Caroline was already on the File Street porch at ten, coat open, no assistant, no Sophia.
"You wrote that the wall is thin. I do not buy thin from a note. Show me."
The lockbox still worked. The house was empty, sheets on the counters, the back bedroom smelling like paint. Ethan shut the door behind them. She heard it. She did not tell him to leave it open.
"After ten you get the neighbor. Not a murmur. The wall is this one." He put his hand on it. "Sophia would have said the light. The light is not why you lose sleep."
Caroline stood where he had stood. Close enough that her coat brushed his arm. Forty-three, and not pretending she had come for a tour.
"David thinks you are a boy Veronica is hiding. Ryan thinks the same thing, with more spite. I listened to you at breakfast. I did not hear a boy. I heard someone who wanted me to hear him." She looked at his mouth. "If I am wrong, say so, and I will go back to the car."
"You are not wrong."
She kissed him first. Not soft. A decision. He took the coat off her shoulders and walked her to the covered mattress without asking where she wanted it. She let him. That was the use of the empty house.
"Door stays shut," she said.
"It is shut."
He got her blouse open and his mouth on her chest. She smelled like cold air and something expensive. Wicked Fingers moved over her and she held his wrist, then stopped holding it. ~mh. He pushed the skirt up, pulled her underwear aside, and found her already wet. She had been wet in the car. He rubbed her until her hips followed, then put two fingers in and kept his thumb on her.
The window opened while she was chasing his hand.
[Skill granted: Make Her Wait]
[Effect: She stays on the edge until you let her finish. The wait makes it stronger.]
He eased off just as she tightened. She made a furious sound and tried to follow his fingers. He did not let her. Held her there, close, shaking, not over. ~mh. She swore his name. He waited until her thighs were trembling and her hand was fisted in the sheet, then pressed back in and let it happen.
Second Wave took that finish and turned it into another before she could close her legs, ~ah, harder for the wait, her hand over her mouth, heel sliding on the sheet. He did not let her turn away.
"On your knees."
She looked at him, flushed, annoyed that she was going to do it, and did it. He opened his belt. She took him in her mouth without being asked twice. He kept a hand in her hair, not cruel, not polite. She moaned around him, ~mh, and he used the pace he wanted until her lipstick was gone and her eyes were wet.
"Up. Face the wall you came to see."
She laughed once, wrecked, and braced her hands on the thin wall. He pushed her skirt higher and thrust into her from behind. Tight, hot, a moan she did not manage to keep in the paint smell. He held her hips and did not rush. When she started to come again he slowed, and Make Her Wait kept her on it, shaking, forehead against the wall, unable to tip over until he drove back in and let her. ~ah. She clenched so hard he had to hold her up. Iron Stamina was the only reason he had not finished with her. Then he did, deep, because she pushed back and did not tell him to pull out.
They stayed there, her palms on the wall, his chest against her back, both of them breathing like the house might report it.
"David does not get this," she said. Her voice was rough. "Ryan does not get a version of it. You want the boy story dead, you let me kill it in rooms he is not invited to. You want money, you bill me for the walk. Five hundred. Today. Not through Sophia."
"Five hundred. And you do not bring him next time."
"Next time is not a negotiation." She fixed her skirt with unsteady hands. "Thursday you have a class problem. Do not bring it to my house. Bring yourself, when I text, and do not make me repeat myself."
[Conquest: Caroline Mitchell, 43.]
[Reward: 2,000 CP]
[Reward: $500]
[CP: 8,050]
[Cash: $4,450]
She left first. He waited until the car was gone, then sent Sophia the note she had asked for and nothing about the wall being occupied.
Make Her Wait was already his. Next time she would stay where he put her, and the finish would cost her more for it.
That was the point.