Heading home

The lunch dragged on another half-hour—more mimosas, more gossip about whose husband was rumored to be eyeing a mistress in Aspen, whose daughter had just landed a modeling contract in New York—but Julia barely registered any of it. Her body was still humming, nipples tender from Chloe’s earlier “concern,” pussy slick and aching every time she shifted in her seat. She **** smiles, nodded at the right moments, and when the server finally cleared the last plates, she stood abruptly.

“I should get going,” Julia said, voice brighter than she felt. “Errands don’t run themselves, and Riley’s probably texting me about dinner already.”

The group murmured goodbyes, air-kisses exchanged like currency. Chloe rose too, grabbing her tiny designer clutch. “I’ll walk you out, Jules. Just to make sure you’re really okay.”

Julia didn’t argue. They stepped into the bright afternoon sun together, heels clicking across the flagstone path toward the parking lot. The other women lingered inside, already ordering coffee refills. When they reached the row of gleaming SUVs, Chloe stopped Julia with a gentle hand on her forearm, pulling her slightly behind the shelter of a Range Rover so they were out of sight.

She leaned in close, lips brushing Julia’s ear, voice a soft, conspiratorial whisper. “I know you’re wet right now,” Chloe murmured, breath warm against the shell of Julia’s ear. “I felt it when I was checking on you—how your thighs were trembling, how slick you got just from me touching you. It’s okay. I won’t tell a soul. Your secret’s safe with me.”

Julia’s stomach flipped, heat flooding her face and core in equal measure. She opened her mouth to deny it, to laugh it off, but nothing came out. Chloe just smiled—small, knowing, almost sweet—then pressed a quick, feather-light kiss to Julia’s cheek before stepping back.

“Text me later if you need anything,” Chloe said, normal volume again, as if nothing had happened. “Feel better, okay?”

She turned and sauntered toward her own car, hips swaying in that effortless way only twenty-four-year-olds manage, leaving Julia standing frozen beside the Urus, pulse roaring in her ears.

Julia slid behind the wheel on autopilot, started the engine, and pulled out of the lot. The drive home was a haze of palm-lined streets and traffic she barely noticed. Her mind spun in frantic loops: the headmaster’s text burning a hole in her phone, Chloe’s whispered confession echoing like a promise (or a threat), the sticky heat still coating her inner thighs. How the hell was she supposed to get onto Riley’s phone? Riley guarded that thing like it held state secrets—passcode-protected, always within arm’s reach, Face ID locked tighter than Fort Knox. Julia could ask to “check something” when Riley got home from school, but the girl would smell a rat in seconds. Maybe wait until Riley showered, or left it charging on the kitchen counter. Maybe bribe her again—another tattoo, another piercing, whatever it took.

The guilt was there, sharp and familiar, but it was drowned out by something darker: anticipation. The same twisted thrill she’d felt when Tony first shoved inside her, when the headmaster **** his cock down her throat. Master wanted Riley’s Snapchat. And Julia—broken, dripping, aching Julia—was going to get it for him. Because the alternative—disobedience, exposure, losing the only thing making her feel alive after twenty years of numbness—was unthinkable.

She pulled into the driveway, killed the engine, and sat there for a long minute, forehead resting on the steering wheel, breathing through the storm inside her. Then she straightened her dress one last time, wiped the last traces of smudged mascara from under her eyes, and walked inside to wait for her daughter to come home.