.
With a loud growl, Simon slammed in you with one brutal thrust, burying himself to the hilt. You cried out, a broken sound torn from your throat as your walls clenched around him.
He did not give you a moment to adjust, setting a punishing pace immediately. His hips snapped forward, each plunge deep into your core, the slap of skin on skin echoing across the room. His fingers dug into your hips, and you were sure the skin would bruise. He yanked you back onto him, forcing you to meet every thrust. Your earlier denied release amplified everything, your walls fluttering wildly around him, the coil of ecstasy tightening unbearably fast.
Your orgasm ripped through like wildfire, a loud moan tearing from your lips as waves of blinding pleasure crashed over you. Simon let out a moan as well, as your walls clamped down on his cock in tight spasms.
“You are so fucking tight.” He grunted, his body leaning over yours, chest pressing against your back. One had slid up your side, fingers pressing roughly before they wrapped around your throat. He squeezed just enough to make you gasp, pulse racing wildly under his grip.
He pulled you upright against him, your back arching sharply as he held you there. He ground against you in slow and deliberate circles, his cock dragging against your sensitive walls, teasing every nerve.
“Tell me you hate this.” He whispered hotly into your ear. “Tell me you hate how I own every inch of you now.”
His teeth sank into the tender curve of your neck, biting down hard and marking you with sharp indents that throbbed with delicious pain. Then, his tongue soothed the bite, followed by open-mouthed kisses, trailing fire under their wake.
Your head fell back onto his shoulder, your breath ragged.
“I… fuck… you…” You barely managed, the words choked out from you. But they lacked conviction and they dissolved into a loud whine as he released your throat momentarily to deliver a sharp slap to your ass.
He thrust shallowly now, pulling almost all the way out, leaving you achingly empty, before slamming back in with punishing force. His free hand roamed up to your breast, fingers capturing your nipple and pinching it roughly, twisting until you arched and moaned, pain twisting into molten pleasure.
“I can feel you dripping down all over me. All that fire, all that hatred, and you are begging for more without a single word.” He taunted, lips brushing your ear. His hips rolled then, angling deep to hit that spot that made your vision blur and see stars.
You clawed at his arm around you, desperate pleas falling from your lips, your mind a whirlwind of hate and hunger, body surrendering utterly to him.
“Please... harder... do not stop…”
His hand snaked around your hip, fingers finding your swollen nub, circling it with ruthless precision. Any retort you were about to give dissolved into broken whimpers, your fierce resolve completely crumbling like ash under the relentless build of pleasure coiling tighter in your core. Each stroke pushed you closer to the edge that you craved.
Suddenly, Simon flipped you onto your back, the couch groaning and creaking beneath you. He hooked your legs over his shoulders, folding you nearly in half as he drove back in you. His cock thrust deeper than before, and it tore a loud moan from you.
“Look at me.” He demanded, his voice low and rough, his hips pounding harder and faster. Your eyes found his blue ones, and you gasped as his fingers found your clit, stroking you harshly.
“You are mine now.” He rasped, eyes locked on yours, dark and possessive, refusing to let you hide from the storm raging between you. “Every moan, every gasp, all fucking mine.”
Your hands clawed at his back, nails raking deep into his skin, drawing thin red lines that made him hiss in pleasure and pain.
“Asshole.” You managed to gasp out, the word dissolving into a raw, throaty moan. Your eyes rolled back in your head as he fucked you senseless, each relentless thrust shattering your defenses, turning hate into helpless hunger.
The room filled with the obscene symphony of flesh slapping flesh, your breaths erupting in ragged, desperate sobs that betrayed the war inside you. Your mind screamed resistance while your body arched into him, begging for more.
He leaned down then, capturing your mouth into a savage kiss, teeth clashing and tongues battling as he devoured your moans, swallowing every sob and turning it into fuel for his fire. The taste of him overwhelmed you, and the tension finally snapped like a taut wire.
You cried out his name as your release ripped through you like lightening, your walls spasming wildly around his length, clenching and fluttering in desperate pulls that dragged him impossibly deeper, waves of ecstasy crashing over you until you shook beneath him.
Simon followed you seconds later with a loud groan, his thrusts turning erratic and frenzied. His hips slammed into you one last time before he buried himself to the hilt, flooding your core with his cum, marking you from the inside.
You collapsed together, breaths mingling and your bodies entangled, both of you panting in the aftershocks of the fire you had ignited between you. Your mind reeled, the hate still simmering but drowned in aftershocks. For now, you were spent, a trembling mess in his arms.
You play a dangerous game with Simon Foster, determined to stay clear of him, as you know him for the snake he is, but this turns out to be futile when he sinks his fangs into you.
𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒; age gap, infidelity, power play, obsessive behaviour, possession, cheating, minors dni.
Excuse me while I go die in a corner, because fuck this took an entire day to write. I just needed to write something for Simon Foster. I do not condone cheating, but this idea had kept me busy throughout the entire day.
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐎𝐍𝐄.
You remembered the first rattlesnake you had ever seen. It had lain half-hidden beneath the sun-baked brush, no more than a few feet away, its slender body coiled with deceptive stillness.
The only warning it offered was the dry, unmistakable rattle of its tail, a sound that froze the blood long before the creature ever struck. Your father had taught you then that the deadliest things in the world rarely lunged without reason.
They warned you first. They smiled at you, lulled you into believing you were safe, and only then sank their fangs into flesh.
Standing beside your father now, Simon Foster wore an easy smile and effortless charm that seemed to win over everyone fortunate or unfortunate, enough to meet him. His laugh was warm, his manners impeccable, and his voice carried the sort of confidence that invited trust without ever asking for it.
You found none of it convincing.
The smile never reached his eyes. Beneath the polished exterior lurked something cold, calculating, and quietly predatory. He reminded you not of a gentleman, but of that rattlesnake all those years ago, beautiful in the way dangerous things often were, patient in the way hunters had to be, and every bit as venomous.
You had learned long ago to heed the rattle before the bite.
Simon Foster, you decided within moments of meeting him, was nothing more than a snake wearing a man's skin.
Your father had scarcely finished the introductions before your opinion of Simon Foster settled like stone.
“There you are,” your father said warmly, a hand resting briefly against your shoulder. “I'd like you to meet Simon Foster.”
Simon stepped forward with effortless confidence, offering the sort of smile that had probably carried him through countless first impressions. He extended a hand.
“It's a pleasure to finally meet you.”
You didn't take it.
Instead, your lips curled in open displeasure as your gaze swept over him from head to toe, unhurried and entirely unimpressed. A quiet click of your tongue echoed in the brief silence before you sucked thoughtfully at your teeth, as though confirming something only you could see.
“No,” you said flatly.
Your father blinked. “No?”
“I don't like him.”
Simon's smile remained firmly in place, though something almost imperceptible flickered behind his blue eyes. “We've only just met.”
“I know.”
“And you've already decided?”
“I have.”
Your father let out a weary sigh. “Would you at least give the man a chance?”
You finally looked back at him, expression as unmoved as ever.
“I've seen rattlesnakes prettier than him.” Your eyes returned to Simon. “At least they warn you before they bite.
For the first time, the silence lingered.
Simon chuckled softly, amused rather than offended. “Well,” he said, lowering his hand, “that's certainly the most original introduction I've ever had.”
“I'm not trying to be original.”
“No?”
“I'm trying to leave.”
Without another glance, you turned on your heel and walked away before Simon could utter another word, leaving your father to apologize and Simon to watch you disappear with an expression that looked far too entertained for a man who had just been dismissed outright.
The feeling settled between your shoulder blades long before you ever confirmed it.
It was the unmistakable weight of someone's gaze, persistent, unwavering, patient enough to become unsettling. You ignored it at first, attributing it to the crowded room, to wandering eyes and idle curiosity, yet each time you glanced across the room, you found Simon Foster looking somewhere else entirely, his expression composed behind an effortless smile.
It should have been reassuring.
Instead, it only deepened your suspicion.
By the time dinner gave way to drinks, you found yourself making polite conversation with his young wife.
Kate was lovely in the sort of effortless way magazines tried to bottle and sell, golden hair falling in soft waves over her shoulders, an easy smile that brightened every sentence, and a warmth that made it impossible to dislike her.
She laughed easily, spoke kindly, and carried herself with the quiet confidence of someone who believed the world was, by and large, a decent place, but you knew enough that even the prettiest faces could easily hide deception.
Wasn't she the man's fucking mistress before she became his wife?
You almost envied her.
“You must come over sometime,” Kate said brightly. “Simon says my cooking is terrible, but I promise I make up for it with dessert.”
A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. “I'll keep that in mind.”
She laughed again, blissfully unaware.
You found it strangely amusing that she had no idea her husband hadn't truly looked away from you all evening. Even while nodding through conversations, shaking hands, or pretending to listen to someone else's story, his attention always drifted back, lingering just long enough to make your skin prickle.
Not with admiration.
Like a predator deciding whether its prey had finally noticed the hunt.
Your gaze lifted over the rim of your glass, meeting his across the room.
There it was.
No smile this time. No charming façade for anyone else's benefit. Just those pale, unreadable eyes fixed on you with unnerving intensity, as though he were trying to peel back every carefully guarded layer without ever needing to touch you.
You held his stare for a long moment before raising your glass ever so slightly in a mocking salute.
His mouth curved into the faintest hint of a smile.
You rolled your eyes and turned back to Kate, pointedly dismissing him from your attention.
If Simon Foster intended to intimidate you by staring, he was going to discover very quickly that you had never been afraid of snakes.
The rest of the evening stretched like a poorly tuned string, vibrating with an undercurrent you couldn't quite ignore. You drifted through the crowd with practiced indifference, exchanging pleasantries where required and nursing a single glass of whiskey as if it were a shield.
Your father caught your eye once or twice, his expression a silent plea for civility, but you offered only a faint shrug in return. He had his world of deals and handshakes; you had learned long ago to trust the instincts that kept you alive in it.
Simon, for his part, played the room like a conductor. He moved with that same effortless grace, clapping shoulders, murmuring laughs that drew people in like moths.
Yet every so often, the pattern held: his gaze would find you again. Not often enough to be obvious to anyone else. Just enough to remind you he was there.
You were considering slipping out through the side terrace when Kate excused herself to refresh her drink, leaving you momentarily alone near the tall windows overlooking the garden. The night air pressed cool against the glass.
“Still planning your escape?”
His voice was low, close enough that you felt the words more than heard them. You didn't startle, years of dealing with men who thought surprise was an advantage had cured you of that, but you turned slowly, meeting Simon's eyes with the same flat disinterest you'd shown at the introduction.
“Escape implies I was trapped," you replied. “I was simply bored.”
Simon leaned one shoulder against the window frame, close but not crowding. The light from the chandeliers caught the sharp line of his jaw, the faint shadow of stubble he probably cultivated for that exact effect. “Most people at least pretend to be charmed for the first hour. You skipped straight to venom. I have to admire the efficiency.”
“I don't pretend.” You took a measured sip of your whiskey. “And I don't admire snakes. They shed their skin too often to be trustworthy.”
A soft chuckle escaped him, genuine this time, or at least convincingly so. “Your father warned me you had a sharp tongue. He failed to mention it was dipped in acid.”
“My father has a habit of underestimating things that might complicate his business.” You glanced toward the room where your father was deep in conversation with a cluster of suited men. “Is that what this is? Another complication he's dragging home?”
Simon studied you for a beat, those pale blue eyes narrowing just a fraction. Up close, the charm was still there, but so was the way he took in your posture, your tone, the way you held your glass like a weapon.
“Business, yes. But not the kind you're thinking. Your father and I have mutual interests. Investments. Opportunities that require... discretion.”
“Discretion.” You let the word curl with distaste. “That's what they call it when men like you don't want their fangs examined too closely.”
He didn't deny it. Instead, he smiled again, that small, private curve that didn't touch the rest of his face. “You really do see everything in black and white, don't you? Rattlesnake or not, some of us simply survive by being useful. Your father understands that. Kate understands that.” His gaze flicked briefly toward his wife, who was laughing with a group near the bar, oblivious. “Most people do.”
“Most people are fools.” You set your glass down on the nearest table with a deliberate click. “And I'm not most people.”
“No,” Simon murmured, almost to himself. “You're not.”
The silence between you stretched, charged. For a moment, the party noise faded, the clink of glasses, the low hum of conversation, leaving only the weight of his attention. It wasn't lust, exactly.
It was something hungrier, like one predator acknowledging another across a watering hole.
You broke it first, turning to leave. His hand caught your wrist, not hard, but firm enough to pause you. Warm skin against yours, a reminder that the snake had hands, a voice, a name.
“Careful,” you said quietly, eyes locked on his. “Some things bite back.”
Simon's thumb brushed once over the inside of your wrist, a ghost of pressure, before he released you. “I look forward to it.”
You walked away without another word, the ghost of his touch lingering like a warning.
Behind you, you could feel him watching again, that patient, unblinking stare. The rattle had been subtle tonight, disguised in charm and half-smiles, but you heard it all the same.
By the time you reached your father to make your excuses, the decision had hardened in your chest. Simon Foster was trouble of the exact kind your instincts screamed to avoid. And yet, as you stepped out into the cool night air, you couldn't shake the feeling that avoidance might no longer be an option.
He had already decided you were interesting.
And rattlesnakes, as your father once taught you, rarely let go once they struck.
The weeks that followed blurred into a series of calculated collisions. Simon Foster, it turned out, had a talent for becoming unavoidable. He appeared at your father’s charity galas, at the private club where deals were sealed over aged scotch, even at the family estate for what your father euphemistically called “informal strategy dinners.” Each time, he arrived with Kate on his arm, all golden smiles and effortless poise, while his eyes tracked you like a shadow that had learned to walk upright.
You never softened. If anything, your disdain sharpened.
At the first dinner, when Simon complimented the vintage of the wine your father had chosen, you cut in coolly, “Funny how some poisons improve with age. Others just stay venomous.”
Simon’s laugh was low and appreciative. He watched you across the candlelight with that same unblinking hunger, as though your barbs were strokes rather than slaps. Kate blushed and changed the subject. Your father sighed.
At the gala two weeks later, when Simon offered you a dance with that practiced charm, you looked him up and down like something stuck to your shoe. “I don’t dance with reptiles. They tend to coil too close.”
His smile never wavered, but the hunger in his gaze deepened, dark, patient, almost affectionate in its intensity. He leaned in just enough for you to catch the faint trace of his cologne, something expensive and sharp. “You keep calling me that,” he murmured, voice velvet over steel. “One day I might decide to live up to the name.”
You turned away without answering, but you felt his stare burning into your back for the rest of the night.
He was always watching. In quiet moments between conversations, during toasts, even when he was mid-laughter with some influential investor, his attention would drift back to you, lik a man who had finally found a puzzle worth breaking.
It snapped on a humid Thursday evening at your father’s private study, after a long meeting had dissolved into drinks. Your father had stepped out to take a call on the terrace, leaving you alone with Simon in the dimly lit room lined with leather-bound books and the faint scent of cigar smoke. Kate had already gone home with a headache.
You stood by the window, swirling the last of your drink, when Simon approached from behind, close enough that you could feel the heat of him.
“Still pretending I don’t exist?” he asked softly.
You didn’t turn. “Hard to pretend when the stench of fraud follows you everywhere.”
A low chuckle. “You wound me.”
“You’re not wounded. You’re entertained.” You finally faced him, close enough now that the whisper would stay between you. Your voice dropped to a venomous thread, meant for his ears alone.
“You’re a fraud, Simon Foster. A cheating bastard who traded in his first wife like yesterday’s stock. Gemma Foster deserved better than watching you fuck your mistress—your current wife—behind her back. I wonder what my father will think when he learns exactly how you built your little empire of discretion.”
The words landed like a strike.
For the first time, something raw flickered across Simon’s face, surprise, yes, but also a flash of pure, unguarded heat. The hunger sharpened into something feral.
His jaw tightened, and his eyes darkened as he stared down at you, inches away now. The air between you crackled, thick and dangerous.
He didn’t deny it.
Instead, he reached up slowly, his fingers brushing a stray lock of hair from your cheek with a gentleness that felt far more threatening than violence. His voice, when it came, was low and rough, almost reverent.
“You’ve been digging,” he said. “I knew you were sharp. I didn’t know you were vicious.” His thumb lingered near the corner of your mouth. “Do it again.”
Your heart hammered against your ribs, but you held his gaze without flinching. “Touch me again and I’ll make sure my father hears every filthy detail. Every secret you think you’ve buried.”
Simon’s smile returned, slow, crooked, and utterly without warmth. The snake had finally been poked, and instead of recoiling, it looked ready to strike. “Careful what threats you make,” he whispered back, breath warm against your ear. “Some men like it when their prey bites first.”
The sound of the terrace door opening broke the moment. Your father’s voice carried in from outside.
Simon stepped back smoothly, composure sliding back into place like a second skin. But the look he gave you before turning away promised this was far from over.
The rattle had stopped.
Now came the strike.
The family dinner dragged on like a slow suffocation. Candlelight flickered over the long mahogany table, your father at the head discussing market projections with Simon as if the man were already part of the inner circle.
Kate sat beside her husband, laughing softly at the appropriate moments, her hand occasionally brushing Simon’s sleeve. You pushed food around your plate, nodding when required, but your mind kept betraying you.
Damn him.
You hated how often Simon invaded your thoughts now. Not just the cold calculation in his eyes or the way he moved like a predator in tailored suits but the memory of his thumb grazing your cheek, the low rasp in his voice when he’d said Do it again.
The way your skin had tightened at his nearness.
You would rather die than admit it, even to yourself, but the man you called a snake had begun to coil through your dreams, leaving heat and fury in equal measure.
You couldn’t sit there another second.
“Excuse me,” you said abruptly, setting your napkin down. “I need some air.”
Your father waved a distracted hand. Kate offered a sympathetic smile. Simon said nothing, but you felt the weight of his gaze follow you out of the dining room.
You didn’t head for the garden.
Instead, you slipped into your father’s study at the far end of the hall, the one room that still felt like sanctuary, lined with old books and the faint scent of aged leather and ink. The door clicked shut behind you. You leaned against the heavy oak desk, pressing your fingers to your temples, willing the unwanted thoughts away.
The door opened again moments later.
Of course it was him.
Simon stepped inside without invitation, closing the door with a soft, decisive click. The hallway light carved sharp shadows across his face, highlighting the sharp line of his jaw and the intensity in those pale blue eyes. He didn’t speak at first. He simply watched you, that familiar hunger now edged with something darker, more possessive.
“You’ve been avoiding me all evening,” he said quietly.
You straightened, folding your arms across your chest like armor. “And yet here you are. Following me like the parasite you are. Don’t you have a wife to charm back at the table?”
Simon’s lips curved, slow and dangerous. He took a step closer. “Kate is perfectly content. Unlike you. I can see it in your eyes—you’ve been thinking about me.”
Heat flooded your cheeks. You hated him for being right. Hated yourself more for letting it show.
“Get out,” you snapped. “Before I remind my father exactly what kind of fraud slithered into his house. A man who cheats on his first wife with his mistress and then has the audacity to sit at our table like he belongs here. You’re nothing but a pretty lie in expensive shoes, Simon. A rattlesnake pretending to be a man.”
He closed the distance in two strides. You opened your mouth to deliver another cutting insult—
His hand cupped the back of your neck, firm and unyielding, and his mouth crashed down on yours.
The kiss was not gentle. It was heat and hunger and weeks of restrained tension finally snapping. Simon kissed like he did everything else with absolute control and devastating intent.
His lips claimed yours, tongue sweeping in to silence every protest, tasting of the red wine from dinner and something darker, more addictive.
One arm banded around your waist, pulling you flush against him, while his fingers tightened in your hair just enough to tilt your head exactly where he wanted it.
You should have pushed him away. Slapped him. Called for your father.
Instead, a traitorous sound escaped your throat, half fury, half surrender and your hands fisted in the front of his shirt, pulling him closer even as your mind screamed at the betrayal.
The kiss deepened, turning fiercer, teeth grazing, breaths mingling hot and ragged. For a moment, there was nothing but the solid heat of him, the scrape of stubble against your skin, the way he devoured every insult you’d ever thrown at him and gave it back as raw, undeniable want.
When he finally pulled back, just enough to rest his forehead against yours, both of you were breathing hard. His eyes were dark, pupils blown wide with the same hunger that had been building for weeks.
“Still think I’m a fraud?” he rasped, voice rough against your lips.
You swallowed, lips tingling, body traitorously alive. “I think you’re worse.”
Simon smiled, that slow, satisfied curve that promised nothing but trouble and brushed his thumb across your swollen lower lip.
“Good,” he whispered. “Because I’m nowhere near finished with you.”
Outside, the distant murmur of dinner conversation continued, oblivious. But in the study, the line had been crossed. The snake had struck.
And you weren’t sure you wanted the antidote.
Simon didn’t give you time to catch your breath.
His mouth claimed yours again, harder this time, as he backed you up against your father’s heavy oak desk. The edge dug into the back of your thighs, and with one fluid motion, he lifted you just enough to push you onto it. Papers scattered. A pen clattered to the floor. The sound barely registered over the roar of blood in your ears.
“Insult me again,” he growled against your lips, voice low and rough with need. His hands were already moving, sliding up your thighs, shoving the fabric of your skirt higher with impatient precision. “Tell me how much you hate me.”
You tried. “You arrogant, cheating—”
The words dissolved into a sharp gasp as he yanked your panties aside and plunged two thick fingers deep inside you without warning.
The stretch was sudden, overwhelming. A broken moan tore from your throat, but Simon swallowed it instantly, his mouth devouring yours in a filthy, demanding kiss.
His fingers curled inside you, stroking that devastating spot with ruthless accuracy while his thumb pressed firmly against your clit.
He fucked you with them in deep, deliberate thrusts, setting a pace that left no room for thought, only sensation.
Wet, obscene sounds filled the quiet study. You were already soaked, shamefully so, and Simon groaned into your mouth like he’d won some private victory.
“That’s it,” he murmured against your lips, barely pulling back enough to speak. “So fucking wet for a man you claim to despise. Your body doesn’t lie, even if that sharp tongue of yours does.”
You bit back another moan as he added a third stroke, deeper, harder. Your hands clutched at his shoulders, nails digging into the fine fabric of his shirt. Part of you still wanted to shove him away. The rest, the traitorous, aching part, widened your thighs further, hips rolling helplessly to meet every thrust of his fingers.
Simon’s free hand gripped your hip, holding you in place as he worked you open. His mouth trailed down your jaw to your neck, sucking a mark just below your ear before returning to swallow every whimper and gasp that escaped you. He kissed you like he was starving for it, tongue stroking yours in time with his fingers, drinking down every sound as if they belonged to him.
“You’re going to come on my hand right here on your father’s desk,” he whispered hotly against your mouth, curling his fingers again with devastating precision. “And you’re going to stay quiet while you do it.”
Your head fell back, eyes fluttering shut. The coil of pleasure tightened fast and vicious in your belly. Simon’s thumb circled your clit relentlessly, his fingers plunging deeper, faster, until the tension snapped.
You came hard, clenching around him, a strangled cry muffled by his mouth as he kissed you through it. He didn’t stop, drawing it out, stroking you through every shudder until you were trembling, breathless, and dangerously close to something far more dangerous than hatred.
Only then did he slowly withdraw his fingers, bringing them to his lips. His eyes locked on yours, dark with satisfaction, as he licked them clean.
“Still think I’m a snake?” he asked, voice husky.
You stared at him, chest heaving, skirt bunched around your waist, lips kiss-swollen and body still pulsing with aftershocks.
“Worse,” you whispered.
Simon smiled, slow, predatory, and entirely too pleased.
“Good.”
He leaned in to kiss you again, softer this time, but no less claiming. Outside the study, the distant clink of silverware reminded you how close you were to discovery.
Summary: Working with Simon Foster eventually leads to one thing...
Warnings: Smut, slight degradation, simon being an asshole! age gap, toxic relationship, unprotected sex, infidelity, p in v
Word Count: 5k
...
Morning arrived grey over Parminster. The kind that never quite became day.
Hazel was already at her desk when the office lights flickered on. From her chair she could see the bakery across the road pulling up its shutters. Inside, the office was quiet except for the hum of computers waking up.
She liked being first. Twenty minutes before the building filled with polite voices and the soft panic of people pretending otherwise.
She stared at the numbers on her screen. The client's projections were nonsense — debt ratios built on a growth curve that didn't exist. She'd rewritten the model three times and kept arriving at the same place.
She typed a line of notes. Deleted it.
Simon's office was at the end of the floor, glass-fronted, separated from the open plan by a corridor that ran past the kitchen. He'd been in there since nine with the door shut.
She knew because she'd checked. Not obviously, she hadn't stood up and looked. She had simply been aware, in the background of every other thing she did that morning, whether his door was open or closed. It was closed. He was there. That was all.
At half ten she decided she needed coffee. She also decided to take the long way.
There was a shorter route, straight through the middle of the floor, past the printer, thirty seconds. She took the corridor instead. Past his office. She kept her eyes forward and her pace even and did not glance through the glass and told herself this was a completely neutral decision about how to get from one part of the building to another.
In the kitchen she filled the kettle. Reached for a mug. Stood very still.
She was listening for footsteps and she knew she was listening and she did it anyway, her pulse slightly faster than a cup of coffee warranted, and she felt — before she could stop herself feeling it — a small, clean thrill when she heard them in the corridor.
Unhurried. Deliberate.
The door opened. Then closed.
She didn't turn around.
"You walked past my office," Simon said.
"The kitchen is past your office."
"The kitchen is also accessible from the other side of the floor."
She turned. He was leaning against the closed door, jacket on, hands in his pockets. Like he'd stood up mid-thought and followed her without quite deciding to.
"Did you follow me to discuss the floor plan?"
"I followed you because you walked past on purpose."
The kettle began to hum.
She said nothing because there was nothing to say that wasn't an admission. She turned back to the counter, willing the kettle to boil faster, hating that he was right and hating more that he knew he was right and was simply standing there with the patience of someone who had no particular need for her to confirm it out loud.
"You left quickly yesterday," he said.
"We've done this."
"In front of the whole floor. I'm doing it here."
"And the difference is?"
"No audience."
The kettle clicked off. Neither of them moved toward it.
"Nothing happened yesterday," she said. "In case that's what this is about."
"I know nothing happened."
"So."
"So you still left quickly."
She turned around. "What do you want me to say, Simon."
"I want to know why you left the donor dinner so uncharacteristically early."
"I told you. I got tired."
Simon let out a short breath through his nose. ""That's fucking bullshit."
Hazel's eyes snapped up.
He held her gaze, entirely unbothered by the word, by the room, by any of it. That was the thing — he never seemed to register the temperature of a situation the way normal people did. He just stood in it.
"You're married," she said.
"You’ve said that before."
"I'm saying it again. In a smaller room."
"Does it help?"
"It helps me."
He pushed off the door and moved into the kitchen. Not toward her. Just into the space, making himself at home in four square feet of linoleum. He picked up someone else's mug from the drying rack, looked at it, put it back. He looked around the small room like he was in no hurry to be anywhere, which she found both irritating and — she didn't finish the thought.
"You cheated on the last one," she said. "The whole town knows. You came back with Kate three months ago and you're standing in a closed kitchen."
"And you're standing in it with me."
"That's not the same thing."
"No," he said. "It's not. You're twenty-two."
She blinked. "What's that supposed to mean."
"It means you can leave." He said it simply, without cruelty. "Any time. You know that."
"So can you."
"Yes." He looked at her. "And yet."
She held his gaze. "You're an asshole."
"You've established that."
"I'm just making sure it's still true."
"Consistently," he said, and something in it was almost funny and she hated that too.
She crossed her arms.
"Come on, Hazel," he coaxed as he tilted his head slightly.
"Don't play stupid with me. It's a bad look on you."
"I'm not —"
"You walked past my office. You heard the door close and you said nothing. That's not nothing."
She stopped.
He was right. She had heard it. Registered it. Said nothing, and they both knew that silence had been its own kind of answer, the kind she couldn't take back by pointing to it now.
"I'm not asking you for anything," he said.
"Then what are you doing."
He considered it. Actually considered it, which she hadn't expected from him. He was quiet for a moment and she watched him think and that was almost worse.
"I don't know," he said. "That's the honest answer."
She stared at him.
"That's a terrible answer."
"Yes."
"Does Kate know you don't know?"
The question came out before she'd decided to ask it. She watched it land. Something crossed his face — there and gone, too fast to read properly.
"Leave Kate out of it," he said.
"She's already in it."
"Hazel."
“She was in it last night when you were buying me a drink at the donor dinner instead of going home to her.”
Simon looked at her for a long moment. His jaw moved slightly, the way it did when he was deciding how much to give.
"Your wife —" she started.
"I know who my wife is." Sharper now. Final.
Something in his tone made her stomach tighten — not anger exactly. Just the sense of a door closing on a room she wasn't allowed into, which told her more than anything he could have said.
The kitchen was very small.
Hazel reached for the kettle. He didn't move, which meant she had to cross the space between them to get to it. She poured. Picked up her mug and held it with both hands.
"This is a bad idea," she said. Not to him, exactly.
"Most interesting things are."
"That's a very convenient thing to believe."
"It's not a belief," he said. "It's just observation."
She looked at him. "Go back to your office, Simon."
"You're enjoying this."
Hazel froze.
"Don't."
"You are." He shrugged slightly. "You just hate that you are."
She turned slowly. "You really think that highly of yourself."
Simon's smile was brief. "No." A pause. "I think that poorly of you."
That landed harder than the swearing had. She felt it go through her and said nothing and he watched her not say anything with that same steady, clear-eyed attention.
He reached past her and opened the door. No drama. Nothing that could be pointed to. He paused in the doorway with one hand on the frame.
"You're staying late," he said.
"I'm not."
"Because you won't leave that model until it's right."
"Simon."
He looked at her once more.
"And because you want to see if this gets worse."
Then he left. The corridor empty. The door open behind him.
Hazel stood at the counter. She thought about the footsteps — how she'd heard them coming and felt it move through her before she had time to decide anything. She thought about the door closing. How she had stood there and let it.
She went back to her desk.
The model still didn't behave.
By seven the office was empty.
She was working. The Barrington model had a problem she'd found finally, a flawed assumption three layers deep that had been corrupting everything downstream. She was fixing it. That was why she was here.
She saved the file. Opened it again. Changed nothing.
At half seven she heard his door.
She didn't look up. Heard him cross the floor and pull out the chair opposite her desk — not asking, just sitting — and set a glass of water down in front of her without a word.
She looked at it. "I didn't ask for that."
"You haven't moved in two hours."
"I'm working."
"You're hiding," he said. "There's a difference."
She looked up then. Shirtsleeves, collar open, jacket gone. He sat across from her like he had nowhere better to be and no intention of pretending otherwise.
"Kate home?" she said.
"Her sister's."
"Convenient."
"Isn't it." Flat. No apology in it.
She held his gaze for a moment and then looked back at the screen because looking at him was becoming a problem she didn't have a solution for.
"You should go," she said.
"Probably."
He didn't move.
The office settled around them. Traffic from the high street below, distant. The heating. Her own breathing, which she was suddenly conscious of.
"How close are you?" he said.
"On the model?"
"On the model."
"Done, mostly."
"Mostly."
"There are downstream effects I'm —"
"Hazel." He said it quietly. "The model's been done for an hour."
She said nothing.
"You've saved it six times," he said. "I watched you from the office."
"That's a strange thing to admit."
"Glass wall. You're directly in my sightline." He paused. "I could have closed the blind."
"Why didn't you."
He looked at her. "Why did you take the long way to the kitchen this morning."
She picked up the water and drank some and set it down and said nothing because there was nothing to say to that.
Simon leaned back in the chair. "You've been thinking about last night since you woke up."
"I really haven't."
"You have. And it's making you —" he considered the word, "— careful. You've been careful with me all day. That's new."
"I'm always careful."
"No," he said. "You're usually just sharp. Careful is different. Careful means something got through."
She turned to face him properly. "What do you want, Simon. Actually."
He looked at her for a moment. Then: "I want to know what you thought about. This morning. When you woke up."
"Work."
"Try again."
"I'm not doing this."
"You're already doing it," he said. "You've been doing it since you walked past my office this morning hoping I'd follow you."
"I didn't —"
"You stood in that kitchen for two minutes before I got there," he said. "I timed it."
The heat came up her throat before she could stop it. "You timed it."
"You were waiting."
"I was making coffee."
"You were waiting for me," he said, "and you know it, and the fact that you know it is what's got you sitting here at half seven pretending to work on a file that's been done since six."
She stared at him. "You're unbelievable."
"I'm accurate."
"Same thing, from where I'm sitting."
Something moved in his expression — appreciation, almost. He let it sit for a moment.
"What happened last night," she said. "Outside the venue. You were going to say something."
"Was I."
"You stopped."
"I changed my mind."
"About what."
He looked at her steadily. "About how much to give you."
The way he said it — give you — like she was something to be rationed. She felt it move through her and kept her face level and he watched her keep it level and she could see from his expression that he knew exactly what it had cost her.
"You do that on purpose," she said.
"Do what."
"Say things like that. Knowing what they do."
"What do they do?"
"Simon."
"Tell me," he said. "What do they do, Hazel."
She held his gaze. She matched him. She was good at this — had been good at it since the first Monday meeting, since the whiteboard, since the diner. She could hold his gaze and keep her voice even and give him nothing.
Except.
"Nothing," she said. "They do nothing."
He smiled. Not the brief real one she'd seen twice. The other one — small, cold, knowing. "You're a terrible liar," he said. "Did you know that? For someone so sharp. The moment something gets you, it's completely obvious."
"Nothing's got me."
"Your jaw does this thing," he said. "Right here. Tightens when you're trying not to react. You've been doing it all evening."
His eyes flicked down her body once, slow and deliberate.
“Stop”
"Same way you went still in the kitchen this morning,” he continued, like she hadn't spoken. "When I told you I knew you'd heard the door close. You went completely still. The way you go still when something lands and you don't want it to."
"Are you enjoying this."
"Yes," he said simply. "Aren't you?"
"No."
"Hazel."
"I said no."
"I know what you said." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and looked at her across the small space of the desk. "I'm asking what's actually true."
She held his gaze.
She matched him for five seconds. Maybe ten.
Then — she felt it happen, felt herself start to slip, the composure not breaking but thinning, going translucent — she looked away first.
Looked at the screen.
The silence was very loud.
"There it is," Simon said quietly.
"Don't."
"You looked away."
"I'm looking at my work."
"You looked away," he said again, "because you knew if you didn't you were going to give me something you don't want to give me yet."
Yet. The word sat between them.
"You're my boss," she said. Her voice was even. She was proud of that.
"I'm aware."
"You have a wife."
"Also aware."
"Then what the hell are you —"
"I'm sitting in a chair," he said. "I haven't touched you. I haven't asked you for anything. I've just been watching you try not to come apart for the last forty minutes and I have to say —" he paused, and his voice dropped a register, "— it's the most interesting thing I've seen in a long time."
She looked back at him then. Couldn't help it.
"That's a horrible thing to say."
"Is it."
"You're treating this like I'm something to watch."
"You are something to watch." His voice lowered slightly. "Smart girls usually are."
She suddenly had no words. He continued.
"You're sitting there with your legs crossed and your jaw tight and your eyes everywhere except on me and every part of you is trying very hard to look like someone who doesn't want to be looked at, and I can tell you exactly what you're thinking."
"You can't."
"You're thinking," he said, "that if you let yourself want this properly you won't be able to pretend you don't. And that terrifies you. Because you're twenty-two and smart and you know exactly what I am and you want me anyway and you can't make that make sense."
The room was very quiet.
Hazel didn't move. Didn't speak.
Her pulse was in her throat, her wrists, everywhere inconvenient.
"You don't know me," she said finally. Quietly.
"I know you well enough."
"You've known me three months."
"I knew you in the first meeting," he said. "The moment you asked me which part confused me." His eyes moved over her face, unhurried, methodical. "I knew exactly what you were."
"And what's that."
He looked at her.
"Someone who wants to be told what to do," he said. “And hates herself for how much she likes it.”
The blood went to her face so fast it was almost painful. She felt it. He saw it. There was nothing to do about either of those facts.
"Get out," she said.
"Hazel —"
"I mean it. Get out of my —"
"You're not going to finish that sentence with 'desk' because it isn't your desk and we both know what you actually want to say and you won't say it because then I'd know for certain."
She stared at him.
He looked back at her, completely still, completely certain, blue eyes level and unhurried, a man sitting in the ruins of her composure like he'd known all along the walls weren't load-bearing.
She had nothing left to say that wouldn't prove him right.
"Go home, Simon," she said.
He held her gaze for a moment longer than was bearable. Then he stood, unhurried, picked up his jacket. Shrugged it on.
Walked to the lift.
Stopped.
"Hazel."
She didn't look up.
"Next time you walk past my office," he said calmly, "don't bother pretending it's about coffee."
The lift opened. Closed.
She sat very still at her desk in the empty office and stared at the Barrington file and did not move for a long time.
He had won.
Completely. She knew it and he knew it and the worst part was that some part of her had let him.
She closed the laptop.
Gathered her things.
Walked to the stairwell.
--
She took the long way home.
Not past his office this time — past the whole street, down toward the river where the town thinned out and there were no shops, no one she recognised, just the path along the water and the cold and her own footsteps. She walked fast the way she did when she was trying to outpace something internal that had no intention of being outpaced.
It was fine. She was fine.
She got home at eight fifteen. Made toast. Stood at the kitchen counter and ate it without tasting it and looked at the wall and thought about the way he'd said yet. Then thought about how his hands might feel wrapped around her neck. She quickly shook her head and washed the plate.
Checked her phone. Nothing.
She hadn't expected anything. She wasn't waiting for anything. She put the phone face-down on the counter and went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth and looked at herself in the mirror for a moment — just a moment — and then looked away because looking was not helping.
She knew exactly what she was doing.
She was talking herself out of something she hadn't decided to do yet.
At nine she put her coat on.
She told herself she was going for a walk. The night air. She'd been inside all day and the flat was small and she needed to move. This was reasonable. She walked out the door with her hands in her pockets and her jaw set and turned left instead of right, which was not the direction of the river or the high street or anywhere she would plausibly be going for a walk.
She knew his address because the firm's internal directory listed it and she had looked at it once, weeks ago, for no reason she'd named to herself.
Caldwell Road. The good side.
She walked.
She was not going there. She was walking in that direction because it was as good a direction as any and the cold was helping and she would turn around in a minute. She would turn around at the end of the next street. Then the one after. The houses got nicer, older, set back further from the pavement. Parminster at nine on a winter night — quiet, yellow-windowed, the occasional dog walker, nobody who knew her.
She stopped at the end of Caldwell Road.
Stood there for a moment with the cold coming off the pavement in waves.
This is insane, she thought. You don't even like him.
She liked him.
He's married.
She knew that.
He's your boss and he's married and he's been doing this deliberately and you've known that since the first week and if you walk down this road you are exactly the person he thinks you are.
She already was. She'd been that person since the kitchen this morning and probably before.
Her feet moved.
Number fourteen. Bay windows, dark brick, a light on in the ground floor. She stood on the pavement outside and looked at it and felt the last reasonable part of herself make one final attempt.
Knock on this door and you lose.
She had already lost. That was the thing. She'd lost in the office two hours ago and the walk and the toast and the teeth-brushing had just been the time between knowing it and doing something about it. She was cold. She was tired of pretending.
She opened the gate.
Walked up the path.
Knocked.
Six seconds. Maybe seven.
The door opened.
Simon stood in the frame in a grey t-shirt and dark trousers, no jacket, no performance of surprise. He looked at her the way you looked at something you'd been expecting — not urgently, not warmly. Just with the settled attention of a man whose prediction had proved correct.
He said nothing for a moment.
Let her stand there in the cold on his doorstep with nowhere to put herself.
Then, almost gently: "Took you longer than I thought."
She had nothing to say to that.
He stepped back from the door.
And she went in.
The hallway was warm and dimly lit. Simon closed the door behind her with a soft click that sounded final. He didn’t offer her a drink. Didn’t ask why she’d come. He simply looked at her — coat still on, hands shoved deep in her pockets like she might still bolt — and the corner of his mouth twitched in something that wasn’t quite a smile.
“Take your coat off,” he said.
It wasn’t a request. Hazel’s fingers trembled slightly as she unbuttoned it. She hung it on the hook by the door. When she turned back, he was already walking down the hall.
“Kitchen,” he said without looking at her.
She followed.
The kitchen was larger than hers, expensive but impersonal. He leaned against the counter, arms crossed, watching her enter like he was assessing a late report.
Hazel stopped a few feet away. The silence stretched.
“You knew I’d come,” she said. Her voice came out smaller than she wanted.
“I hoped.” He took a slow sip from the glass of whiskey on the island, then set it down. “Hoping and knowing aren’t the same thing. But you’re predictable when you’re wound this tight.”
Heat flooded her face. “Fuck you.”
He laughed once, low. "Isn't that what you're here for?" He pushed off the counter and closed the distance in two unhurried steps. When he stopped, there was still a foot of space, but it felt like nothing.
Without another word he crowded her back until her hips met the edge of the island, caging her in with his body. One hand braced on the counter beside her. The other slid to her jaw, tilting her face up.
“Turn around,” he said quietly.
She did. Hands on the cool countertop, breath already shallow.
Simon pressed up behind her, chest to her back. He leaned in and kissed her neck — slow at first, then open-mouthed, hot and deliberate, lips dragging along the sensitive skin just below her ear. His teeth grazed her pulse point. Hazel’s breath hitched. A soft, helpless moan slipped out of her before she could stop it.
That sound did something to him.
His hand moved lower, slipping under her jumper and camisole, palm flat against her stomach, then pushing inside her trousers and underwear without hesitation. His fingers found her slick and ready. He circled her clit with practiced pressure, then slid two fingers inside her, curling them just right.
Another moan escaped, louder this time, raw with need. Simon kept kissing her neck, sucking lightly, while his fingers worked her steadily — deep, relentless, perfectly aimed. The pleasure built fast and sharp.
“Come on,” he murmured against her skin. “Let me feel it.”
She came with a broken whimper, thighs shaking, clenching around his fingers as the orgasm tore through her. Her knees nearly buckled; only his arm banded around her waist kept her upright.
Simon slowly withdrew his hand. He turned her around to face him.
And for a moment he just looked.
Her lips were swollen and he hadn't even kissed her. Her eyes were glassy, wide, flushed cheeks, parted mouth, hair slightly messy. She looked wrecked and beautiful and far too young for what they were doing.
Something raw and violent surged through him.
He wanted her properly. Not bent over the kitchen counter like a quick, disposable fuck. He wanted her spread out underneath him in his bed, where he could take his time and ruin her completely.
“Fuck this,” he growled, voice thick with pure, unchecked desire.
In one swift motion he bent, hooked an arm under her knees and the other behind her back, and lifted her. Hazel gasped as her feet left the floor. He carried her out of the kitchen and up the stairs like she weighed nothing, stride urgent, almost angry with need.
He kicked the bedroom door open and dropped her onto the wide bed with dark sheets. The lamp was still on, casting warm light over the marital bed that wasn’t supposed to see any of this.
Simon stripped fast — t-shirt yanked over his head, trousers shoved down. Then he was on her, violent and raw, pure desire with no restraint left. He tore the rest of her clothes off, hands rough, mouth claiming. When he pushed inside her in one hard thrust, Hazel cried out in pure bliss, back arching off the mattress.
She was in heaven.
Every brutal snap of his hips felt like worship and punishment at once. He fucked her deep and merciless, one hand fisted in her hair, the other gripping her thigh hard enough to bruise. The bedframe slammed against the wall with every thrust. Sweat slicked their skin. The sounds they made were obscene — skin slapping, her desperate moans, his low growls.
“Fuck, you feel perfect,” he rasped against her mouth, voice no longer controlled. “So tight. So fucking eager. Taking my cock like you were made for it.”
Hazel could only moan in response, nails raking down his back, legs wrapped tight around him. Every thrust sent sparks through her body. She felt claimed, wanted, destroyed in the best way. The power imbalance, the wrongness, the fact that this was his and Kate’s bed — it all made it sharper, hotter. She was lost in it, floating in pure, guilty pleasure.
Simon’s pace turned feral. He hooked her leg higher, driving even deeper. “Look at me,” he ordered. When she did, eyes dazed and shining, he kissed her hard, messy, all teeth and tongue.
“You’re going to come again for me,” he growled. “Right here in my bed. Let me feel how much you needed this.”
She shattered seconds later, crying out his name as the orgasm crashed over her, body clenching around him rhythmically. Simon followed with a guttural groan, burying himself to the hilt as he came hard inside her, hips stuttering with raw intensity.
They stayed locked together, panting, sweat cooling on their skin. The room smelled of sex and his cologne and something faintly like regret that neither of them was ready to name.
Simon finally lifted his head. His eyes were still dark, still hungry, but the violence had softened into something heavier. He brushed damp hair from her forehead, almost gentle now.
“You can stay the night or leave,” he said, voice rough. “Your choice.”
Hazel lay beneath him, body aching deliciously, heart hammering with shame and satisfaction. She was in his marital bed, marked by her married boss, and some treacherous part of her had never felt more alive.
She hated how much she wanted to stay.
She should walk out right now, call a taxi, pretend none of this had happened.
Instead she whispered, barely audible:
“I’m staying.”
Simon’s gaze sharpened. A slow, satisfied smile curved his lips – not the cold one from the office, but something darker, more possessive.
“Good girl,” he murmured.
He rolled them so she was lying on his chest, one of his arms locked around her waist, holding her in place. His other hand stroked lazily down her bare back.
Hazel closed her eyes, pressed her face into the warm skin of his shoulder, and let the exhaustion pull her under. Tomorrow she would hate herself. Tomorrow she would walk into the office early, take the long way past his glass door, and pretend none of this had touched her.
I've started watching Dr. Foster and the acting from everyone, but especially Suranne and Bertie has blown me away. I'll be honest. I only started it so I could thirst over Bertie Carvel, but Simon Foster is so scummy that now I feel as repulsed as Gemma when I look at him.
He's really a piece of shit; sorry, Bertie, but I'm not sure I'll be able to thirst over this one as hard as I do for the other ones. Nah. Just kidding, but in the storylines I'm planning, I'm definitely giving Gemma a nice ending and then Simon Foster can still keep being scummy to the reader insert character...
