The drive to Carlos’s apartment passed in a haze of justifications and rationalizations. Jacob had pushed her to this with his accusations. She needed comfort, understanding. It was just a conversation, a place to clear her head. She wasn’t going there for sex, for the physical validation that had become a drug she couldn’t resist. She just needed space, perspective.

The lies she told herself were flimsy even to her own mind but they carried her forward, up the elevator to Carlos’s floor, to his door where she hesitated only briefly before knocking.

He opened it immediately. His expression held a confirmation that he’d anticipated this outcome from the moment Jacob had stormed out of the gym.

He didn’t say anything, just stepped back to let her in.

Ashley moved past him into the minimalist space she’d come to know intimately over the past week. “Jacob and I had a fight,” she said, the obvious statement filling the silence as she paced the living room. “About tonight. About you.” She turned to face him, anger still simmering beneath her skin.

Carlos leaned against a wall, arms crossed, watching her with that maddening calm that simultaneously infuriated and attracted her. “And you said?”

“Nothing. I left.” Ashley ran a hand through her hair. “I just… I couldn’t stay there with his accusations and his wounded looks. Like I’m some horrible person because I’m attracted to someone else.”

“Is that all it is?” Carlos asked, his tone neutral but his eyes intense. “Attraction?”

The question carved through her defenses, demanding a level of honesty she’d been avoiding. What was this between them? More than physical release, certainly. More than the forbidden thrill of secrecy and betrayal. But not love, not the steady, deep rooted bond she shared with Jacob. Something else, something primal and consuming that defied simple categorization.

“I don’t know,” she admitted finally. “I just know I couldn’t stay away. Even when I know it’s wrong. Even when it’s destroying my marriage.”

Carlos pushed off from the wall. “Nothing is destroyed until you decide it is,” he said, stopping just short of touching her. “You’re here because you choose to be. No one is forcing you, Ashley.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one lying to your spouse. You’re not the one who has to go home and pretend nothing is happening.”

“Then don’t go home,” Carlos suggested, the casualness of the proposal contradicting its seismic implications. “Stay here tonight. Deal with it tomorrow.”

The invitation dangled before her, tempting in its simplicity. A night of freedom from the weight of Jacob’s suspicions, from the constant navigation of truth and deception.

“I can’t,” she said. “It would only make things worse.”

“Things are already bad,” Carlos observed, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “One more night won’t change that.”

His touch, the gentleness so at odds with his usual commanding presence, broke something loose inside her. Ashley stepped into his space, erasing the careful distance between them, her hands finding his shoulders as she pressed her lips against his.

Carlos responded immediately, one hand tangling in her hair, the other at the small of her back pulling her firmly against him. The kiss deepened, conversation abandoned as they gave in to the physical current that had drawn them together from the beginning.

“I want to forget everything,” Ashley murmured against his mouth. “Make me forget, Carlos.”

He pulled back just enough to meet her eyes, his own dark with desire and something like triumph. “Come to bed,” he said, taking her hand and leading her toward the bedroom, the direction already familiar from previous encounters.

The room was sparsely furnished like the rest of the apartment, just a low platform bed with crisp white sheets, two nightstands, and a sleek dresser. Carlos released her hand as they entered, turning to face her.

“Take off your clothes,” he instructed.

Ashley complied without hesitation, pulling her shirt over her head, stepping out of her leggings, unclasping her bra to stand before him in just her underwear. His eyes traveled over her body but he made no move to undress himself or to touch her.

“All of it,” he said, nodding toward the last scrap of fabric separating her from complete nudity.

Again, she obeyed, slipping her thumbs into the waistband of her underwear and sliding them down her legs, kicking them aside to stand fully exposed in the dim light of his bedroom. There was a power in her surrender, a liberation in following his directives without question or hesitation.

Carlos moved, closing the distance between them, one hand cupping her face as the other traced a path from her collarbone down between her breasts, to her stomach, stopping just above her thighs.

“Tell me what you need tonight.”

The question caught Ashley off guard. What did she need? Escape. Oblivion. The mindless pleasure of physical release without the complications of emotion or consequence.

“I need you to make me yours,” she said finally, the words emerging from some primal place she rarely acknowledged. “I need to forget there’s a world outside this room.”

Carlos’s eyes darkened at her response, approval evident in the slight curve of his lips. “On the bed,” he directed, stepping back to allow her room to comply.

Ashley moved to the center of the mattress, lying on her back, watching as Carlos began to undress. He took his time, revealing his muscular form unhurriedly.  When he was naked, his cock fully erect, he joined her on the bed, positioning himself above her, his weight supported on his forearms.

“Tonight,” he said, his voice low and intimate, “I want to try something new.”

Carlos lowered his head to capture her mouth in a deep, consuming kiss. His tongue explored her mouth as one hand moved to her breast, thumb circling her nipple until it hardened beneath his touch. Ashley arched into the contact, a soft moan escaping her as his mouth left hers to trail down her neck, across her collarbone, to replace his fingers at her breast.

Carlos took his time, lavishing attention on both breasts until Ashley was writhing beneath him, desperate for more direct stimulation. He continued his downward journey, tongue tracing the contours of her ribs, her stomach, her hip.

“Spread your legs for me,” he murmured against her skin, positioning himself between her thighs as she complied.

The first touch of his tongue against her pussy drew a sharp cry from Ashley’s lips. He worked her with patience, building her pleasure steadily but never quite enough to push her over the edge.

Just as she was approaching climax, he pulled away, ignoring her sound of protest. “Turn over,” he directed, guiding her to her hands and knees, positioning himself behind her.

She felt the head of his cock pressing against her entrance, teasing but not penetrating.

“Is this what you want?” he asked.

“Yes,” she breathed, pushing back against him, seeking more direct contact. “Please, Carlos.”

He entered her with a smooth thrust, filling her completely, drawing a moan from somewhere deep inside her. For a moment he remained still, allowing her body to adjust to his size before establishing a steady rhythm, deep strokes that hit spots inside her that made her vision blur with pleasure.

“You feel so fucking perfect,” Carlos murmured, his grip tightening on her hip, controlling the pace and depth of each thrust. “So tight around my cock.”

She moved with him, meeting each thrust, the sound of skin against skin filling the room alongside their breathing and gasps of pleasure.

Carlos leaned forward, his chest pressing against her back, lips grazing her ear. “Remember what we started last time?” His voice had dropped an octave. “How you took my thumb so well?”

Ashley’s body responded instantly to the memory, the forbidden sensation of his thumb breaching her rear entrance while he fucked her, the overwhelming fullness that had triggered one of the most intense orgasms of her life.

After her fight with Jacob, after his accusations and her denials that cut so close to the truth, she craved something that would obliterate thought completely.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Carlos’s hand slid along her ass, his finger finding her rear entrance. He circled it carefully, the pressure firm but not yet penetrating. “I want more tonight,” he said. “I want all of you, Ashley. Every part.”

The meaning was unmistakable. What they’d begun before had been preparation for this moment. For giving Carlos a part of herself she’d never given Jacob, for crossing a final boundary that would make her betrayal complete.

“I want that too,” Ashley admitted, the confession emerging from some place deep within her that had been unlocked by their fight with Jacob, by the thrill of defiance that had driven her straight to Carlos’s apartment. “I’ve been thinking about it since last time.”

Carlos made a sound of approval, his finger pressing more firmly against her tight opening. “Tell me exactly what you want,” he demanded. “I need to hear you say it.”

“I want you to fuck my ass,” she said, the crude language foreign on her tongue but intoxicating in its forbidden honesty. “I want to feel you inside me there. I want you to be the first.”

“The only,” Carlos corrected, his voice carrying that edge of possession that simultaneously frightened and thrilled her. “Your husband never gets this part of you. This belongs to me.”

“Yes,” Ashley agreed, pushing back against his teasing finger, seeking more direct contact, more pressure. “Only yours. Please, Carlos.”

He withdrew completely, leaving her empty and aching. Ashley heard him moving behind her, the nightstand drawer opening. When he returned, his hands were slick with lubricant, the cool sensation making her gasp as it contacted her skin.

“You remember how to relax for me?” Carlos asked, one slick finger resuming its circular motion around her tight asshole.

“Yes,” Ashley breathed, focusing on relaxing the ring of muscle, bearing down slightly as he’d taught her before. “I’m ready. Please don’t make me wait.”

“So eager,” Carlos observed, satisfaction evident in his tone. “Such a perfect little slut for me.”

The degradation, rather than offending her, sent another pulse of arousal flooding through Ashley’s system. After the fight with Jacob, after his accusations and her denials, there was a perverse liberation in embracing exactly what he feared, in becoming, fully and completely, the unfaithful wife he suspected her to be.

She felt Carlos’s finger breach her entrance, sliding deeper than before, the lubricant easing the way. The sensation was less foreign now after their previous experience, her body accepting the intrusion with less resistance. When he added a second finger, the stretch was more pronounced, walking that fine line between discomfort and pleasure that she was learning to crave.

“Look at how well you take my fingers,” Carlos praised. “Your tight little ass was made for this.”

His fingers worked her, stretching her carefully despite the evident hunger in his voice, scissoring gently to prepare her for something much more substantial. When he curved his fingers just so, hitting some previously undiscovered spot inside her, Ashley cried out, her entire body jerking with unexpected pleasure.

“There it is,” Carlos said. “That’s where you’ll really feel me when my cock’s inside you.”

The explicit promise made Ashley whimper, her hips pushing back against his hand, seeking more of the intense sensation. “Please,” she begged. “Fuck me now.”

“Soon,” Carlos assured her, adding more lubricant, working a third finger into her. The stretch was significant now, burning despite the abundant lubrication. Ashley welcomed the intense sensation, the physical discomfort grounding her, giving her something to focus on beyond the chaos of emotions that had driven her here.

She heard the sound of the lubricant bottle again, then felt the bed shift as Carlos positioned himself behind her. The head of his cock pressed against her now-prepared entrance, larger and more intimidating than his fingers had been.

“Last chance to back out,” he offered, surprising her with this moment of consideration.

“Don’t you dare stop,” Ashley replied, pushing back against him, her body making the decision her mind had already committed to. “Fuck me, Carlos. Fuck my ass. Make me yours completely.”

He pushed forward slowly, the pressure intense and unyielding. Despite the preparation, despite the lubricant, the stretch was significant enough to make Ashley gasp sharply. Her hands gripped the sheets tightly, her body instinctively tensing against the invasion.

“Breathe,” Carlos reminded her, his hands gripping her hips to control the depth and pace of penetration. “Relax and push back against me.”

Ashley focused on her breathing, on relaxing the muscles that wanted to resist, on accepting rather than fighting. Gradually, the burning stretch transformed, discomfort giving way to a fullness that was overwhelming in its intensity. Carlos moved with careful restraint, advancing by small increments, allowing her body time to adjust to each new depth.

“You’re taking my cock so well,” he praised, one hand leaving her hip to stroke her spine tenderly. “Such a good girl for me.”

When he was finally seated completely inside her, both of them remained still, adjusting to the profound intimacy of the connection. Ashley had never felt so completely filled, so utterly possessed. The physical sensation was intense enough, but the psychological impact, giving Carlos this final piece of herself, something she’d never shared with Jacob, created an emotional significance that threatened to overwhelm her.

“Move,” she urged when the initial intensity had subsided enough to allow coherent thought. “Please, I need to feel you.”

Carlos began to move, shallow thrusts at first, careful and measured. His hands returned to her hips, guiding her movements to match his own, establishing a rhythm that gradually built in intensity.

“Tell me what I’m doing to you,” Carlos questioned, his voice tight with the effort of maintaining control.

“Fucking my… my ass,” Ashley responded breathlessly.

“Tell me how it feels,” he demanded.

“Full,” Ashley managed, the simple word insufficient but all she could articulate through the overwhelming sensations. “So full. So deep. Like you’re everywhere.”

“I am,” Carlos agreed, his pace increasing slightly as her body accommodated him more fully. “I’m claiming every part of you that he never has. Making you mine in ways he couldn’t imagine.”

The explicit reference to Jacob heightened her arousal.

“Yes,” she gasped, meeting his thrusts with increasing confidence as her body adapted to the unfamiliar penetration. “Only yours. No one else has ever… ah!”

Her words cut off as Carlos reached under, fingers pressing firmly against her clit, the dual stimulation sending her rocketing toward orgasm. The fullness in her ass, the attention to her clit, the psychological charge of the taboo they were breaking, all combined to create a perfect storm of sensation that overwhelmed her capacity for rational thought.

“That’s it,” Carlos encouraged, sensing her approaching climax. “Come for me while I’m in your ass. Let me feel how much you love this.”

The crude encouragement pushed Ashley over the edge. Her orgasm crashed through her, inner walls clenching rhythmically, enhancing the sensation of fullness created by Carlos’s cock in her ass. She cried out wordlessly, beyond language, beyond coherent thought, existing only in the realm of pure sensation.

Carlos maintained his pace through her climax, drawing out her pleasure until she was trembling and gasping beneath him. He continued fucking her, increasing his speed, his intensity. His own control started to visibly fray as his release approached.

“Where do you want me to come?” he asked.

Ashley said nothing, just grunting with each powerful thrust, her body reduced to primitive sounds as Carlos claimed her most private opening. The wet, obscene slapping of flesh against flesh filled the room, punctuated only by her guttural moans and his satisfied groans.

“Where do you want me to come?” Carlos asked again, his voice rough with approaching climax.

“Inside,” she decided, the choice both surrender and claiming. “Cum in my ass.”

Her permission triggered Carlos’s release. With a final, carefully controlled thrust, he buried himself completely inside her, his cock pulsing as he emptied himself in hot spurts that she could feel despite the overwhelming sensations already flooding her system. His hands gripped her hips, holding her in place as he filled her with his cum, marking her from within in the most primitive, possessive way possible.

For several heartbeats after his climax subsided, they remained joined, both breathing heavily, bodies connected in the most intimate configuration imaginable. Then, with careful attention to her comfort, Carlos withdrew, the sensation of emptiness that followed almost as intense as the fullness had been.

Ashley collapsed onto the mattress, her body trembling with aftershocks of pleasure and the emotional intensity of what they’d shared. Carlos disappeared briefly into the bathroom, returning with a warm, damp cloth that he used to wipe his cock and clean her, his touch gentle on her sensitized skin.

He stretched out beside her afterward, one arm draped casually across her waist, his expression satisfied but thoughtful. “So,” he said after a moment of silence. “Your husband suspects.”

The reality of her situation came rushing back, slightly dulled by post-orgasmic contentment. “Yes,” Ashley admitted, turning to face Carlos more directly. “Liz said something to him about seeing us together. He wanted me to prove nothing was happening by quitting the gym.”

“And you came here instead,” Carlos observed, no judgment in his tone, merely statement of fact. “Directly from your fight with him to my bed.”

Put so baldly, the choice seemed both more deliberate and more callous than Ashley had allowed herself to acknowledge. “Yes,” she said simply, unable to justify or explain beyond the fact itself.

“What are you going to tell him?” Carlos asked.

“I don’t know,” Ashley confessed. “That I needed time to think. That I drove around for hours. He’ll believe me. He always does.”

The bitterness in her last statement surprised even her, a resentment she hadn’t realized she harbored toward Jacob’s unquestioning trust, his fundamental decency that made her deception both easier and more reprehensible.

“His trust makes it worse somehow, doesn’t it?” Carlos said, again displaying that uncanny ability to read her thoughts. “If he were controlling, suspicious, it would justify all this.” His hand gestured vaguely, encompassing their naked bodies, the rumpled sheets, the evidence of their passion. “But he’s not. He’s just… good.”

“Yes,” Ashley agreed, uncomfortable with this sudden insight into her own psychology. “And that makes me…”

“Human,” Carlos replied when she faltered. “Complicated. Capable of loving him while still needing what he can’t give you.” He shifted, propping himself on one elbow to look at her more directly. “What we just did, it’s not about him. It’s about you. About what you need that goes beyond the tidy boxes of right and wrong.”

The perspective he offered was seductive in its simplicity, its absolution of guilt through philosophical relativism. Ashley wanted to embrace it, to believe that her choices weren’t betrayals but simply expressions of her complex humanity. But beneath the rationalization, she knew the truth was simpler and more damning. She was hurting someone who loved her, breaking promises she’d made for the sake of her own pleasure and validation.

Ashley hesitated, a question that had been nagging at her since the confrontation at the gym finally finding its voice. “Did you target Jacob’s shoulder on purpose?” she asked. “During the demo tonight. Did you intentionally try to hurt him?”

Carlos met her gaze without flinching, without the instinctive denial most people would offer. A slight smile played at the corner of his mouth. “Yes,” he admitted simply. “He needed to be reminded of his place.”

The casual cruelty of his admission should have horrified her, should have been enough to make her recoil, to recognize the fundamental darkness in this man she’d given herself to so completely. Instead, she felt a confused mix of emotions, disapproval tangled with a primitive response to his unapologetic dominance, distaste for his methods alongside an unwilling appreciation for his honesty.

“That’s…” she began, searching for the right word. Terrible? Unforgivable? Neither seemed to capture the complexity of her reaction.

“Effective,” Carlos supplied, unbothered by her evident conflict. “He won’t challenge me again. And it brought you here, didn’t it?” His hand traced a possessive line down her spine. “So I’d say it worked out perfectly.”

Ashley fell silent, unable to deny the truth of his assessment yet uncomfortable with what it revealed about them both, his calculating nature and her own response to it. The knowledge was a revelation, a reason to end this destructive affair. Instead, it became simply another fact to compartmentalize, another truth to acknowledge without allowing it to disrupt the separate reality she’d constructed with Carlos.

“I should go,” she said, though her body protested at the thought of returning to the world outside this room with its judgments and consequences.

“Stay,” Carlos suggested, his voice neutral, neither commanding nor pleading. “It’s late. Deal with it tomorrow.”

The temptation to accept was strong, to postpone the inevitable confrontation, to extend this bubble of physical satisfaction for one more night. But the thought of Jacob waiting, wondering where she was, perhaps calling friends in search of her, added a layer of cruelty she couldn’t quite stomach.

“I can’t,” she said, forcing herself to sit up. “It would only make things worse.”

Carlos watched her gather herself, making no move to stop her or to press his case. That was part of his appeal, she realized. He made no demands, placed no expectations of emotional commitment or future promises. He simply offered what he had, took what was offered in return, and maintained his autonomy throughout.

“Use the shower if you want,” he said.

She nodded, padding naked to the bathroom where she showered quickly.

When she emerged, wrapped in a towel, Carlos was asleep, his breathing deep and even, his powerful body relaxed in apparent slumber. Ashley dressed quietly, gathering her things, pausing at the bedroom door to look back at him. No tender goodbye, no promises of next time, no declarations of feeling. This was their pattern, established from the beginning. Physical connection without emotional complication.

The drive home was a gradient of emotions, physical satisfaction giving way to growing dread, arousal fading into guilt and apprehension. What would she say to Jacob? What could she say that wouldn’t compound the lies already between them?

Ashley pulled into the apartment complex. She looked at her phone. 2:33 AM.

Her body still buzzed with the aftereffects of what she’d done. The unfamiliar soreness where Carlos had claimed her in a way Jacob never had. The sensation of fullness, of surrender, of crossing a boundary she’d never thought she would cross. Her hands trembled slightly as she cut the engine, the sudden silence hammering against her eardrums.

What kind of person was she becoming?

Ashley sat motionless, watching her breath cloud in the pre-dawn chill. The apartment windows were dark. Jacob would be asleep, unaware of where she’d been, what she’d done. She could slip into bed beside him, and he would never know that hours earlier, she had been on her hands and knees in Carlos’s bedroom, begging another man to sodomize her, crying out as he filled her ass with his cum.

The shame of that thought finally propelled her from the car. The cold bit through her thin jacket as she made her way up the path to their building. Each step felt heavy with guilt, yet some traitorous part of her mind was already replaying moments from the night. Carlos’s commanding voice, his hands gripping her hips, the incredible fullness as he’d pushed inside her, claiming a part of her body she’d never given to her husband.

Ashley unlocked the door, easing it open to avoid the slight squeak it often made. This was her life, the one she kept jeopardizing for moments of forbidden pleasure.

She moved through the darkened living room like a ghost. The bedroom door was ajar, and she could hear Jacob’s steady breathing within. Ashley paused in the doorway, allowing her eyes to adjust to the deeper darkness.

Jacob lay curled on his side of the bed, one arm stretched across the empty space where she should have been all night. Her pillow had fallen to the floor. Had he reached for her in the night, finding emptiness instead?

How could she do this to him? How could she come to their bed still tender from another man’s touch, still bearing the invisible imprint of Carlos’s possession?

Even as guilt twisted in her chest, Ashley acknowledged the uncomfortable truth. She would do it again. The connection with Carlos, primarily physical but growing increasingly complex, had become something she couldn’t relinquish despite its cost. The freedom she found in that surrender, the parts of herself she discovered in his arms, had become necessary to her in a way she couldn’t articulate even to herself.

Ashley undressed in the bathroom, avoiding her reflection in the mirror. She couldn’t bear to see whatever might be written on her face. After a quick cleaning with a washcloth, she pulled on her softest pajamas, armor against the intimacy of skin-to-skin contact she didn’t deserve.

Slipping between the cool sheets, Ashley maintained a careful distance from Jacob’s sleeping form. She didn’t trust herself to touch him, not with her body still carrying the imprint of another man. Not with the memory of what she’d done still so fresh, so vivid.

Sleep eluded her despite her exhaustion. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Carlos’s face above her, felt him inside her, heard his voice commanding her to surrender more fully. Worse were the moments when those images collided with her awareness of Jacob breathing trustingly beside her. The two realities couldn’t coexist, yet somehow, they did, both equally real within the confines of her fractured life.

Tomorrow would bring confrontation, would require more lies, more evasions, more betrayals large and small. But for tonight, in the darkness, Ashley allowed herself one moment of honesty, one silent acknowledgment of the truth she couldn’t speak aloud. She was lost now, adrift between worlds, belonging fully to neither the safe harbor of her marriage nor the stormy sea of her affair.

And despite the pain it caused, despite the destruction it promised, she couldn’t bring herself to choose.