Audacity: Chapter 22

‘Have a seat. There’s something I want to show you.’

I pat the edge of my desk, just next to me, scooting out my chair as I do. Athena laughs as she rounds the desk.

‘Again?’

I shake my head, unable to stop my grin. The young woman in front of me is flawless in a fine black sweater, a slim-fitting black leather skirt that hugs her hips enticingly, and what can only be called fuck-me boots. She’s always the epitome of class—she’s probably the best-dressed woman in the entire firm—so no one would believe I had that shiny ponytail wrapped around my fist this morning as she sucked my cock under this very desk.

Nobody but me, that is, and I’ll never forget it.

‘Something else,’ I tell her as she perches elegantly on the edge, crossing her ankles. I hand her a large cream envelope with the Alchemy crest embossed in the corner. ‘Take a look at this.’

This is an invitation, issued only to a small subset of Alchemy members, bearing a moody photograph of an ancient mist-shrouded castle and debossed with two words in gold foil:

PRIMA NOCTA.

As she turns it over and slides out the thick piece of card, I watch her intently for a reaction. She’s still pretty implacable—when I don’t have her on the brink of orgasm, that is—but I’m getting to know her tells, and I’m dying to see what she thinks of this invitation.

Since she recounted that absolutely filthy tale a couple of weeks ago about her birthday treat, if you can call it that, from her old boss, I’ve been in something akin to emotional turmoil. Sex with Athena is gratifying beyond anything I could have imagined, and she seems to enjoy it, too. But I knew when I hired her that she had what appeared to this former priest to be perilous appetites, and it seems I’m terrified that I alone won’t satisfy her as much as she needs and deserves.

I’m terrified she’ll walk.

It’s true that she’s got stuck into her work here with the skill and low-level aggression I’d expected, and she’s mentioned a few times that she’s far happier here than she was in her former position. It seems inconceivable that the steady string of orgasms I deliver to her on a daily basis are anything but real, but I have to remember that she’s exceptionally good at what she does. If she wasn’t satisfied, I wouldn’t necessarily know.

The safest option is to keep up with her. To anticipate those very particular needs she has, and to fulfil them.

It may be a straightforward strategy, but it’s bloody terrifying.

So it’s with some wariness that I watch her now, hoping I haven’t misjudged this situation.

She takes the invitation in with narrowed eyes. It arrived earlier by courier, but Cal, one of Alchemy’s cofounders and their head of events, mentioned it to me in passing a few days ago when I was at the club. (It was a chaste evening. Drinks with the boys only. I have absolutely no need for The Playroom these days.)

‘Prima Nocta,’ she murmurs. ‘This is an event they’re doing?’

‘Yeah. They’ve hired out some Norman castle in Essex for it. It’s their first big themed popup in the UK—sounds like it’ll be very Game of Thrones.’ It also comes with a price tag that would cover a family home in most parts of the country, but I’m not about to tell her that. ‘Are you familiar with the concept?’

She looks up then, and the dazzling smile she shoots me leaves me in no doubt at all as to her views on the topic.

‘Jus primae noctis is the correct term,’ she says, and I nod.

‘The law of the first night. Got it.’

She’s still smiling. ‘The French call it le droit du seigneur. The right of the lord. I’ve always found that hot as fuck.’

‘Tell me about it,’ I say. The small amount of googling I’ve done has made me seriously uncomfortable, but this isn’t about me.

‘Well, there’s absolutely no historical evidence that it was an actual thing, but it’s amazing how much it’s come up in different cultures, all the way from ancient times to medieval. The Irish have mentions of it, the French, the Chinese, the Ancient Greeks, Gilgamesh—even the Holy Roman Empire.’

I’m unsure whether to be impressed by Athena’s encyclopaedic knowledge or deeply unsettled by her familiarity with this kinky rabbit hole. ‘Go on. Can I touch you?’

She frowns. ‘Of course.’

Every time I want to lay a finger on her, I ask her first.

Every time, she reminds me I can do what I like.

I’ll never stop asking.

I slide my hand under the hem of her skirt and stroke her knee through the fine nylon of her stockings. ‘Tell me what turns you on about it, and then I’ll tell you what they’ve got planned.’

Her face lights up like a child at Christmas. ‘The bare bones of it are pretty horrific, actually—it supposedly gave kings or overlords the right to bed the brides of their serfs on their wedding nights, or whichever ones they fancied the look of, anyway.’

‘And that does it for you.’ It’s not a question.

She sinks her teeth into her full, pink bottom lip before answering. ‘The fantasy version does, anyway. The idea that I’m some innocent virgin who has no clue about sex and is supposed to marry some useless serf, and then he takes me to his lord’s castle, but the lord drags me off and ravages me however the fuck he wants, and he just takes and takes because it’s his feudal right, and shows me what it can really be like? My God, it’s the dream.’ She actually flushes, right there on my desk, and I can see what a powerful fantasy this is for her.

Maybe, just maybe, this is something I can give her.

Something that her gang-banging, sex-toy-toting bosses of old can’t.

I slide my hand up her inner thigh. I have to say, she paints a far more alluring picture of the whole thing than that horrifying Wikipedia page did. With a few effortless brushstrokes, she’s painted a picture I didn’t know to want until now: me in my castle, in my robes and my furs, and Athena, jarringly lovely, in a white gown that speaks of her purity and on the arm of another man who’s desperately in love with her, mine to take and plunder and shatter so thoroughly that her poor, toothless husband will never, ever be able to satisfy her.

‘It can be a reality, for one night.’ My fingertips find the lace top of her stocking and she shifts forward, opening her legs as much as she can, which is not very far at all.

Her eyelids drift closed, eyelashes fluttering. Her voice, when she speaks, is breathy. ‘Tell me.’

I’m about to tell her. In fact, I’m about to check how wet this conversation already has her before taking it any further, but a movement in front of me catches my eye.

Fuck’s sake.

It’s my fucking brother.

I hastily remove my hand from between Athena’s legs and grab the invitation. Luckily, she’s facing away from the open door and her stance, although perhaps a little familiar, doesn’t suggest that she’s doing anything more than perching on her boss’s desk, having a catch up. I stuff the invitation under a folder on my desk. That is most definitely not for my brother’s eyes.

He breezes through Athena’s antechamber and into my office, coat slung over his arm. He looks far too cheery and smooth as fuck, and I see the moment his eyes alight with interest on the back of her head. I also clock the moment she turns to see who’s interrupted us and Brendan’s face goes from curious to downright feral in half a second.

Again, fuck.

‘Hi,’ I say curtly, but he’s not looking at me.

Of course he’s not.

‘You must be Athena,’ he says, flinging his coat unceremoniously on the sofa and not bothering to disguise the beeline he’s making for her. My eyes meet hers in a silent moment of resignation—my fingers are still warm from her skin and were so close to being wet—before she pushes herself off the desk and stands to greet him.

‘How do you do?’ she asks, extending her hand. I watch her for any sign that she’s falling prey to his infamous charms. Our mother may insist, with the hopeless bias that mothers have, that both her sons are equally good-looking, but there’s no denying that my brother has had far more practice over the past decade of honing his skills—both in bed and out of it.

‘I’m doing a lot better now, I can tell you that much,’ he says, fixing that easy grin of his on her.

Nothing. I see nothing on her face but polite implacability. My little ice queen isn’t giving him an inch. Perhaps it’s because she’s in her place of work or perhaps because, when you look like Athena, having men hit on you is the most banal of occurrences. I don’t really care. All I know is that she’s categorically not letting him see the version of herself who whispered tell me just now as she widened her legs to accommodate my searching fingers.

This kind of possessiveness is puerile in the extreme; I know that.

I couldn’t give a flying fuck.

‘So,’ Brendan presses on, ‘is this one treating you well?’ He slides his hands in his pockets as he continues to take her in.

I know what he can see.

I know all too well.

Chasing hot women is one of my brother’s favourite pastimes, but Athena’s beauty isn’t just “hot”. It’s astonishing. It’s the kind of beauty that inspires paintings and poetry and could ruin a man forever.

‘He’s treating me very well indeed, thank you,’ she tells him. Her tone is blandly polite, but the quick flick of her eyes to me is all the filthy subtext I need from her. I suppress a grin.

‘Glad to hear it.’ Bren is a dog with a bone. ‘Hey—would you like to go for a drink sometime?’ He shoots her what I know he considers to be his killer smile.

Her reply is like whiplash. ‘I would not. Gabe, I’m ready to head out when you are.’

If I wasn’t so pissed off with my brother, I’d be struggling to keep a straight face. It’s so fucking typical of him to waltz in here and proposition my employee, even if he couldn’t possibly know the details of our relationship. But she showed him with that briskly schoolmarmish putdown.

I think I’m in love.

‘Bren, stop harassing my assistant. Let’s head over, shall we?’ I push myself abruptly up from my chair. ‘Athena, take the time you need.’

This evening is the opening of a new exhibition at the Royal Academy: Eden’s Echo, a horticultural art exhibition. Bren and I are representing the Sullivan family, which is a longtime patron of the RA, and apparently Athena is also going along with a friend who works there.

‘I’m all good,’ she says. ‘Just let me grab my bag.’

She strides coolly across the room and discreetly shuts the door in the middle of the glass wall that separates my office from hers. We both watch her go.

Brendan exhales theatrically and shakes out his hand as if he’s been burnt. ‘Jesus fuck. You sneaky, sneaky bastard. You’d better put a ring on that, or at the very least, fuck her. She’s insane.’

I shake my head in a show of disapproval as I walk around him to follow Athena. There’s no upside to responding to those lewd comments.

Especially given how on the nose they are.