The door slammed behind me with more force than strictly necessary, which was fitting, because nothing about the last ten minutes had been "strictly necessary" and yet here we were.
I paced my room like a caged animal who'd just realized the bars were decorative. Four steps to the window. Four steps back. Repeat.
My heart pounded against my ribs like it was trying to escape, and honestly? I couldn't blame it. I wanted to escape too.
My lips still burned with the taste of her.
My hands still remembered the curve of her hips, the way her body had pressed against mine, the softness of her skin beneath my fingers.
The sounds she'd made when I pinned her to that wall—breathy little gasps that would haunt me until I died.
"Get it together," I muttered to myself. "She's your brother's wife."
Excellent point, brain. Very helpful. Perhaps you could have mentioned that before I had my tongue down her throat and my hand up her skirt.
I needed to relieve this tension. Immediately. Before I did something catastrophically stupid. Something more catastrophically stupid, anyway, which was a high bar I'd apparently cleared with Olympic grace.
The shower was the obvious solution.
I stripped mechanically, stepping under the spray before the water had even warmed, hoping the shock of cold would reset my brain. It didn't.
If anything, the solitude made things worse—steam and privacy giving my treacherous mind permission to wander exactly where it shouldn't.
I braced one hand against the tile and surrendered to the inevitable.
My other hand wrapped around my cock, still achingly hard, still throbbing with want, and I stroked myself to thoughts of Kitty. Imagining what would have happened if I hadn't stopped.
If I'd lifted her onto the counter instead of pulling away. If I'd pushed her underwear aside and buried myself inside her while she moaned my name.
I imagined her legs wrapped around my waist. Her nails raking down my back. The way she'd feel, tight and hot and perfect, as I thrust into her against the kitchen wall where anyone could have walked in.
"Fuck," I groaned, stroking faster, chasing release that felt like surrender.
I imagined her coming apart around me. Imagined swallowing her cries with my mouth. Imagined…
I came hard, pleasure crashing through me in waves that did nothing to ease the ache in my chest. If anything, the shame hit harder than the orgasm, settling over me before the aftershocks even faded.
History repeating.
The thought dragged up memories I'd spent seven years trying to bury. Memories that proved, definitively, that I was exactly the monster I'd always suspected myself to be.
Seven years ago
I was late. Of course I was late—some crisis with the Shanghai accounts had demanded my attention until the last possible second.
I'd missed the ceremony entirely. The speeches, the cap-tossing, the proud photographs. Father would be disappointed.
Father was always disappointed.
I checked my phone while navigating the parking lot, hoping Damon wasn't furious.
But the messages told a different story—my little brother was clearly drunk and deliriously happy, words misspelled in that specific way that meant at least four beers.
"BROOO she's HERE"
"Steph is HERE dude"
"Tonight's the night I can FEEL it"
"I'm gonna kiss her bro I swear"
"Wish me luck!!!"
I smiled despite myself, typing back a thumbs-up emoji. Damon had been mooning over this Steph girl for months, maybe longer, talking about her like she'd personally hung the moon just for him.
It was sweet, in an innocent, puppyish way.
Damon might be hopeless at business, might never amount to anything in a boardroom, but I'd always believed he was capable of building something our father never could.
A loving family. A real connection. The kind of happiness that didn't show up on quarterly reports.
I paused outside the venue, pulling out a cigarette. I'd go find Damon in a minute, congratulate him properly. But first—nicotine. It had been a brutal week.
I was halfway through my cigarette when she approached.
A pretty blonde, all curves and confidence, sauntering over like she owned the parking lot and everything in it.
Her dress was too short, her smile too knowing, and she was looking at me like I was something she wanted to unwrap.
"Got a spare cigarette?"
I raised an eyebrow, keeping my expression carefully neutral. "You eighteen?"
She laughed—bright and musical. "Even a little older, actually. Promise."
I handed her a cigarette, lit it for her, and somehow that small exchange turned into conversation.
She's charming. Forward. Flirtatious in a way that's refreshingly direct after weeks of boardroom politics and carefully coded corporate speak.
I surprisingly find myself actually enjoying talking to her. Not for anything serious, God no, I don’t have time for relationships—but for a quick fling? After the week he's had?
A little release wouldn't hurt.
We end up in my car in an empty parking lot, windows already fogging from our heavy breathing. She climbs into my lap in the driver's seat, hiking her dress up around her waist, and I stop thinking entirely.
I groan when she sinks down onto me, tight and warm and exactly what I need after the week from hell. My hands find her thighs, gripping hard enough to leave marks as she sets a rhythm that has me seeing stars.
She's good at this—confident, knowing exactly how to roll her hips to make me grunt against her neck. I bury my face in her blonde hair, chasing the release building at the base of my spine, grateful for the anonymity of it all.
No names, no expectations, just a pretty stranger helping me forget my own name in the cramped front seat of my sedan.
The door wrenched open.
Damon stood there, face crumpling in real-time. Shock. Recognition. Devastation. All of it cycling through his expression in the span of a heartbeat before he turned and ran.
‘Shit.” I scrambled to dress, horrified—my little brother had just witnessed me fucking some random girl, how traumatic…
The blonde slipped me her number with a satisfied smile. "I'm Stephanie, by the way."
My blood turned to ice. "Are you... Damon's classmate?"
"Mmhmm." She fixed her lipstick in my rearview mirror. "He's sweet."
I stood in that parking lot for twenty minutes afterward, her number crumpled in my fist, realizing with devastating clarity that I'd just fucked the girl my little brother had been in love with for months.
Present day
The bathroom door burst open without warning.
"Jesus Christ, Damon!" I grabbed for a towel, barely managing to cover myself. "Do you not understand the concept of knocking?"
"Do you not understand the concept of locking a door?" He leaned against the doorframe, completely unbothered by my near-nudity. "Dad wants to know about that business trip. Europe. Yes or no?"
The trip. Months abroad, expanding the European division. Far away from this house. Far away from Kitty and the disaster I was about to repeat.
"Yes." The word came out before I'd fully decided. "Tell him yes."
Damon's eyebrow rose slightly, but he didn't question it. He never questioned my decisions—just judged them silently, which was somehow worse.
Before he could leave, something soft and stupid overcame me. "Hey. Are you doing okay? With… everything? With Kitty?"
Damon stared at me like I'd grown a second head. The silence stretched painfully.
"You're so fucking weird." And he was gone.
I exhaled slowly, staring at my reflection in the fogged mirror. The man looking back at me was a mess—hair dripping, eyes haunted, guilt written across every feature.
Distance was good. Distance was the only thing keeping me from destroying my brother twice.