My hand was still wrapped around Rachel's wrist when I pulled her through the bedroom door. The suite smelled of hotel linen spray and something floral I couldn't name, the kind of scent that gets sprayed into the air of a room nobody's actually lived in yet. The door swung shut behind us, not quite latching, leaving a sliver of light from the hallway outside.

Tommy's words were still hanging in the air between us. The confession he'd made in front of his own wife, his voice cracking halfway through it like a boy caught stealing.

I've been slipping her contraceptives. Every time you creampie her. To keep her from bearing your child.

My grip tightened on Rachel's wrist. She didn't pull away. She just looked up at me, her blue eyes wide in the dim light, her freckles standing out against the flush on her cheeks. She was still wearing her dress from the reception, a pale blue thing that fell just past her knees, and beneath it her stomach was flat. Flat. While Kara stood at the altar six months pregnant, while Ellie and Gina carried my children in their swelling bellies, Rachel's body had stayed untouched. And I'd never once thought to ask why.

"Xavier—" she started.

"Don't." My voice came out rough, scraped. "Not yet."

I heard Tommy behind me, the soft shuffle of his shoes on the carpet as he followed us in. I didn't turn around. I kept my eyes on Rachel, on the way her chest rose and fell under the thin fabric of her dress, on the pulse beating at the base of her throat.

"You knew," I said. It wasn't a question.

Her lips parted. Closed. Opened again. "I didn't know. Not until tonight. I thought—" She shook her head, a sharp little motion. "I thought something was wrong with me. With us. I've been trying, Xavier. Every month, I've been hoping—"

"And he was feeding you pills the whole time."

Her chin trembled. "Yes."

The sound that came out of me wasn't quite a laugh. It was something uglier, something that had been building in my chest since the moment Tommy opened his mouth. Six years. Six years I'd been coming to these houses, eating at these tables, fucking these women with their husbands' blessing or their silence or their desperate, aching need to watch. And Tommy, the quiet one, the worrier, the man who brought the low-stakes suggestion every year to keep things civil—he'd been playing a longer game than any of us.

My free hand came up and found Rachel's stomach. Flat under my palm. Empty. The heat of her skin through the dress fabric did nothing to cool the anger burning through me.

"Take it off," I said.

She blinked. "What?"

"The dress. Take it off."

For a second, she just stared at me. Then something shifted in her eyes—a flicker of understanding, of relief, of hunger—and her hands went to the hem of her dress. She pulled it up over her head in one smooth motion, letting it fall to the floor in a pool of pale blue silk.

She wasn't wearing a bra. Her breasts were small and firm, her nipples already hard. Her panties were plain white cotton, the kind you'd buy in a three-pack, and I could see the damp spot already spreading at the crotch.

"Turn around," I said. "Face the bed."

She turned. The mattress sighed under her hands as she braced herself on the edge, her back arching, her ass lifting toward me. The white cotton stretched taut across her skin, and I could smell her—that warm, musky scent of a woman who's been wet and waiting for a long time.

I heard Tommy move again, closer this time. I didn't look at him. I kept my eyes on Rachel, on the curve of her spine, on the way her fingers gripped the sheets.

"Tommy," I said, and my voice was flat, final. "You're going to watch. You're going to watch me fuck your wife, and you're going to remember every second of it. And when I'm done, you're going to tell me why I shouldn't take her somewhere you'll never find her."

He didn't answer. I heard him settle into the armchair by the window, the old springs creaking under his weight. I heard the soft, mechanical sound of his zipper going down.

I hadn't given him permission. I hadn't even looked at him. But I heard it, and I let it happen, because some part of me wanted him to watch. Wanted him to see exactly what he'd been trying to prevent.

My hands went to my belt. The wedding suit was still on—jacket open, tie loosened, the white shirt wrinkled from the ceremony and the reception and the hours in between. I unbuckled, unzipped, shoved my trousers down just enough to free my cock. It was already hard, already aching, the anger and the heat and the smell of her all tangled up in my gut.

I stepped forward and hooked my fingers into the waistband of her panties. Pulled them down. They caught on her thighs for a second before falling to the floor, and she gasped as the cool air hit her bare skin.

She was soaked. Her cunt glistened in the dim light, slick and pink and swollen, and I could see her clit peeking out from its hood, already engorged. I ran two fingers through her folds, slow, deliberate, and she whimpered, her hips pushing back against my hand.

"Please," she breathed.

"Please what?"

"Please fuck me. Xavier, please—"

I didn't make her beg longer. The anger was still burning, but it had twisted into something else now, something that needed to be buried inside her. I gripped her hips with both hands, lined myself up, and pushed.

She was tight. So fucking tight, her cunt clenching around me as I sank in inch by inch, and I had to stop for a second, my forehead dropping between her shoulder blades, just to breathe. She was so wet, though—slick and hot and welcoming, her body opening for me like it had been waiting for this, like it had been waiting for months of pills and lies and quiet desperation to end.

"Fuck," I groaned, and it came out almost angry.

"Yes," she gasped. "Yes, Xavier, please—"

I pulled out until just the head was inside her, then slammed back in. Hard. The sound of it echoed in the room, skin on skin, and she cried out, her fingers tearing at the sheets.

"Tell me," I said, fucking her in short, brutal strokes. "Tell me you want this."

"I want it. I want you." Her voice broke. "I've wanted you since the game. Since that night. I wanted you to fill me, Xavier, I wanted—"

"He didn't let you."

"No." The word came out on a sob. "No, he didn't."

I looked over my shoulder. Tommy was in the armchair, his cock in his hand, stroking himself in a slow, absent rhythm. His eyes were wide behind his glasses, fixed on the point where I disappeared inside his wife, and there was something on his face I couldn't quite name—shame, yes, but something else too. Something ravenous.

I turned back to Rachel. I found her clit with my thumb and pressed, hard, and she bucked against me, a sharp cry tearing out of her throat.

"Look at him," I said, my voice low in her ear. "Look at your husband watching me fuck you."

Her head turned. I saw her eyes find him, saw the way her whole body tensed at the sight of him jerking off in the chair.

"He's going to come," I said. "He's going to come watching me fuck you, and he's going to know that he did this. That he made this happen."

"Xavier—"

"Shut up." I drove into her harder, my fingers digging into her hips hard enough to bruise. "You're mine now. Do you understand? You've always been mine. Since that night, since the first time I bent you over that couch, you've been mine. And he—" I jerked my chin toward Tommy, "—he tried to take that from me."

I felt her cunt clench around me, a hot, pulsing grip that almost undid me. She was close. I could feel it in the way her thighs trembled, in the way her breathing had gone shallow and ragged.

"I'm going to come inside you," I said. "I'm going to fill you up, and this time, there's no pill. This time, you're going to take it, and you're going to get pregnant, and he's going to watch that happen too."

She made a sound—half moan, half sob—and her hips started moving against me, meeting my thrusts, chasing it.

Behind me, I heard Tommy's breathing quicken. I heard the wet, rhythmic sound of his hand on his cock, faster now, desperate.

"Come," I said, not to him. To her. "Come on my cock, Rachel. Do it."

She shattered. I felt it happen—her whole body seizing, her cunt clenching around me in wave after wave of heat, her scream swallowed by the pillow she'd buried her face in. And I kept fucking her through it, kept driving into her as she shook and trembled and came apart beneath me, because I wasn't done. I wasn't nearly done.

And then I heard Tommy.

A strangled, helpless sound, torn out of him against his will. I looked back in time to see him arching in the chair, his cock pulsing in his fist, ropes of cum spattering across his stomach and his shirt. His eyes were squeezed shut, his mouth open, and he came and came and came, while I was still buried deep inside his wife.

I didn't stop. I didn't slow down. The sight of him—spent and shaking and utterly undone—only made me drive deeper into Rachel, harder, my own release building at the base of my spine like a fire.

Rachel was still gasping, still trembling, her cunt still fluttering around me. She turned her head to look at me, and there was something in her eyes I hadn't seen before. Something raw and broken and utterly open.

"Xavier," she whispered. "He's crying."

I looked at Tommy. His glasses were askew, and there were tears running down his face, cutting tracks through the flush on his cheeks. He wasn't making a sound. He was just sitting there, his softening cock still in his hand, his cum cooling on his stomach, crying.

I didn't answer her. I couldn't. All I could do was keep fucking her, keep driving into her, my own release building and building until there was nothing else in the world but the heat of her cunt and the sight of her husband weeping at the foot of the bed.

"I'm going to come," I gritted out. "I'm going to fill you up, Rachel. I'm going to—"

"Do it," she begged. "Please, Xavier, do it, I want it, I want—"

I came. Deep inside her, my cock pulsing, my cum flooding into her in hot, thick waves. I held her hips so hard my fingers went white, and I poured everything I had into her, every ounce of rage and want and six years of Sunday dinners and stolen looks and quiet, aching need.

She moaned as she felt it, a long, shuddering sound that vibrated through her whole body. Her cunt milked me, clenching and releasing, drawing out every last drop, and I stayed buried inside her until I was completely empty.

Then I pulled out.

The sound it made—wet, obscene—seemed to hang in the air. My cum leaked out of her, thick and white, running down the inside of her thigh. She stayed where she was, bent over the bed, her forehead pressed to the sheets, her body still trembling with aftershocks.

I looked at Tommy. He hadn't moved. He was still sitting in the chair, tears still running down his face, his eyes fixed on his wife, on the evidence of what I'd done dripping down her leg.

And I felt nothing for him. Not pity, not anger, not anything. He'd made his choice, six years of choices, and now he was watching the consequence of them painted on his wife's thighs.

I tucked myself back into my trousers, not bothering to do up the belt. I crossed to Rachel, and she looked up at me, her blue eyes hazy and dazed, her lips parted.

I put my hand on her flat stomach. Still flat. But not for long.

"Meals at my place," I said, my voice flat and final. "Every day. Until you're pregnant."

She stared at me. Then, slowly, she nodded.

Behind me, Tommy made a sound. A small, broken thing, like a wounded animal. I didn't turn around.

I was already thinking about the second round building in my jaw, about the words still waiting behind my teeth, about the way Rachel's eyes had looked when she'd said his name.

I wasn't done. Not by a long shot.