Content Note
Adults only. This is fictional workplace erotica intended for readers 18+. Contains sexual tension, power dynamics, and explicit themes in future installments.
Reminder! This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are products of my imagination or are used in a made-up way. Any likeness to real people, living or dead, or actual events is totally coincidental.
After Hours Part 6
Cassian Rhodes
The shower is already steaming by the time I step beneath the water. Hot spray rolls over my shoulders and down the old surgical scar along my lower back, loosening muscles that have been stiff since sometime around midnight. Outside the fogged bathroom window, rain beats against the glass hard enough to compete with the pipes. For the first time in longer than I care to admit, I feel completely at ease in someone else’s home.
Last night keeps returning to me in pieces. Anatolia laughing. My mouth pressed against hers. Her red velvet nightgown abandoned somewhere near the entryway. The way she curled against my chest afterward as though we had been sleeping beside each other for years instead of hours. I should probably be terrified by how natural it all felt.
Instead, I’m smiling like an idiot beneath the water.
The bathroom door opens behind me. I hear bare feet against tile, then the soft whisper of fabric hitting the floor before the shower door slides open. Anatolia steps through the steam, naked and sleepy-eyed, her brunette curls playful and messy, with several stubborn pieces defying gravity.
“Coffee wasn’t enough?” I ask.
She gives me a small smile. “I was promised a shower.”
“I believe I invited you.”
“Same thing.”
She steps beneath the water with me, and whatever sensible thought I had disappears. Droplets gather across her shoulders and race down her skin as she tilts her head back beneath the spray. I have already seen every inch of her, touched places I spent six months pretending I never imagined touching, and somehow watching her wash shampoo from her hair feels more intimate than anything we did last night.
Anatolia reaches around me for the soap, but instead of taking it, she runs her fingertips over the long scar at the base of my spine. Her touch is so gentle that my muscles tighten anyway. I haven’t been embarrassed by the scar in years, but there is something unsettling about being examined by someone whose opinion suddenly matters.
“Does it still hurt?” she asks.
“Sometimes.”
She traces the edge of it. “From rowing?”
“From being twenty-one and believing my body was indestructible.”
“That sounds like you.”
I turn around. “You’ve known me for less than a year.”
“And somehow I’m still right.”
I laugh and catch her around the waist, pulling her beneath the spray with me. She squeals when the water hits her face, then retaliates by pushing wet hair out of her eyes and smacking my chest. I kiss her before she can do it again.
Her hands settle against my shoulders. Mine move to her waist, then lower, learning the shape of her without the frantic hunger from last night. She kisses me more slowly this morning, but there is something different beneath it. Something restrained. Every few seconds, her body softens into mine before tightening again.
I pull back enough to look at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t convincing.”
Her mouth twitches. “Maybe I’m distracted.”
“By me?”
She loops her arms around my neck. “Among other things.”
That answer should satisfy me. Instead, something uncomfortable settles beneath my ribs. I’ve spent twenty years sitting across conference tables from people trying to convince me they aren’t nervous, angry, desperate, or about to lie through their teeth. Anatolia isn’t lying exactly, but I recognize the carefulness in her expression.
Something is wrong.
I brush a wet curl from her cheek. “Is this about Sunday?”
Her expression changes so quickly I almost miss it.
“No.”
“Anatolia.”
She kisses me again before I can finish saying her name. Harder this time. Her fingers slide into my wet hair, pulling me closer as though she can erase the question by giving my mouth something better to do.
For several seconds, I let her.
God help me, I want to.
But when my hand settles against her hip, I feel how tightly she’s holding herself together. Her body is here. Her mind is somewhere else entirely.
I break the kiss.
She looks wounded. “What?”
“I want you.”
“That doesn’t sound like a problem.”
“It becomes one if you’re using me to avoid something.”
Her arms fall slowly from my shoulders.
Rain pounds against the window. Water runs between us and disappears into the drain while Anatolia studies my face as though she is trying to determine whether I’ve caught her doing something wrong. Maybe I have. Maybe I haven’t.
“Can we just have this first?” She asks quietly.
My chest tightens.
“This?”
She looks down. “A good morning.”
The answer does more damage than anything she could have confessed.
I lift her chin until she looks at me again. “You already have one.”
Her eyes turn glassy.
“And I’m not going anywhere because you tell me something difficult,” I say. “But I don’t want you believing you have to earn another hour with me before you’re allowed to be honest.”
For once, Anatolia has nothing clever to say.
I shut off the water.
Neither of us moves immediately. Steam hangs between us while the pipes groan somewhere inside the wall. Then I reach outside the shower, grab one of the towels folded on the rack, and wrap it around her shoulders.
She lets me.
We dry off quietly. Whatever playful fantasy I had about finishing our morning against the shower wall has disappeared. The knot in my stomach grows tighter as I watch Anatolia pull on a robe and tie it closed with trembling fingers.
Back in the bedroom, my coffee sits untouched beside hers. The rain has darkened the windows enough that the bedside lamp is still glowing, casting everything in warm amber. For half a second, I can picture this becoming normal: coffee on weekends, wet towels abandoned on bathroom floors, Gilbert eventually discovering her windowsill and declaring war on whatever tuxedo cat watched me arrive last night.
Dangerous thoughts.
Anatolia sits on the edge of the bed.
I take the chair opposite her instead of sitting beside her. Not because I want distance, but because something tells me she needs enough room to breathe.
She twists the belt of her robe around her fingers.
“Cassian?”
“I’m listening.”
“What I told you about Preston wasn’t everything.”
There it is.
The unease I’ve been feeling since she stepped into the shower finally has a name.
I lean forward, resting my elbows against my knees. “Okay.”
“He wasn’t just some ex who called me the night he died.”
My stomach turns.
Anatolia looks toward the rain-streaked window.
“We were bad together,” she says. “Really bad.”
I wait.
Her fingers stop moving.
Then she looks at me.
“Preston and I used fentanyl together.”
For a moment, the only sound in the room is the rain.
And suddenly, Sunday feels much closer.
