Her phone gave a buzz in her purse. 

And then another. 

And then another. 

She pulled it out as she walked down the hallway. It was John, and her stomach flipped over when she saw the first message. 

​

Wear the purple dress you wore for Sami’s wedding and come over to my office at Basic Black. You’re allowed 15 minutes to freshen up and prepare yourself however you need. I want to help you remember our lives together. Don’t say anything to Alex.

​

 

Marlena saw the three little dots appear and then disappear, and she wondered where he was right now. 

In the Salem Inn? Looking at Basic Black's invoices for last month while typing out exactly how he wanted to find her when he was done?

​

 

You are only allowed to refer to me as Sir or Mr. Black. Understood? 

 

She was already putting on her heels as she answered. 

​

 

Yes, Sir. 

​

 

There was another pause, then: 

​

 

Good girl. 

​

 

She had a little trouble zipping up her dress, all by herself, but she finally managed to wear back the layers of silk and satin and wriggle back into her thong. By the time her fifteen minutes were up, she sat on the big couch. It was almost immediately uncomfortable being there. She had no memory of the place, and something deep inside her told her she should get away. A thousand million itches sprung upon her skin, and every tiny sensation—thirst, the slightly-too-cool air of the room, the faint hunger leftover from her half-eaten dinner at Sami’s wedding—was magnified and made all-consuming. She wasn’t sure how to distract herself, she couldn’t even use her eyes to distract herself, there was nothing between her and being inside her own body. 

No other person, no other thoughts. 

No work or family or friends or responsibilities—there was only her and one directive: to wait. And so she waited, trying not to twitch with the agony of it. She used to keep her mind and body busy, used to fill any empty time with thoughts about what she already knew about her past, and this was worse torture than anything else she could think of, to keep her body still and wait. 

Time seemed to stretch and warp, and she had no idea how long she has been sitting in this silent room—minutes or hours or years—and she had the creeping sense of loneliness that came with silence and stillness. How long would she have to stay there? 

Alex was probably worried sick. She should have at least left him a note.

 

Surely, John wouldn’t expect her to wait longer than a few minutes? Surely he wouldn’t want her to feel crazy with the pressure of her own thoughts? Except she knew that was exactly what he did want. 

Control. 

Her submission flavored by discomfort, by her desire to please him. She had no memory of it, but after the night on her balcony, she felt more connected to that man. And something inside of her did want to please him, so badly. And with that realization, the silent room became easier to control, the stillness easier to bear. 

 

There was purpose in it now, a reason, and the reason was John. Marlena thought of him as her heels pressed into the carpet, as her mouth got drier, as goosebumps erupted over her skin at the chilly air of the room. She dismissed each sensation as it arose, her thoughts shrinking down to John and the low fire kindled deep in her core, and eventually, everything else did fade away, leaving behind a distilled version of herself. A version that waited to get the missing years of her life.

She floated in space when the door to John’s office finally, finally opened, and she didn’t look up, but she did eagerly watch those shiny dress shoes as he walked in. And then stopped breathing when a second pair of shoes followed. 

 

That second pair froze in mid-stride, as if their owner was arrested by the sight of her sitting on that couch in this office, her breasts almost spilling from the deep cleavage. The door shut and then John squatted down in front of her. 

“Look at me, Doc.” 

She looked up at him, at the man who has changed not at all over the minutes they’d been apart even though she felt like an entirely different person. But then her eyes moved past him to Alex, and she felt nothing but blind panic. 

Panic at being there without her explaining what she was doing there. Panic that mirrored the panic on his own face, the speed of his breathing as he looked at her and looked at her and looked at her. 

“I hope you trust me,” John said. “And I hope you know that I’d keep you safe while you’re here tonight. I made sure no one else came up here while you waited.” 

Marlena tore her stare away from Alex. 

“But you brought Alex with you. Sir,” she added at the last minute. John nodded. “We have a couple of phone calls to make, I wanted to talk to Alex’s colleague in North Carolina, ask them about this new treatment he said he was ready to try on you, but I can make them from here. I didn’t want to leave you alone a second longer, but I also wanted Alex close by while I talked to his people.” 

“I can leave,” she said. She pleaded. “Or I can go wait somewhere else while you call.” 

​

 

Don’t make me stay. 

​

 

“No,” John said. “I want you to stay.” 

“John…” Alex said from behind him, his face pale. “We can call first thing tomorrow morning. There’s no need for me and Marlena to—” His voice broke off as John ran a finger up her arm to the swell of her breasts and carefully circled it on the shiny fabric around her nipple. Despite the deep unease at Alex’s presence, her deprived body responded immediately, and she tried to push herself forward onto the finger, squirming for more contact and more friction. 

“So willing,” John murmured. Alex made a strangled noise from his place by the door. John withdrew his finger and placed it in her mouth for her to suck, which she did without question, lust overriding her better sense, the better sense that told her there was no way she could do any of this in front of Alex. 

John wiped his hand on his tuxedo jacket and stood up. “Alex, we’ll use the phone by the other sofa,” he said, gesturing to the small sofa next to the window. “If you want to have a seat.” 

 

Alex looked at John and then looked at her. 

“Alex,” John said. “The sofa, please.” 

Alex stepped over to John, studiously keeping his gaze away from her on the other sofa. “Are you sure this is what you want? Marlena would be better off going back home, don’t you think? She had a long day, I don’t want her to overdo” he asked John quietly. John got closer to him, angling his body so that she couldn’t see Alex any longer, and leaned in to speak in his ear. She couldn’t hear what he said, but she saw Alex’s posture tense up, saw his hand flexed and clenched as if he kept himself from doing something violent. 

Except when John pulled back, the look on Alex’s face wasn’t violence. She didn’t know what it was, but it made her shiver.

​

Without another word, Alex went to the sofa and sat, his face unreadable, his posture strangely easy. As if he’d been in an awkward situation like this before. 

 

Was he? 

 

John watched him, facing away from her with his hands in his pockets. His shoulders were relaxed, and his stride was full of unconscious power as he walked to the opposite sofa and sat, crossing his legs. His fingers set to work tugging his bow tie free, and as he pulled at the fabric, he gave her a dismissive glance. 

 

“Crawl to me, Doc,” he said. His voice was offhand, his expression coolly indifferent, but all she felt was swelling desperation. This was something she’d never fantasized about, or maybe she did in her former life? Did he know if she did?

 

She couldn’t crawl in front of Alex; the overt submission and humiliation made the act so undeniably sexual that it felt unfaithful to do it in front of anyone else. But if John asked her to do it…then did that make it right? 

“Crawl, Marlena,” John said, impatiently this time. She found her voice. “But Sir, Alex is here—” 

“He’s Doctor North to you right now,” John interrupted. 

“Sir, Doctor North is here,” She corrected herself. 

“And?” she didn’t know how to answer that. It was its own explanation, there was no and. Alex was there and he’ll see her, and she’ll see him seeing her. 

“Why are you doing this?” She whispered. 

John locked gazes with her. “Because I want to,” he answered simply. 

“But, John—” 

“No buts, Marlena. Do you have something you’d like to say to me?” 

​

 

A safe word.

He meant the safe word. She had no memory of what it was.

Damn. 

​

She’d have to remember.

She searched his face and found no trace of irritation or anger, and she knew that he gave her the option to end things right now, no questions asked, no wounded feelings or resentment. 

He was testing her, she thought, trusting her to vocalize her needs. To advocate for her boundaries. And that was the heart of this, wasn’t it? 

 

She felt like she could trust him with control and he trusted her with her voice. Something inside her trusted him to stop when she’d ask him to stop, and he trusted her to say stop before she was hurt. His control meant nothing without her consent. 

So did she trust him? And did she feel safe? 

Yes. And yes. 

 

Marlena lowered her face from John’s. “No, Sir, there’s nothing I’d like to say.” From his couch, Alex exhaled—a sound of relief or dread, she didn’t know. 

“Good,” John said. “Then crawl.” 

She crawled. 

 

Keeping her head down, so she couldn’t see whether Alex was looking at her or not, and doing her best to keep her breathing even, she made her way over to John’s feet on her hands and knees. 

She should feel demeaned—it was meant to demean, after all—but knowing that both men are affected by the sight of her slouching across the floor with that beautiful dress like a cat made her feel strong. 

Sensuous. 

Female. 

​

 

There was the air on her partly exposed center, the dress barely able to hold her breasts inside, the stray tendrils of hair hung down around her beautiful face, and she couldn’t help it, it all made her wetter. 

Hotter. 

Hungrier. 

​

Did she ever feel like this before?

​

 

John’s hand came to rest on her head as she reached him. “Well done,” he said warmly, and she felt a flush of pleasure at his praise. “Up here,” he commanded, patting his thigh. Marlena managed not to look at Alex as she climbed onto the couch, but she could hear him behind her, restless shifting and rustling fabric, as if he was tugging at his bow tie as well. John took her hips in his hands, hiking her dress up to her waist, and sat her down so that she straddled his leg, her nearly bare pussy flat against the hard muscles of his thigh, and she let out a low moan the minute her full weight settled on him. 

 

The pressure there was like gasoline to an already burning fire, and she had to force herself not to grind down against him. 

“I’ll take care of your orgasm tonight,” John said. “This is me taking care of it.”

“Sir?” 

“Ride me, rub against me, whatever you need to do to come. But you have to be quiet since I’ll be on the phone.” 

She couldn't help it; she looked over her shoulder back to Alex. His eyes were on her ass, where it rested against John’s thigh, and when he realized she staring at him, he lifted his eyes and flushed with shame. She flushed with shame too. 

​

 

Marlena looked back to John, who was watching her closely, those clear blue eyes missing nothing. The shame went deeper than her cheeks, sinking down to her stomach. “Is this some kind of test?” she asked, her whispering voice trembling on the last word. 

“It’s not a test,” John replied. But he said nothing else, merely kept looking at her with those searing, perceptive eyes. A ping of real alarm now. He watched her carefully, and Alex too, and did he suspect? That she remembered some of her history with John? Or that they were attracted to each other? 

“Sir,” she whispered. “I don’t know if I can do this in front of him. Come in front of him.”

“I think you want to, Doc” John replied. “Deep down, there’s a part of you that wants him to see you all flushed and tousled, that wants him to see how well you can obey me, how pretty that pussy is. How you’re completely and utterly mine. Isn’t that right?” 

 

Tears were formed and spilled out from underneath her eyelashes before she couldn’t stop it. “I don’t want to do this,” she mumbled, looking down and away from his face. “I don’t want to displease you, but I can’t do this.” 

“Oh, Doc,” he said, voice soft. “You’ll never displease me. If this is too much, tell me. But if it’s not too much…then I want you to trust me.” 

​

Was there a master plan he followed?

​

She did trust him. She hesitated still, but then the phone rang, and John held up a finger indicating she should be silent. She pressed her lips together as he reached over to the phone and pressed a button so that it picked up the call on speaker. “Dr. Smith here.” Bread’s voice came through. “Mr. Black, I have our chief of staff on the other line. May I put her through?” 

“Yes.” 

There was a click, and then the voice of an older woman came over the line. “Barbara Berry speaking.” 
“Hello, Barbara,” John greeted her. “I’m sorry for the unexpected call, but I wanted to touch base with you before the next couple of days play out. And we have Doctor North here with us.” 

“Of course,” she said. 

​

Alex, John, and the Doctors started talking, John quickly explained the need to understand Alex’s treatment. She listened in with her eyes glued to the phone, when she felt a finger shifting the fabric covering her center, and then a thumb against her clit, hard and rough, rubbing small circles against the swollen bud. In an instant, all her banked desire were there. 

 

All-consuming, obliterating past and present, obliterating the future, destroying everything that wasn’t the painful ache in her cunt as she pushed into John’s touch. He pushed back, hard, giving her clit a light pinch that sent her eyes rolling back into her head. He did it again for good measure and she gasped, clapping her hand over her mouth once she realized her mistake, eyes darting back to the phone. 

John arched an eyebrow at her—a can you keep quiet eyebrow—and she nodded, a little frantically, desperate for him to keep doing what he was doing. His thumb rubbed steadily, the rhythm never breaking as he and Alex talked about patient agreements, and she found herself rocking into his touch, squirming down onto his thigh to increase the pressure. His thumb stopped as he leaned over to end his phone call, but she kept rocking, tilting forward so that she rubbed her clit directly against his leg. 

​

 

It was so shameful, so obscene and immodest, to be driven to the point that she didn’t care that she rubbing against John’s leg like a dog in heat. That she didn’t care that Alex was watching her debase herself so much, act so mindlessly carnal. There was only the need, and if this was the way she allowed to slake the need, then she fucking doing it. John sat back, watching her with his elbow on the arm of the sofa and his head braced against his forefinger and his thumb. The erection tenting his slacks was massive, all the more erotic for the expensive tuxedo that framed it, but John’s face was perfectly controlled. Only the pulse beating at the side of his neck betrayed his excitement.

“Does that feel good, Doc?” he asked calmly as she ground against him. 

“Yes,” She panted. A sharp slap on her ass. She jolted and moaned. “Yes, Sir,” she tried again. 

“Good. My thigh is all you get right now. If you behave, you can earn more. My mouth maybe. Would you like that?” Her shudder was all the answer he needed. He looked past her to Alex. 

“She’s a good girl, isn’t she, Alex?” 

The man’s voice was hoarse when he answered. “Yes.” 

John looked at him, his finger rubbing at his forehead. “Do you still think Marlena is yours? Do you still want to go, Alex? ” 

​

Once again, Alex took a long time to answer, but when he did, it was definitive. “No. I want to stay.” 

A smile curled John’s mouth. “I thought so. Would you like to see more of her? Maybe without the dress?” There was a pause, a pause that seemed to last forever, and in that pause, she heard a year's worth of agony. 

“Yes,” Alex finally replied. 

John looked back to her, and while there was no satisfaction in his face necessarily, there was something else. Confirmation, maybe. Like it wasn’t what Alex said but how he said it that told John what he needed to know.

 

“You heard Doctor North,” John said, running a finger down the seam of the dress. “Take it off.” 

Even in her need-to-come haze, Marlena hesitated. “Can…can you take it off Sir, please?” 

“No.” 

 

He was going to make her do it. 

Just like the crawling. 

​

Each step of tonight was a crossroads—past what, she didn’t know—maybe this was his way of helping her remember, but John was making sure that she was the one taking each step. That she was acutely aware of her own role in this. 

 

She met his eyes, every pleading, angry thought written on her face, and she felt his hand slide up her thigh and gave it a reassuring squeeze. His eyes were so clear and so blue, his pupils dilated into huge black pools of hunger. He didn't say anything, didn’t push, but kept his eyes on hers, his hand gentle and sweet on her thigh. He gave her a chance to a safe out. One word, and she could end this misery for all three of them. But oh God, she couldn't bear to. 

Sometimes misery is better. 

Sometimes the forbidden fruit is just too sweet not to bite. Marlena lifted her hands and began zipping down the dress, and both men exhale simultaneously. She should hate the rush of power that gave her, the rush of lust, but she didn’t. 

It felt right. 

​

As right as kneeling, as right as crawling. As right as sitting before a patient or talking through their issues. Was that something she used to do? How did she know that?

Like she was born for it. 

Hazy flashes ran across her eyes, were they memories?

 

Marlena took her time, not to be intentionally seductive, but because her hands were shaking so much that each pull of the zipper was a struggle. It was worth it though, when she finally tugged the dress free from her shoulders and she saw John’s control almost break. 

 

He shifted underneath her, his hand squeezing her thigh so hard she knew she’ll bruise, and he bit his lower lip. 

“Touch your breasts,” he ordered after he regained his composure. “Slide your hands over them and then pull on your nipples. Yes, like that. Fuck, Doc.” He shifted again, that erection looking so mouthwatering even inside his pants, and she wanted it. Something broke the floodgate to her needs and she wanted it in her mouth, she wanted it in her pussy. She wanted to ride it until her legs shook, she wanted it so deep inside her that she couldn’t feel anything else. 

 

“What is it, Doc?” he asked, eyes lifting from where her hands were on her breasts to her face. She didn’t answer right away, and he gave her a light pinch on the ass. “You can always answer me honestly, Marlena. I won’t ask if I don’t want to know.” 

“I want you,” she blurted. “I want you to fuck me. Please. Please fuck me. Please, Sir.” His eyes glew with something like amusement, but his voice returned to the nonchalance of earlier. “My cock is a privilege, Doc. Being fucked is a privilege. And all privileges have to be earned.” 

 

She must visibly deflate at this, because he stroked her arm. “When I take your pussy, it’s going to be special. We only get one first time together, and I know exactly when I want that to be.” 

“What’s wrong with right now?” she mewled. That earned her another swift smack on the ass. “Turn around and face Alex. He wants to see those gorgeous breasts of yours. He wants to see your face when you come.” 

 

She past protesting, past hesitating. She couldn’t blame it on the lust, blame it on John and her submission, but the real reason was both simpler and more complicated than either of those. The answer was she wanted to. She wanted Alex to see her. And whether it was a test or a punishment, John was in control now. 

 

When she flipped herself around so she facing Alex, a change came over the room. It was no longer Alex as the outsider. Now Alex and she were looking at each other, her breasts and her center on display for him, her pleasure a performance for his pleasure. And underneath her, she felt waves of power and desire rolling off John, as if controlling Alex as well as her, it aroused a different side of his dominance. 

​

 

The phone rang again, and John told her, “Do it,” before he answered the phone. And then he picked up, and he talked and Alex talked too—albeit in a choked, forced voice—and she started grinding against John’s leg, her eyes on the other man the entire time. As he watched and attempted to talk along with John, she slid her hands up her stomach to her breasts, squeezing them hard, the way she wanted John to squeeze them. 

 

His eyes followed her hands, his teeth digging deep into his lip, and when she started fucking John’s thigh again, his hand curled into a fist on his knee. She imagine fucking John, all barriers stripped away, every hot inch and sweet hole available without question. And it was this final image that set the gears of her climax whirring, spinning tighter and tighter until she could feel it poised in front of her womb, a ticking thing ready to explode. Her hands dropped down to John’s knee for balance as she leaned forward, dropped her head, and chased the orgasm she’d been waiting for far too long. 

​

 

She heard the phone call ended, and through the tendrils of hair hanging down around her face, she saw Alex sitting on the edge of the sofa, that fist unclenching and clenching over and over again. 

Shudders radiated out, pulsing quakes as she trembled on top of John’s thigh, as she panted and gasped and continued rubbing herself against him to milk every last ounce of pleasure out of this. 

 

It went on and on, all the pent-up longing, all the angst over Alex, just adding fuel to the fire. And when she did finally stop moving, her body wrung out, she became aware of John’s hands in her hair, tugging her head back. “That was beautiful, Doc, but we’re not done yet,” he informed her. With his hands moving to her waist, he lifted her and set her on the ground, so that she was kneeling in front of him. 

​

As she lowered her body to the soft carpet, John turned to Alex, “You want her. Don’t you? Admit it.” 

Alex didn’t speak, but he must have nodded, because then John added, “That is why you’re keeping her away from me. You don’t want her to remember her life with me.” 

 

Her heart pounded a beat so strong she felt it in her core as she turned to see Alex with his shaking hands on his thighs. She recognized the misery in his face immediately. The misery of wanting something so badly even though you know you can’t. Even though you think it might be a trap. 

 

Alex saw her wetting her lips, and his head dropped back against the sofa with a moan. “Say it, Alex. I want Marlena to hear you too,” John admonished. “Come on. Say it.” 

She could see the muscles tensing in his stomach and thighs. “No. I owe no explanations to anybody.” He finally breathed out.

Marlena was surprised at the huskiness in John’s voice as he answered. “Fine, but you will.” 

​

By the time she’d swiveled her head back to John to study his face, his control has returned and his attention was on her again. He looked at her face as he addressed Alex. “Wasn’t I so nice to let Marlena come like that?” 

“Yes,” Alex responded after a pained second. 

“Shouldn’t she thank me?” John ran a finger along her jaw as he stared at her. She shivered under his caress. “Wouldn’t that be polite?” 

A breath. “Yes.” 

“How should she thank me, Alex? With her mouth? With her hands?”

“I—” A heavy breath. “With her mouth. She should thank you with her mouth.”

“I like that idea very much,” John agreed. “Put my cock inside your mouth, Doc. Show me your gratitude.” 

​

 

Oh, God. 

​

 

She attacked his groin with so much enthusiasm that he chuckled, but the laughter died in his throat the minute she got her hands on the erection she’d been craving all night. She wasted no time in sucking him; she pulled him into her mouth right away, taking him as deep as she could go, swallowing against his crown as it brushed the back of her throat.

“Oh, fuck,” John groaned, his large hand sliding through her golden long hair and resting on the back of her head. “Yes, Doc, just like that. Fuck.” 

“What…what does it feel like?” Alex asked. 

“Hot. Wet. Her lipstick is smearing around my base. Shit,” he swore as she started sucking up and down as fast as she could. “She’s so fucking eager. Look at her.” 

“I am,” Alex answered softly. She braced her hands on John’s thighs, loving the hard feel of the muscle under her hands, the tensing and straining that revealed what his stoic face did. She was oblivious to everything—her breasts bounced and her hair came undone—as she focused on her one goal: thanking John. 

​

 

She got back to the deep, long pulls, letting him fuck her throat, and that unraveled him. Within only two or three minutes, he had taken control from her, gripping her head with both his hands and fucking up into her mouth, letting her breathe on every other thrust. She gasped, tears smudging her cheeks, but John didn’t care. 

“That’s right,” he hissed, his head falling back once more. “Drain me. Take it, take it all. Oh fuck, Doc...” Hot spurts hit the back of her throat, a deep animal grunt left his mouth at the apex of his climax. He held her head over him as he thrust through the rest of his orgasm, making sure she had every last drop of him, before he finally loosened his grip and let her go. A flash of golden lights ran under her closed eyelids. She saw him, he was younger though and he repeated the same words.

​

Was this a memory? She remembered doing this.

​

 

She felt a finger under her chin. Marlena lifted her face to him, and his face was filled with so much warmth and pride that fresh tears prick at her eyelids. “Well done, sweetheart,” the blue-eyed man said. “I’m so proud of you.” 

 

Tonight was hard, tonight did seem impossible, and so John’s praise and the emotional fallout of having a scene in front of her therapist triggered a wave of tears she couldn’t fight off. She buried her face in John’s lap so the men won’t see her cry. She wanted John to be proud of her. 

So much. 

​

He stroked her hair but then abruptly stopped, gently but quickly moving her aside so he could jump to his feet. She looked up, confused and vision blurred, and she realized that Alex has stood up and was walking to the door. 

 

John strode across the room and slammed his hand against the door as Alex tried to open it, closing the door again. Alex turned to face John.

“Please let me go,” he said wretchedly. “Please.” 

“You’re hard,” John told him. “Aren’t you?” 

“I can’t stay here.”

“I’ll let you leave if you can tell me you don’t want her,” John said, and she’d never heard anything so soft and menacing and filthy. “Tell me. Tell her. Prove to me you don’t want this and you can go.” Alex’s face twisted with delicious torment, his stubbled jaw tensed with suffering. “I know what game you’re playing, and I know that I’m going to lose.” 

Alex asked again, his suffering turning into anger. “Please, John.” 

“Do I need to have Marlena come over here and help you talk?” 

“No!” Alex burst out. 

 

There was complete silence in the room. John didn’t answer him but turned to her. “Go get your dress. The one you wore tonight. Bring it to me.” She scurried up from the floor to obey, handing him with the pile of purple silk. Alex and John haven’t moved. He handed the dress to Alex. “Relieve yourself.” 

“What?” Alex’s voice was a study in breathless incredulity. John nodded towards the dress. “It’s soft, isn’t it? The dress? And Marlena looked so beautiful in it, didn’t she? Like a fucking princess, you said when you saw her. Did you think about fucking her in it tonight?” 

​

She froze. 

​

Alex’s eyes flared with torment. John went on. “Did you think about what it would be like to rub your bare cock against all that silk before you finally shoved inside my wife's pussy? About how the silk would feel fisted in your hands while you pinned her to the ground and fucked her?” 

“John,” She choked out. 

He ignored her.

“She would have liked it, I think. Watching you defile that expensive dress as you want to defile her. And it would have felt so good, wouldn’t it? All that purple silk and that sweet pussy. The most beautiful woman in the world a slave to your cock.” Alex stared at him. 

“I know why you’re doing this.” 

“I know.” And that was all there was to it. There were no explanations, no defenses, no logic. It was what John wanted, and therefore in this scene, it was law.

 

“Now wrap that dress around your cock and relieve yourself.” John’s voice turned quiet, dark. “I bet it would only take a couple of pulls, don’t you? And it will feel so good, fucking that dress you’ve been obsessed with all night. Marking it. It will feel so good to have Marlena see how big your cock gets as you pretend to fuck her, how much cum you could fill her with if she’d only let you.” 

​

He was humiliating him.

​

“Jesus,” Alex panted, the muscle in his arm bunching as he slowly fisted his erection with the skirt of her dress. The silk slid easily over his straining flesh, whispering softly on his cock. “Oh, Jesus.” The last word broke into a moan. His head fell back against the door as he was lost to himself, but he couldn’t resist seeing his cock on her dress, and he looked back down. 

All three of them watched as it moved in and out of the silk, rude and male against the pretty purple flutters of fabric. John was right, it didn’t take long, and with a shuddering exhale, Alex released. 

After a few more thrusts into the silk, he slowed, slumping back against the door, dropping the dress to the floor. “Don’t you feel better now?” John smirked. “Didn’t it feel good to get rid of that ache?” Alex nodded wordlessly, eyes still closed, pulse still hammering in his throat. “Now, even Marlena knows the true purpose of your therapy. The truth is out.” 

Her cheeks flushed red with shame.

 

"You sick fuck" Alex mumbled, tucking himself into his pants and fastening them up, running a hand over his jaw. He looked dazed, as if he had just woken from a long sleep, his eyes unfocused and his voice uncertain when he said, “I’m leaving.”

​

“Good night. And if I ever see you near my wife again. You’d regret the day you ever returned to Salem. Now get.The.Fuck.Out.of.My.Office."” 

Alex looked at her and then looked at John, that dazed expression more pronounced than ever. “Good night.” John moved his hand so Alex could open the door, and then Alex left, closing the door behind him. 

​

 

John stared at the door for a minute and then faced her, his face apologetic. “I’m sorry, Doc. But I needed you to hear his confession.” His hand was already on her arms, pulling her to his embrace, and his other hand wrapped around her waist.
Her eyes remained on his as he stroked the sides of her face. There was trust and love in her eyes. He could see it now. 

 

After all this time.

His own chest tightened, and his dead heart swelled with fucking emotion. Fuck, it was painful, but it was the best pain he’d ever felt. John wrapped his arms around Marlena, bringing their bodies even closer, needing her fucking closer because only she filled the hole in his chest. Only she could look down into the black abyss that was his soul and find something lovable in it. 

 

His throat became tight, when she said the words that he’d wanted to hear for months now. “I love you.” 

He tensed against her, his eyes widening, and he fucking pulled himself together. 

“You do?” he whispered. 

“I do, with every fiber of my being.” She gasped. His eyes showed incomprehension like he couldn’t believe it.  

“You love me,” he whispered. “You remember our lives together?” 

“I love you. I do. You dragged that dead part of me out of the past and revived it. Thank you…for pulling me back.” She held even tighter onto him. “I love you, Marlena. A part of me died a year ago, but you helped me live again.” 

They had both been scarred by their past, but together they fought their demons and came out as the champions. 

 

Never had a victory felt better.