Page 79 of Duplicity

And I’ll damn well take it. I’m paying her for plenty of exclusives. I can still feel that flash of pleasure I got when she confessed that I was the only guy she was fucking, let alone the only guy who could make her come. But for some reason the knowledge that I’m the only one who gets to see her likethis, sleeping and vulnerable and trusting, feels even more precious.

I ease in closer to her, sliding an arm around her waist and tugging her in more flush against me. She shifts a little, snuggling even closer, and my chest tightens in a way that usually only happens when Mark and I are cuddling. I settle her with a whisperedshhand stroke my fingertips lightly down her spine until she stills again, her head tucked in beneath my chin.

As her breathing returns to that slow, steady state I assume is normal for someone sleeping, I lie there, tense and alert. Tense because I don’t want to wake her and I also don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here. Alert because my consciousness has shrunk to this little world under the covers, where my entire focus is on her shallow, even breaths, and the rise and fall of her ribcage, and the sensation of her satin-smooth skin beneath my fingertips, and the way her hair smells when I inhale it and feels when I brush my lips over it.

This is not the way it was supposed to be.

I was supposed to hire a Seraph PA to run my office and ride my dick on demand, both equally competently. Marlowe has upheld her end of the bargain. After all, she nails both sides of the role admirably.I’mthe problem here, the creepy boss snorting his EA’s hair like an addict and holding her while she sleeps instead of fucking me like I’m paying her to.

Let’s revisit that last part.

Holding her while she sleeps.

I don’t do girlfriends, commitment, even regular dating. Marlowe is the person I’ve racked up by far the highest number of orgasms with. I suppose, if I think about it logically, regular fucking would engender some level of… familiarity, for want of a better word.

But it honestly never occurred to me that fucking the same woman day after day would make me wantmore. If anything, I was worried I’d get bored and want to trade her in after a month or two. I never, ever thought to worry that I’d get attached, that I’d want evenings with her. It never struck me that I’d lie here one day and feel grateful to be having an experience with her that feels more intimate than a quick fuck at lunchtime. And I certainly never expected to find myself daydreaming about this very thing happening on a lazy Saturday morning in my bed.

Jesus fuck, no, Brendan!

Intimacy is not a dynamic I’ve ever, ever craved. It’s just not. Why would I want that? My sister may be happy, my brother may have fallen hard for Athena, but I’ve always wanted more. More wealth. More success. More validation. Moreadulation, if I’m honest. Recognition. And all the trappings that come with that. Models on my arm at events. Sports cars. Penthouses. Catamarans. I don’t want to tie myself down, for fuck’s sake.

More accurately, I don’t want towant totie myself down. I have no desire to put limits on my success or my rewards. Because if I limit myself to one woman, no matter how incredible, it’s just a fucking waste. My FOMO will go through the roof. I want to live a big life, a fast life, a life where the pace keeps me on my toes and the prizes get more and more glittering and the steady stream of women hotter and hotter. I want to be untethered. Unencumbered.

Idon’twant to be feeling sick to my stomach because my EA is taking off for two weeks on some fucking civic duty that she’sinsisting on seeing through because she thinks society’s needs are more important than my needs.

I don’t want to be so thoroughly disinterested when I look at any other woman. When I eventhinkabout the parade of willing, gorgeous women I’ll take out on the town when she’s off martyring herself to our judicial system.

I want my mojo back.

I want my self-respect back, for fuck’s sake.

And I’ll get them.

I’m Brendan fucking Sullivan.

Having Marlowe is supposed to make my crazy schedule run more efficiently. I know that. But for now, I’ll just let myself lie here and inhale the honeyed scent of her hair for a few more minutes, and I’ll allow each warm exhale she makes against my chest to bleed into my heart and warm it up, and I’ll try my absolute damnedest to bottle up the way this makes me feel.

God knows, when she’s gone, I’ll need to pull myself the fuck together and get back on that damn horse.

CHAPTER 38

Marlowe

Our bags stand packed and ready in the living room of our flat. I’ve dotted everyiand crossed everytof the endless paperwork I’ve had to complete for this journey Tabs and I are about to undertake. Apparently, what we’re doing is known as “medical tourism”. I’m pretty sure that term is better suited to jetting off to Turkey for some cheap boobs than travelling across the Atlantic to give my daughter her best chance of survival, but whatever.

And today is my last day of work before my so-called jury duty. We fly tomorrow, and Elaine, who is now fully briefed on my darkest secrets, has vowed to hold the fort for Brendan.

If I’m honest, I’m looking forward to putting some distance between me and him. The vibe’s been weird this week, to say the least. I was so, so mortified when I woke up in his arms the other day. He had to wake me—we’d been lying there for an hour, apparently. He forked out all that money on a suite and it was wasted because I was too busy being unconscious to do my job properly. The job he pays me very well to do.

I will say it was the best (and most badly needed) nap of my life, and waking up in the warm, hairy, muscular cradle of Brendan’s body was fairly spectacular, too. As soon as I hadmy wits about me, I started apologising profusely and kind of grabbed his dick, but he just laughed very sweetly and said he considered napping an even better use of time and money than sex.

He was definitely only saying it to be nice, but he did prise my fingers off his dick before he pulled me back into his arms and cuddled me some more. I’m pretty sure he sniffed my hair, too.

If napping with my boss-with-benefits is a red flag on every level, then his behaviour since then has been even more of a red flag. Once we left that suite behind us, the caring, cuddly Brendan I’d woken up with disappeared. In his place, I’ve had to deal with childish, cocky, mercurial, alpha-hole Brendan, who’s more interested in throwing his weight around and getting quick fucks than anything approaching the intimacy we’ve enjoyed in recent weeks.

Yesterday morning he called me into his office, told me to lock the door, pushed his chair away from his desk and pulled out his dick. As soon as I’d made him come with my mouth, he uttered the immortal words,Go on. Clear off now.The day before that, he fucked me wordlessly over his desk while he was muted on a conference call, something that was indescribably hot and yet left me feeling grimy. Especially because he pulled out, wandered off to deal with the condom, and then threw himself on the sofa to continue the call, leaving me bent over and exposed.

While this kind of treatment is nothing worse than I expected when I took this job, it’s a far cry from the treatment he gave me in his bed and in that hotel suite, and that makes it a million times worse.

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