CHAPTER ONE: CAUGHT IN ACT
SOPHIA'S POV
Ethan's c**k slammed into me so hard the cheap office desk rattled under my hips, and the only thing I could do was dig my nails into the edge and push back to meet every brutal thrust.
" f**k me, Daddy…" The words slipped out of me in a broken, needy moan, the same filthy plea that always made him growl low in his throat and drive deeper.
One year of marriage, and I still hadn't had enough of that thick, sugary d**k. It filled me the way nothing else ever had. It was hot, relentless, and perfect.
I arched my back hard, offering him more of me, letting him tear me open the way only he knew how. His hands clamped on my hips hard enough to leave bruises I would proudly wear under my clothes the next day, and he f****d me faster, the wet slap of skin on skin drowning out the fluorescent hum of the office lights that somehow still existed at the edges of the dream.
"Sophia." The voice came from somewhere far away, soft and insistent. I ignored it. I was too close. The pressure was coiling tight and low in my belly, that familiar, desperate climb that always left me shaking. I shoved my ass back harder against him, chasing it, needing it.
"Harder… f**k me harder, Ethan—"
"Sophia." The second time, the voice cut through the haze like a knife.
The fantasy shattered around me. My eyes snapped open, and the harsh fluorescent lights of the office stabbed into them. I jerked upright so fast a thin, embarrassing string of spit stretched from my lower lip to the desk blotter.
My cheek was damp in a very humiliating way.
Maya stood over me, eyes wide, arms crossed under her chest.
"You're drooling. Really?"
I dragged the back of my hand across my mouth, heat flooding my face in a hot wave.
Under the desk, my thighs were slick. My panties were ruined, the fabric clinging wetly between my legs. The ache throbbed in time with my heartbeat, sharp and unfinished.
I could still feel the ghost of Ethan's c**k stretching me, the phantom burn of him pounding deep.
"Why the f**k did you wake me?" I muttered, voice rough from sleep and something far more private.
Maya raised one perfectly arched eyebrow. "You're lucky it was me and not the boss. He'd have fired you on the spot. Sleeping on duty is worse than drinking on duty around here, remember?"
I rolled my eyes and sat up straighter, pressing my knees together like that could somehow hide the wetness that had soaked through. "Okay, okay. Thank you for the rescue. Are you satisfied now?"
"Something like that." She didn't look entirely convinced, but she didn't push further.
That was Maya, nosy enough to wake me from what was clearly not an innocent nap, smart enough to stop before she asked what I'd been dreaming about so hard I was leaving evidence on company furniture.
My gaze dropped to the watch on the desk. The leather strap was worn soft from daily wear, the face scratched but still reliable.
It was a second-hand watch. Ethan's anniversary present this year for being such a wonderful husband, or, more accurately, such a thorough husband.
The hands pointed just past twelve. Relief loosened something tight in my chest. I still had time.
I stood, smoothing my skirt with hands that weren't quite steady. The fabric stuck slightly to the backs of my thighs. "I might need you to cover for me again. I have to leave."
"Where?" Maya asked, eyebrows raising softly.
"It's my wedding anniversary," I muttered.
Maya's expression softened a fraction, the usual sharp teasing fading. "Go. I'll handle it. Just don't make a habit of the drooling thing. It's bad for the company's image."
I grabbed the watch, clipped it around my wrist, and bolted.
The hallway blurred past me. Outside, the early afternoon heat pressed against my skin like a second layer of clothing, but all I could think about was getting home, getting to him, getting that d**k inside me so the empty, throbbing ache would finally stop.
My body was still humming with the unfinished fantasy, every step making the wet fabric of my panties shift against me in an almost cruel way.
I stopped at the little lingerie shop two blocks from the office. The window display was cheap and cheerful, lace and ribbons in bright, hopeful colors that somehow still managed to look inviting.
I walked in, the little bell above the door jingling, and pointed at a set on the rack without really looking too closely.
It was black and tiny, the kind that left almost nothing to the imagination, the kind that would make Ethan's eyes go dark the second he saw me in it.
"I'll take this. How much?" I asked, eyebrows raising.
"Five dollars, ma'am," she said.
I paid in cash, the bills soft from being folded too many times in the bottom of my purse.
The plastic bag crinkled in my hand as I walked the rest of the way home. Our place wasn't much of a narrow two-story walk-up in a neighborhood that had seen better decades.
The paint on the exterior stairs peeled in long, curling strips. The hallway always smelled faintly of old cooking oil and someone else's cigarettes.
I climbed the steps two at a time, the lingerie bag swinging against my thigh with every hurried movement.
My pulse was already racing, the anticipation making my breath come shorter.
I reached for the doorknob, already rehearsing the line I would say the second I stepped inside, already imagining the look on his face when he saw the black lingerie.
"Yes, Ethan. I'm all yours." A woman's voice drifted through the thin wood of the door, soft, breathless, and familiar in a way that made my stomach drop so hard I felt lightheaded.
"Yes, Ethan… I'm all yours…" The moan that followed was low and throaty, the kind of sound I made when he was buried to the hilt and grinding just right against that perfect spot inside me.
Then the rhythmic creak of the bed frame followed the same bed we had bought together before our wedding, the same one that still squeaked in that particular way when things got rough.
The wet slap of bodies filled the hallway with the unmistakable sound of my husband f*****g someone else in our bed.
My hand froze on the knob. My heart stopped, then slammed against my ribs so hard I thought I might actually be sick right there in the hallway.
I stood there in the dim, peeling corridor, the cheap plastic bag dangling from my fingers, and listened.
The pace picked up, harder and faster. A sharp, high cry that made my skin crawl, then a long, guttural groan that I knew better than my own name Ethan's release.
The same sound he made when he came inside me, the same sound that usually made me feel claimed and wanted and full.
Silence stretched for a few seconds that felt like hours.
"Same time tomorrow?" The woman's voice came again, soft and satisfied and far too comfortable.
"Always," Ethan answered in the most affectionate way possible.
The door flung open before I could decide whether to run or confront them, before I could even fully process the betrayal unfolding on the other side of the thin wood.
My heart sank even more.
It was Ethan's best friend.