class is in session

by girlyjuice

Summary:

“Have you ever read She Comes First?” she leans in to murmur. “I’ve gifted a copy to a few men I’ve been with. Their performance always improved dramatically after reading it.”

Roman’s eyes go wide. “Your pussy has a required reading list? Like a fucking… existential philosophy class? Jesus.” He sips his drink. “If I decide to read it, should I write you a book report, or is it more of an oral examination kind of thing?”

Notes:

IRL I am a sex journalist, sex educator, and author of an instructional kink book (101kinkythings.com) so the idea of Gerri assigning Roman sex-nerd texts to study just delighted me when I thought of it 😂 More to come when I have the time!

Chapter 1: In Laqueum Veritas

Notes:

Here's a list with links to all the books featured in this story! https://linktr.ee/classisinsession

Gerri should’ve known it was a bad idea to go to a bar with Roman, of all people, especially outside of normal working hours. But to be fair, it was supposed to be a meeting with a Japanese investor, who she now realizes is nowhere to be seen.

“Sorry I’m late. Traffic,” she tells Roman as she slides into the booth at the back of the bar. “Where’s Aoki?”

“Oh, did you not see his email?” Roman asks, and nibbles on the cherry in his cocktail. Gerri came straight from a networking event so she hasn’t had time to check. “Flight got delayed til tomorrow. Commercial air travel is for suckers and fuckers,” he explains. “Hey, Ger, you ever been a Mile High Club member? Or has kissing corporate ass on jetplanes ruined you for airborne fornication?”

Gerri narrows her eyes at him. “How many drinks have you had?”

“Oh, you know.” He waves away the question with one hand. “Enough to pass the time.”

A waiter passes by and Gerri considers ordering a martini, but thinks better of it. “If Aoki’s not coming, shouldn’t we call it a night?” she suggests, glancing at her watch. “I mean, I enjoy your company, Rome, but I see you nearly every day.”

He takes a swig of the sticky whiskey concoction in his glass. “Yeah, but how often do you see me at night? Alone?” he asks with a quirk of his eyebrow. “What if this is a sign from the universe that we’re overdue for some good ol’-fashioned Roman-Gerri flirty-dirty time? C’mon, get a little sloshed with me, stay awhile.”

She pulls out her phone to check her calendar for tomorrow, runs some Google Maps calculations on the distance between the bar and her place, and casts a glance over toward the backbar, where they’ve got a bottle of her favorite gin in stock. “Fine,” she says at last. “If you behave yourself.”

Once Gerri’s got her drink in hand, Roman gently kicks her stockinged ankle under the table and says, “So! Been on any hot dates lately? Or is poor old Laurie too decrepit to keep up with your cosmopolitan party-girl lifestyle?”

Gerri rolls her eyes. “I’m… between beaux at the moment, actually. Not that it’s any of your business,” she says softly.

He drops his jaw in a mock-shocked expression. “Oooh, Gerri Kellman is single and ready to tingle!” he exclaims. “If you’re, y’know, frustrated, and your no doubt well-stocked nightstand drawer isn’t cutting it, you know who to call.” He winks, and she laughs in spite of herself.

“You’re not exactly the poster child for easing frustrations,” she points out. “In fact, I think you frustrate me more than almost anyone.”

She means it in the non-sexual sense, but realizes too late that of course he’s not going to take it that way. He grins impishly. “Oh yeah? Hot. Well, all the more reason to let me into those granny panties one of these days.”

The gin leaves a cool burn down Gerri’s throat that’s invigorating. She’s just tipsy enough now, and it’s just dark enough in the room, that this conversation merely seems like a bad idea, rather than an atrocious, unacceptable, absolutely off-limits one. “Rumor is your sexual skills aren’t much to write home about, so I’m not sure that’d be worth my time,” she ventures to say.

He frowns. “And who, pray tell, is spreading these rumors? Follow-up question: whoever it is, would it be better to eat them out, or have them killed? Strategy-wise, I mean. Reputationally speaking. In your professional opinion.”

Gerri shrugs. “Came up in the oppo research,” she says. “Your exes speak highly of your wit, but not of your dick.” It’s a mean thing to say, in exactly the way she secretly relishes being mean to Roman, but her blood alcohol level is just high enough to make it feel fine. Fun, even.

Roman scoffs, but doesn’t argue. “Sounds about right,” he says. “But you like freaky shit, yeah? And it’s definitely freaky how bad I am at sex, so maybe we could work something out. You know, like symbiosis, or whatever the fuck.”

She’s struck, as ever, by his relentless determination to flirt with her even when it actively works against his own interests. It’s one of the dumbest things about him and also one of the things that keeps her answering his calls and texts even when she’d otherwise rather not.

Gerri laughs. “Calling you names through a bathroom door is one thing, but when it comes to actual sex, my standards are high,” she says, tone intentionally icy in a way that makes Roman’s eyes light up.

“How high?” he asks, too eagerly. “Are we talking Olympian level? Do you only fuck gold-medal cunnilinguists? Or do you stoop to the occasional bronze when you’re slumming it?” He smiles at her and it makes her belly feel warm and fluttery, although that could be the martini.

She knows she should’ve shut this down several minutes ago – probably shouldn’t have even stayed once she found out Aoki wasn’t coming. But it’s been a long day, and Roman’s gravitational pull is too warm and rich and heady for her to resist, especially after half a martini. “Have you ever read She Comes First?” she leans in to murmur. “I’ve gifted a copy to a few men I’ve been with. Their performance always improved dramatically after reading it.”

Roman’s eyes go wide. “Your pussy has a required reading list? Like a fucking… existential philosophy class? Jesus.” He sips his drink. “If I decide to read it, should I write you a book report, or is it more of an oral examination kind of thing?” Even he knows he’s going too far now; his ears have gone pink and he won’t meet her eye, despite the reckless bravado of his question.

Gerri snorts. “Reading the books on a Harvard syllabus doesn’t guarantee you’ll get in, Roman,” she says. “It just means you’ve read the books.”

He gives her shoulder a playful little shove. “You think I couldn’t get into Harvard with Roy money? I fuckin’ did,” he claims. “My personal essay on my application was titled ‘How Does a Brand-New Lecture Hall Sound, You Greedy Ivy Fucks?’”

Gerri chuckles. “Money and influence aren’t the only prerequisites for getting into my pants, Roman,” she says, and tries really fucking hard not to think about the way this conversation is making her cunt feel warm and alive.

“What are the prereqs, fuckin’ Econ 101 and Intro to Fingerbanging?” Roman asks. “Sign me up, professor.”

Gerri signals the waiter to bring the check. She counts her answers off on her fingers: “Charm, kindness, intelligence, sex appeal, and sexual skill,” she says. “All equally important.”

Roman thinks this over. “Three out of five ain’t bad,” he says. “You really think I should read that book? What’s it called again? She Comes All Over My Face?” If he’s trying to make her visualize explicit imagery with him in a starring role, unfortunately it’s working.

“She Comes First,” she corrects him. “It’s by Ian Kerner.”

“And if I read it, you’ll let me test out what I learn?”

She smirks, and shakes her head disbelievingly. “If you read it, your life will be enriched, and I may take you slightly more seriously as a contender next time I’m feeling, as you say, frustrated,” she concedes.

He nods and throws down his gold card when the check arrives. As the waiter is running his card, Roman leans close to Gerri and whispers into her ear, “I’m a visual learner, so maybe you could text me a photo of the relevant areas so I can study up,” and she can’t help but laugh.

“Absolutely not, Roman,” she says with a smile. “You’re disgusting, you know that?”

He signs the check with a flourish. “I know. But you like it, and that’s the important thing. Right, professor?”

Chapter 2: Voluptas Quærentis

Gerri’s finishing up some emails when Roman waltzes into her office, ten minutes before the two of them are supposed to meet with Karolina about an upcoming studio press conference. His punctuality is worrisome, to say the least.

“You’re early,” Gerri says.

“Yup,” Roman answers as he crosses the room to drop onto the armchair opposite her desk. “Got some pressing matters to go over with you before the meeting.”

She reaches for her coffee; Monday mornings are exhausting enough as is, without a surprise visit from the most vexing Roy spawn. “Such as?” she asks.

He stares directly into her eyes. “Such as giving you an orgasm.”

Gerri’s not easily shocked, having seen her fair share of cruise scandals and theme park injuries, but she nearly does a spit-take at that one.

“Keep your fucking voice down, Roman,” she hisses, although her door is closed and no one in the neighboring offices seems to have heard him.

“No, you keep your voice down,” he jeers like a schoolboy, with a cocky grin to match, “when I’m making you come so hard you scream.”

Gerri closes her laptop and fixes him with a serious gaze. “Obviously, it’s neither the time nor the place,” she says, straining to keep her voice level.

He laughs. “Oh, you thought I meant now? Horny fuckin’ minx. No, I just thought we should get something penciled in.” He whips out his iPhone and starts tapping. “I’ll send you an iCal invite. Saturday good? ‘Sit on Roman’s face, water droplets emoji.’ Maybe it should be a recurring event? Is biweekly enough, d’you think, or should we push it to weekly?”

Gerri sighs. “I gather you finished the book?”

Roman pockets his phone again and nods. “Good read. A little dry at points, which is ironic, given the subject matter, but…”

She cuts him off: “Reading one book isn’t enough to get you what you want, Roman.”

He looks slightly thrown by this, but tries to play it off. “Well, obviously. I have to demonstrate what I learned,” he says falteringly. “Practical exam. Do a test drive, make sure I can parallel-park your pussy and shift your gears just right.”

Gerri is distressingly aware of how soon Karolina is supposed to show up. “There’s a lot you’d need to do before that would even be on the table, Roman,” she says, and starts gathering up the files and notebooks she needs for the meeting.

“On the table? Ooh, kinky, Ger,” he fires back. “I was thinking we’d start in bed – keep it classic – but you’re way ahead of me.”

When Karolina arrives two minutes later, they start planning their talking points for the presser, which is about delaying the release date of their latest action flick because of an injury on set. “Roman should issue the announcement,” Gerri says. “Hearing it from the COO and a former studio exec makes it clear that we’re taking this seriously.”

Roman’s eyes are glinting at her as he replies, “Sure. I get great reviews on my oration.”

Gerri’s eyes slide over to Karolina, who, fortunately, is just making notes about the correct order of operations for the event. “And Gerri, will you be on hand to answer any legal queries that might come up?” she asks.

Before Gerri can answer, Roman rubs his palms together like a supervillain and says, “I love when Gerri is on hand. Best place for her to be, if you ask me.”

Gerri shoots him a look that she hopes will communicate, We are going to talk about this later, but he just leans back in his chair and keeps his goofy half-smile beaming toward her in a way that makes her feel inconveniently shaken.

---

Gerri’s customary after-work martini goes down even smoother on busy days full of meetings to attend and fires to put out. Today she stirs it herself in her kitchen, the sun gently setting in her floor-to-ceiling windows as she mixes the gin, vermouth, and olive brine.

Naturally, this idyllic scene is interrupted by Roman. Her phone buzzes, and she reads the text from him: got a few passages (ha) from the book that i wanna discuss with you if that’s cool. like we’re in a 2-person book club about fucking – cute.

Gerri lets out a long, slow exhale, and curses whatever quirk of her psychology makes such a crude, petulant boy seem so intriguing to her, despite the constant protestations of her better nature. She types, Go ahead, and sits down at the kitchen island with her icy-cold martini.

Roman starts into his spiel. okay so. kerner says anticipation is crucial, stoke the fires, foreplay is coreplay, etc. – is that why you’re making me wait? because it’s hotter for you?

Gerri considers this before replying, “Making you wait” implies that the destination you have in mind is an inevitability, which it isn’t.

sure, sure. he also says something in that section about “a hot, hushed phone call from work” being good for revving things up or whatever. so you should let me do phone sex to you at the office. doctor’s orders.

No.

ok ok. is it really true that a foot massage is good foreplay? and also would you kicking me in the balls count as a foot massage orrrr

Relaxation is indeed important for arousal. Anything else?

Roman’s typing indicator lingers on her screen for a while, and then his next message comes in: so obviously he talks a lot in the book about how the clit is the center of the universe and if you focus on anything else you’re basically a fucking idiot. can you confirm or deny? i mean, for yourself personally? just for my records

Gerri’s annoyed to note that her clit pulses upon reading this text. She had thought she’d be able to answer his questions without engaging beyond the actual words on her screen, but of course, that’s always a foolish assumption when it comes to Roman. She takes a long sip of her martini and then writes: Clitoral stimulation is key for me and for most women, yes. And then, feeling a little more daring, she adds: If you get good at nothing else, it should be that.

A few seconds later, he replies, so you’re saying i should come over right now and start my apprenticeship, right? clit club’s in session?

Gerri hides her smile behind her martini even though no one is looking. No, she writes. That is not what I said.

ok, you’re the boss, he writes. what’s next on the reading list?

Gerri scrolls over to her Goodreads app and pages through the “sexuality” tag on her profile, which she’s obviously set to private. She knows the right book as soon as she sees it, and returns to her text thread with Roman. Becoming Cliterate by Dr. Laurie Mintz, she writes, since you clearly need more clitoral education.

It’s incredibly fucking annoying how wet she’s gotten, she thinks as she tosses back the last of her martini and chews one of the olives with angry determination.

aye aye, captain, he responds. how much do i have to know about it before you’ll let me put my mouth on it?

She buries her face in her hands for a moment, collecting herself, and then types back: Much, much more than you currently know.

Roman replies, i will do whatever it fucking takes, and Gerri groans low in frustration, the sound echoing off the walls of her empty kitchen, her empty apartment, as the sun finally sets.

Chapter 3: Cupiditatis Causa

Gerri’s putting the final touches on her outfit for a Waystar charity gala when she gets a text from Roman: kindly tell your driver to fuck off, i’m taking you to the ball, cinderella

She rolls her eyes and finishes clasping her sapphire necklace around her neck before answering him. If I cancel now, I’ll be late.

He writes back immediately: no you won’t, i’m downstairs

She goes to the window and looks down, and indeed, there are two black Waystar towncars parked in front of her building – the one she ordered, and the one she didn’t. She breathes an exasperated sigh and texts her driver to let him know she’s made other arrangements.

Roman’s eyes alight on her as soon as she gets into the backseat. “Jesus fuck, Ger,” he says with a low wolf-whistle. “I didn’t know the dress code for this thing was ‘smart slutty supermodel’ but you nailed it.”

She grimaces. Her dark green dress isn’t that low-cut – just enough to motivate the donors who respond better to cleavage than to a compelling pitch on why they should bother funding the arts in the age of A.I. “Charming way to address a colleague, Roman,” she says drily, and shuts the car door behind her. Roman giggles and the driver pulls away from the curb.

Now that she’s settled, she can really take him in, and he’s cleaned up nice. Smart navy suit, white shirt left unbuttoned at the collar, a mischievous smile on his shaven face. “Hey,” he says softly. “Hey you.”

“What?”

He beckons her toward him with a sideways tilt of his head. “C’mere for a second.”

“Why?” She feels frozen in place, the way she used to in middle school when a cute boy would talk to her in the cafeteria and she wasn’t sure whether his intention was to flirt or to bully. And once again she’s momentarily furious about how much Roman can affect her, when she works so hard to be unaffectable.

“Wanna talk to you about a work thing. I don’t want Eddie to hear,” he says quickly. Then calls to the driver: “No offense, Eddie. It’s just inside-baseball corporate jerk-off bullshit. Can you roll up the thing? Thanks, man.”

Eddie’s gruff voice says, “Of course, Mr. Roy,” and he hits the button to slide the partition up. They’re effectively alone now.

Skeptical but curious, Gerri does as Roman’s demanded and slides across the backseat toward him. “Did one of the big donors pull out?” she asks at a low volume. “Was it the president? I fucking knew it, he’s been playing us hot and cold for weeks…”

Roman laughs. “Okay, I lied,” he says. “I’m a dirty lying liar. It’s not a work thing. I just wanted to touch you. Sue me.” He sets a warm hand on her thigh. “Actually it’d be kinda fucking hot if you sued me, now that I think about it. Futile, but hot.”

Gerri stares down at his hand. “Rome, that’s not –”

“Want me to stop?” he interrupts, and lifts his hand off to hover above her leg. “Say the word and I’ll stop. I mean it. You can slide back over there and we’ll talk about the weather, or how many senators Shiv’s gonna blow tonight, or whatever.”

Gerri’s mouth twists as she thinks about it. He really had to call her fucking bluff, didn’t he.

“You don’t have to stop,” she says finally.

He grins and puts his hand back. “Yeah, thought so. Anyway. Loved the book. Solid rec. I learned a lot.”

“Anything useful?”

He starts grazing the pads of his fingers over the smooth skin of her inner thigh, through her thin, sheer pantyhose. “Oh, tons,” he says. “Here’s a fun cunt fact: did you know that everyone says the clit has 8,000 nerve endings but that number actually comes from a study of cows and sheep that was done in the ‘70s?”

His touch is so gentle and warm that she needs to mentally review his sentence a few times to understand what it conveys. “How many nerve endings does it actually have?” she asks.

He looks at her slyly from the corner of his eye. “Should we count? If we start right now, we could probably have it figured out by morning. Scientific inquiry, baby!”

Gerri grabs his hand, her instinct being to pull it away from her because he’s being so cheeky, but once again she’s forced to realize that that’s not really what she wants, so she ends up just awkwardly pushing him more firmly against her. His smile widens as he starts giving her more pressure, kneading her thigh, hunting out the sensitive spots. She concentrates on keeping her breathing measured and slow.

He drops his voice a bit and turns to speak into her ear. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you assigned me two books in a row that preach hella foreplay,” he says. “Probably a good idea; I’m not exactly a paragon of sexual stamina.”

Gerri snorts. “No, the oppo research made that very clear.”

He narrows his eyes at her, the corners of his mouth still upturned. “My point is, I wanna show you what I learned.”

Gerri turns to look out the window so he won’t see her blush, and then says, “Roman, that’s obviously ridiculous, we’re en route to a Waystar event in a Waystar car, this isn’t the time or place for – that kind of thing –”

He shushes her gently. “I’m not going to fucking fingerbang you on the Italian leather upholstery, Ger,” he says with a chuckle. “Just this. See? Slow. Soft. Easy. I really did learn some shit. I took fucking notes. Are you proud?”

His hand is stroking her thigh in slow circles, occasionally grabbing it more firmly, and it’s doing things to her. Things she can’t even find the words for in her own mind.

“That’s good, Roman,” she breathes. “Not rushing into things like an excitable little boy.”

He squeezes her soft flesh. “I mean, I could still rush in. If you wanted.” He walks his hand a little higher on her thigh, just barely under the hemline of her dress, so he can nudge the edge of his pinkie against her outer labia through her panties and stockings, and it’s a quick little lightning bolt to her clit. “But I get the sense you might not be ready for the full Roman Roy experience yet.”

She laughs in his face. “And what would that entail?”

He shrugs and runs a fingertip along the crease where her thigh meets her center. “Whatever you want, Ger.”

And then a valet is pulling the car door open, and Gerri realizes with a start that they’ve arrived.

Roman takes his hand away and starts getting out of the car. “Something to think about,” he says with an arrogant grin, and unfortunately Gerri is indeed going to think about it, probably all night.

---

After three hours of courting donors, Gerri’s tapped out and ready to leave. Her feet hurt from her Prada pumps, her throat is hoarse from shouting to be heard over the overzealous DJ, and she’s pretty sure she saw Kendall chatting up the current president of Singapore and Shiv flirting with the CEO of Netflix, so they’re going to be fine on charity donations.

She gets into the car that’s waiting to take her home, and has barely been gone five minutes when Roman texts: where’d you go? should i be chasing you down with a glass slipper?

She reclines heavily against the leather seatback and notices, for the eighth or ninth time that evening, that her panties are wetter than is strictly appropriate for a work function. She’d made some feeble attempts to blot the damage with toilet paper in the bathroom but it just kept becoming a problem again every time Roman flashed his hungry brown eyes at her from across the room, or slowly swiped his tongue along his pink lower lip when they passed each other in the reception hall.

After gathering the energy to even reply, she writes back, Long night. Cinderella needs her beauty rest. We’ll talk tomorrow?

There’s an eight-minute pause during which time Gerri imagines Roman is making crass small talk with some aging movie star or frat-boy-turned-startup-CEO. Then he writes: ok. was kinda hoping to finish what i started earlier but…

She waits. Nothing further comes. Impatient, she types: But what?

He sends a shrugging emoji and says: you tell me, i’m not the one who left

She smiles to herself and rests her phone face-down on her lap, which turns out to be a mistake when it buzzes against that hypersensitized area two minutes later; she barely manages to stifle a yelp that her driver definitely would have noticed.

The text from Roman says: will you at least think about me when you furiously jerk off tonight?

She starts typing, Who says I’m going to – but then decides against it and deletes what she’s written. A few minutes pass as the car arrives and she makes her way into the elevator and up to her apartment; she’s glad for the time to consider her options.

Roman’s sent her yet another text, insecure and needling: too much? was it the word ‘furiously’? my mistake, obviously you’re a delicate innocent flower who only jerks off tenderly, elegantly, mellifluously, etc.

Having arrived in her bedroom, Gerri unzips her dress and steps out of it, then takes off her shoes and pantyhose, massaging her achy ankles with one hand. She locates a comfy nightgown, slips it on over her head, and falls into bed.

She doesn’t want him to be right. He’s so annoying when he’s right. So she writes back: Ha ha. Good night, Roman. Next you should read Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski and report back.

And then she reaches into her nightstand drawer, pulls out her favorite wand vibrator, and thinks about the way fingertips feel through nylons.

Chapter 4: Secunda Mensa

A call from Roman comes in on Gerri’s phone, just after she’s ordered a drink at the restaurant she frequents alone some Friday nights to celebrate a week of work well done. Truth be told, she was looking forward to getting through a few chapters of the Joan Crawford biography she’s reading, but as general counsel, she can’t ignore a call from a Roy. One never knows when she’ll need to rescue one of them from a crackhouse, a jail cell, or a libellous feud with a Murdoch or a Kardashian.

“Hello?”

“I think I figured out why you don’t want to fuck me yet,” Roman says with no preamble.

Gerri can’t contain her surprised laugh, not least because the content of her masturbatory fantasies as of late would directly contradict Roman’s point if he knew. But she’s certainly not going to tell him. “How are you enjoying the Nagoski book?” she asks coolly.

“Oh, it’s a bitter, bitter pill, but I dig it,” he says. “Explains a lot. Do you want to know why you don’t want to fuck me yet?”

Gerri bites her lip so she won’t look absurd to the other restaurant patrons, an older woman smiling hugely to herself all alone. Still neither confirming nor denying his assertion, she asks, “What’s your hypothesis, Sherlock?”

“Ha ha, between the two of us I’m definitely Watson and you know it,” he says. “Okay, so. Nagoski talks about the sexual accelerator and sexual brakes, right? The things that rev your engine, and the things that make it go womp-womp.” He does a sad trombone sound effect.

“Sure.”

“She makes a big deal about how stress is the ultimate boner-killer,” he goes on, “and I would argue that you have one of the most stressful jobs on the planet. I mean, babysitting my dad through his daily tantrums and making sure me and Kendall don’t end up with our dicks or addictions on the cover of Us Weekly? Let’s be real, those brakes are screeching.”

Gerri’s martini arrives and she takes a contemplative sip. Weirdly, it’s not one of the insights she took away when she read the book herself – probably because, at the time, Baird kept asking her why she was being so “frigid” with him lately, and she’d assumed she had a faulty sexual accelerator, so to speak. But no amount of high-end vibrators or erotic novels or kinky fantasies had been able to re-ignite her desire for him, not from then all the way to the end. Maybe Baird himself was the one with his foot on her brake pedal.

“You may have a point,” she admits now. “But I’m not sure it’s a solvable problem. Unless I leave my job. Which I won’t.”

“Which you won’t,” Roman agrees. “But I think you should take some time off work, and I think you should let me try to fuck you.”

Both suggestions are equally ridiculous, frankly. Nevertheless, a silence stretches out as she processes them, her heart thudding. “Interesting pitch, Roman,” she says noncommittally, as the waiter approaches again to take her dinner order. “Hold for a moment, please.” She hits the mute button and orders a steak, medium rare, with potatoes au gratin. If she’s going to indulge Roman this much, then she might as well indulge herself too – not just with the food, but by making him wait, like a little boy in the time-out corner, while she takes her sweet time.

Once the waiter’s gone, she unmutes and lifts the phone to her ear again. “When?”

“End of next month,” he says immediately. “Dad’s summer place in Montauk is free, I checked. Move some shit around and go out there with me for a week.”

“A week?” She can’t remember the last time she took a whole week off, even over Christmas. It just isn’t feasible in her position. “Three days might be the best I can do. If I decide to go at all.”

Roman whines. “Three days is nothing. Three days is barely enough time to catch your fucking breath,” he argues. “I don’t think you get it. I want you relaxed, Gerri. Three-mimosas-deep, post-Swedish-massage, sun-kissed, loosey-goosey, Jimmy Buffett-level relaxed. I know you, and that’s never gonna happen in three days. You won’t even wean yourself off your emails in three days. Come on. What was the point of making me learn all this shit if you’re gonna fight me on the implementation?”

Gerri drums her fingers on the table and thinks. “Well, I’ll have to see what I can do,” she says at last.

“Fuck yeah!” Roman replies. “That’s almost in the neighborhood of a yes. I’m psyched.” Just then, a group of chatty twentysomethings arrives at the booth next to Gerri’s, and Roman overhears the ruckus. “Wait, are you out right now? You dirty girl, plotting sex vacations in public places. Drop me a pin, I miss your resting bitch face.”

Gerri shakes her head in disbelief; he never relents, does he? “I just saw you at a meeting three hours ago,” she counters.

“And? Pin, please. Now, please. If you would be so kind.”

Fifteen minutes later, Roman ambles in and spots her from across the room. As he weaves between tables, buttoning his grey suit jacket along the way, Gerri has time to watch him and wonder if anyone in this palatial room recognizes him; if anyone is wondering why a Waystar heir is meeting a much older woman for a late dinner in a darkened restaurant.

He slips into the booth beside her and goes in for a slightly awkward cheek-kiss. “You can’t get rid of me,” he says, picking up the menu to look it over. “I’m like a bad case of crabs. Except, um. Metaphorically. Actually got a clean bill of sexual health from my guy last week. Not for any particular reason or anything.” He clears his throat and avoids her eyes. “Do they do good shrimp here?”

They have dinner and drinks, and it’s easy and pleasant – the conversation flows, albeit mostly about work, and Roman listens to her more closely than any of the doddering old men she usually dates. It’s only once they’ve ordered dessert that he turns on the flirty eyes at full force.

“Hey, I have another question about the Nagoski book,” he says in a voice soft enough that only she can hear.

She takes a sip from her third drink of the night and says, “Shoot.”

His eyes search hers for a moment, just long enough for her to clock that whatever it is, he’s serious about it. “She’s really big on kissing,” he says. “She goes on and on about how it’s soooo important for building, like, desire and momentum and intimacy and shit. Eww, ‘intimacy,’ gross.”

She smiles at him but otherwise stays perfectly still, wondering what he’ll do. “I do seem to remember that from when I read it, yes.”

“Should we, um… Should we give it a whirl?” He’s keeping his tone light and jokey as per usual, but his eyes give him away. “You know, for science. Pheromones and endorphins and oxytocin and… I don’t fuckin’ know, I didn’t pay attention in college. Kiss? Yes? Good?”

Gerri glances around the room and determines that no one is looking their way. But she can feel Roman’s gaze on her. Satisfied that they’ve got sufficient pseudo-privacy for the time being, she turns back to him and says, “I’m not opposed to that.”

His milk-chocolate eyes light up, and he drapes a tentative arm around her to pull her in closer. Slowly, so slowly, he leans in and presses his lips against hers, first soft and then more searchingly. She runs the tip of her tongue along the inside of his lower lip and he sucks on it gently, the slick slide of him traveling straight to her clit.

When the moment passes, Gerri lets herself relax, leaning her head on his shoulder; he smells like Calvin Klein cologne and fancy Italian laundry detergent. She can feel his pulse, quick and heavy, against her forehead; his arm is warm and safe around her.

After a long time, he says wryly, “You are slamming so hard on my accelerator, Ger,” and she laughs. “You’re flooring it. You’re gonna crash into a fuckin’ ravine. Didn’t anybody ever teach you how to drive? Jesus take the wheel. Fuck.”

Their crème brûlée arrives and Gerri knows she’s in huge trouble, but through the haze of gin and vermouth and Roman, it’s hard to care.

Chapter 5: Dulce Osculum

When Gerri wakes up on Saturday morning, she sees that a text from Roman came in around 3 a.m.: forgot to ask (there was um a lot going on), is there something you want me to read next?

Her good, sweet, loyal boy. She sets her phone back down on the nightstand to luxuriate in the weekend-morning sunshine filtering through her window and the knowledge that this broken little billionaire would do anything for her. It’s a power trip, and she fucking loves power. Always has.

She turns the question over in her mind, weighing her options. Buying herself some time, she picks up her phone again and writes, Don’t you have any other hobbies besides doing my bidding?

He answers quickly (does he ever sleep?). if you think video games or strip clubs hit my dopamine button harder than making gerri kellman proud (& thinking in a lot of detail about how to fuck her) you’re out of your goddamn mind

Gerri smiles, and searches her mental repository for overlap between good sexuality books she’s read and topics she wants Roman to be intimately familiar with before their potential rendezvous in Montauk next month. Eventually she types, Kissing: A Field Guide by Violet Blue.

damn, was our first kiss that bad? i’m offended, i thought it was cute

Her eyelids flutter closed at the reminder. She was gin-dazed and bone-tired when it happened, but the sensations of the memory are still vivid. Once she’s collected herself, she writes, It was perfectly passable, but there’s always more to learn.

He replies, you are such a bitch, and then sends her a photo of his Kindle with the cover of the book she’s assigned him on the screen. She laughs out loud and starts looking around for her robe and slippers, craving coffee and (if she’s honest with herself) more kisses, although she’s only willing to seek out the former today.

---

Gerri catches Roman staring at her lips at work five separate times over the next week.

To be fair, she purposely chooses glossier lipsticks than she normally would, anticipating – and guiding – the direction of his thoughts.

She sidesteps his attempts at flirtation for most of the week, keeping her head in the game and her calendar packed – not deliberately trying to thwart him, but nonetheless enjoying the way he folds in on himself in frustration whenever she leaves a meeting room he’s in with just a smiling glance and nothing more. The sway she holds over him is headier than any drug she’s ever tried, even back in the days when Logan would rent out Studio 54 for legendary Waystar bashes.

But after work on Thursday, Roman physically hunts her down. He follows her down the street, and then keeps on following her as she ducks into the office’s adjoining underground parking lot, looking for her driver’s car. She’s got a bath and a glass of wine in mind for tonight, but her plans change as soon as Roman backs her up against the side of the towncar and says, “Are you avoiding me because you don’t want me, or because you do?”

She feels the car’s cold steel pressing into her lower back, the curves of its door cupping her ass in her grey skirt-suit. His face is so close to hers.

“I’ve had a lot on my plate this week,” she starts to explain breathlessly, “and I knew, if I spent any time alone with you, I would get… sidetracked.”

His eyes are burning into hers, so fiery they’re almost scary. “You would,” he agrees. “I am in the mood to sidetrack you so fucking hard right now.”

She stares back at him defiantly. “Well, come home with me, then.” The words are out of her mouth before her superego has time to review them. Heat is radiating off of Roman, and Gerri is dangerously close to breaking her own personal “no PDA” policy. It’s unbecoming of a lawyer at her level. But maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.

All of a sudden, Roman’s face softens, and he’s back to looking like a shy teenager who can’t believe an older chick is hot for him. “Okay,” he says, and they get into the backseat together.

She keeps her distance, pressing her body against the far window; she doesn’t trust herself, and while all the Waystar drivers are NDA’d to hell, the hotshot young COO making out with his general counsel is a juicy enough scoop that she doesn’t trust any third party to keep it contained. “I take it you enjoyed the book,” she says to Roman, making an attempt at a breezy tone.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he replies, the darkness in his voice difficult to read. “Found it really fucking frustrating, actually.”

“Why?”

He looks at her like she’s an idiot, and maybe she is. “Because it made me want a lot of things that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get,” he says simply.

She doesn’t press him for details, too conscious of her driver possibly listening. But it doesn’t really matter, because she knows exactly what he’s referring to. The way he keeps biting his lip and staring at hers is all too telling, as is the palpable tension in the space between their bodies, heavy and electric.

Gerri extends her hand, face-down, toward the middle of the backseat – a peace offering, something to tide him over, to tide herself over. He reaches his hand over too, and intertwines his pinkie with hers. She thinks about pinkie promises and wonders what he’s promising.

When they get to her apartment, she thanks the driver, and she and Roman climb out of the car and march wordlessly toward the elevator. As soon as the doors slide shut behind them and they start rising toward Gerri’s floor, he’s up in her space again, her body pinned between his and the wall.

“Not yet, Roman,” she murmurs, his face so close that he can no doubt feel her words on his lips. “Wait.”

He meets her eyes with a dizzying intensity. “Why the fuck should I do that?”

She smiles sweetly at him. “Because I said so, and you enjoy following my directions.”

She has him there, and he knows it. The resistance melts from his face. He turns to stand in front of the elevator door and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Fine,” he says, not looking at her. “You’ve kept me waiting for days, what’s thirty more seconds?”

Gerri’s heart thumps in her chest as she flicks through the keys on her keychain until she finds the one for her apartment. She inserts it into the lock, all too aware of Roman looming behind her like a summer stormcloud. As soon as the door’s open, he strides through it and says, “Where do you want me?” and it takes all of Gerri’s willpower not to say, Everywhere.

She points over at the living room sofa and he goes to sit there, glancing frequently back over at her as she shrugs out of her suit jacket, hangs it up, and kicks her heels off by the door. She could do all of this faster if she really wanted to. Maybe she has a kink for making Roman wait, she muses to herself. “Are you going to get your ass over here and fucking kiss me, or do I have to tie you to the coffee table and do it myself?” he asks.

Gerri snorts. “You wouldn’t do that, and you know it,” she says, padding over to him. “You love to do what I tell you, and only what I tell you.”

In one quick motion, Gerri straddles Roman on the couch, one knee on each side of his slim hips, and lowers herself down onto his lap. The coarse denim of his dark jeans feels good against her stockinged inner thighs, and a deep pang of satisfaction travels through her at the way she’s struck him speechless with her body, her closeness. His eyes are wide and desperate as he stares up at her. “Ger, fucking please,” he whines.

“Please what?”

“Please kiss me or I’m going to lose my fucking mind.”

“Think the ship might’ve already sailed on that one,” she murmurs, and tilts forward so the bridges of their noses touch. His eyes fall closed and his breath hitches.

“Well, I, for one, think it’s fun that I made you read an entire book about kissing and haven’t let you kiss me since,” Gerri teases. “Maybe I should make you wait a few more days, really let all the book’s lessons sink in.”

Roman groans and runs his hands over her waist, her hips, her ass. “Fucking torture-chamber sadistic cocktease bitch,” he swears.

“That’s me,” she concedes with a grin. “Beg again.”

And the way his honey-brown eyes go so sad and sweet when he begs is almost enough to make her come on the spot. “Please, please, please, please,” he whispers. “I’ve been thinking about your lips all week, Gerri, I’m going insane.”

“I’ve noticed,” Gerri says. “But you’ve been good – mostly – and good boys deserve rewards.”

She’s in a self-indulgent mood, so she allows herself three more seconds of watching his face twist in pure anguish before she surges forward and captures his lips with her own.

He gasps softly, and takes only a moment to process the surprise of her kiss before leaning into it with vigor. His hands grip her hips tightly and then one of them snakes up her back to pull her closer to him. His lips are full and soft under hers; she wonders absentmindedly if he’s been exfoliating and moisturizing them, as recommended in the book she assigned him, in preparation for this moment, because she certainly doesn’t remember her previous kiss with him feeling this transcendently erotic, like there’s a live-wire running from her lips to her clit.

He’s learned well from the book, evidently; this time he doesn’t rush in with his tongue so soon, instead following her lead as their kisses become more and more ragged and open-mouthed over long minutes, varying in pace. He’s showing off for her, she thinks, as she feels the very tip of his tongue trace over the inner edge of her lip. She settles more of her weight onto him and sucks his lower lip into her mouth so she can sink her teeth into it – first gently, and then firmly enough to make him whimper. She applies pressure with her teeth until she feels him relax from the endorphins of the pain, then releases and does it again in a slightly different spot. He’s hard under her, but it’s his lips she’s interested in, the way they’re conveying all the dazzling desire she’s been forcing him to ruminate on for weeks.

She’s emboldened by lust, and keeps kissing him as she works a hand down the front of her skirt and tights, into her underwear. Roman moans when he realizes what she’s doing. He manages to pull his face away from hers for long enough to pant, “Can I – can I do that for you? Or use my mouth? I’ll be so good, I swear.”

She laughs, dark and mean. “No. Today your job is just to kiss me.” She’s so wet, strikingly, surprisingly wet, and she dips her fingers into that slickness before spreading it over her clit in circular strokes. It makes her gasp against his mouth.

“Gerri, you’re killing me,” he mumbles. “Please?” He rocks his hips up toward hers, straining to feel any trace of her hand’s movement through her skirt. Her circular rubbing grows faster and more insistent, focusing in on the spot where it feels best.

“Show me what you’d do to me,” she says, and presses her lower lip into his mouth. He takes the hint immediately and starts tonguing it, sucking it gently and then more firmly, attending to it like it’s her clit. It makes her thrust against her own hand from pure desire. Roman pays careful attention to which strokes of his tongue and lips seem to unravel her most, and does more of what’s working, giving her lower lip more pleasure than some of the men she’s dated have given her entire body.

Her breathing gets shallow and erratic, and she feels the impending orgasm threatening to crash over her at any moment. He notices too, and his fingertips dig into her hips so he can pull her flush against him, as her hand continues whirling inside her underwear. He quickly sucks her lower lip in and out of his mouth like he’s giving it an enthusiastic blowjob, and that’s what does it – her hips stutter and she cries out as the climax tears through her. It goes on for so long that when she finally comes back to earth, she realizes that her other hand has been fisted in his hair, pulling on it god knows how hard for god knows how long. But Roman seems unbothered; his eyelids are fluttering blissfully as he continues to lap at her lower lip like a lifeline.

She pulls away from him and looks down at his blushing face. A tidal wave of sentimentality sweeps over her at the way his eyes get shy under her gaze, and she knows exactly what she wants to do but isn’t quite sure she’s brave enough to do it.

And then she thinks, fuck it, and takes her hand out of her underwear so she can shove her wet fingers straight into his mouth.

He groans with surprise and sucks eagerly until her fingers are clean, the tips pruney from her prolonged wetness. “How’s it taste?” she asks, and he makes an unholy sound midway between a grunt, a whimper, and a sob.

While it would be funny to send him home with blue balls, Gerri’s not feeling cruel, just playful. So she rocks her hips against him and says, “You may unbutton your pants and finish yourself off, Roman.”

He blushes such a deep shade of red then that she instantly knows what he’s about to tell her. “Um, I actually…” He avoids eye contact and squirms under her. “I actually came when you did. Sorry. Send me the dry cleaning bill if there is one. I’ll probably have to burn these pants. They might be unsalvageable.”

She buries her face in his neck and laughs, delirious with release. “I’m glad to know I have that effect on you.”

He scoffs. “What, the effect of making me come so hard I ruin designer denim? Yeah, quite a talent.”

She giggles, an uncharacteristically youthful sound. “Mmhmm. Exactly.”

They breathe together for a few more moments before she climbs off of him, hoping to locate a tissue to wipe up her excess wetness. But she can’t resist glancing down to Roman’s lap, and chuckles openly when she sees the stain by the tip of his now-softening dick, where the dark denim is darker and sticky-wet.

“You did well, Roman,” she says. “You gave me exactly what I wanted.”

He looks skeptical, but says, “Yeah?”

She nods. “Now go clean yourself up, and think about the way I taste, and how much you’re looking forward to tasting me for real.”

He rolls his eyes, and gets up to head toward the bathroom. “That’s already, like, all I’ve been thinking about for weeks, Ger.”

Chapter 6: Callidus Digitos

Once they’ve gotten cleaned up, Gerri changes into pale pink pajamas and stretches out on the sofa with an indulgent post-orgasm glass of riesling. Meanwhile, Roman begins prowling the length of her living room bookshelves.

“Dostoevsky, Sartre, de Beauvoir,” he rattles off. “Do you actually read these guys, or are they just here to make you look smarter?”

“De Beauvoir was a woman, actually,” she corrects him, “and many of those, I haven’t revisited since grad school, but I enjoyed them when I did read them. Baird and I liked to debate philosophical principles together over dinner.”

He shoots her a sharp look. “Yeah, well, I bet old Baird couldn’t make you come just by kissing you, so he wasn’t all that,” he says, sounding like a jealous teenager who just caught his prom date making out with the football captain.

Gerri smiles and shakes her head. “There’s no need to speak ill of my dead husband to make your point, Roman,” she tells him. “But no, he never made me come just by kissing me.” She sees his expression rearrange itself into smug pride for half a second before he turns away from her to scan her books some more.

There’s one shelf in particular that she’s waiting for him to arrive at, and when he gets there, he stumbles backward half a step in surprise. “Oh fuck, is this the motherlode?” he asks. “All your sex books? Displayed in the fuckin’ living room? Gotta love a lawyer who’s proud of being a horny slut.”

“There’s a few that I keep in my nightstand, for easy access,” she says, and he turns around to raise his eyebrows at her. “But that’s most of them, yes. No one’s ever asked about them, but if they did, I wouldn’t have anything to hide. Their puritanical judgment wouldn’t be my problem.”

“Atta girl. Hashtag sex-positive feminism,” Roman says, tracing a finger along the spines of the books. “Can I pick which one I read next, or did you have something in mind for me? Or are we done with theory and ready to move on to hands-on instruction? My vote’s for the latter, natch, but I’m easy.”

Gerri’s tempted, but not enough, not yet. “You can choose your next book,” she says. “Subject to my approval.”

Roman hums thoughtfully as he looks through the titles. Eventually one catches his eye, and he slides out her copy of Female Ejaculation and the G-Spot by Deborah Sundahl. “This could be useful,” he murmurs, and starts paging through it. “Wait, Ger, there’s fuckin’... dog-eared pages in here. A bunch of them. Do you jerk off to this shit? Is that why being my homeschool sex professor is getting you so hot?”

She’s glad he’s not looking at her; the pink hue rising on her cheeks isn’t just from the wine. “Well, no, not exactly,” she says. “I asked a former beau to read a few key sections that I’d marked for him. He was a bit lost in that department.”

Roman turns to look at her. “Who? Was it Laurie? Or maybe that guy from HR who took you out for drinks that time?” She’s surprised he knows about this, especially given that it happened about four years ago, but he keeps going, so she doesn’t have time to think about it. “Was it fucking Baird? No, I don’t think you would marry a guy who couldn’t fuck you right. I think it was Laurie. That’s my final answer, Regis. Guy looked like he couldn’t tell a vibrator from a salad spinner.”

Gerri chooses not to comment on this. “Why are you so curious?”

He shrugs. “Just wanna know who I’m gonna fuck you better than. Plus I’m a shameless gossip whore.” He tucks the book under his arm and comes to sit next to her on the couch – not touching her, but close enough that she kind of wants him to.

“I guess I should go,” he says, checking his watch. The sun is starting to set outside.

“Is that what you want?” Gerri asks.

He furrows his brow. “Not really, but that’s the vibe I was getting,” he says. “Don’t you usually kick guys out after they get you off? No offense, but you don’t strike me as much of a snuggler.”

Gerri thinks this over. “You can stay for a while, if you rub my feet while we watch TV,” she says. And so they do, and he does.

---

Three days later, she gets a text from him while she’s enjoying a solo dinner at her favorite sushi restaurant. i guess i should’ve asked this before i started reading a whole book on it, but are you a squirter, or do you just like your g-spot fucked? (either way’s great, just want to know if i should invest in a waterproof poncho)

A burst of laughter escapes her, loud enough that the sushi chef gives her a look. She types: It has been known to happen on occasion, when circumstances aligned just right, yes.

He replies: i’m gonna align your circumstances so right bb

She looks at her calendar again, at the week he wants her all to himself in Montauk. It’s started filling up with meetings, as all her weeks tend to do, but at a much slower rate than any other week in the app, which may or may not be deliberate on her part. And everything therein is something she could move. Technically. If she needed to.

She might fucking need to.

She slides her phone back into her purse and bites into the piece of salmon nigiri the chef has just served her, trying to think about anything that isn’t Roman’s hands or Roman’s mouth or the way Roman’s eyes either get soft or blazing-hot when he looks at her.

---

They’re at a mid-afternoon meeting, where some suit from the events division is giving a presentation about potential new cruises themed around various Waystar IPs. Gerri’s energy is flagging, her attention drifting. Not enough coffee, and too much Roman.

He’s sitting in the chair next to hers, and if his wandering eyes and tapping toes are any indication, he’s just as bored out of his skull as she is. Just then, he notices her noticing him, and turns up one side of his mouth in a half-smile that makes Gerri a little dizzy.

He glances around quickly to make sure no one’s looking at them – everyone else at the table is either engrossed in the presentation or totally zoned out and staring at their phone or laptop. So no one sees Roman quietly shift his chair the tiniest bit closer to Gerri’s. No one sees him pluck the pen out of her right hand, where it’s resting on her skirt under the table, and slip two of his fingers into the space where the pen had been. And no one sees him start to finger the inside of Gerri’s hand like it’s her cunt.

It takes her a moment to figure out what the hell he’s even doing, but as soon as she remembers the book he chose from her collection, it all clicks – he’s demonstrating some of what he’s learned. He presses the soft pads of his middle and index fingers against the sensitive center of her palm, gliding back and forth over one small area in particular, which Gerri can all too easily imagine is her G-spot. He applies a little more pressure, and then backs off; then a little more than before, and backs off again.

He’s ostensibly still watching the presentation, but his eyes keep flicking over to her, to check how he’s affecting her. Gerri’s got a great poker face – it’s a requirement of her job – but it’s taking a good deal of mental effort for her to keep her expression in check, when it feels like Roman Roy is fingerfucking her in front of a room full of their colleagues.

He pushes his fingers a little deeper and she almost moans. Her breathing is definitely faster than she’d prefer, but she’s doing her best to modulate it. It’s impossible not to wonder what those fingers would feel like inside her, especially paired with his mouth on her. She bites her lip and tries to drag her focus back onto the presentation, but every time she almost manages it, Roman changes up the pressure or the rhythm of his strokes against her palm, and she feels herself getting wetter and wetter, her cunt welcoming the fuck that it thinks he’s giving her.

His movements are faster and firmer now, targeting that one extra-sensitive spot in the middle of her palm, and she recognizes it as the type of stroke that can most consistently make her squirt, if enough time has passed and there’s been enough build-up. She can feel phantom pressure on her G-spot with each press of his fingers, an intense transmuted pleasure she’s never felt before and didn’t even know was possible.

The presentation finally, mercifully, ends. A few people stick around to give feedback or ask questions, but as far as Gerri is concerned, the meeting is over. She stands up shakily and walks out of the room, and Roman is bounding after her immediately, following her down the hall like a codependent puppy.

They don’t say a word until they get to her office and the door is safely closed. “What was that?” Gerri asks as she settles into her leather desk chair. She hates the way her voice is trembling.

Roman grins, and falls into a sideways position across the armchair opposite her, his legs dangling off one armrest. “That was me fucking you,” he says. “But I didn’t get to finish the job, so maybe you should take the afternoon off. See what other fun holes I can locate on your body.”

Gerri chews on her lower lip and really thinks about it – but then remembers she’s a fucking adult, with a high-stakes, grown-up job, and no longer a hippie law student who can enjoy giant joints and leisurely fucks in sunny dorm rooms between lectures on defamation and civil procedure. “I have two more meetings left today, both important, and dozens of emails to answer,” she says, and even she can hear herself wavering, the way he could probably tilt her off-course with some well-chosen words right now.

Roman shrugs. “I could get under your desk,” he suggests. “Seems like a good spot for me, honestly. Can’t antagonize anybody or tank the stock price when my mouth is full of pussy.”

Gerri considers it for a moment, but even the act of considering it tells her that she’s in no state to be making this kind of decision. Her clit wants nothing more than to let Roman get on his knees, pull her stockings and panties down, and bring her to an orgasm or three with his strong fingers and pretty pink mouth. But her clit can’t call the shots, not when the caliber of her work has global-scale implications. She knows that. She hopes that he knows it too.

And then there’s the other thing, the thing that’s harder to admit. “You’ve done so much research to get good at pleasing me,” she says finally. “I want to be able to relax and enjoy it when I finally let you try.”

Roman smiles at her adoringly. “Aw, that’s wholesome, Ger,” he says. “Translation: ‘Roman, I know you’re gonna make me come so fucking hard someday real soon, and I’d rather be focused on that and not on my emails when it happens.’ I get it. We’ll wait.”

He hops up off the chair to leave, and to her immediate embarrassment, he visibly notices the way her legs are crossed tight, her thighs pressing together – a not-entirely-conscious attempt to give her clit any relief whatsoever. “Fuck, I really riled you up, huh,” he says with a cocky grin. “Well, good luck with that. I’m gonna go jerk off about it in a bathroom stall. I’m sure you can understand.” He winks at her and moves toward the door.

“Roman,” she calls after him, not even sure what she’s going to say.

“Yuh-huh?” He’s got his hand on the door handle, and turns around to look back at her.

“Are you free today after work?”

He goes wide-eyed and speechless for a moment, then clears his throat. “For drinks, dinner, or eating your pussy?” he asks. “Either way: extremely. Never been freer.”

She’s trying to maintain the upper hand, to convey a sense of cool detachment and of not really caring how this plays out, but it’s hard to do that when she’s lightly sweating from arousal and still pressing her thighs together without meaning to. “I can leave a little early,” she says, clicking over to her calendar on her computer screen. “4:30, if my last meeting is quick. You could meet me at my place.”

“Okay, sure,” he says, his tone less certain than his words. He drops his hand from the door handle and turns fully toward her, staring at the floor, tapping one toe in a restless rhythm.

“What is it?” she asks, sensing the shift in his energy.

“I just, I dunno, I need to know that this is for real,” he says, unable to look at her. “Because if this turns out to be another tease, Ger… Like, that’s hot and all, but also kinda heartbreaking, you know? It’d be like the worst case of blue balls ever, but for my mouth, and my… my brain, I guess.”

She watches him until he finally lifts his gaze to hers again, and then she says, “I think you’ve earned it. I think you’re ready.”

His eyes twinkle a little with the beginnings of a smile, and he says, “Translation: ‘Roman, I am so fucking horny for you that I, a known workaholic and legendary girlboss, will be clocking out early so I can come all over your face as soon as schedules will allow.’”

Gerri murmurs, “Something like that,” and sends him on his way. “Don’t be late.”

He laughs as he walks out of her office. “You don’t be late,” he calls over his shoulder. “I’ll be there with fucking bells on. I mean, not literally. That’d be weird.”

Chapter 7: Timor Subit

Notes:

This chapter takes a bit of a turn, because Roman is Roman, but I promise I will bring it back around 😊

Bit of hurt/comfort; mild content notes for trauma responses, anxiety/panic, consent discussions, allusions to Logan's past abuse (nothing detailed).

Roman’s sitting on a bench in the lobby of Gerri’s building, knees bouncing restlessly, when she gets there around 4:52 p.m.

“You can’t tell me to show up on time and then be late. That’s just rude,” he says immediately when she passes him on her way to the elevator. “Your doorman wouldn’t let me up, even when I explained that I had a very important pussy appointment with the stone-cold fox on the 9th floor, so I’ve just been waiting around like a horny hobo.”

She hits the elevator button and frowns at him. “Tell me you didn’t actually say that to the doorman.”

He ambles over to wait with her. “I didn’t,” he concedes. “I told him you’re an old friend of my dad’s – emphasis on ‘old’ – and I come over sometimes to feed you applesauce, play checkers with ya, keep your mind sharp.”

The elevator arrives and they get in. “I thought you were here to fuck me, not to insult me,” she hisses, jabbing the button for her floor.

“Okay, good point. To be fair, you haven’t assigned me a book on flirting or dirty talk yet, so I’m just out here trying shit and seeing what sticks,” he says, and then steps closer to her. “How’s this: while you were doing your meetings and emails and whatnot, I shaved my face, trimmed my nails, and jerked off so I won’t jizz myself all over your furniture this time. Probably.”

She offers him the smallest smile. “Marginally better. Good boy.” He leans his head back against the mirrored wall of the elevator and closes his eyes, expression contented, like a cat in a sunbeam.

Once they’re inside her apartment, he tucks his hands into his pockets and surveys the room. “Ah, the sex nest,” he says. “Can I call it that? Or does that depreciate the property value?”

“I have some ground rules, Roman,” she says, ignoring him, as she starts taking off her jacket and shoes. He turns to look at her alertly. “You will show me what you’ve learned from the books I’ve assigned you, including in the areas of mood-setting, seduction, and foreplay. You will deviate from those lessons if and when I tell you to, because books are useful but are no replacement for direct feedback from the person you’re trying to please. And you will keep your smart-aleck comments to a minimum, unless it’s for a deliberate purpose related to our goals here.”

His eyes are bright and alive. “And those goals are…?” When she doesn’t answer him and merely gives him a look like a teacher waiting for a student to solve a math equation, he goes on: “Okay, well, my goals are to get you off, help you chill the fuck out, and make you happy enough that you adopt me as your little lapdog so I can sleep at the foot of your bed and wake you up every morning by licking your face until you feed me.”

Gerri’s not sure how to respond to this, so she just runs an exasperated hand over her face and walks with purpose into the bedroom.

She collapses on the bed immediately. It’s been a long day, a long week, a long month. A long career, really. She can never seem to catch a break, and has become so accustomed to the breathless grind of the job that the whole idea of relaxing feels foreign and vaguely suspicious. Maybe this could be a test, a way to see if she can even turn off her work-brain long enough to enjoy an hour or two of pleasure, before deciding whether to commit to a fucking week alone in a Long Island mansion with Roman next month. She can’t remember the last time she had sex without simultaneously thinking about at least three legal snafus on her docket and six emails she urgently needs to send. It’s hard for sex to feel like sex at all if it’s only her body that’s having it, while her mind is trapped back in her office, half-watching it all happen from afar through glass skyscraper walls.

Being with Roman, though, makes the idea of staying in her body seem more appealing, more possible. As she watches him nervously flit around her bedroom like he’s casing the joint, she observes all the cravings that come up for her: the desire to pull his hair, to squeeze his biceps, to push him to his knees in front of her.

She lets these impulses simmer as Roman busies himself looking for a lighter to get a couple of her scented candles going – he finds one in her vanity drawer – and then starts fucking around with her Bluetooth speaker until some soft instrumental jazz starts emanating from it. “Can we do anything about this?” he asks, pointing up at the too-bright overhead light. “The vibes are off. It’s giving ‘E.R. exam room’ and I need it to be giving ‘Playboy Mansion circa 1976.’” She smiles, pulls up her smart-home app on her phone, and hands it to him; he bites his lip while he messes with sliders and color wheels until a pink-purple glow suffuses the room, and then he crosses to the window and pulls the gauzy curtains shut.

Hands on his hips, he looks around, surveying his work. “I think we’re good to go, except for maybe one more thing,” he says.

“What’s that?”

But suddenly he’s somewhere else. Here a moment ago, gone now. His eyes are gazing unfocused into the middle distance and his fingers are fidgeting wildly at his sides.

“Roman?” she asks. “Everything alright?”

With difficulty, he drags his eyes over to hers. Her relaxed position somehow feels inappropriate now, almost disrespectful, so she straightens up, her back pressed against the headboard.

He sighs shakily and says, “So, bad news: I’m kind of low-key freaking out a little bit. Not a big deal, but… yeah. Thought I should maybe flag it?” His voice is slightly choked, the way it gets around his dad sometimes. Not a good sign. Gerri swallows hard.

She pats the bed next to her. “Okay. Come sit. We’ll talk about it,” she says. He seems to warily consider it for a second or two, but then starts pacing back and forth by the window instead.

“I guess I’m just thinking, like… what if I fuck this up?” he says, tone gradually rising toward a manic register. “It feels like this is, like, a sex audition, and I’ve been studying my lines for weeks but they might not be there when I need them. And if I’m terrible at it, then what happens, exactly? You don’t like me anymore? You don’t give me more shit to read, or sit next to me in meetings, or text me, or make fun of me, or have dinner with me, or even… see me as anything but a fucking work colleague? I don’t think I can handle that, Gerri, I really don’t think I can. Not now, not after all this shit.” He drops into a cross-legged position on the floor and buries his face in his hands, breathing hard.

Gerri freezes and considers her options, gaming it out. And then she tells herself to stop thinking like a fucking lawyer and just be a human person for once. So she slides to the carpeted floor and kneels beside him, placing a tentative hand on his back. She never was good at this sort of thing, not even with her daughters.

“Roman,” she says softly. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you were feeling this way. I thought…”

“You thought what?” he says through his fingers. “You thought I didn’t care about this? You thought I was just in this for the sex, all fun and games and fucking around? I’m not like that, Gerri. I was trying to be, ‘cause I thought that’s what you wanted, but I don’t think I am.” He drops his hands into his lap so she can at least see his face now, but he still won’t look at her. “Even kissing you was hard. I don’t really… do that.”

“You don’t kiss?” she asks, genuinely surprised. “But Grace… Tabitha…”

“I mean, yeah, a little maintenance peck here and there,” he says darkly, “but like, making out? With our faces all close together and breath and tongues and hands all over each other and…?” He shivers. “I’m not… normal, Gerri. You know that, right? I’m not, like, a normal man who knows how to do normal man things. Maybe that’s why I wanted to read all those books for you. I thought they might give me a fucking clue.”

“And did they?” she asks gently.

He looks at her and his eyes are bloodshot and sadder than she can remember seeing them in a long time. A humorless laugh escapes him. “Yeah, they gave me a clue about what you want,” he says. “And I don’t think I’m it.”

Gerri’s heart crumples in on itself. She didn’t know. She would’ve done things so much differently if she had.

“You are what I want. Just you,” she says quietly, and it’s a scary admission that she isn’t even quite ready to accept herself yet, true though it may be. “And we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I’m sorry, I should have been more thoughtful. I should have been paying closer attention.”

Tears have welled in his brown eyes, but he blinks them back. “No, fuck that, no, stop. I mean, I didn’t even know I felt like this until today, there’s no way you could’ve known,” he says.

She strokes her hand in circles along his back, hoping it’s grounding. “Should we... take an inventory of what you want? What’s okay and what isn’t?”

He sniffs and wipes at his face with the back of his hand. “Okay.”

“Did you like kissing me?”

He nods. “I liked it when you were on top of me,” he says. “I didn’t have to… decide anything. So none of my decisions could be wrong.” He laughs through tears, and she can see shades of the little boy Logan Roy must’ve slapped around, fleeing from punishment, people-pleasing until he ran himself into the ground. Her stomach lurches with something like empathy. They both know what it’s like to be trapped under Logan’s thumb, although Gerri never had to endure such experiences when she was too small to defend herself, too young to have any choice in the matter.

“Okay, noted,” Gerri continues, trying to keep her voice level, to be the adult in the situation. “Did you like seeing me come? Making me come?”

He blushes. “I mean, I blew my load all over $500 Japanese raw denim without even being touched, so I’d say that’s a hard yes.”

Gerri tilts her head. “An orgasm isn’t the same thing as consent, Roman,” she points out.

“Okay, okay,” he breathes. “Yeah, I fucking liked it. I thought about the sounds you made when I jerked off like three times that night. That enough consent for you?”

She chuckles mildly. “Yes. What about me pulling your hair? Did you like that?” She fucks herself up with this one, steals a look at his hair and wants desperately to mess it all up, to tug until his scalp aches. But she waits.

He’s still blushing and staring down at the floor. She knows shame when she sees it. But she’s patient with him, and he carefully breathes through it. “Yeah,” he says, so softly she almost doesn’t catch it. “Yeah, a lot.”

She’s frustrated with herself for how much this is turning her on, despite the solemn tone of their conversation. But then, she’s been incorrigibly horny since Roman unraveled her at the meeting earlier, and she can’t exactly flip it off like a light switch, try as she might. “And when you think about tasting me… going down on me… does that…” She’s not sure how to ask the question. “Does that seem like something you’d like to do, or does it seem scary?”

He takes her other hand, the one that’s not rubbing comforting rhythms on his back, and kisses her knuckles. She can feel his hands trembling. “Both,” he says. “Very both.”

Gerri’s not sure what to do with that. “Okay,” she says. “So where does that leave us?”

He’s silent for a while, for so long that she almost starts to regret asking. But then he says, “I want to do it, so fucking bad. But I want you to tell me what to do. Or show me, or whatever. And I want you to –”

His voice breaks, and he turns away from her to collect himself. She can’t look at him too closely or her heart will shatter, and it seems like his might, too.

When he’s steadied himself enough, he turns back to her and says, “I want you to still like me, even if I do a shitty job. And give me a chance. To learn.”

“Oh, Roman,” she murmurs, and pulls him into a loose embrace. “Of course. First times aren’t meant to be perfect. They’re about experimenting, figuring it out together. I’ve never had a good first time in my life.”

His sad-little-boy eyes meet hers, suddenly hopeful. “Really?”

She thinks, but doesn’t say: Yes, really; my first time with Baird, I didn’t come, the bed squeaked incessantly, and his roommate walked in at the worst possible moment.

She thinks, but doesn’t say: Yes, really; my first time with Laurie, his phone kept ringing, and then my phone kept ringing, and eventually we just gave up.

She thinks, but doesn’t say: Yes, really – except for the first time I touched myself while kissing you, and came so hard I almost cried.

She nods and says, “Yes, really.”

He intertwines his fingers with hers in his lap. “Well, that makes me feel about 3% better.”

“Good,” she says. “And it doesn’t have to be tonight, by the way. This was a lot. If you want to go home, rest, take some time, I understand.”

He sniffles and traces his fingertips along her palm. “No, it does have to be tonight, actually,” he says. “Because if you make me wait any longer to taste you, I’m going to have a fucking brain aneurysm from sexual frustration and it’s going to be your fault. And my dad is a litigious prick, as you know, so you’d probably end up paying hundreds of millions in damages and getting disbarred, all because you didn’t let me lick your pussy.”

Gerri rocks back on her heels at this, nearly losing her balance for a second. “Well,” she says, eyebrows raised so high they’ve practically migrated off her head. “I certainly don’t want that.”

She stands up slowly and starts unzipping her skirt. He looks up at her and smiles, eyes still red-rimmed, tongue pink and wet as it darts out to lick his lips.

Chapter 8: Postremo

Notes:

y'all's comments make me laugh and smile so much, keep 'em coming lol ❤️ here is some SEX, you earned it if you read this far!

going to post an aftercare chapter tonight as well because both the characters and the readers might need it 😘

Roman stares up at Gerri from her bedroom floor, and though tears are still drying on his cheeks, he looks like he wants to eat her alive.

She lets her skirt fall, and steps out of it. Then she unbuttons her white blouse, shrugs it off, and tosses it toward him. He balls it in his fists and holds it to his nose, inhaling deeply, the sight of which gives Gerri goosebumps all up and down her now-exposed arms.

“Would you help me out of these?” she asks, tugging at the waistband of her sheer pantyhose. Roman nods and gets up on his knees so he can carefully slide them down, his face so close to where she wants it most. He follows the tights’ path down her legs with his wide brown eyes, and she already feels like he’s devouring her even though he hasn’t even gotten his mouth on her yet. Fuck, she’s wet.

She gets onto the bed and gestures for him to join her, which he does, slowly and cautiously, like he thinks he belongs on the floor. And maybe she’ll put him back there, at some point. But for now, even more than that, she wants Roman in her bed.

“Is it okay if I – ?” she asks, indicating the buttons on his shirt. He nods wordlessly and she undoes them. He’s got a soft white T-shirt on underneath, and she opts to leave it on him. He’s been forced through enough vulnerability already today; she knows him well enough not to push her luck. “Pants too, please,” she says, and he dutifully undoes his belt and shimmies out of his slacks, leaving just his black boxer-briefs.

Gerri lies down on her back and pulls him along with her, so his head is pressed against her chest and his small body is enfolded in her arms. It’s an oddly maternal gesture and yet it’s turning her on even more, the heat of his breath across her tits in her pale pink bra.

Remembering his plea to be told or shown what to do, she weaves her fingers through his hair and directs his mouth toward her right breast while pulling it out of her bra with her other hand. He moans appreciatively and face-plants onto it, sucking at her nipple with hot wet pressure that makes Gerri arch her back so she can feel more of him. “Fuck,” she groans under her breath, and Roman redoubles his efforts.

The bra feels like more of a hindrance with each passing second, until Gerri reaches back to unclasp it, and pulls it off in one fluid motion. Her tits spill out and Roman buries his face in them like he never wants to leave, making pleased little noises in his throat. She drags his head over to her other nipple and he bathes it in attention as well, sucking and licking until her hips start to gyrate fruitlessly into the air. “Put your thigh here,” she instructs, and pulls his warm thigh to rest between her legs so she has something to grind on. She hums with satisfaction when he leans into her there, taking the note, giving her all the pressure she’s craving.

He kisses her all over her chest, up to her neck, across her collarbones and shoulders. He does it like he’s worshipping her, like he’s paying tribute to a goddess. Tears well up behind her eyes for a moment at the intensity of his focus, a quality of devotion she’s never felt from any man before and maybe even thought herself incapable of earning. And yet here he is, kissing her body like it’s carved from stars.

She pulls him up by his hair until his face is close to hers, and stares at his lips, shiny and slightly swollen already from being put to use. “How would you feel about kissing me?” she murmurs, still all too aware of how fragile he is, and he answers the question by fervently pressing his open mouth against hers. She mewls under him as he slowly strokes her lower lip with his tongue; she can’t help but think about all the other places on her body where she wants to feel it.

When she can bear to tear herself away, she whispers into his ear, “Take my panties off and put your mouth on me.”

He’s still shaking a little as he crawls down her body, and when he arrives at her cunt, she worries for a moment about how she smells and tastes – especially since she’s been at work all day and wet for hours – but he quickly quells her concerns by pressing his entire face against her pussy through her damp underwear. She listens to him breathing her in, and he sighs contentedly, eyelids fluttering. “Fuck,” he says, and she feels the word reverberate through her clit.

He pulls her underwear down her hips and legs slowly, and holds them to his face for a moment, inhaling them the way he did with her shirt. She would be embarrassed if she wasn’t so incredibly turned on.

Then he tosses the panties to the floor and turns his full attention to what’s between her thighs. At first he just looks at it, fingertips lightly tracing her outer lips – and then he leans in and pushes his tongue straight into her soaking-wet opening.

The sound he makes is unlike any she’s heard a man make in bed before; it’s like he’s tasted manna, or possibly a really great seasonal cocktail at a Michelin-starred restaurant. He presses his tongue deeper into her, trying desperately to taste more of her, and she wonders sincerely why she made him wait so long for this. Made them both wait so long for this.

When he’s been sidetracked by her wetness for long enough, she grabs his hair again and guides his mouth onto her clit, moaning loudly when he latches onto it with his lips. He laps his tongue lazily against it and she feels, for the first time today, the flicker of a possible orgasm on the distant horizon. To think that he was worried about his performance, when he’s already gotten her closer than she’s ever gotten during a first time with someone new.

His licks get a little too fast and ardent, so she hauls him back by his hair to slow him down and ease up the pressure. He moans against her cunt from the pain she gives him and the directness with which she takes what she wants. He tongues her clit in slow circles while he works one finger, then two, into her wetness. When he crooks them upward to tilt into her G-spot, she half-rises off the bed and cries out. He giggles a little against her pussy – what a beautiful sound – and strokes over that spot with insistent pressure again and again while his tongue massages her clit.

It’s all getting her close, very close, but she realizes through a haze of pleasure that she wants to come in a very particular way tonight. “Roman,” she says breathlessly, “Roman, come here,” and pats the expanse of bed next to her.

He looks confused when he lifts his head, but does as she’s said, crawling back up her body to lie on his back beside her. “Are you stopping me? ‘Cause I don’t wanna stop,” he slurs, his pretty lips all swollen and his voice slightly hoarse. “Was I doing it bad? I can do it better, I swear, I –”

She shushes him, and gets into position to straddle his face, gripping the headboard while she lowers her cunt down onto his mouth from above. He gasps, but his surprise melts back into devotion as he wraps his hands around her hipbones and pulls her more firmly onto his face.

She follows the rhythm her body wants her to move at, gently fucking his wet mouth with her clit. His eyes are closed and there’s a steady stream of moans coming out of them both; hers start to escalate in pitch, in a way he likely recognizes from the last time he made her come. With one hand on the headboard and one holding onto him firmly by his hair, Gerri grinds against his face faster and faster, until one final flick of his tongue over her clit makes her tense up and spasm, coming hard against his lips while he sucks every last moment of pleasure out of her.

It’s only as she gradually floats back down to earth that she realizes Roman is whining and keening underneath her. She decides to take mercy on him, and rasps, “You can finish yourself off now.” She hears him hurriedly pulling his cock out of his underwear and stroking it, fast and firm, and it barely takes any time at all before he’s coming all over himself, his ecstatic cry muffled by a mouth full of pussy.

Gerri’s thighs are dangerously shaky, but she manages to climb off of him. She settles into bed next to him and wraps one arm over his chest, carefully avoiding the trajectory of his cum.

“You did so fucking good for me, Rome,” she murmurs into his ear, and it’s impossible to tell if his face is glistening from her wetness or his tears or both.

Either way, he can’t manage words just yet. So she nudges him into a little-spoon position and holds him, listening to his heartbeat gradually slow back down to normal, and pondering whether maybe she was wrong about first times. Maybe they can be great after all.

Chapter 9: Postea

He doesn’t stay over. She doesn’t ask him to.

When he’s caught his breath enough to stand, he disentangles himself from her and scuttles off to the bathroom, grabbing his discarded clothes on the way. He’s in there for just long enough that Gerri starts to worry, but then he reappears, fully dressed, jittery, eyes wild. He says, “Hey, hi, think I’m gonna –” and gestures toward the door, already walking toward it at speed.

“Roman!” she calls after him sharply. She grabs a fluffy bathrobe from the hook on the back of her bedroom door and throws it on as she follows him into the living room. “Don’t you think we should –”

“Go again? No, I think the spermies gotta simmer for a while at the refractory factory before that’d be possible,” he says quickly. “I’ll text you tomorrow?”

“I was going to say,” she says, frowning, “I think they call it ‘aftercare,’ and I think it would be a good idea.”

He looks at her blankly. “Who is the ‘they’ you’re referring to? The sex police?”

She crosses her arms. “The kink community. It’s considered a best practice.”

“Ohhh,” he says. “That was kink? You mean jerking off while smothered in pussy and having chunks of hair ripped out of my skull isn’t wholesome normo sex?” There’s an affectionate glint coming back into his eyes that assuages her concerns slightly, though she’s still alarmed that he’s leaving so fast.

“I mean,” she says, “maybe we should talk about what just happened, especially since emotions have been running high today.”

“Emotions? Me? Nah. I’m basically a sex robot with a broken dick,” he says. But he clocks the way her eyes have gotten dark and hard, and sees he needs to give her more. “We’ll talk, I promise,” he says. “I just don’t think now’s the right time for me. I need to go home and get my head on straight. Take some space, think shit over.”

Gerri feels an ice-cold pang of fear in her chest. “Are you – regretting this?” she asks. “Because we don’t have to keep doing whatever this is. It can be a one-time thing if you want, Roman.” It’s not what she wants, but she keeps her face as neutral as she can, trying not to influence the gears turning in his head.

He laughs, a manic but warm sound that helps her muscles relax a little. “No, no, no,” he says. “Very much want to do it again, like, many more times. I just…” He bites his lip. “I guess I can’t… think… very well around you? Like, my mind just turns to horny mush and starts yelling shit like ‘spit in my mouth, daddy’ and ‘step on me, queen’ and it gets pretty loud in there. And I need to do some thinking, ‘cause this gave me a lot to think about, obviously.”

“But you’re not thinking of ending things,” she says, leaving off the question mark because it would hurt too much.

“That is not an agenda item for my board meeting with my own brain, no.”

“Great,” she says, and his eyes do a twinkly thing at her that makes her want to tell him to stay. But of course, she won’t. “Well, I hope the meeting goes smoothly and that you’ll keep me abreast of any relevant developments,” she says wryly.

He drops his eyes to her chest for half a second and says, “I would love to keep you abreast, Gerri,” before kissing her cheek and darting out the door toward the elevator.

---

True to his word, he texts her the following morning, a Saturday. if you still wanna do “aftercare” (googled it, still not totally sure what it is), i’d love some cunt-structive criticism on my technique so i can get better for next time

She’s in the shower when the text comes in, so there’s enough time for him to send a follow-up five minutes later: also can’t stop thinking about the way you taste but that’s neither here nor there

Her stomach flutters when she sees it. She gets into comfy weekend clothes, brews herself some tea, and sits down at the kitchen island. This is going to be a Conversation, and she needs to be prepared.

As the tea is steeping, she asks herself what she needs in terms of aftercare. It’s not something she’s really had to consider before, what with all of her past relationships being fairly vanilla, and her few kinky dalliances being with people she didn’t really know or, frankly, care that much about.

Once she figures it out, she texts him: I’ll trade you. You tell me one thing you liked about yesterday, I’ll give you one note on your technique. And I do have a few.

He writes back: i already told you i’m obsessed with how you taste, does that count?

She can’t help but laugh at the way he’ll squirm his way out of vulnerability at any opportunity. She responds: Give me a little more detail and then yes.

There’s a sick nervousness in her belly as she watches his typing indicator, and she feels about sixteen years old. How humiliating, how humbling. His text comes in: i’ve thought about what you might taste like… a lot of times. like, a LOT of times… & you surpassed my expectations. fuckin chef’s kiss. strawberries + rainbows + sexually active unicorns. getting kinda hard thinking about it, whoops

She smiles, a pink blush rising on her cheeks. Thank you, Roman. That actually relates to my first note, which is that you spent a bit too long tongue-fucking me when I wanted you on my clit.

well excuuuuse me for gorging myself on the nectar of the gods, he replies, but ok, point taken. more compliments 4 critiques?

Sure, go ahead.

ok. i really fucking like your sex noises.

What about them?

ummmm they’re just… very good?? usually when i fuck people the only sounds they make are like “ow” or “what are you doing” or “was that it?” so it was nice to hear you enjoying it (i think)

Yes, I enjoyed it very much.

ok good to know. you having a screaming orgasm all over my face kinda felt like mixed signals so i appreciate the clarity

She laughs into her teacup and responds with the promised piece of criticism in exchange. You could’ve kissed me for longer, first. I like the way you kiss.

He replies: oh but me and your clit had like a full-on makeout sesh though, didn’t she tell you?

You know what I mean, Roman.

yeah, i do. more smoochy-smoochy before the coochie-coochie, got it

That’s not exactly what I said, but yes.

He goes on: alright let’s do one more. hair-pulling was, once again, very very A++ good. i like pain apparently? when it’s not inflicted by my dad anyway

She flinches at that one, and then immediately wishes she could give him a hug. Not that he’s really the hugging type. I’m glad to hear that, because there are plenty more ways I’d like to hurt you.

jfc gerri. such as????

Your face was made to be slapped, for one thing.

hottest text i’ve ever received. and i once got a surprisingly detailed sext that shiv meant to send to tom so that’s really saying something

She’s flooded with a feeling suddenly, and that feeling is: she can’t fucking stand how much she likes this boy. But she still owes him one more note on his technique, so she doesn’t linger on the thought. I would’ve liked to feel your fingers in me for longer. You’ve picked up some good tricks in that department.

well if i recall correctly (might be a bit brain-damaged from pussy asphyxiation), you wanted to ride my face and that’s not exactly a fingering-friendly position, unless i get all the bones in my wrists removed

Charming image, she writes. No, I know. Just for your future reference, when we’re in positions that allow for it. Squirting in your mouth could be fun.

ok i take it back, THAT is the hottest text i’ve ever received 🔥

---

She’s got a three-day work trip to Japan scheduled for the following week, and asks Roman to swing by her office the day before she leaves so he can pick up his next reading assignment.

He saunters in at the agreed-upon time in the afternoon, and splays himself across her armchair. “So? What filth are you filling my brain with this week?” he asks, and she hands him a copy of Hurts So Good by Leigh Cowart that she pulled from her collection that morning.

“You mentioned pain,” she says, as he takes it and starts flipping through it. “Thought you might like to understand a little more about why you like it.”

“Oh, I know why I like it,” he says. “Healthy blend of trauma and being bewitched by a hot blonde sadist.”

She watches him page through the table of contents and introduction, and the words I’m going to miss you surge in her chest. But that’s silly. She’s only going away for three days. She’ll be back in no time.

“You gonna think about me in Japan?” he asks, as though he can read her mind. “Or do you have a pussy-eating boy-toy lined up over there too? You can tell me, I won’t be offended, just murderously jealous.”

She chuckles. “Yes, I’m sure you’ll cross my mind once or twice,” she says. “Maybe we could speak on the phone at some point, if we can make the time zones work.”

He casts a sidelong glance her way. “Oh, we’ll make them work,” he says. “I seem to recall we’re pretty good on the phone.”

There’s sadness behind her smile. Sadness that she’ll be away from him, and sadness that evidently neither of them is going to say those words that are still looping in her brain: I’ll miss you.

As usual, he reads her a little too well. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay, Ger,” he says. “Vibrators still work in Japan, I’m 99% sure, so it’s not like you’ll be deprived.”

She wonders if he really thinks that’s her sole issue in this situation – orgasm access. And then she decides to lean into it instead of pondering it further. “No, but you’ll be deprived,” she says decisively. “No coming until I get back. Touching yourself is allowed, as long as you don’t come. I want you pent up and desperate.”

“Hey, fuck you!” he says, but he’s grinning. “I don’t recall signing over my jizzing rights to you. Fuckin’ opportunistic harpy.”

She holds his gaze. “You don’t want to follow my instructions?”

The fondness on his face is so warm, so sweet, it makes her heart hurt. “Fine,” he says. “But don’t get mad if I have a wet dream, okay? Not trying to find loopholes, I just can’t guarantee Dream Roman will control himself if Angelina Jolie shows up in a leather catsuit or whatever.”

She smirks. “I think you’ll find a way to keep yourself in check. It’s only three days.”

He leans his head against the back of the chair, gazes out the window, and repeats, “It’s only three days,” and Gerri wonders if those three days will feel as long for him as she knows they will for her.

Notes:

can you tell flirty banter is my absolute most favoritest thing to write for these two?

Chapter 10: Quid Vis?

After her second long day of conferring with Waystar associates at the Japan office, Gerri retires to her hotel room for a sad little room-service dinner in front of the TV. Astonishing how life can feel so empty all of a sudden, when the person who’s been filling your days, your thoughts, is halfway around the world.

She’s drinking a martini and staring glassy-eyed at ATN when her phone buzzes. Roman’s text says: hey you’re really pretty

She’s tipsy enough, jet-lagged enough and lonely enough that this hits her like a punch to the gut. She has to blink back tears, which is ridiculous. Gerri Kellman does not cry over men. Not since Baird, anyway, and he fucking died, which is different.

She sets her martini down on the nightstand and writes back, You’re quite handsome yourself, Roman.

Suddenly his name gets big on her phone screen and she realizes he’s calling her. Why does that send a hot jolt to someplace below her waist?

She hasn’t even managed to say hello before Roman says, “What color underwear do you have on right now?”

She checks her watch. “Isn’t it 8 a.m. there?” she asks. “Odd topic to discuss over breakfast.”

“Oh, fuck that, my perversion knows no boundaries,” he grumbles. “Tell me about your panties, please. Something something 'most important meal of the day' something something.”

She takes great pains to ensure he won’t hear that she’s laughing. “Roman, I know you don’t know much about women or what they want, but a little foreplay goes a long way,” she explains in a sweetly patronizing tone. “Not just in the bedroom but in conversation too.”

“Hmm. Seems fake, but okay,” he says. “I guess you probably want me to ask, like, ‘How’s Japan treating ya?’ or ‘How was your day?’ or some other basic bullshit, but that’s not really what I’m curious about and I don’t think it’s what you want to tell me about, either.”

She chews her lower lip. “I’ve been here many times before. Food’s still great. People are still lovely. Jet lag’s still awful. Contract negotiations are still dull.”

“See?” he says. “You don’t want to be talking about this. You won’t admit it, but you want me to say more shit that makes you blush. Late-night obscene-phone-call shit.”

“I’ll say it again: isn’t it 8 a.m. there?”

“And I’ll say it again: who fucking cares, time isn’t the boss of us. Did you think about me when you got yourself off last night? Now that’s an interesting question.”

Her gaze automatically travels to her trusty vibrator, still sitting out on her nightstand from when she did indeed use it last night. “What makes you think I –”

“You get stressed when you travel, and you get horny when you’re stressed,” he interrupts. “Why do I know this? Because I pay too much attention to you. Why do I pay too much attention to you? Who can say. I’m a freak, I guess.”

This pokes at a sore spot inside her, an insecurity that’s been bouncing around at the back of her mind. “Maybe it’s because you like me,” she murmurs. It’s a question, and a dare.

There’s a pause, a scary, nervous, thrilling pause. “I do, yeah,” he says. “Very astute of you to have pieced together that the woman I text constantly, and follow around, and read books for, and have weird sex with, is indeed a woman I like. The math checks out on that one.”

He has once again somehow made her feel like a teenager navigating the choppy waters of a first crush. It should be illegal for a man to make her feel this way at her age. Surely it could have medical ramifications. Maybe she should call her cardiologist when she gets back, she thinks; check to make sure these palpitations are Roman-induced and not life-threatening. Although Roman himself may also be life-threatening in his own way.

“I do wonder about it sometimes,” she says softly. “Don’t you find it a bit… unusual? Someone your age, being interested in someone my age?”

He laughs. “Name one thing about me that is ‘usual,’ Gerri. Go on. I’ll wait.” But he doesn’t wait, just keeps talking. “I don’t exactly aspire to a life of normalcy. Do you? I don’t even think it’s possible for me. Like, my dad’s a famous billionaire and I’m kinda broken inside. I’m just trying to play the best game I can with the hand I’ve been dealt.”

They’re dancing around the question she really wants to ask, the one she’s wanted to ask for some time. “What do you… see this as?” she says slowly. “What’s your current working definition of… this? Us?”

Roman cackles, and god, she misses him. “Oh, we’re doing this now?” he says. “I love how I called to ask about your panties and it somehow morphed into an existential define-the-whatever talk. Okay. Let’s do it.”

Her stomach drops. She’s hurt, and she can’t keep the sound of it out of her voice, though she half-tries. “No, we can just forget about it,” she says coldly. “My panties are blue. Should we say goodnight? I have an early morning.”

“Hey, wait. What? What just happened?” he says quickly. “I do wanna talk about it, I was just surprised, that’s all. Gerri, come on.” He listens to her wounded silence for a moment and then adds, “I like you for more than just your panties, I was just being a dick, okay? Let’s define this. Let’s define the hell out of it.”

She’s reluctant to be the first to venture out onto a limb yet again, but then, between the two of them, she is the adult, and adults need to do brave things. “I’ve been noticing that my feelings for you are leaning increasingly romantic,” she says carefully, taking her time with each word to make sure she says it right.

“Fuck. Really? That’s hot,” he says. Then, sensing he’ll need to give her more than that, he adds: “I… am not always good at knowing what my feelings even are, because historically feelings haven’t usually been a… pleasant or productive experience for me, but…”

She waits. She’ll wait as long as it takes.

He clears his throat. “I mean, like, when I think about your pussy I also think about your eyes, and your smile, and your laugh, you know?” he manages. “And when I think about you slapping me or stepping on me, I think about it in the present but also in the future. Like, us being a… a team? A unit? In the medium-to-long-term, potentially?”

“Are you saying you want us to be a couple, Roman?” she asks.

“Umm. I guess my concern is just that when either of us have been part of a ‘couple’ before, it’s ended in disappointment or, like, literal fucking death.”

Gerri laughs and reaches for another swig of her martini; she needs it. “Yes, that’s what it’s like to be in a relationship, Roman,” she says. “You risk disappointing each other. Or dying. Or breaking up. That’s table stakes.”

He thinks about this and says softly, “But what if I don’t want any of that? What if I just want things to stay, you know, good and hot and fucked-up and nice between us? The way they are now?”

“That’s always the hope, isn’t it?” she says. “But whether we define it or not, we can’t guarantee that. It’s just a reality of life.”

He gets very quiet. She stays still and listens.

“Can we, um,” he says, his voice small and shaky. “Can we put a pin in this, come back to it when I’ve had some time to, y’know, process? Marinate on things?”

Gerri softens. She knows him, and she knows this isn’t a no, so she doesn’t have to be afraid. Although she still is, maybe, a little bit.

“Of course,” she says. “We can keep being what we are, and figure it out as we go. We’ve been doing a good job of that so far, I think.”

She listens to him breathe, and wishes more than anything that she could reach out and touch him right now, let him know it’s going to be alright.

With a sudden shift to a more jovial tone, he says, “I’ve been doing what you said. Jerking off but not coming. It kind of sucks, but it’s also kind of the best? I can’t decide.”

“Have you been thinking about me when you do it?” Gerri says with a smile.

“Maybe I’m doing it right now, who knows,” he replies. “You said your panties are blue?”

Notes:

am i spending too much time writing this fic when i should be doing other stuff? very yes. is it worth it? also yes. thanks for all the love!

Chapter 11: Prope, Et Usque Adeo

Notes:

[chanting like a maniac] phone sex phone sex PHONE SEX PHONE SEX

also, content note: the briefest tiny mention of rape (it's only Roman realizing something he said sounded non-consent-y and then immediately correcting himself, so nothing detailed or graphic whatsoever, just thought you might wanna know)

It’s Gerri’s last night in Japan and Roman is inconsolable.

“I am in hell,” he’s ranting on the phone. “You sent me a fucking lingerie pic and I’m still not allowed to come? This is what hell feels like, Gerri. You have banished me to fucking hell.”

She laughs. “Can you really not control yourself for the 24 to 48 hours until I see you next?” she asks.

“24 to 48 – what? You’re not gonna walk right off the plane and onto my face?” he says. “You’re just gonna pencil me in whenever it’s convenient for you? ‘Calendar event: give Roman some relief from the ninth circle of hell. Hmm, let’s say Friday, could be Saturday, doesn’t really matter.’ You are such a withholding bitch and why is that making me hard! Stop it!”

They’re both laughing now. They can’t stop. He makes her feel delirious. It sounds like the feeling is mutual.

“I’m going to be exhausted after the flight,” she says when she can form words again. “If we met up right away, I’d be useless to you, because I’d fall into bed and be out like a light.”

“I can work with that,” he says.

“What?”

“Oh, shit, I didn’t mean that in a sleepy rapey way,” he says quickly. “Just, like, you know, sleeping. I mean, I won’t sleep, I’ll still be staring at the ceiling thinking about that photo you sent me. But you can sleep next to me. That’d be chill.”

She smiles. “You’re right, that could be very chill,” she says.

“I love when you use slang like the youths. Next you’ll be telling me my blue balls are cringe and my oral skills are based.”

“I would agree with both of those statements, yes.”

They sit there in a cozy silence together for some moments, and then he says, “I think I… miss you? It’s weird.”

“Why is that weird, Roman?”

“Well, I dunno. Ken and dad go on work trips all the time and I never miss them. I’m just like, ‘Wait, you were gone? Is that why there was less general misery in the air?’”

Gerri chews on a fingernail. “Is it possible that your feelings for me are categorically different from the feelings you have for your brother and father?”

He snickers. “I should fucking hope so. Otherwise Freud might like a word with me.”

She chooses not to point out that Freud might like a word with him anyway, given their sizeable age difference. No sense in beating a dead horse. Or a postmenopausal one.

“Well, I’ll be back soon enough,” she says.

“That’s not soon enough,” he whines.

She leans over to her nightstand and picks up the wand vibrator she left there. “In the meantime, would you like to hear me come?”

There’s a fizzy, tense pause. She can almost see the way he’s fidgeting right now. “On the one hand: fuck yes, absolutely yes, never wanted anything more in my life,” he says. “On the other hand: have I mentioned that I am in hell?”

She giggles. “I think you like it.”

He scoffs. “I mean, fuckin’, yeah. The masochist likes being tortured. Your powers of deduction are unparalleled.”

Gerri turns the vibrator to its lowest setting and starts gliding it up and down her inner thighs. “If you like to suffer, then isn’t it technically heaven?” she asks. “More of a reward than a punishment, really.”

He sighs. “You are too fucking smart for me, Gerri Kellman. Your lawyer logic is impenetrable.”

“You don’t think you can penetrate it?” she murmurs low.

“Knew you were gonna say that, you witty little slut,” he says, his voice getting husky. “Do I hear vibrations, or are you just purring like a horny kitten over there?”

Gerri skates the vibrator over her panties, avoiding her clit, teasing herself. “I think you’d do a better job, but you wouldn’t fit in my suitcase, so the toy will have to do.”

“Wait, really?” he breathes. “You think I’m better at getting you off than a consumer product specifically designed for that purpose? That’s high fucking praise.”

She presses the vibrator a little more firmly against her mons, then her outer lips. “Well, don’t forget that I had you read all those books to learn what to do,” she says. “I’ve shaped you. Made you into a different kind of toy, just for me.”

She can hear his breathing get heavier. “I’m, like, drooling right now,” he says. “Like a dog. With a salivary gland issue.”

“Very sexy, Roman,” she says through a laugh. She lets the vibe touch her clit for the first time and gasps softly at the sensation. “It’s good for your mouth to be wet, though. Makes it much more pleasant for me when I grind against your tongue.” He makes an unguarded noise that’s sort of hnnngg and sort of guuuhh and it hits Gerri so deeply that she has to take her panties off and press the toy directly against her bare skin.

“I like when you use me,” he says quietly. “To get yourself off. Like that’s all I’m good for.”

“That is all you’re good for,” she responds. “Just a hot little mouth I can exploit for my pleasure whenever the whim strikes. Sometime I’ll have to blindfold you and tie you down so I can take advantage of you however I want.”

“But – but I like to see you,” he stammers.

“You can’t see me right now and you’re imagining me just fine, though, aren’t you?” She turns the vibrator up and the sound makes Roman’s breath go shaky.

“Yeah,” he admits. “Whatever you want, Ger. I just wanna make you feel good.”

“Make me feel good,” she echoes back mindlessly. The neediness in his voice is traveling straight to her clit, and she’s not going to last much longer. She flicks the vibe up to its next setting.

Roman trips on his words for a second and then says, “I wanna… make you come so hard and then lick it all up… swallow it all and walk around with your taste in my mouth all day… fuck, Gerri, please, I –”

And that’s when she comes, with a thunderous roar, the vibrator rumbling hard against her throbbing clit all the way through it. Maybe the people in the next hotel room hear her. She doesn’t give a shit. Roman’s mouth feels too good in her imagination to focus on anything else.

When she’s done, she sets the vibrator down and hears Roman struggling to catch his breath. “You didn’t come, did you?” she asks sternly.

“No,” he says in a meek little voice. “Almost. But no. I was good.”

“Good. I’m very proud of you for employing some self-restraint, almost like an actual functional adult,” she says, and he whimpers.

They lie together in sweet silence for a minute or two, just breathing. She wishes her head was on his chest instead of this hotel-room pillow, wishes he could really lick up her mess so she wouldn’t need to wipe it up with a wad of tissues and then throw it in the garbage. What a waste.

“You should’ve left me a pair of your dirty panties to huff,” he says finally, his voice strained. “Maybe that would make it worse. But I think it would make it better.”

An insane idea crosses her mind in a flash: sending him to her apartment to rifle through her laundry basket. She keeps a spare key at the office. She could do it. The image of him, hungrily pushing his face into a pile of her sweaty shirts and worn underwear, is so powerful that it sends aftershocks to her clit, little sparks of excitement she has to tamp down with a flat press of her hand.

It’s on the tip of her tongue, the command she wants to give him. She could say it and he would do it. Would beg her for it, actually.

But she can’t quite get there. “Maybe next time,” she says.

Roman hums dreamily. She knows she needs to get some rest before her flight in the morning, but she doesn’t want to hang up.

Chapter 12: Excessus Doloris

Notes:

Sometimes sweet!romantic!thoughtful!Roman feels OOC but I also genuinely think he'd be all heart-eyes for someone who knew and adored his true self and also knew how to consensually beat the shit out of him, so 🤷🏻♀️

Content notes for this chapter: moderate-to-heavy sadomasochism and drunk sex (all explicitly consensual).

When Gerri’s plane touches down in New York, she checks her phone and sees a new text from Roman that makes her heart stutter in her chest. It says, i heard there’s a foxy lawyer who needs a crash pad to nap off her jet lag? and he’s attached a selfie: small smile, morning light, white T-shirt, white bedsheets, white pillows, his arm draped dramatically across the empty half of his bed as if to say, Insert Gerri here.

She looks at the picture for several indulgent seconds as she drags her suitcase across the tarmac, and then types with her free hand, I doubt anyone has ever said this about you before, but you look… cuddly?

He replies, i can be cuddly if you want cuddly. what’s your ETA? (estimated time of aaaahhhh)

---

When she gets to his place, he’s still in the soft white shirt from the picture, along with the grey sweatpants he presumably slept in, and he looks so comfy that she wants to collapse on top of him. But that’s probably just from the post-travel exhaustion.

“Hey! Welcome back to this miserable hellhole we call the U.S. of A.,” he says, and there’s that smile from the photo again. He kisses her cheek and wheels her suitcase off to the side of the living room.

“Your chamber of rest and recuperation, m’lady,” he says, leading her toward the bedroom. It hits her that she’s never actually been in his bedroom before – hell, she’s only ever stopped by his place a few times for various work-related reasons over the years. It gives her a little frisson as she walks in.

She sits heavily on his bed and takes her shoes off, then realizes her gabardine pantsuit is not ideal sleeping attire. “Could I borrow a shirt or something, Rome?” she asks, and he searches his dresser drawers until he finds her a grey oversized Waystar-branded tee from some company retreat eons ago.

He leans against the wall with his hands shoved in his sweatpant pockets, watching her, as she strips down to just her bra and underwear and then pulls his shirt on over top. “It might be the three days’ worth of backed-up sperm talking, but you look really fucking sexy in that, Ger,” he says, and she feels a blush creep up her cheeks. “Here, do you want this?” He grabs an eye mask from his nightstand and shoves it at her.

Once she’s situated in his bed, with the mask on to block out the early afternoon light, she feels his weight settle next to her, and then – first tentatively and then with a bit more purpose – his warm fingers start tracing the inside of her thigh.

“Roman,” she says, sharply, like she’s chastising a misbehaving dog, and slaps his hand away.

He laughs nervously. “I just thought, you know… since travel makes you horny and all, maybe you’d want a little something?” he says in her ear, and she can practically hear his eyebrows waggling. “I’m being considerate! I’m basically Mother Theresa!”

She shakes her head. “No, you want ‘a little something.’ I told you, I need to sleep,” she reminds him. “Can’t you go watch TV or scroll Twitter or read a book? Entertain yourself for a change.”

“What book?”

She lifts the eye mask to look at him. “You finished the one I gave you already? About pain?”

“Yeah,” he says defensively, and then, noting her skepticism: “Turns out I have a lot of free time when you’re not around for me to stare at or perv on, okay? The book was good. We can chitchat about it later if you want. But I need another rec. If I’m still not allowed to jerk off then I’m gonna need to distract myself, because devilish temptation personified is in my fucking bed right now, if you hadn’t noticed.”

She smirks. “I like that. ‘Devilish temptation personified.’ Put it on my gravestone.”

He frowns at her. “But you’re never gonna die, though. Promise me right now that you’re never gonna die. No takebacks.”

She sighs. “Try The Adventurous Couple's Guide to Sex Toys,” she says.

"Ooh, are we an 'adventurous couple'?" he says with a glint in his eye. "Pretty sure I just tried to go on an adventure between your legs and you shut me right down, so I'm not so sure about that."

“You seemed intrigued by my vibrator over the phone last night.”

His lips twist thoughtfully. “‘Intrigued’ isn’t really how I’d put it,” he says. “Wildly jealous of it, maybe. Wanted to lick it, sure. Wanted to use it on you. Wanted you to use it on me. Wanted to see you use it. Okay, yeah, actually maybe ‘intrigued’ is right, I see your point.”

---

Mercifully, she gets a few hours’ sleep. Billionaires’ sons can afford blissfully comfortable beds, apparently.

When she wakes up and slides the eye mask off, she sees that Roman is splayed sideways across the bed, his head resting on her bare thigh, as he reads his Kindle. He looks up at her. “Hey hey. All rested up?”

She nods serenely and smiles down at him. “Don’t you have an armchair or a reading nook or something?”

He shrugs. “Some people like to read at bars. Some people like to read on the beach. Why can’t I read in my favorite spot too?”

---

That night, he takes her to dinner at a place with a ridiculous tasting menu and free-flowing ice-cold martinis, and they talk about the book he read while she was away.

“What struck you? About the pain book?” she asks, nibbling on a slice of wagyu.

He giggles. “What struck me is how much I’d like you to strike me,” he says. “Okay, that was bad. Um, all the shit about endorphins was neat. Made me feel like less of a freak for getting fuck-drunk when you pull my hair.”

Gerri nods. “I may want to hurt you tonight,” she purrs. “If you’re good.”

He takes a swig from his glass of scotch and says, “I think refraining from coming for three-almost-four days was me being pretty fuckin’ good already, but whatever; you do you, Ger.”

“Brat,” she says darkly.

“Bitch,” he counters.

“Tell me three ways you’d like me to hurt you.”

“You mean other than calling me names and denying me orgasms? Hmm,” he says, running a hand over his stubbled jawline. “I’ve definitely thought on multiple occasions about you scratching me with your scary nails. Ditto slapping my face like you're a feisty dame from an old movie who's mad that I got fresh with you.”

She reaches over to tenderly stroke his cheek for a moment, and he braces for impact. “We’re in public, Roman. I’m not going to hit you,” she says sweetly. “I can unsettle you as much as I like, though.”

He does look unsettled, as much by the possibility of pain as by the gentle affection. He clears his throat. “You could bite me, too,” he says, trying too hard to be casual. “Chomp chomp. Summon your inner Edward Cullen. I dunno, worth a shot.”

Gerri sips her martini and thinks this over. “Have you ever heard of CBT? I think it stands for ‘cock and ball torture’?”

Roman nearly does a scotch spit-take at that one. “Uh, no, I definitely have not, but I gather it’s… what it says on the tin?” When she nods, he says, “Sure, let’s try it. I’m not doing much else with those parts anyway. Might as well go balls to the wall, put ‘em on the chopping block. I mean, not literally, though. Right?”

She bites her lip and looks him up and down, feeling pleasantly tipsy and wanted and wanting. “Probably just some light slaps,” she says. “No reason to chop it off when I might find a use for it someday.”

He looks at her with such a perfect blend of terror, arousal, hope, and confusion that she has to laugh.

---

By the time they get back to his place after dinner, Gerri’s sadistic streak is in full swing. Maybe it’s the ample gin she’s imbibed, maybe it’s the days she’s spent away from him, or maybe it’s the jet lag, but any inhibitions she may have had about inflicting pain on Roman have fully dissolved. As soon as they topple into bed together, she’s kissing him hard, biting his lower lip, and tugging his hair.

“Jesus,” he says between fierce kisses. “Ow.”

“If it’s too hard, use your safeword,” she says, and sinks her incisor into his earlobe.

“Ow, fuck,” he gasps. “I don’t think I have a safeword. Were they supposed to send me one with my kinkster ID card and welcome package?”

She pulls away, realizing through a haze of booze that he’s right. She unbuttons his shirt so she can slip it off, and rakes her nails along his collarbones and upper chest until he squeezes his eyes shut tight. “Let’s say ‘red.’ That’s easy enough to remember,” she says.

“Like a stoplight?” he asks. “So if I want it harder, I should say ‘green’?”

“Yes, Roman, exactly. Like a stoplight,” she confirms, and bites his shoulder until his whole body stiffens and then relaxes under her.

“Okay, well, green, then,” he says weakly. She settles her teeth on the spot where his shoulder meets his neck, and slowly increases the pressure until he’s panting. “Gerri, fuck, ow, what the fuck, oh my god, fuck,” he swears under his breath, the words gradually trailing off into nothing.

“Roman, look at me,” she says, and his eyes snap open to meet hers in the dim light drifting in from the streetlamps out his window. She lays her right hand on his left cheek, and he gulps. “You’ve been very good for me this week, you know that?” She slaps him there, hard enough that her fingertips come away stinging, and he hisses in pain. “I’m very proud of you for following my instructions and not coming the whole time I was away,” she says, and slaps him again, mean and raw and yet somehow also affectionate.

“How d’you know I’m not lying about that?” he slurs slowly. “How d’you know I didn’t jerk off secretly?”

She laughs. “Following my orders gets you hard, and you’re a terrible liar,” she says, and slaps him again. “Plus, I doubt you would’ve complained nearly as much if you weren’t genuinely frustrated out of your mind.”

He nods and leans into the cool touch of her hand. “You’re right, Gerri,” he says dreamily. “You’re always right.”

She gives his face one more slap and then moves to lie beside him. He flinches as she starts to undo his belt. “Shh, it’s okay,” she says as she unbuttons his pants.

“That’s easy for you to say,” he mutters, mealy-mouthed. “You’re not the one whose dick’s about to get obliterated.”

With his help, she gets his pants down and off. His navy briefs cling to his hardness in a way that makes her shiver – and he shivers too, when she runs her hand along it. It’s the first time she’s touched him there, because it’s the first time she’s wanted to touch him there this badly, and Gerri is not a woman prone to doing things she’s unenthused about. But her enthusiasm is present in abundance tonight.

Roman’s whining in a way that seems equal parts afraid and aroused. She lines up her palm with the underside of his fabric-clad hard shaft, pulls her hand away, and lands a medium-hard slap there. He yelps.

“How was that?” she asks.

He thinks for a few moments and then says, “I think my brain is short-circuiting. So, green?”

“Perfect,” Gerri says, and does it again. And then again. His body twists and writhes and she says, “Hold still, Roman. Stop squirming around like a restless little boy,” and he stills himself to the best of his ability.

She’s never done this before, only read about it and watched the occasional porn clip, but smacking his most sensitive spot is a power rush that’s getting her wetter by the minute. Once she’s sure he can handle it, she picks up the pace so she’s slapping his cock at a steady rhythm, punctuated by his cries. It’s fun, and after a while, it’s almost meditative.

And then Roman says, “Fuck, shit, Gerri, I think I’m gonna – can I come?” in a desperate gasp that she adores, and she dials up the intensity of each hit even more, landing them perfectly on his sensitive frenulum, making him groan.

“Yes,” she tells him. “You’re allowed.” And that’s all it takes for him to yell out, dick twitching in his underwear and pumping out three days' worth of cum as Gerri keeps on slapping him until his noises get high and pitiful.

She lays her head on his chest and listens to his speeding pulse and his heaving breath, until both settle to some semblance of normal. At length, he manages to say, “What in the actual fuck,” and she laughs.

“That was fun.”

“That’s one word for it,” he says, running a hand over his face. “Congrats, I didn’t even know that was physically possible. You are a woman of many talents.”

She undresses while he’s getting himself cleaned up, and when he comes back to lie beside her again in bed, he rubs her thigh slowly and then slips two fingers between her cunt lips. “Oh my fucking god, you’re so wet from destroying my dick,” he murmurs in her ear. “You psycho sadistic bitch.” He gets his fingertips slippery with her wetness and then slides them up to circle her clit, not even trying to draw things out when she’s so close already.

She grips the sheets in two fisted hands as he strokes her in soft circles. Her purrs become moans, which become breathy exclamations. “Right there, Roman,” she gasps. “Don’t you dare stop.”

“Not stopping,” he growls, between the hot, wet kisses he’s giving her neck. “I wanna see you come so fucking bad.”

An orgasm bursts through her, fiery and sudden, and she clamps her thighs around his hand as he keeps stroking her and kissing her neck until she’s completely done. They collapse together, both sweaty and shaking.

He wraps one arm around her and buries his face in a pillow so deeply that at first she can’t understand what he says next, muffled as it is. But when she replays the sound in her mind, she figures it out. He’s said, each word drawn out and slow, “Help, I am so obsessed with you.”

She sighs contentedly, her body and mind both thoroughly exhausted. “Think you’ve got a mess to clean up before bed, Roman,” she says. When he lifts his head to look at her in confusion, she nods down toward her own cunt, and recognition dawns on his face.

He makes his way down her body and hooks her legs over his shoulders, and then he leans in close and starts lapping up all the wetness he finds there, generous and slow, softly moaning all the while. Gerri’s eyes flutter closed as she lies back and enjoys the deep press of his tongue, seeking out her nectar and then swallowing it down.

Once he’s done, he swirls his tongue around her oversensitive clit once or twice for good measure, and then drowsily crawls back up to lie beside her. “Are you staying over?” he mumbles as he pulls her into his arms, his voice warm and sleepy and cute.

“If you want,” she says, although frankly she can’t imagine putting pants on and getting in an Uber right now, seeing as her legs are made of jelly and she’s so tired that it feels like gravity has intensified.

“I want,” he says against her hair. “I want.”

Chapter 13: Pater Proditor

Notes:

Content note: Logan being a fucking asshole, what else is new (but don't worry, things get better)

Mondays are never Gerri’s favorite, for obvious reasons, but this one is an all-time hall-of-fame bad Monday, as it turns out.

She’s barely settled into her desk chair at work when her phone buzzes. Roman’s written: so uhh SOS, someone in HR tipped off my dad that you and me both booked the same week off work for our trip and he is shitting bricks

Seconds later, her assistant comes through on the intercom to tell her that Logan’s asked to see her in his office. Fuck.

When she gets there, Roman’s there too, pacing by the window and looking like he wants to shrink down into dust. “Gerri! Thanks for joining us,” Logan says, in a faux-magnanimous tone that makes her skin crawl. “Sit. Please.” She casts Roman a wary look but takes a seat in the armchair Logan’s indicated.

She clears her throat. “What’s this regarding, Logan? I’ve got a lot on my docket today.”

He chuckles merrily and says, “Your docket can wait. I’m the boss-man; tell ‘em I said so.” He winks, and a wave of nausea passes through her.

Logan goes on. “It’s come to my attention that both you and Romulus happen to be taking a week-long vacation from the 23rd to the 30th,” he says, watching her carefully for the tiniest shift in expression, which she refuses to give him. “Quite a coincidence, no? I can’t remember the last time either of you took so much time off, let alone simultaneously.”

She keeps her gaze firm and steely. “Yes. Quite a coincidence.” She’s not going to break, not for him. If Logan Roy was capable of breaking her, she’d have broken long ago.

Logan leans back in his chair, ever the luxuriant king of the castle. “I just like to know what my people are up to,” he says. “And if I can’t trust my people to shoot straight with me, well, maybe they shouldn’t be my people.”

“Are you threatening me, Logan?” she asks tersely. Roman is still striding back and forth by the window; she can feel his nervous energy jittering in her general direction from several feet away.

“Of course not,” Logan says, and holds up his hands in a gesture of innocence. “But if it came to light that my general counsel was withholding relevant information from me, steps might need to be taken.”

Gerri crosses one leg primly over the other and continues to stare him down. “With all due respect, Logan, I believe my familiarity with employment law exceeds yours,” she says, “and employees are under no obligation to disclose the details of their vacation plans to their employer.”

“Uh-huh,” Logan says noncommittally. His eyes shift back and forth between Gerri and Roman. “As my lawyer, sure, I can understand that,” he continues. “But as my long-time colleague, confidante, and trusted friend – you’re really not going to tell me if you’re fucking my son?”

“Dad, what the fuck?” Roman suddenly shouts. “Leave Gerri alone. This is completely uncalled for.”

Logan laughs triumphantly. “And there it is. Confirmation,” he says. “My youngest, the flaccid Casanova, is still chasing after a woman nearly twice his age. Pathetic.”

There’s a heavy silence, and then Roman says, his voice thick with emotion, “Fuck you, dad,” and storms out of the office.

Logan looks at Gerri and shrugs, like, Kids today.

---

She doesn’t chase after him – optics, cameras, spectators – but instead tries to steady her heartbeat as she walks back to her office, and then sends him a text. You okay?

He takes several minutes to reply, which is worrying in and of itself. not fucking really

She has so many emails to answer and briefs to write, but the words on her screen keep swimming in front of her eyes as Logan’s voice echoes in her head. She takes a few deep breaths and then writes to Roman, Please try not to take his cruelty onboard. He doesn’t understand us or our relationship.

A few more minutes pass before Roman responds, i don’t think i understand it either

She bites her lip and tries to think of a way to fix this – if not to get Logan to back off, then at least to get Roman to feel better – but the normally-prevailing part of her brain that is rational and decisive and resourceful seems to have gone offline. Let’s get together after work to discuss our strategy? Maybe over drinks?

He doesn’t answer. Rome?

Rome? Please talk to me.

I’m here, Roman. Don’t forget that.

---

By the time 5 p.m. rolls around, Gerri knows she needs a drink, whether or not it’s with Roman. The grey cloud of Logan’s brutishness has followed her around all day, blocking out the sunlight she’s been basking in lately, and it’s a terrifyingly cold feeling. Maybe some gin can warm her from the inside out.

She trudges over to a nearby spot that makes a decent martini, and finds herself a booth, feeling utterly defeated and horribly alone. Once the waitress has taken her order, she pulls up her text thread with Roman and drops him a pin. Why the hell not. Knowing him as well as she does, she doesn’t expect to hear from him for at least a day or two; he’s been known to drop off the grid when caught in a shame spiral, and no one sends him spiraling quite like his father.

So when he walks into the bar, red-eyed and rumpled, half an hour and half a martini later, she thinks for a moment that he must be a booze-fuelled hallucination. A scrawny, stubbly oasis in the desert.

He slips into the booth without kissing her, looking at her, or even saying hello. Instead it’s a movie quote that comes out of his mouth, lifeless and small: “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world… Blah-dee-blah-blah.” He slumps against the seatback and she notices the cinematic reel of Logan-getting-murdered fantasies that’s looping in her brain. How dare he. How fucking dare he drain the light from her sweet boy’s eyes.

She waves the waitress over for him, and he orders a double vodka, neat. The kind of thing you’d only drink if your intention was to get the hell out of your own brain, and fast.

“Roman,” she says softly, trying to catch his eye, once the waitress has gone. “I’m so sorry about today. That wasn’t fair to you. Or to us. He can be such a fucking asshole sometimes.”

Roman snorts. “Sometimes? That’s generous.”

She tosses back some more of her drink and just watches him for a while, waiting to see if he’ll talk. His vodka arrives and they sip together in silence for three minutes, five, ten.

Then he says, “I didn’t know you’d decided. About going to Montauk with me. You didn’t say anything.”

Her mouth drops open slightly; this hardly seems like the most relevant takeaway from today, but if it’s what he wants to talk about, then she’ll play ball. “I think I decided about a week ago,” she says, “when I was packing for my Japan trip and found myself wanting to invite you along.”

He raises his eyes to meet hers for the first time. “You wanted to invite me? Why?”

She shrugs. “I wanted you all to myself. And I started missing you before I even left.”

He smiles and it makes her face feel hot. “So why didn’t you? Invite me, I mean?” he asks.

Her gaze drifts toward the ceiling as she ponders how to answer this question she wasn’t expecting. “Well, you have a job here, Rome. I didn’t want to presume you could drop everything to come roll around in a hotel bed on the other side of the planet with me,” she says, and his playful smirk is like the sun, too bright to look at directly. She pauses before elucidating the rest: “...and frankly, I wasn’t totally sure if you saw this as anything more than sexual, and most people wouldn’t fly 7,000 miles to see a fuckbuddy.”

He furrows his brow. “Wait, what?” he asks. “Who said anything about a fuckbuddy? When did you stick that label on me?”

She sighs. “I didn’t. I just thought… I don’t know.” It’s rare that Gerri’s at a loss for words, but all the words crowding her mind right now are too scary and vulnerable and difficult and she’s just not sure she can manage them.

His eyes go soft, and she wants to curl up inside them and fall asleep for a million years. “Okay, well, I guess I have to explain some shit to you, then,” he says, and takes a big sip of vodka and a long, shaky breath.

“So, not sure if you’ve noticed, but I try to impress you every day, Gerri. I wonder if you think I look cute, every day. I get nervous every single time you talk to me, or text me, or even walk by my fucking office. And it’s been that way for… I don’t even want to say, because you’ll laugh at me. But a long fucking time.”

She’s so focused on his every word that she doesn’t even want to breathe, incase she somehow misses even a syllable.

He massages the bridge of his nose, eyes closed in exhaustion, and then continues. “If I wanted a fuckbuddy, I could offer any girl in this bar $5,000 to come home with me and that would be that. But that’s not what I’m doing. Instead I’m reading books you tell me to read, and having phone sex at fucking 8 a.m. when you’re in another time zone, and trying hot kinky shit that really fucking scares me because it’s what you want and I think you deserve whatever you want. Do you get what I’m saying, Gerri?”

“No,” she breathes, but it’s only a half-truth.

He squirms under her gaze, his discomfort palpable, but he makes a brave effort to go on. “Fuck, I’m really bad at this stuff,” he says softly, and pauses to collect himself. “I just – I like you, okay? In, like, a romantic way. If liking someone romantically means wanting them to trust you and feel good with you, and wanting to make them laugh and make them come, and wanting to protect them from assholes and make sure nothing bad ever ever happens to them, then that’s how I like you. Okay? And I don’t think ‘fuckbuddy’ really covers all that. Maybe you could peruse your Harvard-ass mind palace and come up with some words that work better, ‘cause fuck knows I’m no good at that shit.”

She reaches across the table toward him, and he takes her hand. It’s not really something they do; that much is obvious in the awkwardness of the grip, the way it starts out like a handshake and then searches for a more intimate shape to take.

She squeezes his hand and says, “It’s been a few decades since anybody’s called me their ‘girlfriend,’ but if that’s the word you’re looking for, then that feels good to me.”

He brings her hand to his mouth and kisses the back of it. “Do you wanna call me your boyfriend, or would ‘insolent brat’ work better? ‘Dumb little puppy’? ‘Incorrigible pain slut’? Fuck, I’m turning myself on now.”

She laughs, and a tear slips out, too, but she quickly wipes it away. “Those are all excellent and give me plenty of ideas, but I think you look like a boyfriend,” she says, and then amends: “I think you look like my boyfriend.”

The warmth in his face is the antidote to the cold, unforgiving poison that was their morning meeting with Logan. He beckons her toward him with a tilt of his head. “C’mere.”

Not needing to be asked twice, Gerri shifts across the booth seat until she’s sitting next to him, so close she can smell him, can see his chest rising and falling with each breath. “Yes? What is it?” she asks with a blithe smile.

“Just wanted to kiss my girlfriend. Jeez,” he says, and pulls her in for a long, hot kiss where anyone could see them.

Chapter 14: Mox Adventu

Over coffee at his place before work one day, Roman says conversationally, “What do you wanna do when we’re in Montauk next week?”

“Fuck,” Gerri says, and sips her espresso. Roman chokes on his latte.

When he’s recovered, he says, “I kinda meant, like, do you wanna lie on the beach, or walk over to the lighthouse, or whatever,” he says. “But, yeah. The fucking is implied. Heavily implied. What kinds of fucking, out of curiosity?”

She looks him up and down – his face just shaved for work, his navy button-down’s sleeves rolled up to his elbows, perfectly-tailored grey suit pants clinging to the modest curve of his ass – and just thinks, Mine. It’s actually harder to think of things she doesn’t want to do with him, or to him, than the opposite.

She shrugs. “The kinds we’ve been doing, and maybe some new things.”

He looks simultaneously wary of and amused by the wolfish look in her eyes. “Okay, well, let me know if there’s any special equipment I need to get my hands on before then,” he says, “so I can stock up before they run out of gimp suits or electroshock wands at BDSM R Us.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Don’t give me any ideas.”

---

Logan’s still acting like a prick to both of them at work, but Gerri jumped into action as soon as she’d gathered her guts enough to see the necessary steps in front of her. They filed some relationship-disclosure paperwork with HR, granting them both protection against being fired or penalized by Logan for dating each other (although, knowing him, other excuses could always materialize if he wanted them to). She sent him an email, worded with surgical precision, summarizing the content and tone of their meeting with him, so there’d be a paper trail of his animosity if she ever needed to fall back on it. And she issued a gentle threat, like a knife wrapped in velvet, reminding him that with decades at Waystar under her belt, she not only knows where the bodies are buried but also knows exactly how to exhume them in a way that would leave her hands clean and Logan’s dirty, should it come to that.

It’s weird being “out” as a couple at work. Kendall still loses his train of thought mid-sentence sometimes when he catches them smiling at each other during meetings, like an intergenerational courtship is really that foreign of an idea to him (half the office is well aware of Logan's dalliances with Kerry and other pretty young things, after all). Frank still looks at Gerri too closely sometimes, brows knitted together, like he expects her to say, “Just kidding! I’m not actually dating Roman, that would be ridiculous.” The occasional hot young secretary or paralegal – of any gender – still makes flirty eyes at Roman in the bullpen, or lingers a bit too close for a bit too long when asking him to sign a form or confirm a decision, and Gerri is perhaps too aware of these interactions in her periphery, but is always gratified by how completely he ignores the romantic attention of anyone but her. Sometimes she’ll watch a pert little blonde nobody walk away from Roman in a rejected huff and think, If you only fucking knew.

One day after work, he comes to hang out in her office before their scheduled dinner date, dangling his body upside-down off her armchair while she finishes up some emails. “I was thinking, you know, it’s discrimination,” he muses.

“What is?”

“So, we’re allowed to kiss now, right? Like, if I walked over there right now and planted a big wet pornographic smooch on you, they might tell us to get a room, but they wouldn’t fire us, because – well, for one thing, we’re at least ostensibly hetero so we don’t set off the ATN homophobia alarms, but also because we’ve ‘disclosed’ and shit, so we’re in the clear. Right?”

“Right…” She’s interested to see where he’s going with this, but his salient description of the kiss he could hypothetically give her has distracted her somewhat. She tries to refocus on his point.

“But if I got on my knees and you slapped me across the face, or I started kissing your cute little fuck-me pumps, or you put a leash on me and walked me down the hall, they’d kick us out, maybe even arrest us. And I’m the boss’s baby boy!” he rants. “I mean, what the fuck’s that about? Perverts deserve love too, dammit. Why’s our PDA considered more of a fuckshow than theirs, even though ours is obviously way more adorable?”

She hums thoughtfully to buy herself time while she processes the fact that he’s just dropped the word “love.” It doesn’t mean anything, she tells herself, but her speeding pulse feels differently. “Interesting point, Roman,” she says, and finishes up one last email before shutting down her computer. “Shall we go? I’m sorry I can’t walk you down on a leash, but the night is young.”

---

They’re on the phone the night before they’re supposed to leave for Montauk, when Roman says out of nowhere, “What if you get sick of me?”

“Sick of – what, exactly?” Gerri asks. She’s sorting through her closet, choosing which clothes to pack into her suitcase for the trip, a Bluetooth earpiece in one ear.

“I dunno. You’re seeing a lot of me lately, and you’re about to see a lot more of me for a whole week,” he says falteringly. “People say I’m not, y’know, very palatable. I don’t exactly go down smooth. I’m like the Buckley’s cough syrup of people. ‘Tastes awful, but it works.’”

The corner of Gerri’s mouth curls up. “I doubt that you taste awful, Roman. Maybe I’ll get a chance to find out this week.”

“Get a chance? You could’ve been sucking my dick this entire time if you were curious about my flavor profile and mouthfeel, woman. Nothing’s stopping you.”

“We’ll see where the week takes us,” she says. “But no, I don’t think I’ll get sick of you. I’ve known you for upwards of thirty years. If I didn’t get sick of you during your Beavis & Butthead phase at age 12, it’s hard to imagine why I would now.”

“Well, if you do, you can just sit on my face while you read or something. Shut me right up.”

She tuts and says, “If I’m able to concentrate on a book while you’re doing that, it just means you need to step up your game.”

“Hey! My game is very stepped up,” he argues. “Before you started schooling me, I thought cunnilingus was a type of dinosaur.”

She can’t help but laugh at that. “Yes, it’s lovely to see how far you’ve come.”

“And how far you’ve come… down my throat.”

She says tenderly, “How I adore you, my vulgar little freak.”

A comfortable silence stretches out while she chooses some dinner-appropriate dresses to pack, and then Roman says, “Can I make some requests?”

She’s intrigued. “Possibly. Go ahead.”

He seems hesitant to say what he has to say, but she waits him out. “You know those red heels you wore to the company Christmas party a few years ago? With the thin little straps?”

Her gaze immediately flits over to the shoe rack at the far end of her closet, where she can see the exact shoes he’s referring to. “The Fendi sandals?”

“I dunno, probably,” he says, the sheepish tone in his voice melting her.

“How do you even remember those?” she asks softly. “I don’t think I ever wore them to a Waystar function again. Too flashy, attracted too many stares. I felt like I was being slut-shamed by entire divisions that night.”

“I’ve… thought about them a few times since then. Or a lot of times. In, uh, private moments,” he says. “So they’re kind of seared into the ol’ noggin, as it were. Anyway, can you bring them? For reasons?”

“Those reasons being…”

“You know. Sexy reasons. Your-boyfriend-is-a-pervert reasons. Don’t make me spell it out, I’m humiliated enough as it is.”

“Hmm,” Gerri says, picking up the shoes and bringing them over to her suitcase. “You’d look quite handsome kissing these, I think. Or getting kicked in the balls with them. Or sucking on the heel.”

He makes a strangled growling noise that goes straight to Gerri’s cunt. “See? You get it,” he says lightly. “I didn’t even have to explain. Same wavelength, you and I. A very depraved and fucked-up wavelength. I dig it.”

“You said requests, plural?”

“Right, yeah,” he says. “If I can get a pair of your underwear really super fucking wet with just my impish charm and sexual je ne sais quoi, will you let me keep it?”

She goes to her underwear drawer and flicks through it, looking for pairs that are sufficiently sexy but that she wouldn’t mind parting with. There are several, and she grabs a few and puts them in her suitcase. “I think that can be arranged, yes. Anything else?”

He clears his throat and she listens closely to his pause; he has to gear up for this one, evidently, and she’s intrigued to know what’s coming. “You’ve done kink shit with other people before, right?” he asks.

“Sure, a bit.”

“Have you ever collared anybody?”

Gerri drops the skirt she’s holding. “What?”

“I’ve been googling stuff,” he says quickly. “I was just thinking it might be cute if you, like, owned me. And maybe I could wear something around my neck that would mean that. Doesn’t have to be an actual collar, could be some kind of subtle necklace situation. Very Harry Styles, ooh la la.”

She laughs too loud, her cheeks flushed, and then worries about the hurt silence that ensues. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh at that,” she says. “I’m just surprised.”

“In a good way?” he asks. “And, wait, you’re surprised that I want you to own me? Really? Have you not noticed, uh, every single thing I have done or said in your presence for the last several years? I thought you were observant, Gerri.” The smile in his voice is infectious.

She finds that she has to sit down on her bed for this one. “I’ve never collared anyone, no,” she breathes. “I’ve never wanted to.”

“Oh.”

“Until you."

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” They both let that sink in for a few moments.

“Well, great! See? Same wavelength,” he says. “That wavelength being: ‘I exist to be used and destroyed by you and also we should kiss a bunch.’”

“Perfectly stated, Roman,” she agrees.

---

Once she’s all packed, she flops exhaustedly on her bed, and though she’ll be seeing him in a matter of hours, the thought of saying goodnight to Roman is oddly sad. “All done,” she says. “Montauk, here we come.”

He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds and then asks, “Is it weird that I kind of want to fuck you over the phone right now even though I’m presumably gonna fuck you tomorrow?”

She chuckles. “I had the same thought, actually.”

“I mean, I could also just come over,” he says. “But that seems excessive.”

“It does.”

“But is excessive good, maybe? Like, sometimes excessive is fun, right?”

She really, really thinks about it, which is excessive in and of itself. And then she makes a different decision. She drops her voice a few tones lower and says, “It’s pathetic how obsessed you are with me, Roman. You can’t even go 24 hours without licking my pussy, can you? You start having withdrawal symptoms. What a desperate little pig.”

She’s shifted the tone of their conversation substantially, but he falls into step with her without question. Quietly, he whines, “Yeah. I miss it.”

“You just want me to smother you with my cunt, day in and day out,” she snarls. “You want to drown in it, choke on it. You want it all over your face so you can smell it all day long. While you’re at work. While you’re lying in bed alone at night.”

He whimpers. “Please.”

“You’re probably touching yourself to the thought of it right now,” she growls. “Wondering if I’ll let you taste me tomorrow, or make you wait. Make you beg.”

“Pleeeeease,” he says again. His breaths are getting heavy.

“I could get any number of men to satisfy me that way, you know,” she tells him. “Do you have any idea how many men would drop to their knees if given the opportunity? But I’m very selective about who I allow to put their mouth on me.”

“Fuck, please, Gerri,” he groans. “I’ll do anything.”

“You will do anything,” she agrees. “And that’s why you’ve occasionally earned the privilege of having me sit on your face. You’ll debase yourself and degrade yourself and do absolutely fucking anything I ask, because you’re under my spell and you’re addicted to my cunt.”

His breathing is fast now, and she knows he’s close. “I am,” he pants. “I am. Fuck, Gerri, can I come?”

While they’ve never specifically negotiated that he has to ask her permission, he’s been doing it more and more lately, and it gives her a thrill deep in her belly every time. “Yes,” she says. “Pitiful little puppy, coming all over yourself because my taste turns you on so much.” He gasps and groans in her ear, coming hard, and god, she never tires of listening to him get off, especially knowing she’s the one who caused it.

He struggles to catch his breath for a minute and then says, “Did you – do you wanna – should I – ?”

She shushes him. “No. I’ll wait until tomorrow,” she assures him. “Unlike you, I have some self-control, and I’d rather wait until we can stretch out together in a nice big bed.”

He thinks about this. “I could still come over, you know,” he says. “Like, if your only objection is that we’re not physically in a bed together right now… I should just come over. Objection overruled, your honor. Right?”

She laughs. “Roman, you really are insatiable,” she tells him. “Go to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He sighs. “Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying. Night, Ger. Sleep tight and have lots of fucked-up sex dreams about me, mmkay?”

Notes:

do you like how Roman first suggested Montauk in (checks notes) chapter 4, and they're finally going to arrive there in (checks notes again) chapter fucking 15

Chapter 15: Pes Cultus

When Roman and Gerri pull up to the Roy family summer house where they’ll be staying in Montauk, Roman gets out of the car to go unlock the front gate so they can drive in. Gerri scrolls on her phone while she waits for him to come back, but it takes upwards of ten minutes, which is her first clue that something is wrong.

“Well, I’ve got bad news and good news,” Roman says as he gets back into the driver’s seat, his eyes inscrutable through his black Ray-Bans. “The bad news is my dad changed the locks on us, the motherfucker. No clue who tipped him off that we were coming out here. Maybe he’s got our phones bugged, for all I know. In which case I hope he heard all our filthy, nasty phone sex and found it terrifying. Serves him fucking right.”

Gerri chooses not to comment on this. “What’s the good news?” she asks.

“The good news is, there’s a pretty nice resort ten minutes from here and I got us the world’s most ridiculous room,” he says. “It’s a honeymoon suite. The bed’s got a vibration mode and there’s a heart-shaped hot tub on the balcony. Vanilla people are fucking wild.”

---

Once they’ve checked into their room, Roman goes into the bathroom for a quick shower before dinner, and Gerri unzips her suitcase. Quietly, she sits on the edge of the bed and switches out her sensible suede ankle boots for the cartoonishly sexy red high heels Roman asked her to bring.

They still feel odd on her, incongruous, like part of a costume. But it’s a costume she feels more comfortable stepping into now than she did when she first bought them. It’s the costume of a sexy, desirable woman who knows exactly how sexy and desirable she is. As she listens to Roman idly humming the Mission: Impossible theme in the shower, she takes a moment to truly appreciate the butterflies in her stomach and the power at her fingertips – the way this man is simultaneously her plaything and her apostle, her biggest fan and her favorite toy.

As he comes out of the bathroom clean, damp, and wearing just a pair of sweatpants, intending to dress for dinner, he’s saying, “I know it’s not exactly what we had in mind, but at least we won’t have to tiptoe around my dad’s maid incase she fucking narcs on us,” and then he spots her, and the shoes, and suddenly he’s not talking anymore.

His eyes flick back and forth between her face and her shoes as he moves slowly toward her; he looks like an eager kid at a birthday party who’s not sure if he’s allowed to eat the cake yet. She crosses her legs primly and lets one foot dangle, and his eyes stay on it, as though hypnotized, as he sinks to his knees on the floor.

“I was a fucking mess at the party where you wore these,” he says softly. “Couldn’t string a sentence together. The village idiot in Versace. I think some investors thought I was doped up or something. But I was just…” He gestures helplessly in the general direction of her shoes.

She laughs. “I didn’t know you liked them. Or that you liked shoes at all.”

“Oh, yeah, for sure,” he says distractedly. “I’m an equal-opportunity perv. Shoes, underwear, stockings, lipstick, pearl necklaces… The road of life is paved with surprise boners.”

She reaches out with her foot and gently presses her toes into his bare chest for a moment. “Interesting that all of the items you just mentioned are things I wear almost every day,” she comments.

He’s so mesmerized by her shoes that he seems not to hear her for a second, but then he looks up at her, smiling, and says, “Huh, yeah, wacky coincidence.” She runs the sole of her shoe along his collarbone and up to his shoulder, then pokes the heel into him there, and his eyes fall closed as if in prayer.

“See, the thing I’m learning about kinky sex is,” he muses, eyes still closed, as she rakes her heel across his chest and down one arm, “I don’t really have a script to follow here? Like, there’s no ‘insert tab A into slot B.’ I can look at your shoes and feel like, ‘Mmm, yup, that, please,’ but then I’m not really sure how to, like, consummate. Y’know?”

“Oh, I can think of a few ways,” Gerri says. Just last night, she carefully sanitized the heels and soles of these pumps so they’d be clean enough to do any and all of the things she’d envisioned for them – so she has no compunctions about tracing one heel up his neck, across his cheek, and toward his mouth. “Suck,” she instructs.

He immediately begins fellating her heel like he was born to do it, like he’s thought about it countless times before, and maybe he has. Or maybe he’s just given a lot of blowjobs, but that’s a question for another day. Gerri watches with interest as he puts on a show for her, hollowing his cheeks each time he bobs his head up and down on the long stiletto heel. He pauses to swirl his tongue around the tip and then takes it into his mouth again, and she can almost feel it in her clit, which is definitely starting to respond to his ministrations, indirect though they may be.

When she’s had enough, she pulls her heel out of his mouth – noting, with glee, his frustrated whine – and then hooks it over his back to land on his shoulderblade, digging in until he’s forced forward all the way to the floor. With full access to his back now, she situates both pumps on the pale skin there and begins twisting them back and forth so the heels leave biting little marks on him. He groans and lets her bully him with her feet; the power rush is intoxicating.

“Are you thinking about how much you miss going down on me, Roman?” she asks, guessing that sucking her heel has brought his attention into his mouth, and that her legs are splayed wide enough for him to smell her.

“Uh-huh,” he sighs, his voice muffled against the floor.

“And you think you deserve that?” She can barely conceal the mirth in her voice as she leaves long scratches down his back with her heels.

“I don’t know,” he whines. “Yes. Please.”

She slips her toes underneath his shoulder to push him back into an upright kneeling position, and then hovers her foot dangerously over his cock, visibly hard in his sweatpants. “I think you need to earn it,” she teases.

His eyes harbor a hazy fear that’s getting her even wetter. “Okay. Yes,” he says, and licks his lips. “Whatever you want.” He squeezes his eyes shut in anticipation, and she raises her foot up higher and then brings it down, kicking him right where it hurts the most.

He nearly doubles over, the wind thoroughly knocked out of him, but he struggles to maintain his position. “Good boy,” she murmurs, and does it again. He grunts and gasps. She’s not going too hard – after all, she has plans for his cock this week – but a little goes a long way in this particular situation.

“One more,” she says, and he nods slowly, eyes shut tight, before she brings her sole down one last time on the bulge in his pants that just seems to get harder with every kick.

Then she leans forward to cup his cheek and says, softly, “So good for me. Always so good for me.” He makes angelic, high-pitched little noises and slumps forward to rest his face against her thigh. He’s in another world and she loves it, loves being able to send him there and being the one he trusts to keep him safe while he’s floating far away inside his own mind.

She settles her feet on the floor, grabs him by his hair, and hauls him toward her cunt. “Is this what you want?” she purrs, and he nods fervently against her. “You’d better take these off and get started, then,” she says, lightly snapping the elastic waistband of her black panties.

He can still barely open his eyes, but he locates her underwear and tugs them off before face-planting back into her pussy like it’s his home. The movements of his tongue and lips, as they begin, are slow and sloppy from his endorphin-addled state, but even that is enough to get her wetter and hotter, pushing up toward his face with her hips.

“I want your fingers inside me, Roman,” she says between ragged breaths. “If you do a good job, maybe you’ll make me squirt.”

He hums happily against her clit and his hand traces a clumsy path to her opening, where he finds her wet and waiting for him. He pushes inside with two fingers, and she’s pleased to note that he’s developed enough muscle memory to be able to do this even when he’s halfway out of his mind. His fingertips find her G-spot after a few seconds of groping around for the spot that makes her twitch, and he starts to stroke it as his tongue continues sliding up and down against her clit. She holds him tight against her with one hand in his hair while grasping the sheets tightly in her other hand.

“Harder,” she pants, and he presses his fingers upward more firmly inside her, making her breath catch. There’s a telltale feeling building there that she recognizes. “Harder,” she says again, and he pushes into her G-spot with enough force to make her see stars.

The rhythm of his fingers is delicious in tandem with his mouth working her clit; she’s being stimulated from all angles, ushered urgently toward orgasm. “Don’t fucking stop, Roman,” she says sharply, and he groans against her, maintaining his rhythm. It only takes a few more strokes for her to climax in his mouth, pushing forward with her hips to feel his lips and tongue surrounding her through every beat of it.

At the same time, she feels a hot rush of liquid spray out from where his fingers are massaging her, and his sudden gasp confirms that she’s squirted. She breathes through the aftershocks of her orgasm as she listens to the muffled glugging sounds of him struggling to swallow all her squirt, then dipping his tongue back in to make sure he hasn’t missed any.

She catches her breath as he laps at her until she’s too sensitive and has to stop him, and then she pushes him back a little with one foot. “Take out that cock,” she says breathily. “I know how hard it is.”

He practically sobs as he pulls his waistband down low enough to get his dick out, and then she places the soles of her shoes on either side of his shaft and strokes. He moans loudly as she tugs him off with her feet, and it’s not long at all before he trembles and comes all over his own bare stomach, his hips gyrating helplessly into the air.

When she’s finished, Gerri looks down and notices some small streaks of semen across her toes and the straps of her shoes. “Clean up your mess, you filthy boy,” she says, and pushes her feet toward his face. He heaves a blissed-out sigh and sets to work licking every drop of cum from her pretty feet until they’re clean.

“Do your knees hurt?” she asks after they’ve had a few minutes to simply rest together, his drowsy face leaning heavily against her thigh. He nods, and she says, “Good. Now, let’s get ready for dinner. I’ll be wearing these shoes to the restaurant, so you better be able to control yourself, you animal.”

He nods his head again, slowly, still unable to lift it from her thigh. “I can be good,” he slurs. “I’ll be so good for you.”

Chapter 16: Gustum Verecundiam

When they get back to their room after dinner, Roman says tipsily, “What if I carried you over the threshold, m’lady?”

She shoves him gently and starts rifling through her purse for her room key. “You don’t go to the gym nearly enough to be able to do that, Roman,” she points out.

He flexes a bicep experimentally. “What about superhuman strength, though?” he asks. “Like that thing about how a mother can lift a 3,000-pound car off her baby in an emergency. Except it’s me lifting you, and the emergency is how fucking hot you are.”

She finds the key. “I don’t weigh 3,000 pounds, last I checked.”

“Hey, wait – I never said – shit, I done fucked up, huh,” he says, and the delirium in his drunken voice is forcing a smile onto her face. “I love your body. Kindly disregard any previous car-related analogies. If anything, you’re a Mini Cooper. Or a Smartcar.”

There’s that word again. Love.

Once they’re in, Gerri sits on the nearby sofa, takes out her phone and starts checking her emails. Force of habit, really. And she’s curious what’s going on. Plus they might need her for something, back at the office. Unfortunately she is very important.

“Hey!” Roman barks. She looks up and he’s standing in front of her, hands on his hips, brow furrowed. “Absolutely not. Log off. Touch grass. We are on a sex vacation. The only things you’re allowed to do are vacationing and sexing. Don’t make me put on my bossy-boy voice.”

She snorts. “You have a bossy-boy voice?”

He clears his throat and drops into a weirdly good Kendall impression. “Uh. Gerri. What the fuck are you, uh. Doing? Aren’t you supposed to be, like, uh. Fucking and chilling with my homie Romey. All week long?”

Gerri bursts out laughing and falls over sideways onto the sofa. Okay, maybe she’s a little drunk too.

He lies on the floor next to the couch so he can look up at her with his big eyes. “Seriously though, what can I do tonight to be more interesting than the tiny people in your phone? ‘Cause I’ll do it,” he says. “I mean, I probably can’t learn juggling or sword-swallowing on such short notice, but I can try, dammit.”

She reaches out with one foot and runs the sole of her shoe down the length of his pant leg. He shivers.

The thing is, she actually knows exactly how she wants to answer his question. It’s just a matter of gathering the courage to do so. Maybe he can help her along. “I might have something in mind,” she says coyly.

His eyes light up eagerly. “Tell me. Tell me now," he demands. "How do I tempt you away from the evils of 5G?”

“Actually I can only seem to get 4G out here,” she mutters.

He narrows his eyes. “That might be a sign from the telecom gods, Gerri. A sign that you should concentrate on your fucking boyfriend and his circus tricks.”

She sits upright on the couch again and idly taps her toes against Roman’s thigh. “I think what I’d like most is to see you get naked and touch yourself.” She really hopes she’s not blushing.

He looks genuinely shocked for a moment, and then it resolves into a cheeky grin. “Gonna file away some visuals for the ol’ spank bank, huh?” he jibes. She pokes him sharply in the thigh with her heel and he yelps. “Okay, okay. Where do you want me, you sick little voyeur?”

They go into the bedroom and leave the lights off, so the bed remains illuminated only by Montauk moonbeams. While Roman unbuttons his shirt by the window, Gerri slips off her heels and changes into a hotel-branded bathrobe, wanting to be cozy and comfy for what’s to come.

“Nice to know you like to look at me,” he says, and glances shyly over his shoulder at her as he slips his shirt off. “Makes me feel like less of a horny maniac for how much time I spend staring at you.” She props up some pillows against the headboard so she can watch him undo his belt, kick his shoes off, ditch his socks and drop his pants to the floor.

He tucks his thumbs into the waistband of his boxer-briefs, poised to take them off, and then pauses. “Actually feeling kinda, I dunno, nervous about this?” he says, frozen in place.

“Why?”

He stares at the floor, looking like a willowy angel in the moonlight. “I mean, my body’s not usually what people find appealing about me, I don’t think,” he says. “I’ve got the rizz and the hair and the smart-ass mouth, but I dunno that people look at me and think, like, ‘Damn, check out that Apollo-statue-slash-underwear-model,’ even when I was hitting the gym more often.”

The thoughts swirling around in Gerri’s head are the kind she’d usually rather keep to herself, but it seems like he might need them tonight, so she says, “Well, in that case, I should tell you that I’ve changed my mind.”

He looks back at her, suddenly terrified.

“I thought I wanted to see you touch yourself,” she breathes, “but you look so fucking… edible right now that I think I want you in my mouth.”

Wide-eyed, he somehow trips over his own feet and has to catch himself against the wall. She giggles into her hand. “Umm. Yes ma’am,” he says once he can speak. “That sounds… better… for sure. Definitely an upgrade from my POV.”

He walks over to lie on the bed next to her and puts his arm around her; she fits perfectly there. She runs a flat hand over his chest, making him shiver, and reaches the half-hard bulge in his underwear. “How long has it been since someone’s sucked your cock?” she asks casually.

“Hmm. Couple millennia.”

She pouts pityingly up at him. “Really?”

He laughs nervously and looks away. “That’s what it feels like, anyway. I mean, I don’t blame anyone for wanting to do other stuff instead,” he says. “It can be frustrating. My dick is, shall we say, not the most reliable player on the team.”

“Your mouth is,” she says immediately, and he laughs and says, “I’m really glad you think so.”

She starts kissing her way down his chest, his ribs, his belly. “Just, maybe, uh,” he says, and she looks up at him. “If it goes soft, don’t, like, take it personally, okay? It’s not a reflection of your, you know, whatever. I mean, fuckin’ look at you.” And he does, his eyes taking her in, deeply and searchingly, in a way that makes her momentarily breathless.

“Hard or soft, I just want it in my mouth,” she says truthfully, and he gulps, the vein in his forehead starting to stand out with arousal, or anxiety, or both.

He can’t look at her while she gets his underwear off, or even as she drags her tongue gradually up the underside of his shaft from base to tip, but he’s hard and getting harder, and his breath is already shaky. He tastes clean and earthy, almost oceanic, and she applies a little more pressure with every slow journey of her tongue.

When he’s as hard as she wants him, she sucks just the head of his cock into her mouth, and he gasps softly and trembles under her. “Fuck,” he murmurs. “That’s, um… That’s a lot.”

She pauses to flick her tongue gently against his frenulum and he squirms. “In a good way?” she teases.

He nods, brows knitted together, his eyes still shut tight. “Yep. Yep. You could say that.”

She takes more of him into her mouth, down to the halfway point and back up again, and starts bobbing slowly on his cock. His hips grind up toward her the tiniest bit on every stroke, matching her rhythm. He’s too tense to moan as much as she’s used to, but she’s enjoying the small hums and grunts he occasionally gives her nonetheless.

And then he starts to soften in her mouth, and she has to decide on a plan of action, quick. Luckily, she’s been planning for this.

She lifts her head and says, “Roman?”

“Yeah?” The shame is thick in his voice already; he knows.

“What are you thinking about right now?”

He wasn’t expecting this question, apparently. He peeks one eye open to look down at her. “I’m… thinking about the mega-hot woman who’s blowing me?” he tries.

She frowns. “What are you really thinking about?”

He sighs and closes his eyes again. “What, you can’t read my fuckin’ mind, Miss Cleo?” he mumbles darkly, and she gives his half-hard dick a firm and sudden squeeze with her hand, a warning. “Okay, okay, Jesus, fuck. I was just thinking about how you’re probably not enjoying this and you’re only doing it out of obligation and I’m inevitably gonna disappoint you because I’m a chronic fuck-up and so is my penis. Happy?”

She waits, long enough that he opens his eyes to look at her finally. “Have you ever known me to do anything I don’t want to do?” she asks, and when he throws her a skeptical look, she clarifies, “...when I wasn’t being paid tens of thousands of dollars, minimum, to do it, I mean?”

He laughs, drops his head back onto the pillow, and says, “I mean, if you wanted a fuckin’ paycheck, you should’ve said so, Ger,” and that is absolutely the last straw. Without even thinking about it, she gives the middle of his shaft a hard, quick slap with the hand that’s not gripping it, and he gasps.

“Stop being a fucking brat,” she says firmly. “Do I have to punish you to keep you in line?”

He whimpers and doesn’t say anything, but, notably, his dick’s gotten slightly harder in her hand. An interesting data point.

“How dare you question what I’m doing, Roman,” she says, leaning into the frustration she’s already feeling. “How dare you question my authority and presume to know what I should and shouldn’t do. As if a useless little worm like yourself could ever have a clue why I make the choices I make.” She slaps his cock again, just as hard, and then once more, and he groans. His boner is coming back online now, she’s pleased to note.

“Now, you will lie there and let me do whatever I want to you, and you will not complain, and you will not try to dissect my motivations as if a dim-witted prick like yourself could ever understand my thought process,” she goes on. And then, as an afterthought: “And if you can’t handle that, then you know what your safeword is, and you should use it.”

He nods slowly, but he’s still not quite as hard as he could be, so she tries one more thing. “Just remember,” she murmurs, close enough to his shaft that he’ll be able to feel her breath against it, “I have a lot of power over you when you’re in my mouth. I have very sharp teeth and I'm not afraid to use them. So you’d better watch yourself, Roman, especially if you value keeping your dick.”

He gulps, and pushes his cock up helplessly toward her, and she knows she’s got him. Quickly, she swallows his shaft as deep as she can take it, and he makes a messy, desperate, open-mouthed noise that is music to her ears.

She takes no chances, sucking him fast and hard, wanting it to feel slightly scary even as it feels wildly good. If his whimpers and moans are any indication, she’s striking that balance perfectly. His dick twitches against her tongue every time she finds his frenulum on the upstroke, and he’s clutching at the bedsheets, knuckles white.

“Fucking Christ, Gerri,” he chokes out. “Can – can I come?”

She gives him an affirmative hum, the vibrations adding to the stimulation, and on her next stroke he comes so hard that his upper body rises off the bed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he’s chanting like a prayer, and she takes him deep to swallow down everything he gives her, salty and plentiful and hot.

Eventually he becomes so sensitive that she has to ease off, and even the slow slide of her mouth over him one final time makes him hiss from overstimulation. She climbs up to lie beside him and leans over to give him a kiss. He moans with surprise as he tastes some remnants of his own cum on her lips, and pulls her in closer for more.

“It’s delightful how easy it is for me to control you,” Gerri comments, the glee in her voice barely contained.

Roman sighs, still shaking a little. “I just… I mean… Fuckin’... I don’t know what to say. That was… fuck.”

She laughs. “I must be good at that. It’s no easy task to render Roman Roy literally speechless.”

Chapter 17: Catulus Torquem

Notes:

sometimes I'm like, "is there too much Roman going down on Gerri in this story?" and then I'm like "no ❤️"

“Have you had enough coffee yet for me to start seducing you, or should I wait until your caffeination level reaches a sweet spot before I start talking about touching your sweet spots?”

Gerri is, in fact, not awake enough for this conversation. But that’s why they’ve opted for brunch, this morning on the Montauk shore. Food, sure. But mainly caffeine.

“Roman, it’s 10 a.m., and we were up very late last night,” she reminds him, voice still gravelly from sleep. “My vagina won’t be open for business until at least noon.”

He raises his eyebrows at her over the rim of his coffee cup. “All the more reason for me to spend the next two hours priming the pump.”

“My vagina’s a pump now?”

“Pre-heating the oven? Laying the foundation? I don’t fuckin’ know. Metaphors are hard. I wanna get you wet, is what I’m saying.”

Gerri shushes him, far too aware of the other patrons mere feet away from them on this seaside patio, but truth be told, she doesn’t want him to stop. She never really does.

“I am quite a bit older than you, Roman,” she sighs, and takes a bite of her omelette. “I don’t have the energy for nonstop fucking.”

“Well, sure,” he concedes, “but don’t you think it’s possible you just have ‘responsive desire’? Like in that book you made me read, back when you were still pretending you didn’t like me and had never once even thought about sitting on my face?”

Gerri smiles and shakes her head. “That’s not quite how I remember it,” she says. “But remind me what responsive desire means?”

His eyes light up, excited to be able to teach her something for once. “It’s in the Nagoski book,” he explains. “She says ‘spontaneous desire’ is like a lightning bolt to the junk. Like ‘Whoa, fuck, I’m horny all of a sudden. Where’s the nearest fuckable hole?’ And ‘responsive desire’ is when you see or hear or feel something sexy and that’s what gets you going. Like, ‘Wow, Roman looks devastatingly handsome in his brunch ensemble and now I desperately want to blow him in the bathroom immediately, weird.’”

Gerri looks him up and down. He’s got on a pale blue button-down, worn loose at the collar, and some grey chinos. He’s been skipping hair product more often lately, maybe because they’re on vacation but maybe because he’s noticed she’s more prone to yanking his hair during sex if her hand doesn’t come away sticky afterward, so his hair is flopping rakishly to one side in a way that tugs at her heart. “You do look quite handsome today,” she agrees, “but that doesn’t circumvent the problem. I’m barely awake yet.”

He looks around to make sure no one’s watching them too closely, and then drops a hand on her upper thigh, just under the hem of her dress, to squeeze and knead it a little. “I can wake you up,” he murmurs, and his eyes are so bright and full of want that she feels it for a moment – a flicker of the “fuck me now” feeling he’s trying to elicit in her.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks through a laugh. “We’ve still got days and days. We could have one lazy, low-key morning and it’d be fine.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m carpe-ing every fuckin’ diem while we're here. But it’s okay that you don’t get it. I guess I’ll just have to work harder to get those panties wet,” he says. “So you’ll let me keep them.”

She’d totally forgotten about promising he could do this, but now it all makes sense. The way he’s been pulling out all the stops all morning to make her feel desired – tracing her cleavage with his eyes, flirting with her until she blushed, letting her catch him biting his lip while staring at her. Or maybe he’d be doing all of that anyway. Who knows.

He clears his throat and takes a bite of toast. “Your squirt tasted fucking magnificent yesterday,” he says, as casually as if he was talking about the weather, and she gives his arm a light slap reflexively to get him to keep his voice down. He just smirks at her. “What? It’s true. Just stating facts over here.”

She looks around, but no one seems to be hearing them at all. “Have you ever made someone squirt before?” she asks softly, because now he’s got the memory of it replaying in her head and she’s curious. He was way too good at it for it to have been a first time, although she did make him read an entire book on it fairly recently, so.

He ponders this. “Don’t think so. I probably would’ve noticed if I had, right? Doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you can be oblivious to. Like, ‘Whoops, why is the bed soaked through to the boxspring with a delicious-tasting fluid that materialized from my partner’s junk when she came? Oh well, what a mystery, night night.’”

His charm is starting to wear her down – and to send a blushing heat to her cunt – exactly as he intends, though she’s not quite ready to let him know that yet. “I don’t think I’ve ever squirted in someone’s mouth before,” she confesses. “Most men don’t have the coordination to make it happen.”

He looks genuinely delighted. “You mean I’m the only person on earth who has sampled that, uh, unique flavor?” he asks. “Fuck. Why is that so hot? Can I do it again later? Gotta make up for all those other idiots who never ordered the finest item on the menu.”

---

They walk down the quaint main street together after brunch – not holding hands, but Gerri finds that she wants to, and if the jittery energy radiating off Roman is any indication, he wants to be touching her too, though in what capacity exactly, she’s not sure.

They’re talking animatedly about work stuff – an ATN correspondent’s recent on-screen gaffe, a disastrously bad movie in the works at the studio – when Gerri lingers outside a jewelry store. It’s a simple-looking small-town place, plain, certainly no ostentatious Fifth Avenue Tiffany’s or Cartier’s, but there’s something in the window she can’t take her eyes off of.

He goes to stand by her, looking in at what she’s staring at. It’s a thick silver chain, choker-length, substantial enough to be a sexy statement but not so over-the-top as to draw questions, stares, or judgment. It is indeed, as Roman had said to her in their pre-trip phone call, very Harry Styles. But it’s also very Roman.

His eyes keep darting back and forth between her and the necklace. “You’ve got hella dom-face right now, Ger,” he says. And then, a grin dawning: “Is it making you wet to think about putting that around my neck and fuckin’ owning me? ‘Cause I wanna do it anyway, as I believe I’ve mentioned, but I’ll do it fucking immediately if it turns you on. My Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is just like, ‘Get Gerri’s clit hard, make Gerri come, and then maybe eat, sleep, and breathe if there’s time left over.’”

She casts him a sidelong glance, almost annoyed by how well he can read her. “It’s an appealing notion, yes,” she admits, and he’s beaming.

“Is it cool if I buy it?” he asks, already reaching for his wallet. “Or is there, like, a pride thing there? Like, is it weird if the puppy pays for his own collar? Usually they don’t have thumbs, let alone platinum Visas.”

She thinks for a few moments until she arrives at the conclusion that feels best, the one that lights up her brain and cunt in equal measure. “Give me your credit card.”

His eyes go wide. “Uh. Fucking, yes.” And he does. “Not sure why that’s the hottest sentence I’ve heard today but you’re just constantly teaching me new things to have boners about, so it makes sense.”

They go into the store and she asks about the chain in the window. Before too long, the clerk is checking its length against Roman’s neck; Gerri’s careful to ensure it never actually gets clasped there, because she wants to be the first and only one to do that to him. Once all three of them are content that it’s the right fit – Roman especially so, visibly shaking a little from the implications of it all – she stands at the counter and taps his card, not even looking at the amount. The clerk asks if she needs a receipt and Gerri says sweetly, “No thank you. We won’t be returning it.”

Roman lets out a whimpery little growl, like a dog, which mercifully the clerk doesn’t seem to hear. But Gerri does, and god, he really is getting her panties quite wet now, the clever fucker.

---

Back at their hotel room, Gerri sits on the edge of the sofa and indicates the space in front of her. “Kneel.”

He doesn’t have to be asked twice. He’s on his knees in seconds, looking up at her with a mix of excitement, apprehension, and something like wanting to lick her pussy until she screams.

She takes the chain out of its little bag and leans forward to secure it around his neck. It seems like the right moment for a speech of sorts, but she hasn’t prepared anything; luckily, Geraldine Kellman is known for nailing off-the-cuff oration, although usually when she does it, she’s clutching a flute of company-supplied champagne, not a gleaming day-collar she half-wants to tug tight until Roman chokes.

“You have been diligent, attentive, studious, and enthusiastic these last several weeks in learning how to make me happy,” she murmurs, and he relaxes into her touch like a contented pet as she does up the clasp. “You have proven yourself worthy of my time, my consideration, my guidance, and my cunt.”

His pupils are dilating. His tongue swipes across his lower lip in a gesture she can’t help but read as desirous.

“And so,” she goes on, “I’ve decided to keep you, and this collar proves that you’re mine.” She gives it a little tug for emphasis, and he collapses forward in pleasure, his face coming to rest on the top of her thigh, where he breathes her in, shaky but calm.

“Fuck,” he mumbles against her skin. “Thank you.” And it’s his sincerity that really makes her wet now, the way he could’ve made any number of jibes to lighten the moment, to communicate a certain calculated unseriousness, but he’s learned enough to know when that’s appropriate, and right now it simply isn’t.

“You may touch me,” she says, and he looks up at her for a beat, confused about what she means, exactly. But then she spreads her thighs wider and he knows. He skims one hot palm up the inside of her thigh until it comes to rest over the gusset of her panties.

“Your clit is hard,” he murmurs. “You sick twisted bitch. You love owning me. We should’ve done this months ago. I would’ve been a way better business-boy for you if I’d had some silver around my neck reminding me what it was all for.” His other hand rests on the chain, two fingers hooked over it, like he’s reassuring himself it’s still there, while he finds her clit with the one touching her and starts circling it through her underwear with his thumb.

Gerri lets her head thump back against the headrest of the sofa. “If you plan on keeping these panties, then you should probably use your hand on me, like that, and not your mouth,” she rasps, her hips tilting up toward him. “That way all the wetness on them will be mine.”

“Way ahead of you, Ger,” he says, and gives her faster, firmer circles that make her moan. He’s leaning in to watch his own handiwork up close, noticing which angles and minute little spots on her clit make her gasp and focusing in on those more and more with each rotation. He keeps stealing glances at her face to check his work, and in turn she keeps stealing glances at his collar, the way it sits there so solid and sure, a reminder that he’s hers and that he wants it that way.

She grabs his hair with one hand and guides his face to her thigh, and he starts planting wet kisses there, tracing his tongue along the milky skin in messy circles that match what his thumb is doing to her clit. It’s exactly the push she needs, and gets her markedly wetter in a hurry as she imagines/remembers what his mouth feels like around her, what it feels like to come when surrounded by his eager lips and tongue.

And god, she wants it. She wants it enough to abandon her plan, which had been to come in these panties for him. “Have you gotten them wet enough?” she asks hoarsely. He presses his thumb into her opening so that the panties absorb more of her wetness, and even she can feel how outright damp they’re getting against her. He leans in with his nose to inhale deeply from her cunt, and even a few days ago she might’ve been embarrassed by this, but now it just makes her feel headily powerful, like she’s the prettiest rose in the garden, the one he wants to keep sniffing forever.

He moves his face upward in a vertical line, pushing her panties firmly into her wetness, and then keeps going until he reaches her clit, where he makes small circles with the tip of his nose, no doubt knowing it’s driving her crazy.

She loops two of her fingers through the slack of the chain around his neck to pull him a little closer, and then says, her voice thick with desire, “Take them off and put your mouth on me.”

He nods and pulls her panties off, checking their wetness with one hand to make sure they’re to his liking, and tucks them into his pants pocket surreptitiously before tilting forward to press his entire hot tongue against her pussy. Her clit and lips feel hypersensitized against his mouth and she starts grinding in slow strokes before she even knows what she’s doing.

“Fuck,” Roman growls, and pushes a finger into her wetness as he wraps his lips around her clit. The way he never seems to tire of doing this is balm for all the times Gerri’s felt undesirable, all the dates she’s been on with men who seemed more interested in what she could do for their dick (or their career) than what they could do for her. His lips are slippery and warm around her and his finger is insistent, stroking her G-spot and a little deeper, finding its perimeters as it starts to swell. He adds another finger, and then another, and Gerri would be humiliated by her wetness and openness to him if she didn’t know in her very bones that it’s exactly what he wants.

He laps his tongue in sweet circles around her clit and then pauses to mumble against her cunt, “How many times have I made you come?”

She pulls him onto her with force and says, “If you can keep count, you haven’t done it enough.” He grunts with arousal and starts sucking her in earnest, taking all of her hardened clit with every stroke.

But somehow it’s his fingers that are really capturing her attention this time around, the way all three of them are working her G-spot at a maddening rhythm. And while she’s normally a clit girl through and through, it’s her G-spot where her attention drifts and stays as he builds up a fast, firm rhythm and licks and sucks her toward orgasm. When she comes in his mouth with a startled cry, it’s her G-spot against his fingers where most of the sensation is concentrated, and he coaxes her through it fast, hard, and with surprising confidence until she once again floods his mouth with a warm, sticky fluid.

He makes a beautiful sound like he’s just tasted heaven, and swallows it down, stroking her harder but slower to get the last of it out of her until he’s taken as much as she’s going to give him. And then he sucks the rest of her come off his own fingers, savoring her carefully, before looking up at her with a playful glint in his eye.

“Aren’t you gonna say, like, ‘Wow, Rome, you’ve gotten soooo good at that’?” he asks. “Or like, ‘Wow, Rome, maybe you should do that again in three to five minutes, tops’?”

It’s not even fucking noon yet, on their second day of their sex vacation, and he has already unraveled her more than any man she’s ever fucked. Including, she realizes now, the man she married. She loved Baird, but he never studied her pussy with precision, never made it his personal mission to get her off in ever-intensifying ways, honing his skills and learning her inside and out. He satisfied her, consistently and often quite well, but he never memorized her, never made her feel pored over or worshipped. Never made her squirt into his mouth with pressure so perfect that she shook and gasped and felt blessed to have a body.

She looks down at Roman’s wet, cocky face and thinks the words I love you, and god, she’s so absolutely fucked.

“I’m extremely fond of you, you know that?” she breathes, and strokes his cheekbone softly with the pad of her thumb.

He smiles and nuzzles into the crease where her thigh meets her wetness. “I’m fond of this,” he says, and runs his tongue along that sensitive spot, making her jump. “And of you, too. Obviously.” When he glances up at her and winks, she thinks about how no one else has ever flirted with her while their face was actively buried in her pussy, and it makes her so deliriously happy that for a moment she almost feels a little sick inside.

Notes:

I was picturing something like this for Roman's collar, incase you're curious: https://www.vitalydesign.com/products/riot?variant=39699542016075

Chapter 18: Malum Nuntium

Notes:

Some actual plot, can you believe?

On the third day of their trip, Gerri wakes up to a text from Karolina. She assumes it’s an important work-related query of some kind – Karolina wouldn’t bother her during her vacation otherwise – so she taps into the message thread groggily upon seeing the notification.

And then her stomach drops.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Karolina’s written, but have you seen this yet?

She’s attached a screenshot of a Page Six article. There’s a grainy, long-range photo of Gerri and Roman kissing on their hotel room balcony, and another of them grinning at each other as they walk down the street; she recognizes their outfits from just yesterday. The headline says, Waystar Royco COO and General Counsel Caught Canoodling on Secret Romantic Getaway.

She skims through the text of the article itself, but it’s exactly what one would expect. Gossipy allusions. Nosy extrapolations. Dangerous speculation on what this could mean for both of their futures at the company, and about whether they’re even serious enough as people to deserve the positions they have.

So furious that she’s shaking, she types back to Karolina, Logan did this, didn’t he?

Karolina sends a shrugging emoji and says, Probably. The fucker.

Roman’s still asleep next to her, looking tranquil and almost childlike in just his boxers, one hand splayed out toward her on the sheets like he went looking for her in the night. She doesn’t want to wake him, not like this. But she also knows he’ll want to know.

She places her hand on top of his and says, “Rome? Roman?”

He stirs groggily and interlaces their fingers. “Mornin’, hot-lips,” he rasps.

“I have some difficult news.”

His eyes snap open wide. “You don’t have to leave, do you?”

God, her heart softens at that. It hadn’t crossed her mind that she might, but now that it has, she’s determined not to. “No,” she says gently. “Here.” And she hands him the phone, with the article pulled up.

He sits up in bed and his eyes scan over it quickly, face paling in the morning light. “This is…” he says.

“It’s bad, yeah,” she confirms. “Especially since your dad’s probably the one who leaked it. He may even have sent the photographer after us himself, for all I know.”

Roman rakes a hand through his hair and drops the phone onto the bedsheets. He stares out the window onto the balcony where they were caught kissing by the paparazzo. There’s a long, stunned pause, before he says, “Is it really that bad, though?”

She looks at him. “Your dad violating our privacy and trying to humiliate and discredit us?” she clarifies. “I’d say that’s pretty bad, yeah.”

His eyes float up to the ceiling as he thinks this over. “Key word being ‘trying.’ It’s not a humiliation if we’re not embarrassed by it. And I’m not,” he says. “Are you?”

Gerri hasn’t even let her mind go there yet. She’s so used to focusing on the mere facts of PR disasters, managing them with lightning speed as they come up, tamping down the story and chasing its source with a litigious floodlight. It never occurred to her to wonder, in this case, whether the story itself was even that juicy a scoop. Was even worth tamping down.

“Let’s game it out,” Roman says. “He wants us to seem incompetent for fucking each other, right? Or deviant or scandalous or whatever, because of our age difference, the fact that we work together, maybe that you’ve known me since I was a kid.” He chews on his nails thoughtfully. “But we already disclosed to HR. People at work know. My whole fucking family knows. It’s just the world that doesn’t know. And if we make it clear that we’re not ashamed of it… that it’s actually a decision we made after a lot of thought, and time, and like, ‘courtship’ or whatever…” He meets her eye. “Is there an angle where this looks good for us, actually? Star-crossed corporate lovebirds, modern media Montagues and Capulets? Unexpected love story at the top of the executive chain?”

She categorically rejects her brain’s attempts to fixate on his double usage of the word “love” and instead tries to focus only on the core of what he’s saying. “It’s an interesting thought,” she muses.

There’s a beat or two of silence and then Roman jumps out of bed and darts over to the balcony, throwing the door open. “Are you out there, motherfucker?!” he yells into the Montauk morning air. “How much did he pay you for those photos, coward? Want some more?” He’s shirtless and shoeless on the balcony, looking like one of those unhinged tabloid nightmares that gets circulated on Google for years to come, but the energy coming off him is almost joyful. Like he’s glad the Band-Aid’s been ripped off. It’s an infectious feeling, Gerri has to admit to herself.

She’s got on a nightgown, but throws on a pair of sunglasses and a cardigan from her suitcase before following him onto the balcony. “Are you sure this is a good idea, Rome?” she asks, ever the cautious lawyer, unable to truly shut it off.

He turns to look at her, and he’s grinning. “Being with you is a great fucking idea,” he says. “Best idea I’ve ever had, actually. So maybe we should just lean into this.”

The hungry way he’s gazing at her makes her nervous; she’s never been much for PDA, certainly not when paparazzi are around. But he clocks her anxious expression and drops his voice to murmur, “I’m not gonna do anything you don’t want. But if you’re worried about how this might affect me, well, I don’t give a shit. I’ll kiss you on the fucking Jumbotron at Madison Square Garden. I’ll kiss you on Instagram – grid and story. I’ll kiss you on a live interview on Good Morning America, or whatever the fuck, if it comes to that. I’m all in. Okay?”

She thinks she sees movement on the ground several storeys below their balcony, a rustling of trees or bushes, a shadowy figure flitting along the edge of the beach. But it could just be her imagination.

And when she looks at Roman, his eyes so focused on her and so full of worry and hope, she realizes she actually agrees with him. They haven’t done anything wrong. Nothing about this, in fact, could possibly be wrong. It feels far too right for that.

And then she notices he’s still wearing her collar, must’ve been wearing it all night, like he never even considered taking it off.

She kisses him. Wraps her arms around him and pulls him in fiercely. And whether the soft clicking sounds in the distance are a camera or just a creation of her hypervigilant brain, it doesn’t actually fucking matter at all.

---

After talking it out with Roman a little more, Gerri texts Karolina back. Can you leak a story for us? About how our relationship has been slowly and respectfully building over the past couple months and we’re amazed at how it has enhanced not only our lives but also the quality of our work together, etc.? Maybe something about how Roman cleaned up his act to be with me, dropped the playboy/partying stuff, and his relaxed energy is the yin to my yang, that kind of thing. You could even give some anonymous quotes from a “friend of the family” about how happy we seem together?

Karolina writes back quickly. The transformative power of love. Great angle. I’ll get on it.

If everyone in the fucking vicinity doesn’t stop saying the word “love” pretty damn soon, Gerri might actually lose her shit. But she shoves that thought down for the time being. Thanks, K. I appreciate it.

Anything to see you happy, G ❤️

---

“Should we go shopping?” Roman asks her an hour later over breakfast, which they’ve opted to eat conspicuously on another very public restaurant patio. “I liked watching you spend my money yesterday. Drain my balls and my bank balance, baby. Except, you know. Don’t drain it. We’re not trying to buy a space station or anything.”

They meander down the main street again, and this time they do hold hands. It feels foreign to them both, but they try it. And after a while, it starts to feel more natural. Normal, even.

Roman pauses outside a lingerie shop. It’s far from the Agent Provocateur and Kiki de Montparnasse-type places Gerri usually gravitates toward, back in the city, when she wants to feel sexy, but there are some fun colors and prints on the mannequins – and Roman’s eyes look almost guiltily intrigued as he checks them out. “I stole a pair of your underwear for my own nefarious purposes, so I should probably buy you some more,” he says, eyes a little glazed. “That’s basic manners, really.”

They stroll into the shop, and Gerri half-wonders if anyone here would recognize either of them, before remembering that it would be fine if they did. She finds a couple of matching bra-and-panties sets in her size – royal blue lace, deep crimson satin – and almost asks Roman for his opinion, but his bug-eyed expression tells her everything she needs to know.

He tries to follow her into the fitting room, muttering, “I’m just gonna…” but then the saleslady calls after him sternly, “Sir, you can’t go in there.” For a second Gerri thinks he’s going to pull a “Do you know who I AM?!” – but instead he just backs out and goes to sit on a nearby chair, saying sheepishly, “Right, right, sorry, my bad. I mean, can you blame me, though? Look at this woman.” Gerri pulls the curtain tightly behind her so neither of them will see her blush.

She tries on the blue set and texts him a photo, then stands perfectly still, listening harder than she’s maybe ever listened in her life, for even the slightest hint of a reaction. What would that even sound like? A gasp? The shifting of fabric as a sudden erection swells against it? She rolls her eyes at herself for even imagining such a thing. But then she hears Roman clearing his throat sharply the way he does sometimes when he’s nervous, and he replies with a string of exclamation points and then reacts to his own text with additional exclamation points. She giggles loud enough for him to hear.

She tries on the red set and it’s the definite winner; it gives her better cleavage (stellar, really), and clings to her hips in a way that defines her waist. She takes a photo but decides not to send it to Roman; he can wait to see it in person. She changes back into her casual floral-print dress, leaves the blue set in the fitting room and takes the red set up to the cash register, and Roman dashes after her like a loyal puppy.

He’s biting his lip and tapping his toe restlessly as he pulls out his credit card and throws it down on the counter. His eyes keep drifting up and down her body, and she reflects again on what a powerful aphrodisiac it is to be desired, especially after a string of quasi-relationships with men who made her feel like, at best, a sensible option for the time being. Roman makes her feel not only like she’s the best possible option but also like any other option would be unthinkable. She shoves him gently, to point out that she’s noticed him staring, but he just looks up at her flirtily through his lashes, no guilt, no shame, all love.

Is that what it is? Love? Is this what love looks like on Roman? How would she know? She doesn’t think she’s seen it before, not in the exasperated and obligatory glances he’d exchange with Grace and not in the platonic intimacy he’d shared with Tabitha. This expression, she’s pretty sure, is reserved only for her.

“Is she a knockout, or what?” Roman asks the sales clerk, nodding his head in Gerri’s direction. “I mean, I know you probably see a lot of gorgeous specimens in here, but she is really at the far end of the bellcurve as far as I’m concerned.”

The clerk finishes up the transaction and slides Roman a receipt to sign. “She’s lovely, yes,” the woman says distractedly. “How long have you two been married?”

Gerri braces herself for a cackle, a sharp denial, a confused glance. But instead Roman just smiles at her, mischief gleaming in his eyes, and says, “Oh, us? Going on five years now. We’re celebrating our anniversary this week, actually. Booked the honeymoon suite at the resort down the road.” Gerri’s face feels too warm, suddenly. She has to look away or his honey-brown eyes are going to melt her into magma.

“How sweet,” the girl says. “Well, happy anniversary, and here’s to many more wonderful years together.”

Roman can’t stop grinning. “Hear that, babe?” he asks Gerri. “Many more years. Now, doesn’t that sound nice?”

---

By the time Roman gets his first glimpse of the lingerie he’s just paid for, in the cool afternoon light hitting their hotel-room bed, the story Karolina’s soft-floated has been picked up by at least one gossipy business blog, and has started to make its way across Twitter, Mastodon, and even LinkedIn.

More than a few people post ugly messages questioning Roman’s masculinity and Gerri’s motives, their words dripping with misogynistic suspicion about the very idea of a forty-year-old male billionaire courting his sixty-five-year-old female colleague.

But there are a few quote-tweets of the story that Gerri screenshots for her own records, later that night, when she manages to steal a few secretive minutes on her phone while Roman is brushing his teeth and washing his face.

@aliceincuntderland: YAASSS get that Roy dick girlboss queen!!

@subbylil1: i bet he buys her Louboutins to wear when she walks all over him and i bet he fcking loves it ugh #goals

@lesbifriends: which one of them is the top and why is it definitely GK lol

@bizboy444: congrats to him tbh, have you seen her tits?? we should all be so #blessed

@whokilledjschecter: happy #pride month to my new fav MILF/twink pairing 🌈

Chapter 19: Facere Illud

Notes:

Fair warning, this chapter is a lot and you might have to lie down after reading it, hopefully in a sexy way but also in a feelsy way (I definitely had to lie down after writing it)

They’re both catching up on the news on their fourth morning in Montauk – her with a physical newspaper, him on his iPad – when Roman asks Gerri, “Does it ever bother you that I don’t fuck you normally?”

She lowers the paper to look at him. “You mean, with your penis in my vagina?”

“I love it when you talk dirty to me,” he deadpans. “Yes, that is what I mean.”

She thinks about it. “Not particularly. It was never really my favorite thing. It’s fine, but I’ve mostly just done it because the other person wanted to,” she says. “So it’s fine with me that you don’t.”

Roman frowns. “To be crystal-fucking-clear, it’s not that I don’t want to,” he quibbles. “It’s just that my dick doesn’t usually cooperate when I try it, and there’s also like fifty other things I’d generally rather do with you.”

She smirks. “Such as?”

He rolls his eyes. “Like I even have to tell you. You could probably name like thirty of them off the top of your head if you think about the last few days,” he says. “And the rest, we can discover as we go along. Like a kinky advent calendar.”

She watches him scroll on his iPad for a few beats. “What brought on that question for you?” she asks.

“Oh, about normo sex? I dunno, probably just my generalized anxiety and crippling confidence issues. You know, same old.”

“We can try it, if you want,” she says carefully. “But, as you said, there are many other things I’d usually rather be doing.”

He shrugs. “We’ll get to it when we get to it. Maybe one day we’ll be in the mood for some really depraved shit and decide to roleplay as a vanilla couple on their honeymoon. Roses and candlelight and P-in-V sex under the stars.” He mimes gagging himself with two fingers.

Gerri smiles and says, “Disgusting. Absolutely perverse.”

---

But it feels like he’s fucking her when he shoves his fingers inside her hard and recites crass compliments in her ear while she holds her vibrator on her clit.

And it feels like he’s fucking her when his head is moving rhythmically between her thighs, hands splaying her open so he can taste every part of her.

And it feels like he’s fucking her when he lets her hurt him – loves it, actually – and takes it all, and begs her for more.

And it feels like he’s fucking her when he nudges his nose against her leg while they’re watching TV together at night, her on the couch and him on the floor at her feet, and he notices her shiver, so he does it harder, and then follows it with his tongue, dipping it behind her knee, searching for more places that make her gasp.

And it feels like he’s fucking her when he adjusts the placement of his collar in the bathroom, catches her eye in the mirror, and bites his lip suggestively at her while tugging on the chain.

And it feels like he’s fucking her when he spends an hour searching the whole resort grounds for some vermouth and olives so he can mix her a martini with minibar gin in their room, in a glass from the bathroom counter, with ice from the machine down the hall.

And it feels like he’s fucking her when he says he wants to kiss her whole body goodnight, already hours past her normal bedtime, and after traversing the whole length of her, he ends up kissing and licking her toes and the soles of her feet under the bedsheets for another fifteen minutes while they both learn about new erogenous zones she never knew she had.

And it feels like he’s fucking her when she wakes up in his arms and feels his morning wood pressing against her through her pajama bottoms, and she wriggles her ass against him until he wakes up, climbs on top of her, kisses her neck like a teenager at the drive-in, and then gives her head like a grown fucking man.

---

On their second-to-last night in Montauk, it’s starting to hit Gerri that this isn’t going to last forever. That they’re going to have to return to a world of sterile glass walls and staid grey carpeting soon, a world of judgment and money and futile fights.

Maybe it’s hitting Roman, too, because midway through their dinner on a restaurant patio – Chardonnay, shoreline, starlight – he swirls the wine in his glass thoughtfully and looks at her like she’s a painting he wants to hang on his wall. “This is nice,” he says.

“What, the wine? Yes, it’s lovely. Good acid level, nice apple and oak notes.”

“No, you fucking dork,” he says, his eyes shining pure warm light at her. “I mean this is nice.” He gestures broadly at the space between them. “Being with you. Talking to you. Getting to fuck you literally whenever I want, or whenever you’ll let me, anyway, and not having to worry about who might leak it to the Post or talk shit about us in the Slack.”

Her eyes are maybe a little too wide when she says, “Oh.”

He peers at her curiously. “What, you’re shocked that I said a sincere thing?” he asks. “I can go back to talking about your pussy and tits and how much I like it when you step on me if that’s easier. Probably fits my vibe better. But I just… I dunno.” He looks around them, at the stars, the water, the candlelight, and Gerri. “Even the court jester has to stop and smell the roses sometimes, y’know?”

And maybe it’s this speech that makes her decide to drag him into an alley when they’re walking back to their hotel twenty minutes later, or maybe it’s the alcohol, or maybe it’s that he smells so fucking good she wants to die, or maybe it’s that she’s so sad and so scared to go back to normal life that she wants to do something utterly out of character to help her forget who she is, what she’s doing, what she’ll be returning to.

She backs him up against a brick wall and he says, “Whoa. Feeling a little feisty there, Ger?” and so of course she has no choice but to slap his face.

His stubble almost seems to massage her fingers when she hits him, making the ample nerve endings on her fingertips buzz with excitement. His eyes fall closed immediately as the rest of his face goes slack and he moans. She does it again, smacking the soft and fleshy part of his cheek, bringing both of them irretrievably into the present moment.

“You love it when I hurt you,” she murmurs, and he nods quickly.

“I do. I really fucking do.”

“And you want me to do it more.”

He whimpers. “Yes. Please.”

She lands another slap on his face and he groans like she’s sucking his dick. It’s that exciting, that much of a rush. She feels it too, the power and purpose of it, the way his pain grounds them both and is a deeper form of intimacy than she’s ever found in vanilla kisses, or even vanilla sex.

“Tell me some things you’ve enjoyed about our trip,” she purrs. “One for each slap.” And maybe this is her trying to pre-emptively get the aftercare she knows she’s going to desperately need in about 36 hours, or maybe it’s just her trying to confirm for herself that he’s treasured this week as much as she has, that it’s felt like another, brighter and more beautiful world for him, the way it has for her.

She slaps him, and he says, eyes closed, “The way you smell in the morning when I wake up next to you.”

She slaps him again. He says, “Having dinner with you every night and talking about work and life and everything.”

She slaps him a little harder, and he has to steady his breathing before saying, “Making you come in my mouth so many times.” And they both moan at the thought of it, as she tugs his thigh forward roughly to fit between her own, because she suddenly needs to be grinding her clit against something now that he’s put such thoughts in her head.

She switches to his other cheek and slaps him. His breath catches and then he says, “You hurting me until my brain shuts the fuck up.” She strokes his face gently to let him know that she knows about this, that it’s one of the major reasons she does it in the first place.

She slaps him again and he says, “Seeing you get ready in the morning. All your cute little products and the way you hum when you brush your teeth.”

She slaps him again. He says, “Making you squirt. The sounds you make when I do it.”

She switches back to the other cheek, wanting to use her right hand so she can really raise the intensity. She slaps him harder than she has all night, hard enough that he’s speechless for a few seconds and his thigh shakes between hers.

And then he murmurs, almost too quietly to hear: “God, I fuckin’ love you.”

She thinks, at first, that she must’ve misheard him. That maybe he said he loves this, loves the way she hurts him, loves standing in a deserted alley with her and enjoying the sea breeze and the sound of waves against the shore.

But she has to know. So she gives him another slap and says, “What was that, Roman?”

She sees him wince, as if saying it was a mistake. And of course he would think that, he who was raised in a family where love was only ever a liability, where showing any trace of tenderness could get you mocked mercilessly at the dinner table or locked in a cage or shipped off to military school.

But whatever it is, he fights through it, each step of the battle evident on his face, and then says, “I love you, Gerri.” And when enough time has passed that he knows she’s not about to slap him again, he opens his big brown eyes to look at her, and his whole expression shifts when he sees that she’s crying.

Gerri Kellman doesn’t cry over men, not unless they’re dead. But she does cry about her sweet boy, it turns out. There are a lot of reactions he prompts in her that she previously would have thought to be ridiculous, or impossible.

His eyes are searching hers, trying to check if she’s okay, even though she’s the one who’s been slapping his face loud enough to startle nearby seagulls.

“Roman,” she says, through tears, when she can manage it. “Roman, I love you too.”

He tilts forward and kisses her with such sudden force that it makes her blood run cold, pure adrenaline. His hand moves to cup her face and she feels her tears continuing to flow – and maybe some of his, too.

They kiss, hot and hard and messy, for minutes that feel like hours but that also feel like no time at all. His thigh between her legs feels like an extension of his love, pressing pleasure into her, as if every moment she spends on this earth deserves to be punctuated by bliss both physical and emotional.

“I wanna take you home,” he gasps raggedly against her mouth. “I mean, back to our room. Now.”

It does feel like home. That’s the sad thing. It feels far more like home than her empty apartment in New York ever has, and she knows it’s because she can’t reliably expect Roman to be in her apartment whenever the craving strikes her to kiss him or climb on top of him or make him kneel in front of her. But it’s too sad a thought to consider, so instead she just says, “Okay.”

Back in their room, he lays her down on the bed and the thought crosses her mind that she’s about to find out how Roman Roy makes love. To the extent that he is capable of such a thing, capable of the presence and sincerity and vulnerability it takes to do that, she is going to see what it’s like. And she actually can’t fucking wait.

His kisses on her neck are hot, wet, and insistent, and he’s still got a thigh between hers, where he can no doubt feel how wet she’s getting. He kisses back up to her mouth and takes his time gently sucking on each of her lips one by one, massaging them with his tongue before pushing it deeper into her mouth. She’s so turned on that she’s not even self-conscious about how hard she’s riding his leg, the way she’s probably getting his pants wet there through multiple layers of fabric.

“I really really really wanna make you come,” he murmurs against her lips, “because I love you,” and they giggle together as more tears slip out of her eyes unbidden. “Any requests, as far as method?” The way he asks it is so flirty and molten-hot, like she’s a cute twentysomething he’s seducing at a bar, and it turns her on so much that she almost wants to hump his thigh to completion right then and there. But that would be a waste of a perfectly good opportunity to use other, more specialized parts of his body.

Many ideas flicker through her head like cinematic stills, but ultimately they find themselves spooning, him behind her, with his hand between her legs. It’s all too easy to push her dress up and her panties down, and he finds her so wet underneath that he moans in her ear, which just gets her wetter. “You're so fucking hot,” he says as he massages the tips of two fingers in and around her drenched opening and then drags them up to her clit to stroke her there. With his other hand he holds her firmly in place by her hipbone so she can’t wriggle away from any of the pleasure he’s giving her.

But she can feel his cock against her ass, and it’s mighty distracting. “Roman,” she chokes out, and reaches back toward his wildly hard erection. She fumbles for his zipper, the angle tricky to navigate, and he says, “Whoa, whoa. I thought I was focusing on you right now,” a smile in his voice, his fingers still doing indescribably filthy things to her clit. But she whines and manages to get his cock out of his pants and pushes herself toward it like a horny fucking animal, and he says in her ear, soft and low and a little surprised, “Is that what you want? You want it inside you, Ger?”

She finds that she really, really does, actually, and she lets him know that with her words and her body. So he leaves her clit untouched for a few moments so he can line himself up behind her and slide in, slow, hot, and deep. “Fuck, you’re so fucking wet,” he breathes in her ear, and she’s trembling at the way he pulls her even further onto him by her hips until he’s as deep as he can be, hitting a spot inside her that seems to narrow the world down to just her cunt and how good it can feel. He must notice her twitch and hear her mewl when he finds it, because he mutters, “Yeah? Like that?” and grinds the tip of his cock back and forth against that spot a few times to confirm that it’s what’s making her shudder, before he proceeds to aim for it on every stroke.

He starts up a slow rhythm, his cock sliding in and out against her front wall, and then returns his fingers to her clit, which is so achingly sensitive it feels almost dangerous, like she could come at any moment. And ultimately, it’s the combination of his wet fingers stroking her clit in firm circles, his cock pressing deep inside her again and again, and his teeth gently sinking into her shoulder that makes her shudder, cry out, and come all over him. His length gives her something to squeeze on with each muscle contraction and she can hear his breath get ragged against her neck as he fights not to come immediately when she does.

“You feel so fucking good, Jesus Christ,” he’s whispering, and she wonders if he’s thinking the same thing she is, which is that it’s never felt like this. This particular sex act has never felt so filthy, or kinky, or transgressive, or perfect, or – yes – loving when she’s done it with anyone else, and maybe it’s because he’s studied and worshipped every other inch of her body so it seemed like a natural progression for him to finally fuck the deepest part of her, where his fingers could never quite reach.

He says, “I wanna come inside you so bad,” and they’ve already talked about pregnancy risk (nada, post-menopause) and STI risk (both having tested negative for everything before their trip), so she knows he’s not asking about logistics. He’s just letting her know how much he wants it, and her cunt squeezes around him, aching for it.

All at once, he flips her over onto her back and gets on top of her, and with her legs wrapped around him, he can push even deeper and harder on every stroke. She’s gasping and shaking as he rams into her with wild force. His voice trembles as he says in her ear, “Fuck, fuck, I’m gonna – can I come?” and she’s nodding and saying yes in every way she knows how to say it, and then he shudders and groans against her neck as he buries himself inside her and comes so fucking hard that she can feel each and every pulse of his pleasure.

They both need a minute or two to catch their breath; sweat glistens on their skin, and he kisses her neck with surprising tenderness as he recovers from her. And then he slides his softening cock out of her and pulls her back into a tight spooning embrace, and she feels so safe and happy in his arms that she wants to cry at the thought of it ever being any other way again.

Twenty minutes later, as her breaths have slowed and evened out and she’s about to drop down into a deep sleep, he murmurs, “Can you fucking believe that we did normo sex, in the goddamn missionary position, and it still felt like the kinkiest thing ever?” and she reflexively rocks her ass back against him because the memory feels so good to contemplate.

“I love everything we do together,” she says sleepily, and the last thing she remembers before nodding off is him running his tongue up the sweaty back of her neck before saying, “Me too. Everything.”

Notes:

Only one more chapter after this (I am 80% sure... lol).

Chapter 20: Simul Tandem

Notes:

Last chapter, ahhh!

Content note: leaving marks (bruises/bites/hickeys).

P.S. The meme referenced in this chapter is inspired by this Countess Olivia tweet (read her fics, they're great): https://twitter.com/thecountess_o/status/1669343407435841536

Somehow it’s only on their last full day in Montauk that they finally take advantage of the infamous heart-shaped hot tub on their honeymoon suite’s balcony. It’s not quite as serene as the hot springs in Tuscany or Bali, especially since the entire tub is a garish shade of red (and is that a fucking rhinestone trim?), but it’s still nice to sit in the bubbling water with mimosas together for much of the afternoon.

“Maybe we should come back here on our actual honeymoon,” Roman muses, gazing out at the horizon.

Gerri nearly chokes on her drink. “What?” she splutters. “Are you… Did you just propose to me?”

He scoffs. “Gerri, do you see a fuckin’ ring?” he asks, giving her a faux-offended look. “We both know that my money is one of my best qualities. If I was proposing to you, you’d know it, because there would be a diamond in your line of sight so big that it would blind you. No, I am not proposing.”

She lets out a relieved laugh, and relaxes a little, melting down into the water.

But then he adds, “If I did, though – would you say yes?”

He’s peering at her so seriously now that it makes her nervous. “Roman, we’ve only been dating for a couple of months,” she starts to explain.

“Yeah, in the real world,” he says. “In my head, we’ve been dating for years, I’ve given you thousands upon thousands of orgasms, and we’ve taken dozens of trips like this.” He grins at her, and she has to admit she’s proud of him for being able to say things like this now, extreme though they may be. She likes him better a little too vulnerable than not vulnerable at all.

“One thing at a time,” she murmurs warningly, and he nods.

“I know, I know.” He sips his drink. “But would you? Say yes to me? Theoretically?”

She knows (or hopes, anyway) that it’s a ploy for validation moreso than an actual question. So she ponders how best to respond, and then says, “I certainly won’t rule out the possibility, but there’s a reason people usually date for years before progressing to that point. There are compatibilities that need to be established, conflicts that need to be worked through, trust that needs to be developed.”

He tilts his head thoughtfully. “Okay,” he says. “Well, what are the next steps in that process? What are the, you know, action items and deliverables for proceeding with that? Lay it out for me. Write me a to-do list. ‘Cause I’ll fuckin’ do it. You know I will.”

She sighs heavily, because as much as he exasperates her sometimes, she still loves him so fucking much that it hurts. “I don’t think you can itemize it like that, Roman,” she says. “A relationship isn’t a bank loan or an acquisition. We’ll just have to see how it goes.”

He nods and swigs his mimosa while looking out at the water. “Fine,” he says. “But for the record, I am optimistic about this joint venture, and also I have fantasized so many times about proposing to you, and in my head it always makes you really fucking happy, so. Something to think about.” He shrugs, and flashes her an impish smile.

She could just leave it there, could change the subject or let a calm silence wash over them like a wave, erasing all of this for the time being. But now she’s curious. He has a way of doing that to her.

“How do those fantasies usually go?” she asks quietly.

His eyes get wide and bright. “Well – sometimes we’re in the city, maybe at the Met, or on the High Line, or in a back corner at Eleven Madison Park. Or sometimes we’re traveling – could be Florence, or Madrid, or Vienna.” He licks his lips and his gaze wanders as he pictures it. “You’re in a nice dress, maybe blue or green. Some cleavage, but, you know, classy cleavage. Red lipstick on, the kind that’ll get on me a little when I kiss you but won’t smudge too much because you wouldn’t like that. And I’m in a suit – navy, probably, or – well, wait, what would you want me to be wearing?”

She has to laugh when she realizes it’s a genuine question. “Something setting-appropriate, I suppose,” she says, at a loss for words. “You do look nice in navy. Maybe a red pocket square, to match my lipstick.”

He grins. “Ooh, love that. So, we’d be having dinner, or going on a walk, or just sitting outside somewhere, looking at, y’know, nature and shit. Kind of like this,” he says, gesturing toward the ocean that stretches out below them. “And I’d wait until you weren’t really paying attention, maybe let you walk ahead of me a little bit, so you’d eventually wonder where I went, and turn around to look for me.”

Why is this making her heart beat faster? Why is a description of a hypothetical situation, which they’ve just established is years away at minimum (if it happens at all), making her stomach clench with panicked excitement?

“And I’d be down on one knee,” he says, watching her expression carefully, “making heart-eyes at you, and I’d take out the ring, which would be fucking enormous – seriously, whatever ad exec invented that 3-months’-salary rule had no idea how much fuckin’ money I make, this rock would be truly obscene, like, you could see it from space, Prince Harry could never – and I’d say some cute shit to you, and ask you to marry me, and you’d say yes.”

She frowns playfully at him. “You’re not going to tell me what the ‘cute shit’ would be?”

He cackles. “No, obviously. No spoilers, you eager little slut.” And then, seeing further opportunities to tease her: “If you’re that fuckin’ thirsty for it, we can go into town and get a ring right now, fast-track the timeline. I’m dead serious. But about five minutes ago you were talking about ‘establishing compatibilities’ and ‘building trust,’ et cetera, and if I know one thing about you, Gerri, it’s that no one can force you to do anything you don’t want to do. So if you think we should wait, then let’s wait. I’ve got time.”

It is actually fucking infuriating, the way he knows how to press her buttons, worm his way into her brain with reverse psychology, without even trying. Or maybe he is trying and it just looks effortless from the outside.

She needs to say something, or else she is going to say yes, let’s do it, and she really doesn’t want to say yes. Well, she does, but she doesn’t. “I think Baird and I dated for four years before he proposed,” she says, just to get some words out.

He makes an impressed face. “Respectfully: how did he wait that long? I’ve seen your #ThrowbackThursday pics. I don’t think I would’ve made it six months.”

She blushes. “We were in law school,” she explains. “He wanted to pass the bar and save some money before taking that step. Sensible, really.”

He nods. “And I guess, when you’re in your twenties, maybe you don’t wanna settle down right away. Maybe you wanna party, and fuck around, and figure out who you are, and see who else might come along.” He looks at her. “But we’re not in our twenties.”

“No, we’re not,” she says. The silence that ensues is maybe the most tense she’s ever felt while sitting in a hot tub, not that that’s saying much.

When he’s tortured her long enough, he says, “Well, I hope your takeaway from this convo is that I plan on marrying you, when and if you’ll let me.” A shiver goes through Gerri. “But since you think we’ve got some shit to figure out first, I guess I have to date you and fuck you and kiss you and impress you and love you for a few more years before then. Woe is me, what a hardship.” His grin is infectious.

Her stomach won’t stop fluttering. “Come here, you fucking idiot,” she says, and it takes less than two seconds for him to hurtle across the hot tub and kiss her like he’s got something to prove.

“Oh, one other important thing about my proposal fantasies,” he says breathlessly against her mouth after a minute. “I always fuck you really well after. Like, really, really well – exactly the way you like it, hitting all the right spots, playing the hits, bringing the fuckin’ house down between your legs. Just so you know for sure that you made the right choice.”

She smiles and pulls him closer by the waistband of his swimsuit. “Really, really well, huh?” she says. “Now, what would that look like, I wonder?”

---

Gerri’s getting some of her packing done before dinner so she won’t have to worry about it in the morning, and Roman is watching her from the corner with an expression that looks more and more like panic with each passing minute.

“Do you really have to do that?” he asks.

She furrows her brow. “We’re going to be tipsy after dinner, and I’m going to want to fuck you, and in the morning we’re going to be tired, and I’m going to want to fuck you again,” she explains. “This is the smartest time to do it.”

His stare is blank, distant. “No, I mean like, do you have to do that… at all? Ever?” he asks. “Can’t we just stay? I’ll call down to the front desk, see if they offer late checkout. But, like, a year late. That might be enough time.”

She softens, sets down the dresses she was folding. “Roman, I understand,” she says, and comes to sit beside him on the floor. “I’m sad too. This week was special. Really special. One of the best weeks of my life, actually. I don’t want it to end either.” His slight smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

“What if shit’s different when we get back?” he asks. “What if we realize this doesn’t actually work when we’re not surrounded by sand and sea and bottomless martinis? What if my dick stops working again? What if some grey-haired government lothario sets his soggy sights on you, makes you an offer you can’t refuse?”

Gerri’s actually starting to worry about him now. “Roman, I’m dating you,” she says. “Things are good between us. So good. We started seeing each other while we were working and we can keep seeing each other while we’re working, too.”

The way he looks at her then is all raw fear – irrational and sharp, probably forged in the fires of childhood trauma. “But what if…” He can’t seem to finish the sentence. “I don’t know. I’m really fucking scared.”

“You’ve got your collar,” she reminds him. His hand travels to it automatically, fingertips grazing the chain links. “It’s there so you never forget that you’re mine. That I want you to be mine.”

He nods numbly, but she can tell that he needs something else. Maybe something neurochemical. Cortisol is probably flooding his bloodstream, telling his brain that the sky is falling. She needs to tweak the formula, flip a switch.

“Would you like me to leave a mark on you?” she asks. The mental image turns her on, sure, but that’s not the main reason she offers it. “A bite, maybe? So you can look at it over the next few days and remember how good we were together here, and how good we still are, and how safe I’m going to keep you?”

His eyes are meeting hers, deeply and truly, for the first time in a while; she can see him trying to analyze why this suggestion feels so right, why it actually seems like it might solve part of the problem. “Okay,” he rasps.

“Where?”

He glances over at the mirror on the wall, sees himself curled up with his arms wrapped around his knees, a vulnerable, scared-little-kid pose. He gently lifts his collar on one side to reveal the spot where his neck meets his shoulder – tender, creamy and soft. “Here,” he says, tapping it with two fingers.

She thinks. “Is it okay if it’s visible?” she asks. “I don’t know what you’re planning on wearing this week, but some of your shirts would show it.”

“I want people to see it,” he responds, his voice still small and sad. “I want them to know. About us.”

She nods, and moves closer to him, wrapping her arms around him from behind. “That’s very romantic, Roman,” she says softly in his ear, and feels him lean into her.

And then she arranges her teeth on the spot he’s indicated, lifting his collar out of the way to give her access. She holds him, warm and sure, as she bites down, first gently, and then harder, and then so hard it almost hurts her jaw, so it must be hurting him exponentially more. He gasps, and then whines, and then just starts making a continuous keening noise that sounds like aaaahhhhh and feels like total surrender, total oblivion.

She applies a little suction near the end, like a teenager giving a hickey at the prom after-party, and that makes his body relax even more in her arms, his muscles loose as jelly. She gives him as much pressure as she can without breaking skin, until his breaths are shaky and she can tell he’s drifted to a nicer place within his own mind. Only then does she finally let up with her teeth and pull away.

The bite mark is satisfyingly deep and firm, surrounded by a blotch of redness threatening to turn purple. He is trembling, and breathing heavily, and totally, totally hers. She drops a soft kiss on the spot where she bit him, and he shudders and leans back against her to feel the safety of her around him.

“You took that so well for me,” she murmurs in his ear. He turns to bury his face in her neck, and it takes her a few moments to realize that he’s crying. She squeezes him tight in her arms and holds him as the sobs quietly wrack him. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispers. “I love you, remember? And you love me. It’s going to be okay.”

---

Something actually does shift in him after that, she’s pleased to note. By the time they’re out for dinner on a local steakhouse patio, he’s the Roman she knows again, gesticulating wildly, making filthy remarks and off-color jokes, and looking at her like she’s even more delicious than the medium-rare filet on his plate.

“Did you see that we’re trending?” he asks casually, well into his second glass of scotch.

“No,” Gerri says. “What?” She’s been staying offline, to the best of her ability; Roman was right when he told her early in the week that “touching grass” might be the best way to stay in vacation mode on her actual vacation.

He cackles and pulls up Twitter on his phone. “People are loving the whole ‘fruity Richie-Rich boy-prince dating the MILFy bitchy lawyer’ angle,” he says. “We’re being memed. We’re a hashtag. Actually, we’re a bunch of hashtags. #Gerroman, #Gerroy, #Romi. They can’t seem to agree on one.”

He shows her a meme where someone has photoshopped their heads onto a cartoon of Gomez and Morticia Addams; he’s kissing up and down her arm with fervent desire while she looks away, disaffected and coy. It has over 10,000 likes and retweets. “Apparently we’re ‘queer-coded,’ ‘goals,’ and also ‘serving cunt,’” he says with a shrug. “Who knew.”

This is slightly concerning to Gerri, truth be told. She hasn’t spent decades working tirelessly as the brilliant brain behind Waystar Royco’s entire legal department only to be turned into a yassified joke.

But maybe it’s time for a change. It’s not as if the legion of #Gerroman fans is discrediting her intelligence and work ethic. Far from it; those qualities actually seem to be a key reason they’re obsessing over her relationship with Roman – the contrast between his laissez-faire, movie-exec, cocaine-fuckup public image and her stern, pearl-clad, tightly-controlled persona, and especially the ways in which she might be reining him in, cleaning him up, keeping him in line. It’s hilarious, she thinks, how the rumors can be so wrong and so right, all at the same time.

“This is okay, right?” he asks, suddenly nervous. “You’re not, like, regretting this whole thing? ‘Cause I can have Karolina cook up something huge to sweep it under the rug if it’s too much. I can show up naked at the Knitting Factory or give an unhinged interview about my new MLM or something. Hit refresh on the headlines.”

She laughs. “No. It’s new, but it’s… nice,” she says. “I knew dating you was going to be different from anything I’ve done before. That’s what I was signing up for.”

His eyes get warm and melty, and he slips his phone back into his pocket and says, “I really fucking love you, Gerri Kellman. You know that, right?”

She says, “I do,” and he pulls her in for a messy kiss, in front of all the servers and bartenders and customers and passersby. It doesn’t matter at all. Except it does, but in the good way.

---

When she’s stretched out on their bed after dinner, her worries dimmed by gin, Roman crawls on top of her, sliding a thigh between hers automatically. The things she likes are second nature to him now. It’s cozy. Sweet.

“Why does this feel like it’s the last time I’ll ever get to fuck you?” he mumbles against her lips.

“I don’t know. It’s not,” she says, with a teasing smile.

“But it’s the last time I’ll ever get to fuck you here,” he whines.

“Not necessarily. There’s always tomorrow morning,” she says with a shrug. “And don’t forget about our honeymoon.”

The look he gives her is about 90% love and 10% white-hot animal lust, and he drops his full weight onto her, pinning her down for a deep, long kiss.

He doesn’t ask her what she wants this time, just gives it to her. Nips at her neck until she’s panting. Pulls her dress off over her head and looks at her nearly-nude body like it’s the only thing in the world worth looking at. Kisses down her chest and belly to land at the top of her panties, his hot breath making her hips tilt upward toward his face.

He nibbles up and down the inside of each thigh and it makes her think about biting him that afternoon; the mark on his neck is even more wine-dark than it was when she first placed it there, and the sight of it makes her wetter. He wanted it. He wanted her. He wants her.

He peels off her underwear and throws it on the floor, and then gives her entire pussy a wide, open-mouthed kiss that makes her head drop back onto the pillow. His tongue and lips are so familiar to her now, wired into her body and synced up with her rhythms. He licks carefully on either side of her clit, getting as close to it as he can without touching it, until she thrusts up into him and grabs his hair to drag him exactly where she wants him. He starts sucking on her soft and slow, showing her that he knows exactly what she likes but isn’t going to give it to her in full just yet. He’s going to draw things out, tease her, pack in as much pleasure as he possibly can before it’s over.

As Roman’s tongue explores her deeply and catalogues her taste, Gerri thinks about how this all began. Books about sex, books that she recommended and that he tore through, nearly memorized, referred to like religious texts. She remembers how his self-assurance seemed to grow with each one, as he learned more and more about how he could make himself useful to her, how he could set himself apart from all the mediocre lays and disappointing boyfriends in her past. His fragile cockiness grew into real confidence over the course of those books, especially as she let him practice what he’d learned, let him prove to her – and, more importantly, to himself – that he can be effective, and competent, and good. That he can be loved, not for the potential of who he might become, but for the reality of who he is, right here, right now.

He grips her thighs with his warm hands and moans against her clit, really relaxing into the sensory experience of this, in a way that he wasn’t able to do just a few short weeks ago. She can tell that he’s in his body, not in his head; that he’s focusing more on maximizing both of their pleasure than on minimizing his own shame. He laps at her clit from every angle with his tongue and then zeroes in on the precise spot that always overwhelms her so much that it’s hard to breathe. She grips his hair tightly between her fingers to keep him anchored in place, and thinks about how all Roman needed to go from a disappointing lover to a devastatingly good one was a little guidance, a little support, and a little faith. His tongue is taking her apart with firm, methodical strokes, and she wants to come in his mouth so badly. He deserves it.

He spreads her lips wider with his hands so he can reach more of her, and tongues her opening while sucking her clit so sweetly, so well. She thrusts into his mouth at an increasingly insistent rhythm, and he knows she’s close before she even does, doubling down and sucking her deep and consistent to get her there.

He moans as she comes between his lips, moans almost louder than she does, maintaining his pace as she throbs and yells and pushes into him. He grips her hips tightly with his hands so she can’t get away from him, can’t escape how good he’s forcing her to feel. He gives her as much pleasure as she can literally, physically take, before she has to pull away from his mouth, too sensitive to continue.

And then he looks up at her with big, hungry eyes, like he could’ve gone on for so much longer. Like he wants to keep doing this forever.

---

The next afternoon, when they arrive back in the city at last, they spot a crowd of paparazzi and gen-Z-looking TikTokers stationed outside the Waystar building. “Fucking hell,” Roman grumbles. “The Gerromi stans are out for blood.”

Gerri’s in her favorite navy skirt-suit; she’s got emails to send, leads to pursue, cases to quash. She taps the toes of her black pumps against the floor of the car, oddly eager to get back to work. It’s what she was born to do, after all.

She looks over at Roman – his nervous-but-focused expression, his silver chain-link collar, the purple hickey-bruise peeking out from under it. He meets her eye and reaches out to hold her hand. “Ready to face these fucks?” he asks.

She nods, certain that she is. And together, as a unit, as a team, they step out of the car, into the flashbulbs, into the noise, into the world.

Notes:

Thank you all so much for reading and commenting ❤️

Working on this story has been unexpectedly meaningful for me. I set out to write something smutty, nerdy, and fun, and while this story is indeed those things, I think it ultimately evolved into a statement about how good sex education can change lives and can even help heal trauma. When we know what we need and want sexually, accept our sexual quirks, and feel that we have that same acceptance from our partner(s), our lives can shift in such a way that we’re no longer ruled by shame and doubt, but instead by joy, pleasure, safety, and trust.

All of the sex books mentioned in this fic are ones that have personally been helpful and affirming for me, and were influential in the writing of my own first book, 101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do. I’d highly recommend reading any and all of them if you haven’t already.

I also think it’s worth noting that many of the scenes, kinks, and romantic/flirty interactions in this story were heavily influenced by my relationship with my spouse. Our kinky romance has developed into something deep and truly special over the past 5+ years, despite (and sometimes because of) us being long-distance for much of that time. Specifically, in this story, a lot of what I’ve represented about D/s, phone sex, phone flirting, text flirting, sadomasochism, consent communication, aftercare conversations, vacation/hotel sex, collaring, humiliation play, shoe/foot fetishism, panty fetishism, orgasm denial/control, “teaching & learning” as a fetish, marriage proposals, financial domination, and CBT is adapted from my experiences with my spouse, and I would not have been able to write about these things (or at least not as well or accurately) without having had those experiences.

Am I done writing Roman/Gerri fic after this? Probably not, let’s be real. I can't get them out of my head. But I wrote this story during a weird in-between phase in my career where one big project had ended and another was about to begin, and so I’m not sure when or if I’ll have the time to write something this big and thought-out again, which makes it feel all the more special to me.

Anyway, thank you for reading along, thank you for joining me in my perversions and delusions, and thank you so much for all the sweet (and often hilarious) comments you’ve left on this fic. Feel free to follow me on Twitter (@girly_juice) to keep up with what I'm writing, in the fic world and beyond. You’re all beautiful little weirdos and I hope you enjoyed reading this even half as much as I enjoyed writing it. ❤️