Audacity: Chapter 41

The birthday “dinner” I promised Athena is, in fact, an oversized, over-engineered grazing platter in the splendid isolation of the spa at the Lanesborough Hotel on Hyde Park Corner, which I’ve rented out for the evening.

While I as good as knew she wouldn’t be in a fit state to endure some formal, public meal, I also knew I didn’t want her going home alone in whatever state of subspace or overwhelm she was bound to find herself in. This tranquil space strikes the balance, I hope, between privacy and indulgence.

I managed to get her dressed and back down to my office (via the fire escape stairs, so nobody would spot her smudged makeup or mussed hair or borderline drunk smile) before grabbing our things and bundling her into a cab.

The benefits of having exclusive access to a spa are many, and they most definitely include the prospect of naked swimming in the beautiful pool later, if she’s up to it and not too sore, but they also include the ability for me to accompany her to the women’s changing rooms, help her strip again, and wrap her up in a soft white robe.

She’s slowly come back into her body over the past hour, and it seems that working her way through her body weight in brie and charcuterie, figs and fennel-seed-encrusted breadsticks, is helping. After all, it was a serious workout she had back in that meeting room.

We’ve dragged two white loungers together and are lolling on them in our robes as we graze and drink a lovely crisp Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. I’m making sure she’s mainlining water, too, and she has an ice pack wrapped in a towel tucked under her poor, swollen pussy.

She’s bent over the grazing platter, industriously layering ingredients. ‘Here. Try this.’ She holds a morsel up to my mouth, feeding it to me when I open for her, her fingertips brushing my lips.

This is a perfect little package of pecorino drizzled with honey, layered with a segment of fig and wrapped in prosciutto. I groan with pleasure and she smiles at me, pleased.

‘Isn’t it incredible?’

‘Incredible,’ I murmur, looking at her mouth. She removed what was left of her makeup in the changing room, but her face still bears the glow, the flush, of all those orgasms. Her hair, now loose of its bouncy ponytail, cascades over her robed shoulders in big curls. She looks very young and terrifyingly beautiful, and I’m incapable of not staring.

‘I’m okay,’ she says, reading my stare as concern. ‘Honestly, I’m a pro.’

I frown. ‘Athena, regardless of what terminology you choose to use, that was a lot for anyone. You’re only human. Are you sure it wasn’t too much?’

She leans in for a kiss, and I oblige.

‘It was perfect. Perfect. And the best thing was that I never, ever saw it coming, you devious little bastard.’

I grin, childishly pleased that my diabolical plan worked. ‘Really?’

‘Really.’ She puts her hand on my thigh, stroking the hairs visible where my robe has fallen open. ‘And I was much more worried about you in there. How are you doing? How did you find it?’

It’s impossible to put into words how I found it. I had grave, grave misgivings beforehand, both that Athena would object to being blindsided in such depraved style and that I would be remotely capable of surviving watching her fuck other men in front of me. Contrary to the scenes some of her former employers delighted in roping her into—pun intended—this was very much something for her. A gift for her.

But amid the depravity and the sinning and the initial rude shock of seeing so many dicks and watching them plough into my assistant, watching those men touch my assistant, came a cocktail of emotions so heady that the only ones I could truly name were jealousy and arousal, the former most definitely igniting the latter.

‘I was fine,’ I bluster now. ‘I knew what I was getting into.’

‘Did you really?’ she presses, and I chuckle.

‘Nope. No, I had no fucking clue. All I knew was that I had to beat the sex toy birthday you told me about.’

She sidles in closer and lays her head on my shoulder. I tilt my face so I can rest my jaw against those silky tresses.

‘Is that what it was about? Did you feel obliged to pull something bigger out of the hat for me? Because if you did, I hate that.’

A question like that deserves a thoughtful answer. Any question from her deserves a thoughtful answer.

‘No. It wasn’t about one-upmanship—at least, I don’t think so. But when you told me about that, you were so fucking turned on just recounting it.’ I pause. ‘I’ve been very conscious that the things I do with you are relatively vanilla compared to what you’re used to, and that you clearly have an appetite for pushing the envelope. I’m no Anton Wolff—I’m well aware of that.’

She sits upright and twists her body so she can look me in the eye, her expression somewhere between distressed and incensed. ‘No, not at all! There was nothing vanilla about Prima Nocta, was there?’

I smile, both at her righteous outrage and at the memory of that evening. Of fucking her like a feudal overlord in front of a roaring fire. I let myself stroke her cheek with my thumb. ‘No, there was nothing remotely vanilla about that.’

‘Gabe.’ Her eyes frantically search my face. ‘I don’t want Anton Wolff, or any facsimile of him. I’m here for you and what you want. You are a king among men, and everything we do is perfect. You don’t ever, ever have to prove yourself to me. Surely you can see how affected I am every time we’re together.’

‘I know, and I can, very much so, and I appreciate that. I just wanted to see…’ I huff out a breath. It’s harder than I imagined to put my emotions, my motivations, into words. ‘I wanted to see if I could set something up that would give you a memory that, when someone asked you about it years later, would have you igniting into flames again.’

Her smile is seductive, but it’s genuine. ‘Well, mission accomplished.’ It grows more mischievous. ‘What did you think, really?’

I consider, letting my hand roam over her jaw, down her neck, and through the astonishing silken mass of her hair. ‘It was like thinking you know someone and then finding out that they can, I dunno, fly. Or perform aerial trapeze, or speak Japanese.’

She bursts out laughing, but I push through, struggling to articulate as I go. ‘It was astounding, watching you perform. You were in your element. Think about it—all those guys, and you were commanding the room. They all wanted you so badly, and you had them wrapped around your little finger. You won’t be the only person getting off on that memory for years to come, and I hate that—but I kind of love it, too.’

She leans in as if to kiss me again, stopping when her forehead touches mine. ‘Spoken like a true Alchemy member. It’s weird—I felt the same. I fucking loved it, don’t get me wrong. But the more it went on, the more desperate I got to land on your lap, and when I did, it felt like I’d come home.’

I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, a torrent of emotion hitting me at her simple confession.

Nothing about this feels transactional.

Nothing about us feels like anything other than an organic, loving relationship.

I’ve always hoped she’d enjoy this strange, unique role she plays in my life, but homecoming is not how you describe fucking a boss you’re fond of.

She has a mark on her shoulder. A bite mark. I stroke the skin where her robe has slipped off and exposed it. I fucking hate that one of those dickheads felt he had the right to leave his mark on her.

But it’s her birthday. This is not a time for getting heavy. It’s a time for ensuring that she feels pampered and appreciated and adored—and valued. I reach down the side of my lounger and pull up a gift box.

‘I got you something else.’

She stares down at it. ‘I think you got me quite enough, didn’t you?’

‘That one was for your body.’ I pause. ‘This one is for your mind.’

She takes the lid off the box and pulls off the layer of tissue covering her gift. I hold my breath as she carefully lifts out the book inside. It’s no ordinary book, but a beautifully bound early Victorian edition of Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius with the original Latin and its English translation transcribed next to each other. Its jacket is still wrapped in protective cellophane in a way that allows the book to be opened, and she blows out a breath as she does.

‘Oh my God. Oh, Gabe.’

I smile down at her. ‘I thought about getting you a Bible or a Book of Hours, but I decided this would get more use.’

‘Damn right. It’s so beautiful.’ She thumbs reverently through the pages, pulling out a plain notecard. On it, I’ve written the following:

Non est ad astra mollis e terris via

Gabe

She smiles fondly at my use of one of Seneca’s most famous quotes: There is no easy way from the earth to the stars. It comes not from these letters but from his play, Hercules.

‘Is this your way of saying that dirty little sinners like me won’t make it to heaven?’

‘Obviously,’ I deadpan. The truth is that there are myriad layers of meaning behind these much-debated words. Perhaps Seneca was talking about man’s ability to self-actualise. To self-improve. Perhaps it had a metaphysical meaning, as Athena just suggested. Perhaps it was a commentary on social mobility. We’ll never fully know.

But it struck me, as I mused on the right words to tell her how I felt on her birthday without scaring her off, that Seneca could have been commenting directly on our relationship. A contract like ours is as base and transactional and earthly as it’s possible to conceive of—in theory, anyway.

But look at us.

The way I see it, we could belong among the stars together if she had enough faith in us to tear down her walls.

It doesn’t have to be transactional between us when it could be transcendent instead.

‘Well, thank you.’ She hugs it to her chest. ‘I love it so much. You said it was a gift for my mind, but this is definitely one for my soul.’

‘You have a soul? That’s actually very reassuring. I have to say, I wasn’t sure.’

Her smile is dazzling, her hazel eyes sparkling as she gazes at me. ‘Stop it.’

I swallow down the emotion. ‘I want you to know, despite everything that went down this evening, your soul is my absolute favourite part of you.’