AFTER HOURS – EPISODE 2 – SHARED BREATH
Olivia didn’t sleep.
She tried. Her body lay rigid beside Aaron’s, who slumbered peacefully, oblivious to the storm that cracked silently inside her. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt Jasper’s mouth ghosting against hers, tender and devastating, as though every soft graze still trembled against her lips. She shifted under the covers, restless and aching, her thighs pressing together compulsively. Heat bloomed low in her belly, foreign and unwelcome, yet impossible to resist.
The sheets tangled around her legs like silk shackles. Her skin was damp with sweat, clinging uncomfortably to the cool linen as she twisted beneath them. Every inch of her felt alive, too alive, painfully aware of her own need. It pulsed beneath her skin like a second heartbeat.
Nothing soothed it—not the late hour, not Aaron’s quiet, rhythmic breathing beside her, not the cold side of the bed that had never felt lonelier, not her own whispered reassurances that it was nothing, that it could still be undone. She kept tasting Jasper. She felt the echo of restraint wrapped in hunger, patient yet unbearable. Every nerve hummed with awareness, haunted by what had passed between them.
Her mind replayed the kiss, fracturing into a thousand shimmering pieces. She heard the way he whispered her name against her lips. She felt the ghost of his fingertips brushing the tender line of her jaw. She imagined, over and over, how easily he could have pressed further — how easily she could have let him.
By dawn, Olivia was raw. Her reflection in the mirror startled her. The woman staring back was no longer composed or practiced in her elegance. Her skin wore the flush of secrets, her eyes glassy and bruised from sleeplessness and desire. Still, she painted her face carefully. Concealer to mask. Blush to lie. Neutral lips to feign control. She applied mascara with trembling fingers, fighting back the memory of Jasper’s mouth, voice, and presence that lingered like phantom hands over every inch of her.
But inside, every step toward the office felt weighted with danger. And anticipation. A dangerous cocktail that coursed slowly and warm through her veins. She barely remembered the drive. The radio stayed off. Silence accompanied her, except for the deafening repeat of that kiss—soft, hungry, claiming—looping through her mind on endless repeat.
The day passed like molasses—unremarkable yet jagged in its dullness. Olivia’s attention fractured constantly. Noon meetings became distant noise, her signature looping awkwardly as she answered emails she couldn’t even remember drafting. Words blurred. Deadlines dissolved. Her entire existence seemed tethered to the clock. She watched obsessively, each passing hour sharpening the ache blooming quietly between her thighs, deepening the weight of need coiled tightly within her.
The office began to empty as twilight approached. Voices faded. Footsteps became fewer. The air turned hushed, heavy, intimate. Olivia should have packed her things. She should have taken the cue from the world outside, from the universe itself, warning her to flee. But she lingered, held hostage by the ache in her chest and the memory pressed against her lips.
So did Jasper.
This time, he didn’t keep his distance. He approached like gravity itself pulled him forward, casual yet deliberate. His movements held no hesitation, only quiet surety. There was no question in how he perched on the edge of her desk, his thigh brushing close enough that Olivia’s breath faltered in her throat. She could feel his heat and sense his body’s energy radiating into the inches between them.
“You stayed late again,” he murmured, his voice like velvet worn thin, carrying the softness of midnight secrets.
“So did you,” Olivia answered quietly, her throat tight with unspoken need, her words trembling as they left her lips.
Their eyes locked. Words felt superfluous. They both knew what they weren’t saying — the night before lived between them like a third presence, lush and charged. Jasper smelled faintly of amber and cedar, complicated and warm, intoxicating in the stillness. The office around them felt like a stage dressed in shadow and tension, the perfect cocoon for a confession neither dared yet to make.
“I couldn’t concentrate all day,” he confessed suddenly, fingers threading through his hair and leaving it charmingly disheveled. “Kept thinking about the garage.”
Her stomach tightened painfully. Her thighs squeezed together beneath the desk, desperate and automatic. Her breath came shorter, shallower, betraying her carefully constructed facade. Her fingers trembled subtly as she gripped the edge of the desk for support, feeling her carefully maintained professionalism unravel.
“I shouldn’t have let that happen,” she whispered. It came out softer than intended, breaking around the edges with conflicted desire. Her voice quivered with the weight of unspoken admissions.
Jasper didn’t flinch. He didn’t argue. He only leaned closer, his eyes glinting with dangerous tenderness. How he looked at her, as though she were breakable and yet the only thing that mattered, made her pulse race. He was steady, but Olivia saw the storm behind his restraint. Saw how close he was to caving in, too.
“But it did.” His voice dipped lower, like velvet soaked in sin. “And pretending otherwise doesn’t erase it. Can you really ignore this?”
She wanted to say yes. She pretended she could file this away with the other reckless mistakes she had never allowed herself to make. But her lips parted uselessly, no denial forming. Only shallow, shaky breaths shared in the space between them. The air was alive with possibility. Desire curled through her like a serpent, tightening around her resolve until it crumbled.
Jasper shifted slightly, his knee brushing hers. Their arms grazed as he reached past her for the forgotten coffee mug from earlier. It felt intentional without force, merely offering shared space and unresolved tension. Olivia’s fingers flexed against the wood of her desk, fighting the urge to reach out, to hold onto something, to hold onto him.
“Are you okay?” he asked gently, his eyes sincere, his lips parted in concern and something deeper. The weight of his attention was unbearable.
Olivia hesitated, her voice weak and betraying her facade. “I’m not sure what I am.” Her confession slipped out like a secret, tender and raw. Her words trembled on the precipice of truth and desire.
His lips curved faintly, the ghost of a smile, touched with empathy and a deeper ache. He looked at her like he understood, like they were two souls caught in the same storm.
“Same.” He stood slowly, creating distance. The loss of his proximity made Olivia’s chest tighten with hollow frustration. He was giving her an exit she hadn’t asked for but now desperately didn’t want. “But I know I don’t want to make things harder for you.”
Her throat tightened. That, somehow, splintered her more deeply than any seductive word could have. The tenderness was worse than cruelty. It was love in disguise, which terrified her more than anything else.
“You think ignoring this will make it easier?” she asked suddenly, a quiet but fierce challenge slipping through her carefully composed facade. Her voice cracked slightly, betraying the war raging inside her. There was defiance in her words, but also surrender. The walls she had built began to fracture with every breath.
Jasper’s face darkened with conflict and undeniable heat. He took a step forward again, erasing the space he’d given. His breath mingled with hers. Close. Dangerous.
“No,” he said without hesitation, voice dropping into something molten. “I think sharing it will.”
Silence spun out between them, thin and electric, ready to snap. It hummed, vibrating through the room like a live wire, daring them both to grasp it.
Olivia’s breath hitched as she inhaled sharply. She shifted forward imperceptibly, but enough. Enough to break them both.
Jasper took her invitation. His mouth crushed hers in a kiss that was nothing like the first. This was not tentative. This was a demand for more. Their lips pressed firmly, his mouth moving over hers with hunger. She responded in kind, desperate and breathless. He tasted like bitter coffee, soft regret, and endless want. Her world collapsed into sensation.
Her fingers twisted into his shirt, tugging him closer, wordlessly begging for something deeper. His hands slid into her hair, cradling her skull as though afraid she’d pull away. Olivia whimpered softly into his mouth, surrendering without shame. She pressed her body against his, seeking the full heat of him, trembling with need and reckless abandon.
When they broke, panting and disoriented, Olivia collapsed softly against him. Her head rested against his chest, where his heart pounded wildly beneath her ear — proof that he was as undone as she was. She closed her eyes, letting herself drift in the warmth of him, the safety and the danger coiling together into something dangerously addictive.
Neither spoke. Words would have shattered the fragile bliss of shared breath and mutual surrender. Instead, they clung to the silence, letting it hold them together a few seconds longer.
Jasper pressed a lingering kiss to her hair, and his palm stroked slowly down her spine. It wasn’t possessive — it was reverent, memorizing her shape in case this was the last time. Olivia shivered at the tenderness, her body attuned to every brush of his hand, her breathing shallow with the ache of unsatisfied hunger.
When he finally left, the office felt cavernous and too still. Ghost-lit and lonely.
Olivia remained frozen, lips swollen, nerves burning. The imprint of his kiss and touch sang across her skin like a forbidden hymn. The memory lived there now. Permanent. Branded.
She didn’t finish her work that night.
She couldn’t.