Chapter Text
Emmrich didn’t mean to spy.
He meant to come home like a civilised man - loosen his tie, kiss her neck, pretend the day hadn’t scraped him to the bone after back-to-back meetings. Instead, the penthouse was dim and quiet except for the bathroom fan and the rush of water. Steam breathed through the gap in the en-suite door, the light silvered into his bedroom.
He paused.
From the angle of the opening, he caught the mirror, fogged and haloed, and in it, Ivy turned under the shower. She had one hand braced against the tile, the other between her thighs, holding the removable shower head, working herself with ruthless focus that made his mouth go dry. Water-stitched lines down the curve of her breasts from the overhead rainfall showerhead; her nipples were hard and glossy; her stomach jumped when her fingers circled higher.
She didn’t hear him.
Emmrich set his briefcase down as if it might detonate and drifted to the wall opposite the door, shoulder to the painted plaster, his breath shallow. A stupid little laugh wanted to break loose in his chest because he couldn’t believe he was this lucky - to see her like this, unguarded and greedy, his Ivy with her head tipped back and her lips apart, riding her what she could as if she’d been starving all day.
He palmed himself through his suit trousers and was already hard. Silently unbuckling, he lowered his zipper with a wince, and freed himself - heavy, flushed, already glistening from shock. He fished his green silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and kept it in his left hand. With his right hand, he wrapped his fist around his cock and started to stroke, slow and quiet, eyes never leaving the mirror.
She shifted a fraction, opened for herself, the pulse from the water on her clit, one of her fingers sliding lower, testing, pushing. The angle dragged a sound out of her that went straight to his spine. He had a crystal-clear view of the way her thighs trembled, the way her calves flexed and released with each little grind.
He’d spent a day pretending to be made of stone. That pretence dissolved in seconds. He was immediately awestruck, a combination of stupidity and reverence. His hands weren’t as steady as they should be, from just seeing her gasp for breath. That morning, he had signed a billion-dollar gold-credit transfer, a mundane act compared to the way she slowly inserted a finger inside herself, a gesture that almost buckled her knees.
“Fuck,” he breathed, so soft the fan took it. He stroked again, mean and measured, heel of his hand pressing the underside the way she liked to do when she went down on him. He watched the way her mouth formed nothing, then almost formed his name, then didn’t.
She worked herself harder - two fingers now, slick and sure, the jet of water held to that sweet spot. She slipped; her shoulder kissed the tile; she caught herself on a braced forearm and pressed her forehead to the wall, hips rolling into her own hand like she couldn’t stand being empty. He matched her without meaning to, breath syncing to the stutter in her shoulders.
Water ran everywhere. The room smelled of her soap and steam, with the hint of his cologne still lingering in the air from the morning. He imagined stepping in, imagined joining her, imagined the little gasp she’d make when he set her knee on the bench and filled her - his cock throbbed in his fist at the picture, and he had to stop, bite the silk in his left hand and breathe.
She moaned.
It wasn’t loud. It didn’t have to be. But it landed like a hand around his throat.
He let go of the handkerchief, stroked faster, thumb sliding over the wet crown, the sound damped by the silk crushed in his other fist. In the mirror, she tilted her chin, eyes closed, lashes spiked; her belly trembled under the water as she chased it. He wanted to talk to her through the door, but didn’t. He wanted to watch her take it with no witnesses but him, and he did.
“Emmrich,” she panted.
It was nothing - just his name, fractured and soft - but it was also everything. The sweetest thing he’d ever heard. No past lover, no polished sin, no prayer had ever landed like the way she said it. His knees went hot and unreliable; the world narrowed to the drag of his palm and the sight of her in the mirror, open and wrecked and touching herself to the thought of him.
He got four more strokes before she broke.
Her body locked and shuddered; she pressed her mouth to her shoulder and came, wet hand working through it, thighs quaking under the spray, breath knocked out of her in a small, helpless sound that would have put him on his knees if he wasn’t already braced like a man in a storm.
And then he broke.
The silk went low to cover his weeping head; his right hand jerked hard. He came with a strangled groan, spilling hot into the silk and over his knuckles, knees shaking so badly he had to catch himself on the doorframe. He kept watching her even while the aftershocks tore at him - watched the little after-tremors run through her calves and lower belly, watched her fingers slow and then ease away, watched her breathe.
Silence, except the hiss of the shower.
He wiped his hand, folded the silk with obscene care and tucked it back into his pocket, heart still jackhammering the inside of his ribs. He slid himself away, tucked, zipped, buckled, leaned his head to the wall, and laughed once - quiet, wrecked, grateful.
In the mirror, her eyes opened at last. She didn’t look at the door. Didn’t say a word. She rolled her head against the tile and turned her face up into the water like a woman washing a secret off her skin.
He pushed away from the wall and padded down the hall like he’d only just arrived, tie loosened, voice steadying around a practised nothing.
In his chest, the afterglow went deep and dangerous.
He had it bad for her. And watching her like this - awe burning the edges of his hunger - felt less like a sin and more like proof: if she whispered his name even when she thought he couldn’t hear, then all that remained was deciding when to let her know he’d heard it and would spend the rest of the night making her say it again.