And I’ll damn well take it. I’m paying her for plenty of exclusives. I can still feel that flash of pleasure I got when she confessed that I was the only guy she was fucking, let alone the only guy who could make her come. But for some reason the knowledge that I’m the only one who gets to see her like this, sleeping and vulnerable and trusting, feels even more precious.

I ease in closer to her, sliding an arm around her waist and tugging her in more flush against me. She shifts a little, snuggling even closer, and my chest tightens in a way that usually only happens when Mark and I are cuddling. I settle her with a whispered shh and stroke my fingertips lightly down her spine until she stills again, her head tucked in beneath my chin.

As her breathing returns to that slow, steady state I assume is normal for someone sleeping, I lie there, tense and alert. Tense because I don’t want to wake her and I also don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here. Alert because my consciousness has shrunk to this little world under the covers, where my entire focus is on her shallow, even breaths, and the rise and fall of her ribcage, and the sensation of her satin-smooth skin beneath my fingertips, and the way her hair smells when I inhale it and feels when I brush my lips over it.

This is not the way it was supposed to be.

I was supposed to hire a Seraph PA to run my office and ride my dick on demand, both equally competently. Marlowe has upheld her end of the bargain. After all, she nails both sides of the role admirably. I’m the problem here, the creepy boss snorting his EA’s hair like an addict and holding her while she sleeps instead of fucking me like I’m paying her to.

Let’s revisit that last part.

Holding her while she sleeps.

I don’t do girlfriends, commitment, even regular dating. Marlowe is the person I’ve racked up by far the highest number of orgasms with. I suppose, if I think about it logically, regular fucking would engender some level of… familiarity, for want of a better word.

But it honestly never occurred to me that fucking the same woman day after day would make me want more. If anything, I was worried I’d get bored and want to trade her in after a month or two. I never, ever thought to worry that I’d get attached, that I’d want evenings with her. It never struck me that I’d lie here one day and feel grateful to be having an experience with her that feels more intimate than a quick fuck at lunchtime. And I certainly never expected to find myself daydreaming about this very thing happening on a lazy Saturday morning in my bed.