Ben

Ben stood with his back to me, still in the soft pants he’d worn to bed, the waistband shoved low on his hips. One hand braced against the wall above a half-unpacked box of sheet music. The other was wrapped around his cock, stroking in long, tight pulls. His head was bowed. He didn’t know I was there.

For a second the old anger flared - hot, familiar, righteous. Then the house breathed against the back of my neck and the anger twisted into something sharper. I watched the way his shoulders flexed, the way his fist tightened on the upstroke, the quiet, almost pained sound he made when his thumb dragged over the head. He was hard enough that the tip glistened even in the low light. Thinking of me, maybe. Or of Hayden. Or of whatever the house had started whispering to him too.

I didn’t announce myself. I stepped inside and let the door click shut behind me.

Ben’s rhythm faltered. He turned, eyes wide, hand still on himself. Shame flooded his face first - then something darker when he saw the state of me: nightgown half-tied, hair tangled, the clear bite mark already darkening above the neckline.

“Viv…”

I crossed the space between us before he could finish the name. My hand replaced his. He was hot and thick in my grip, the skin silky over iron hardness. He made a broken sound and his hips jerked forward.

“Don’t talk,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like mine. It sounded like the house. “Just take what you need.”

I shoved his pants the rest of the way down and dropped to my knees on the dusty floorboards. The first slide of my mouth over him pulled a raw groan from his throat. He tasted clean and faintly of the soap we both used, but underneath was the same charged heat that had been building in me all night. I took him deep, let him feel the back of my throat, used my hand on what wouldn’t fit. His fingers tangled in my hair - not gentle. I wanted them rougher.

When I pulled off just long enough to breathe he was staring down at me like he’d never seen me before.

“The house,” I whispered against the wet head of his cock. “It’s already inside both of us.”

I swallowed him again. This time he thrust. Shallow at first, then deeper when I didn’t stop him. The wet sounds filled the quiet room. My free hand slid between my own legs, two fingers pushing into the mess Constance had left, fucking myself in time with the way Ben used my mouth. The dual sensation - being filled from both ends, the dark knowledge that the neighbor’s bite still throbbed on my breast while my husband fucked my throat - made everything sharper, filthier.

Ben’s breathing turned ragged. His grip in my hair tightened to the edge of pain. I looked up at him and let him see everything: the anger, the hunger, the way the house had cracked something open in me that wasn’t going to close again.

He came with a low, punched-out sound, pulsing hot across my tongue. I swallowed every drop and kept sucking until he shuddered and tried to pull away. Only then did I rise, wipe the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand, and push him backward until his shoulders hit the wall.